Other difficulties belonged to the result of Yosef's decision. The decision was honest, but still to turn it into reality he had to lie, and then to lie all his life by pretending love. Evil appeared as a result of good. "Ei, shall I not have to go mad?" thought he. "And this life will be snarled like a thread. Every one is whirling round after happiness, as a dog after his own tail, and every man is chasing it with equal success." Ho! Yosef, who did not love declamation, had still fallen into the dialectics of unhappiness. Such a philosophy has a charm: a man loves his misfortune as a happiness.
Meanwhile evening came, but Helena was not to be seen. Yosef supposed that she must have gone to the cemetery, and he did not himself know why that thought made him angry on that occasion.
He lighted a candle and began to walk through the room. By chance his glance fell on Potkanski. Yosef had not known him, and did not like him, though for the justification of his antipathy he could hardly bring in the words "lord's son."
When he looked again at that broad, calm face, something glittered in his eyes which was almost like hatred.
