days spin out like a thread from a ball, and how everything that has
happened goes away and gradually disappears, like a migratory bird.

Jadwiga.--Such distraction is good for those to whom another bird
comes with a song of the future. But otherwise--

Leon.--Otherwise it is perhaps better to think that when all threads
will be spun out from the ball, there will remain nothing. Sometimes
the reminiscences are very painful. Happily time dulls their edge, or
they would prick like thorns.

Jadwiga.--Or would burn like fire.

Leon.--All-wise Nature gives us some remedy for it. A fire which is
not replenished must die, and the ashes do not burn.

Jadwiga.--We are unwillingly chasing a bird which has flown away.
Enough of it! Have you painted much lately?

Leon.--I do nothing else. I think and I paint. It is true that until
now my thoughts have produced nothing, and I have painted a very
little. But it was not my fault. Better be good enough to tell me what
has caused you to call me here.

Jadwiga.--It will come by itself. In the first place, I should be
justified in so doing by a desire to see a great man. You are now an
artist whose fame is world-wide.

Leon--I would appear to be guilty of conceit, but I honestly think
that I was not the last pawn on the chessboard in the drawing-room,