Генрик Сенкевич - In Vain стр 7.

Yosef, after thinking a little, did this without hesitation. He made a sacrifice.

Still, when Gustav had gone from the room, there was on Yosef's face an expression of distaste, even anger. Was that regret for the past, or for the deed done a moment before?

No.

When he extended his hand to Gustav, the latter hesitated in taking it. Not to accept a sacrifice given by an energetic soul is to cover the deed of sacrifice itself with a shadow of ridicule; and this in the mind of him who makes the sacrifice is to be ungrateful, and to cast a grain of deep hatred into the rich field of vanity.

But to accept a rival's sacrifice is for a soul rich in pride to place one's own "I" under the feet of some other man morally; it is to receive small coppers of alms thrust hastily into a hand which had not been stretched forth for anything.

Pride prefers to be a creditor rather than a debtor.

Therefore Gustav when on the street twisted his mouth in bitter irony, and muttered through his pressed lips.

Better and better. Favor, favor! Bow down now to Pan Yosef daily, and thank him. A pleasant life for thee, Gustav!

And he fell into bitter, deep meditation. He ceased even to think of himself, he was merely dreaming painfully. He felt a kind of gloomy echo in his soul, while striving to summon up the remembrance of even one happy moment. That echo sounded in him like a broken chord. The mind and soul in the man were divided. One tortured half cried hurriedly for rest; the other half, energetic and gloomy, strove toward life yet. One half of his mind saw light and an object; the other turned moodily toward night and nothingness. To finish all, there was something besides in this sorrowing man which made sport of its own suffering; something like a malicious demon which with one hand indicated his own figure to him, pale, ugly, bent, and pointed out with the other, as it were in the clouds in the brightness of morning, Helena Potkanski, in marble repose, in splendid beauty.

Torn apart with the tumult of this internal battle, he went forward alone, almost without knowing whither. Suddenly he heard behind a well-known voice singing in bass the glad song:

And the horseshoe firmly fastened."

He looked around it was Vasilkevich and Augustinovich.

"Whither art thou hastening, Gustav?" asked the first.

"I? Ha! whither " He looked at his watch. "It is too early to visit Pani Helena. I am going at present to the club."

"Well, go straight to the widow."

"What? Why?"

"Woe!" exclaimed Augustinovich, raising his hand toward heaven; and without noticing passers-by, he fell to declaiming loudly:

Is shrouded in mourning to-day;

On its wall the wild weeds are growing,

At its gate the faithful dog howls."

"Thou hast no reason to visit the club," added Vasilkevich.

"What has happened?"

"Gloom is there now incubating a tempest," replied Augustinovich.

"But say what has happened."

"Misfortune."

"Of what sort?"

"Ghastly!"

"Vasilkevich, speak in human fashion!"

"The University government has closed our club. Some one declared that students assemble there."

"When did this happen?"

"Two hours since."

"We must go there and learn on the spot."

"I do not advise thee to do so. They will put thee in prison."

"They will bind thy white palms with a rope "

"Augustinovich, be quiet! Why did they not do this in the evening? They might have caught us all like fish in a net."

"Well, they cared more for closing the club than for seizing us; but were a man to go now, beyond doubt they would seize him."

"But whither are ye going?"

"We are going with a watchword of alarm; the clans send a fiery cross "

"Speak low, I beg thee!"

"Yes, valiant Roderic."

"True, true," interrupted Vasilkevich; "we are on the way to warn others, so farewell, or go with us."

"I cannot."

"Where wilt thou go?"

"To Pani Helena's."

"Farewell."

"Till we meet again!"

When he was alone, Gustav rubbed his hands, a smile of satisfaction lighted up his gloomy face for a moment. He was pleased with the closing of the club, for he ceased to fear that Helena, on learning of Yosef's decision, might wish to visit the club to see him there. His fears were well founded. Gustav remembered that despite prayers and arguments he had barely, by the promise of bringing Yosef to her lodgings, been able to restrain her from this improper step. Now he had no cause for fear.

After a while he pulled the bell at the widow's dwelling.

"How is thy mistress?" asked he of the servant girl.

"She is well, but walking in the room and talking to herself."

Gustav entered.

Pani Helena's dwelling was composed of two narrow chambers, with windows looking out on a garden; the first chamber was a small drawing-room, the second she used as a bed-chamber, which Gustav now entered. The upper part of the window in the bed-chamber was divided by a narrow strip of wood from the lower part, and had colored panes arranged in the form of a flower, blue and red alternately. In one corner stood a small mahogany table covered with a soft velvet spread. On the table stood two portraits; one in an inlaid wooden frame represented a young man with a high forehead, blond hair, and handsome aristocratic features,  that was Potkanski; the other was Pani Helena. On her knees was her little daughter dressed in white. Before the portraits lay a garland of immortelles entwined with crape and with a sprig of dry myrtle.

At the opposite end of the room, between two beds divided by a narrow space, was a small cradle, now empty, once filled with the twittering and noise of an infant. Its cover, colored green by the light of the panes, seemed to move slightly. One might have thought that a little hand would be thrust out any moment, and a joyous head look at its mother.

Silent sadness was in the atmosphere of the place. The leaves of the acacia which looked in through the window were outlined darkly on the floor, and, moved by the wind, yielded to the quivering light and returned again. Near the door was a small statuette, representing the angel of baptism with hands extended as if to bless; at its feet was a holy-water pot.

At the moment of which we are speaking the head of the angel was bright in colored gleams, as if with a mild glory of sweetness, of repose and innocence. There was, moreover, great silence in the chamber. The sorrow of that day equalled former gladness. What delight and prattling when Potkanski, returning in the evening tired with toil, embraced his wife with one arm, and putting back her golden hair, kissed her forehead, which at that time was calm and serene. How much quiet, deep joy when they stood in silence breast to breast and eye to eye, like statues of Love! Afterward they ran to the cradle where the little one, twittering with itself in various ways, and raising its tiny feet, laughed at the happy parents.

Now the cradle was empty. Marvellously affecting was that cradle. It seemed that the child was there.

More than once, in the first period of her misfortune, the widow, when she woke in the night, put her hand carefully into the cradle with the conviction that God must have pitied her, and, removing the child from the coffin, placed it back in the cradle.

In a word, those walls had seen much joy, lulled by the happiness of serene love, then tears as large as pearls, then despair, which was silent, deathlike, and finally stubborn, mad.

Such was the sleeping-room of that widow, and such were the thoughts which were roused at sight of the apartment. The little drawing-room, like all of its kind, had a sort of slight elegance and much emptiness. In that chamber, too, the echoes of past moments seemed to wander. It was well lighted, clean, but common; the room of the servant adjoined it,  a small dark closet with an entrance on the stairway and a wooden partition.