Children of the Soil

“I know why you have come. I have noticed this long time what was passing between you, my children.”

Pan Ignas seized her hands, and began to press them to his lips one after the other; she on her part continued, —

“Oh, I myself have felt too much in life not to know real feelings; I will say more: it is my specialty. Women live only by the heart, and they know how to divine hearts. I know that you love Nitechka truly; and I am certain that if she did not love you, or if I should refuse her to you, you would not survive. Is it not true?”

Here she gazed at him with an inquiring glance, and he said with effort, —

“Beyond doubt! I know not what would happen to me.”

“I guessed that at once,” answered she, with radiant face. “Ah, my dear friend, a look is enough for me; but I shall not be an evil spirit as your genius. No, I shall not, I cannot be that. Whom shall I find for Nitechka? Where a man worthy of her? Who would have in him all that she loves and esteems chiefly? I cannot give her to Kopovski, and I will not. You perhaps do not know Nitechka as I do; but I cannot and will not give her.”

In spite of all his emotion, that energy with which Pani Bronich refused “Nitechka’s” hand to Kopovski astonished Pan Ignas, just as if he had declared for Kopovski, not for himself; and the aunt continued, moved, but evidently enjoying her own words and delighted with the position, —

“No! there can be no talk of Kopovski. You alone can make Nitechka happy. You alone can give her what she needs. I knew yesterday that you would talk with me to-day. I did not close an eye the whole night. Do not wonder at that. Here it is a question of Nitechka, and I was hesitating yet; therefore fear seized me in view of to-day’s conversation, for I knew in advance that I would not resist you, that you would bear me away with your feeling and your eloquence, as yesterday you bore away Nitechka.”

Pan Ignas, who neither yesterday nor to-day was able to buzz out one word, could not explain somehow to himself in what specially lay the power of his eloquence, or when he had time to exhibit it; but Pani Bronich did not permit him to hesitate longer on this question.

“And do you know what I did? This is what I do always in life’s most serious moments. Speaking yesterday with Nitechka, I went early this morning to the grave of my husband. He is lying here in Warsaw – I know not whether I have told you that he was the last descendant of Rurik – Ah, yes, I have! Oh, dear friend, what a refuge for me that grave is; and how many good inspirations I have brought from it! Whether it was a question of the education of Nitechka, or of some journey, or of investing capital which my husband left me, or of a loan which some one of my relatives or acquaintances wished to make, I went there directly at all times. And will you believe me? More than once a mortgage is offered: it seems a good one; the business is perfect; more than once my heart even commands me to give or to lend, – but my husband, there in the depth of his eternal rest, answers: ‘Do not give,’ and I give not. And never has evil resulted. Oh, my dear, you who feel and understand everything, you will understand how to-day I prayed, how I asked with all the powers of my soul, ‘Give Nitechka, or not give Nitechka?’”

Here she seized Pan Ignas’s temples with her hands, and said through her tears, —

“But my Teodor answered, ‘Give;’ therefore I give her to thee, and my blessing besides.”

Tears quenched indeed further conversation in Pani Bronich. Pan Ignas knelt before her; “Nitechka,” who came in, as if at a fixed moment, dropped on her knees at his side; Pani Bronich stretched her hands and said sobbing, —

“She is thine, thine! I give her to thee; I and Teodor give her.”

Then the three rose. Aunt Bronich covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and remained some time without motion; gradually, however, she slipped away the handkerchief, looking from one side at the two young people. Suddenly she laughed, and, threatening with her finger, said, —

“Oi! I know what you would like now, – you would like to be alone. Surely you have something to say to each other. Is it not true?”

And she went out. Pan Ignas took Lineta’s hands that moment, and looked into her eyes with intoxication.

They sat down; and she, leaving her hands in his, rested her temple on his shoulder. It was like a song without words. Pan Ignas inclined his head toward her bright face. Lineta closed her eyes; but he was too young and too timid, he respected too much and he loved, hence he did not venture yet to touch her lips with his. He only kissed her golden hair, and even that caused the room in which they were sitting to spin with him; the world began to whirl round. Then all vanished from his eyes; he lost memory of where he was, and what was happening; he heard only the beating of his own heart; he felt the odor of the silken hair, which brushed his lips, and it seemed to him that in that was the universe.

