She gave this card, in an envelope addressed to the baron, to a
servant, and sat down again to her chrysanthemums, this time with
a smile both malicious and gladsome. With his appearance in that
house, though unseen by her, Baron Emil had lent form in her head
to a certain whimsical idea. She knew that it was whimsical, but
just for that reason it pleased her, and must also please the
baron. She began quickly, almost with enthusiasm, to paint dark
outlines of imps among the flowers. She disposed them so that
they seemed to separate the flowers and keep them apart from one
another. Some imps were climbing up, others were slipping down;
they peeped out from behind petals, climbed along stems, but all
were malicious, distorted, capricious, and pushed the tops of the
flowers apart in such fashion that they did not let the
half-bending petals meet in kisses. Painting quickly, Irene
laughed. She imagined Baron Emil saying at sight of this work:
"C'est du nouveau! It is not a painted pot! it is an individual
thought. There is a new quiver there. It bites."

The expressions "painted pots," "Arcadians," "it bites," "new
quivers," "rheumatism of thought," and many more she had from
him. And she was not the only one who borrowed. These expressions
had spread in a rather largo circle of people who despised
everything existing, and were seeking everything which was new
and astonishing. Baron Emil was cultured, had read much. He read
frequently Nietsche's "Zarathustra," and spoke of the coming
"race," the super-humans. He spoke somewhat through his nose and
through his teeth.

The superhuman is he who is able to will absolutely and
unconditionally.

When Irene thought that perhaps she would soon become the baron's
wife, and leave that house, her brows contracted and her jeering
smile vanished. Oh, she would not let him escape her! She had an
absolute condition to put before the baron; he would accept it
most assuredly, through deference to the amount of her dower.
Energy glittered in her blue eyes. She turned her face toward the
door of her mother's room with so quick a movement that the
metallic pin in her hair cast a gleam of sharp steel above her
head.

"One must know how to will," whispered she.

CHAPTER IV

When Kranitski entered his own lodgings, after passing the night
with Maryan, and after the long conversation with Malvina, old
widow Clemens looked at him from behind her great spectacles, and
dropped her ha