Page:Nalkowska - Kobiety (Women).djvu/299

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A Canticle of Love
287


"What beasts they are!" he said at last, to relieve his feelings.

"They are not malicious, but unhappy," she said. "For them too, I feel sorry."

Smilowicz made no reply. Presently he was trying to persuade me to go over and see Obojanski one of these days.

"Always plunged in those books of his—overhead and ears in them—indifferent to everything else that goes on throughout the wide world. His study seems to me now such a haven as one might dream for. … Yes, let us go one day and visit him. Miss Janina."

Really, no bad notion, that. As to Smilowicz's surroundings, they do not agree with me. Since I have got rid of all such associations, I do not care to return to them. And then, that woman! Willingly would I throw her out of the window to the Idealistic dreamer of the noble New Woman, equal to Man; and I should cry Ecce femina! Like Diogenes throwing the plucked cock to Plato.

Yes; for the vision of the Idealist is realized—thus!

But Obojanski, the venerable, grey-bearded Master, with his mien of a Greek sage; and his never-ending, shallow sophistries and