must have heard of him, I am sure. I recommend him to you as a
model for Adonis. Ha! ha! You do not recognize the wild-flower of
Kalinowice?

Leon.--No, I do not recognize it.

Jadwiga.--No! But the life flower.

Leon.--As a joke--

Jadwiga.--At which one cannot laugh always. If our century was not
sceptical I should think myself wild, romantic, trying to drown
despair. But the romantic times have passed away, therefore, frankly
speaking, I only try to fill up a great nothing. I also spin out my
ball, although not always with pleasure. Sometimes I seem to myself so
miserable and my life so empty that I rush to my prayer-desk, left by
my mother. I weep, I pray--and then I laugh again at my prayers and
tears. And so it goes on--round and round. Do you know that they
gossip about me?

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.