At the sight of this my aunt's heart seemed to swell, and she
said many kind and polite things to both Sniatynskis. I noticed a
wonderful thing, which I should not believe had I not seen it with my
own eyes. Pani Sniatynska blushes up to her ears when anybody praises
her husband! To blush with pleasure when her husband is praised after
eight years of married life! Surely, I committed an egregious mistake
writing as I did about Polish women.
The dinner passed off very pleasantly. A married couple, like these
two, are born matchmakers. The very sight of them sets people
thinking: "If married life is like that, let us go and commit
matrimony." I at least saw it for the first time in a quite different
light,--not as the prose of life, a commonplace, more or less
skilfully disguised indifference, but as a thing to be desired.
Aniela evidently read our future in the same light; I saw it in her
eyes shining with happiness.
After dinner I remained in the dining-room with Sniatynski, who liked
a quiet talk over a glass of cognac after his coffee. The elder ladies
went to the drawing-room, and Aniela took Pani Sniatynska upstairs to
show her some photographs of Volhynia. I questioned Sniatynski about
his new play, the fate of which seemed to make him a little anxious.
Our conversation drifted on to those times when we both tried our
sprouting wings.
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