"You will not get any," said Dolhanski, not pausing in his distribution of the cards. "If you go, I will go with you," announced Pani Krzycki. "Ah, that would be the only thing needful! Let Mamma only think that in such a case I would be terribly hampered and certainly would not gain anything." After which he kissed her hand and said: "No, no! Mamma does not understand that matters would be worse and, if Mamma insists, then I would rather not go at all." Gronski propped his head upon his hand and thought that it was easier to analyze at a desk the various phases of life than to offer sound advice in the presence of urgent events. Dolhanski at last stopped playing baccarat with himself and said: "The position we are placed in passes all comprehension. But were we in any other country, the police would be summoned and the matter would end in a day." To this Ladislaus replied with some anger: "As for that, permit me! I will not summon the police; not only not against those peasants, but not even against those forbidden figures who now haunt Rzeslewo. No, never!" "Very well; long live an epoch of true freedom!" "Who knows," said Gronski, "but that the summoning of the police would just suit these gentlemen?" "In what way?" "Because they themselves, at the proper season, would disappear, but later would incite the people again and would cry all over Poland, 'Behold! who appeals to the police against peasants.'" "That is a pertinent observation," said Ladislaus; "now I understand various things which I did not comprehend before." "From the opening of the will," said Dolhanski, "Rzeslewo and its inhabitants did not concern me in the least. However, one thought occurred to me while dealing the cards. Laudie will drive over to Rzeslewo to-morrow on a fruitless errand. He may receive only a sound beating, without benefiting anybody--" "It has never yet come to that, and that is something I do not fear. Our family has lived in Jastrzeb from time immemorial, and the peasants of this neighborhood would not raise their hands against a Krzycki--"