But that was only a dream from which he had to wake. After a certain time the aunt began to open the door gently, as if wishing to lose the least possible of the romance, in which, with Teodor’s aid, she was playing the rôle of guardian spirit; in the adjoining chamber were heard the voices of the Osnovskis; and a moment later Lineta found herself in the arms of her aunt, from which she passed into the embraces of Pani Aneta. Osnovski, pressing Ignas’s hands with all his power, said, —

“But what a joy in the house, what a joy! for we have all fallen in love with thee, – I, and aunt, and Anetka, not to speak of this little one.”

Then he turned to his wife and said, —

“Knowest, Anetka, what I wished Ignas, even yesterday? that they should be to each other as we are.” And, seizing her hands, he began to kiss them with vehemence.

Pan Ignas, though he knew not in general what was happening to him, found still presence of mind enough to look into the face of Pani Aneta; but she answered joyously, withdrawing her hands from her husband, —

“No, they will be happier; for Castelka is not such a giddy thing as I, and Pan Ignas will not kiss her hands so stubbornly before people. But, Yozio, let me go!”

“Let him only love her as I thee, my treasure, my child,” answered the radiant Yozio.

Pan Ignas stayed at Pani Bronich’s till evening, and did not go to the counting-house. After lunch he drove out in the carriage with the aunt and Lineta, for Pani Bronich wanted absolutely to show them to society. But their drive in the Alley was not a success altogether, because of a sudden hard shower, which scattered the carriages. On their return, Pan Osnovski, good as he ever was, made a new proposition which delighted Pan Ignas.

“Prytulov will not escape us,” said he. “We live here as if we were half in the country; and since we have remained till the end of June, we may stay a couple of days longer. Let that loving couple exchange rings before our departure, and at the same time let it be free to Aneta and me to give them a betrothal party. Is it well, aunt? I see that they have nothing against it, and surely it will be agreeable for Ignas to have at the betrothal his friends the Polanyetskis and the Bigiels. It is true that we do not visit the latter, but that is nothing! We will visit them to-morrow, and the affair will be settled. Is it well, Ignas; is it well, aunt?”

Ignas was evidently in the seventh heaven; as to aunt, she didn’t know indeed what Teodor’s opinion would be in this matter, and she began to hesitate. But she might inquire of Teodor yet; and then she remembered that he had answered, “Give,” with such a great voice from his place of eternal rest that it was impossible to doubt his good wishes, – hence she agreed at last to everything.

After dinner Kopovski, the almost daily guest, came; and it turned out that he was the only being in the villa to whom news of the feelings and betrothal of the young couple did not cause delight. For a time his face expressed indescribable astonishment; at last he said, —

“I never should have guessed that Panna Lineta would marry Pan Ignas.”

Osnovski pushed Pan Ignas with his elbow, blinked, and whispered, with a very cunning mien, —

“Hast noticed? I told thee yesterday that he was making up to Castelka.”

Pan Ignas left the villa of the Osnovskis late in the evening. When he reached home he did not betake himself to verses, however, though it seemed to him then that he was a kind of harp, the strings of which played of themselves, but to the counting-house, to unfinished correspondence and accounts.

At the counting-house all were so pleased with this that when the Bigiels returned the visit of the Osnovskis, and at the same time made the first visit to Pani Bronich, Bigiel said, —

“The worth of Pan Zavilovski’s poetry is known to you ladies, but perhaps you do not know how conscientious a man he is. I say this because that is a rare quality among us. Since he remained all day with you here, and could not be at the counting-house, he asked to have it opened by the guard in the night; he took home the books and papers in his charge, and did what pertained to him. It is pleasant to think that one has to do with such a man, for such a man may be trusted.”

Here, however, the honorable partner of the house of Bigiel and Polanyetski was astonished that such high praise from his lips made so little impression, and that Pani Bronich, instead of showing gladness, replied, —

“Ah, we hope that in future Pan Zavilovski will be able to give himself to labor more in accordance with his powers and position.”

In general, the impression which both sides brought away from their acquaintance showed that somehow they were not at home with each other. Lineta pleased the Bigiels, it is true; but he, in going away, whispered to his wife, “How comfortably they live for themselves in this place!” He had a feeling that the spirit of that whole villa was a sort of unbroken holiday, or idling; but he was not able at once to express that idea, for he had not the gift of ready utterance.

