I know for certain I shall meet Pani Kromitzka.  Her husband has sold the estate, betaken himself to Baku on business speculation, and has sent his wife to join her mother at Ploszow; so my aunt tells me in her letter.  I received the news if not indifferently, at least with perfect composure, but I notice that the impression gradually gained upon me.  At present I cannot think of anything else, as the fact is of so great importance to the two women.  After so short a space as ten months he sold the estate which over four hundred years had been in Aniela’s family, and to the preservation of which Pani Celina had devoted her own life.  Then comes a Pan Kromitzki and sells it with a light heart because he wants the money for his speculations.  Suppose he does make millions—­will that compensate the women for the loss of what they prized above money?  What will they think of him now?  My aunt writes that she is sitting by Pani Celina’s bedside, who after receiving the news of the sale grew worse at once.  I am quite certain that Aniela, when putting her signature to the deed which empowered her husband to dispose of the land, did not know what she was signing.  She is even now defending her husband.  My aunt quotes from Aniela’s letter:  “A great misfortune has happened, but it was not Charles’s fault.”  Defend him, defend him, O loyal wife; but you cannot prevent my thinking that he has wounded you deeply, and that at the bottom of your heart you despise him.  Neither kisses nor soft words will efface from your memory the one word “sold.”  And Pani Celina thought that after the marriage he would devote his money towards clearing off the debts and disincumbering the property!  Dear ladies, I, a man who does not boast of civic virtues, would not have done it, if for no other reason than innate delicacy of feeling, affection for you, and fear to wound you.  But for speculations, ready money is wanted.  I hope it is not merely prejudice, but these millions I heard so much about appear to me like a great point of interrogation.  Maybe he will get them; perhaps the capital realized from the sale will help him towards it; but if he had possessed the wealth he used to boast of, would he have dealt his wife and mother-in-law such a blow, and sold their ancestral seat?  My aunt writes that he left immediately after the sale for Baku, and intends to go as far as Turkestan.  Aniela being too young to live by herself must needs come to Ploszow, as her mother cannot leave it at present, because she is too ill to travel; and besides my aunt will not let her go, and she is afraid of crossing her in any way.  I know Aniela too well to suspect her of any calculations.  She is the very essence of disinterestedness.  But the mother, who would grasp all the world for her only child, doubtless counts upon the chance of a legacy for Aniela.  And she is not mistaken either.  My aunt, who never quite believed in Kromitzki’s millions, gave me to understand several times that she meant to do