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At this point of meditation Kranitski rested his elbow on the arm of the bench, shaded his eyes with his palm, and placed before his imagination that wonderful sight which seemed a fable, a dream to him. What luxury, what originality of thought and taste! What a mountain of gold was poured out there! The plan and the taste were seemingly Maryan's.
At the same time, I will publish in the newspapers that I shall not pay your debts hereafter. What I have said, I will do. Take your choice." That he would do what he had said any man who saw him then might feel certain. The bloom on Maryan's cheeks took on a brick color; his eyes filled with steel sparks.
At lunch Maryan's handsome face was sallow and motionless as a wax mask; as a wax mask it stood out on the background of the high arms of the chair. He was as silent as a stone. He had no appetite. He ate only a little caviar, and then fell to swallowing an endless number of small cups of black coffee, which the baron himself prepared, according to some special recipe, and poured out.
The waxen mask, supported on the arm of the chair, remained motionless and gazed with gloomy eyes into space. "Overbeck!" began Kranitski, and added, "a pre-Raphaelite." Over Maryan's fixed features ran a quiver caused by better thoughts. Without the least movement of features or posture he grumbled: "Nazarene." Kranitski corrected himself hurriedly and with a shamed face. "Yes, pardon!
"Sapristi!" imprecated Maryan, and immediately he laughed again. "And why? for what reason? Did he also believe in painted pots? I thought him modern." "Alas!" sighed Kranitski. They advanced in silence, passed the first story of the house. Maryan's bachelor chambers were on the second story. "My dear old man, I am sorry for you, enormously sorry," began young Darvid again.
I cannot, of course, leave you a victim to melancholy." Kranitski was moved; gratitude and tenderness were gazing out of his eyes. "Thanks, thanks! You touch me." He pressed the hands of both in turn, holding Maryan's hand longer than the baron's, with the words: "My dear-dear dear." The young man smiled. "Do not grow so tender," said he, "for that injures the interior.
In Maryan's eyes again appeared amazement without limit; but on his lips quivered a smile somewhat incredulous, somewhat jeering. "What is this to be?" asked he. "Penance for sins? Punishment?" "No," answered Darvid; "only a school. Not a school for reasoning, for you have too much of that already; but for character. You must learn three things: economy, modesty, and labor."
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