The Faraway Bride by Stella Benson — Read

Whenever Pavel Ostapenko knew that he was likely to meet a friend, old or new, he always automatically inquired of himself whether the meeting was likely to do him credit or no. "Is everything all right? Does he appreciate me? Has he lately seen anyone who might have criticized me or told lies about me? Have I told him the same story as the one current here? " And as soon as he received Wilfred's telegram from Seoul, announcing his immediate return to Mi-san, accompanied by Isaev, Pavel, testing in his own mind the newcomer by means of this third-degree questionnaire, was annoyed to be obliged to answer, "No. There is danger here. Isaev may very well withhold the requisite smile as he greets me -- may even be discourteous. He imagines he has a grievance against my family; he blames his son's downfall on my daughter. He once called me -- (Pavel's very inmost voice sank to the veriest inmost whisper) -- a windbag. Something must be done about Isaev."

Pavel, of course, disliked Isaev for disliking him, yet he was so sure of his own superiority that his dislike was entirely impermanent. Simply, the man's disease -- dislike of Pavel -- must be subjected to immediate treatment and cure. To be deeply offended at being called a windbag, one must suspect uneasily the truth of the indictment, but Pavel had no such suspicion. The man Isaev had made a ridiculous and offensive error -- and of his error he must be convinced as soon as possible -- not by reproach, but by eloquent proof of Pavel's essential non-windbagacity. The matter of Tatiana's guilt, though still urgently in need of readjustment, was less urgent than the windbag misunderstanding, since Tatiana, though certainly a limb of the Ostapenko tree, was an outlying limb. A man, for instance, would be less offended by criticism of the shape of his little toe than of the shape of his nose. Indeed, alone with his daughter, Pavel would have detached her from the Ostapenko body altogether; in speaking to her he would have admitted -- and even insisted on -- her guilt in the matter of the jilting of young Piotr Isaev. But in speaking to Isaev, Pavel would instinctively graft his daughter on to the main Ostapenko trunk once more, and swear to her inviolate blamelessness of any interference with young Isaev's peace of mind. And he would prove it too (with as much ease as he could, in Tatiana's ear, prove her guilt) -- prove it to his own satisfaction, and perhaps to the resentful father's. When speaking neither to sinner nor sinned against, Pavel would not entertain the question of sin or justification, truth or lie, at all. Truth was nonexistent, unless he was engaged in propounding it; in words lay his entire standard of truth, morals, and behavior.