But Pani Bronich, after their departure, said to “Nitechka,” —

“Of course, of course! They must be excellent people – true, perfect people! I am certain – yes, certain – ”

And somehow she did not finish her thought; but “Nitechka” must have understood her, however, for she said, —

“But they are no relatives of his.”

A few days later the relatives, too, made themselves heard. Pan Ignas, who, in spite of the wishes of Pani Bigiel, had not gone yet with excuses to old Zavilovski, received the following letter from him, —

Pan Wildcat! – Thou hast scratched me undeservedly, for I had no wish to offend thee; and if I say always what I think, it is permitted me because I am old. They must have told thee, too, that I never name, even to her eyes, thy young lady otherwise than Venetian half-devil. But how was I to know that thou wert in love and about to marry? I heard of this only yesterday, and only now do I understand why thou didst spring out of my sight; but since I prefer water-burners to dullards, and since through this devil of a gout I cannot go myself to thee to congratulate, do thou come to the old man, who is more thy well-wisher than seems to thee.

After this letter Pan Ignas went that same day, and was received cordially, though with scolding, but so kindly that this time the old truth-teller pleased him, and he felt in him really a relative.

“May God and the Most Holy Lady bless thee!” said the old man. “I know thee little; but I have heard such things of thee that I should be glad to hear the like touching all Zavilovskis.”

And he pressed his hand; then, turning to his daughter, he said, —

“He’s a genial rascal, isn’t he?”

And at parting he inquired, —

“But ‘Teodor,’ didn’t he trouble thee too much? Hei?”

Pan Ignas, who, as an artist, possessed in a high degree the sense of the ridiculous, and to whom in his soul that Teodor, too, seemed comical, laughed and answered, —

“No. On the contrary, he was on my side.”

The old man began to shake his head.

“That is a devil of an accommodating Teodor! Be on the lookout for him; he is a rogue.”

Pani Bronich had so much genuine respect for the property and social position of old Zavilovski that she visited him next day, and began almost to thank him for his cordial reception of his relative; but the old man grew angry unexpectedly.

“Do you think that I am some empty talker?” asked he. “You have heard from me that poor relatives are a plague; and you think that I take it ill of them that they are poor. No, you do not know me! But, know this, when a noble loses everything, and is poor, he becomes almost always a sort of shabby fellow. Such is our character, or rather, its weakness. But this Ignas, as I hear from every side, is a man of honor, though poor; and therefore I love him.”

“And I love him,” answered Pani Bronich. “But you will be at the betrothal?”

“C’est décidé. Even though I had to be carried.”

Pani Bronich returned radiant, and at lunch could not restrain herself from expressing suppositions which her active fancy had begun to create.

“Pan Zavilovski,” said she, “is a man of millions, and greatly attached to the name. I should not be astonished at all were he to make our Ignas his heir, if not of the chief, of a considerable part of his property, or if he were to entail some of his estates in Poznan on him. I should not be surprised at all.”

No one contradicted her, for events like that in the world had been seen; therefore after lunch, Pani Bronich, embracing Nitechka, whispered in her ear, —

“Oi, thou, thou, future heiress!”

But in the evening she said to Pan Ignas, —

“Be not astonished if I so mix up in everything, but I am your mamma. So mamma is immensely curious to know what kind of ring you are preparing for Nitechka? It will be something beautiful, of course. There will be so many people at the betrothal. And, besides, you have no idea what a fastidious girl! She is so æsthetic even in trifles; and she has her own taste, but what a taste! ho, ho!”

“I should like,” answered Pan Ignas, “the stones to be of colors denoting faith, hope, and love, for in her is my faith, my hope, and my love.”

“A very pretty idea! have you said this to Nitechka? Do you know what? Let there be a pearl in the middle, as a sign that she is a pearl. Symbols are in fashion now. Have I told you that Pan Svirski, when he gave her lessons, called her ‘La Perla’? Ah, yes, I did. You do not know Pan Svirski? He, too – Yozio Osnovski told me that he would come to-morrow. Well, then, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, and in the middle a pearl? Oh, yes! Pan Svirski, too – Will you be at the funeral?”

“Whose funeral?”

“Pan Bukatski’s. Yozio Osnovski told me that Pan Svirski brought home his body.”

“I did not know him; I have never seen him in my life.”

