Leon.—­I do not listen to the gossip.

Jadwiga.—­How good you are!  I will tell you then why they gossip.  A missionary asked a negro what, according to his ideas, constituted evil?  The negro thought a while, and then said:  “Evil is if some one were to steal my wife.”  “And what is good?” asked the missionary.  “Good is when I steal from some one else.”  My husband’s friends are of the negro’s opinion.  Every one of them would like to do a good deed and steal some one’s wife.

Leon.—­It depends on the wife.

Jadwiga.—­Yes, but every word and every look is a bait.  If the fish passes the bait, the fisherman’s self-love is wounded.  That is why they slander me (after a while).  You great people—­you are filled with simplicity.  Then you think it depends on the wife?

Leon.—­Yes, it does.

Jadwiga.—­Morbleu! as my husband says, and if the wife is weary?

Leon.—­I bid you good-bye.

Jadwiga.—­Why?  Does what I say offend you?

Leon.—­It does more than offend me.  It hurts me.  Maybe it will seem strange to you, but here in my breast I am carrying some flowers—­although they are withered—­dead for a long time.  But they are dear to me and just now you are trampling on them.

Jadwiga (with an outburst).—­Oh, if those flowers had not died!

Leon.—­They are in my heart—­and there is a tomb.  Let us leave the past alone.

Jadwiga.—­Yes, you are right.  Leave it alone.  What is dead cannot be resuscitated.  I wish to speak calmly.  Look at my situation.  What defends me—­what helps me—­what protects me?  I am a young woman, and it seems not ugly, and therefore no one approaches me with an honest, simple heart, but with a trap in eyes and mouth.  What opposition have I to make?  Weariness?  Grief?  Emptiness?  In life even a man must lean on something, and I, a feeble woman, I am like a boat without a helm, without oar and without light toward which to sail.  And the heart longs for happiness.  You must understand that a woman must be loved and must love some one in the world, and if she lacks true love she seizes the first pretext of it—­the first shadow.

Leon (with animation).—­Poor thing.

Jadwiga.—­Do not smile in that ironical way.  Be better, be less severe with me.  I do not even have any one to complain, and that is why I do not drive away Count Skorzewski.  I detest his beauty, I despise his perverse mind, but I do not drive him away because he is a skilful actor, and because when I see his acting it awakens in me the echo of former days. (After a while.) How shall I fill my life?  Study?  Art?  Even if I loved them, they would not love me for they are not living things.  No, truly now!  They showed me no duties, no aims, no foundations.  Everything on which other women live—­everything which constitutes their happiness, sincere sorrow, strength, tears, and smiles, is barred from me.  Morally I have nothing to live on—­like a beggar.  I have no one to live for—­like an orphan.  I am not permitted to yearn for a noble and quiet life; I may only nurture myself with grief and defend myself with faded, dead flowers, and remembrances of former pure, honest, and loving Jadwinia.  Ah! again I break my promise, our agreement.  I must beg your pardon.