“That is better; Nitechka would prefer that you had not known him. God in His mercy forgive him in spite of this, – that for me he was never a sympathetic person, and Nitechka could not endure him. But the little one will be glad of the ring; and when she is glad, I am glad.”

The “Little One” was glad not only of the ring, but of life in general. The rôle of an affianced assumed for her increasing charm. Beautiful nights came, very clear, during which she and Pan Ignas sat together on the balcony. Nestling up to each other, they looked at the quivering of light on the leaves, or lost their gaze in the silver dust of the Milky Way, and the swarms of stars. From the acacia, growing under the balcony, there rose a strong and intoxicating odor, as from a great censer. Their powers seemed to go to sleep in them; their souls, lulled by silence, turned into clear light, were scattered in some way amidst the depth of night, and were melted into unity with the soft moonlight; and so the two, sitting hand in hand, half in oblivion, half in sleep, lost well-nigh the feeling of separate existence and life, preserving a mere semi-consciousness of some sort of general bliss and general “exaltation of hearts.”

Pan Ignas, when he woke and returned to real life, understood that moments like those, in which hearts melt in that pantheism of love, and beat with the same pulsation with which everything quivers that loves, unites, and harmonizes in the universe, form the highest happiness which love has the power to give, and so immeasurable that were they to continue they would of necessity destroy man’s individuality. But, having the soul of an idealist, he thought that when death comes and frees the human monad from matter, those moments change into eternity; and in that way he imagined heaven, in which nothing is swallowed up, but everything simply united and attuned in universal harmony.

Lineta, it is true, could not move with his flight; but she felt a certain turning of the head, as it were, a kind of intoxication from his flight, and she felt herself happy also. A woman even incapable of loving a man is still fond of her love, or, at least, of herself, and her rôle in it; and, therefore, most frequently she crosses the threshold of betrothal with delight, feeling at the same time gratitude to the man who opens before her a new horizon of life. Besides, they had talked love into Lineta so mightily that at last she believed in it.

And once, when Pan Ignas asked her if she was sure of herself and her heart, she gave him both hands, as if with effusion, and said, —

“Oh, truly; now I know that I love.”

He pressed her slender fingers to his lips, to his forehead, and his eyes, as something sacred; but he was disquieted by her words, and asked, —

“Why ‘now’ for the first time, Nitechka? Or has there been a moment in which thou hast thought that thou couldst not love me?”

Lineta raised her blue eyes and thought a moment; after a while, in the corners of her mouth and in the dimples of her cheeks, a smile began to gather.

“No,” said she; “but I am a great coward, so I was afraid. I understand that to love you is another thing from loving the first comer.” And suddenly she began to laugh. “Oh, to love Pan Kopovski would be as simple as bon jour; but you – maybe I cannot express it well, but more than once it seemed to me that that is like going up on some mountain or some tower. When once at the top, a whole world is visible; but before that one must go and go, and toil, and I am so lazy.”

Pan Ignas, who was tall and bony, straightened himself, and said, —

“When my dear, lazy one is tired, I’ll take her in my arms, like a child, and carry her even to the highest.”

“And I will shrink up and make myself the smallest,” answered Lineta, closing her arms, and entering into the rôle of a little child.

Pan Ignas knelt before her, and began to kiss the hem of her dress.

But there were little clouds, too, on that sky; the betrothed were not the cause, however. It seemed to the young man at times that his feelings were too much observed, and that Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta examined too closely whether he loves, and how he loves. He explained this, it is true, by the curiosity of women, and, in general, by the attention which love excites in them; but he would have preferred more freedom, and would have preferred that they would not help him to love. His feelings he considered as sacred, and for him it was painful to make an exhibition of them for uninvited eyes; at the same time every movement and word of his was scrutinized. He supposed also that there must be female sessions, in which Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta gave their “approbatur;” and that thought angered him, for he judged that neither was in a situation to understand his feelings.

It angered him also that Kopovski was invited to Prytulov, and that he went there in company with all; but in this case it was for him a question only of Osnovski, whom he loved sincerely. The pretext for the invitation was the portrait not finished yet by Lineta. Pan Ignas understood now clearly that everything took place at the word of Pani Aneta, who knew exactly how to suggest her own wishes to people as their own. At times even it came to his head to ask Lineta to abandon the portrait; but he knew that he would trouble her, as an artist, with that request, and, besides, he feared lest people might suspect him of being jealous of a fop, like “Koposio.”11