Children of the Soil
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“Do not stop for me. Let us talk on the street. The light is so sharp to-day that I cannot work; therefore I will walk to your door with you.”
“In every case I should have been forced to beg your pardon,” said Pan Stanislav. “My Marynia goes out to-day for the first time, and we are to dine with the Bigiels. She must be dressed by this time, but we have twenty minutes yet.”
“As she goes out, she is well?”
“Praise be to God, as well as a bird!” answered Pan Stanislav, with delight.
“And the little Aryan?”
“The little Aryan bears himself stoutly.”
“O happy man, if I had such a toad at home, not to mention such a wife, I should not know what to do – unless to walk upon house-tops.”
“You will not believe how that boy takes my heart. Every day more, and in general, in a way that I did not expect, for you must know that I wanted a daughter.”
“It is not evening yet; the daughter will come. But you are in a hurry; let us go then.”
Pan Stanislav took his fur coat, and they went to the street. The day was frosty, clear. Around was heard the hurried sound of sleigh-bells. Men had their collars over their ears, their mustaches were frosty, and they threw columns of steam from their mouths.
“It is a gladsome sort of day,” said Pan Stanislav. “I rejoice, for my Marynia’s sake, that it is clear.”
“It is gladsome for you in life; therefore everything seems clear to you,” said Svirski, taking him by the arm. But all at once he dropped the arm, and stopping the way, said, with an expression as if he wished to quarrel, —
“Do you know that you have the most beautiful woman in Warsaw as wife? It is I who tell you this – I!”
And he began to strike his breast with his hand as if to increase thereby the certainty that it was he and no one else who was speaking thus.
“Of course!” answered Pan Stanislav, laughing, “and also the best and most honest on earth; but let us go on, for it is cold.”
When Svirski took him again by the arm, Pan Stanislav added with some emotion, —
“But what I went through during her sickness, the Lord God alone knows – Better not mention it – She gave me a surprise simply by her return to life; but if God grants me to live till spring, I will give a surprise that will gladden her.”
“There is nothing with which to compare her,” answered Svirski.
Then, halting again, he said, as if in astonishment, “And; as I love God, so much simplicity at the same time.”
They walked on a while in silence, then Pan Stanislav asked Svirski of his journey.
“I shall stay three weeks in Florence,” answered the artist. “I have some work there. Besides, I have grown homesick for the light on San Miniato and Ginevra, with which, and with Cimabue, I was in love on a time. Do you remember in Santa Maria Novella, in the chapel of Rucellai? After a three weeks’ stay I shall go to Rome. I wanted to talk with you about the journey, for this morning Pan Ignas came to me with the proposition that we should go again together.”
“Ah! and did you agree?”
“I had not the heart to refuse, though, between ourselves, he is sometimes a burden. But you know how I loved him, and how I felt for him, so it is hard for me to say it, but he is burdensome occasionally. What is to be said in this case? he is changed immensely. At the christening I told Pani Polanyetski that at times he seems to me like a costly vessel which is cracked; and that is true. For I saw how he struggled over those letters, in which he wished to describe Italy for her. He walked whole hours through the room, rubbed his shot forehead, sat down, stood up; but the paper remained just as it was, untouched. God grant him to recover his former power. At present he repeats to every one that he will write; but he begins to doubt himself, and to grieve. I know that he grieves.”
“The loss of his power would be a misfortune both for him and Panna Helena. If you knew how she was concerned to the verge of despair, not only for his life, but his talent.”
“The loss of that would be a public misfortune; but the person for whom I am most sorry is Panna Ratkovski. She too begins to doubt whether he will be what he was, and that tortures her, perhaps, more than other griefs.”
“Poor girl!” said Pan Stanislav, “and the more so since from all his plans of travelling one thing is clear, that he does not even think of her. It is fortunate that Panna Helena secured her independence.”
“I will wait a year,” answered Svirski, “and after a year I will propose a second time. She has taken hold of me, it is not to be denied! Have you noticed how becoming short hair is to her? She ought to wear it that way always. I will wait a year,” and he was silent; “but after that I shall consider my hands free. It is not possible either that in her something will not change in a year, especially if he gives no sign of life. All this is wonderfully strange. Do you think that I do not do everything in my power to blow into life some spark for her? As God is true, a man has never done more against his own heart than I have. Pani Bigiel too does what she can. But it is difficult. Again, no one has the right to say to him expressly: marry! if he does not love her. And this is the more wonderful, since he does not seem even to think of the other. One Panna Ratkovski is worth more than a whole grove of such ‘Poplars;’ but that is another affair! For me the point is that she should not suppose that I am taking him away purposely. I have not dissuaded him, for I could not; but, my dear sir, should there ever be a conversation about our journey, say to her that, as God lives, I did not persuade Pan Ignas to the journey, and that I would give more than she supposes to make her happy, even were it at the cost of an old dog like me.”
“Of course we shall do so.”
“Thank you for that. Before going, I shall be with you again to say good-by to Pani Polanyetski.”
“Surely in the evening, so that we may sit longer. I think too that you will return in summer; you and Pan Ignas will spend some time with us.”
“In Buchynek?”
“In Buchynek or not, that is unknown yet.”
Further conversation was interrupted by the sight of Osnovski, who at that moment was coming out of a fruit-shop, with a white package in his hand.
“See, there is Osnovski!” said Svirski.
“How changed!” said Pan Stanislav.
And indeed he was changed immensely. From under his fur cap gazed a pale face, grown yellow, and, as it were, much older. His fur coat seemed to hang on him. Seeing his two friends, he was vexed; it was evident that for a while he hesitated whether or not to go around, pretending that he did not see them. But the sidewalk was empty, and they had come so near that he changed his intention, and, coming up, began to speak with unnatural haste, as if wishing to cover with talk that of which all three were thinking exclusively.
“A good day to you, gentlemen! Oh, this is a chance that we meet, for I am shut up in Prytulov, and come rarely to the city. I have just bought some grapes, for the doctor orders me to eat grapes. But they are imported in sawdust, and have the odor of it; I thought they would be better here. There is frost to-day, indeed. In the country sleighing is perfect.”
And they walked on together, all feeling awkward.
“You are going to Egypt, are you not?” inquired Pan Stanislav at last.
“That is my old plan, and perhaps I shall go. In the country there is nothing to do in winter; it is tedious to be alone there.”
Here he stopped suddenly, for he saw that he was touching a delicate subject. And they went on in a silence still more oppressive, feeling that unspeakable awkwardness which is felt always when, by some tacit agreement, people talk of things of no interest, while hiding the main ones, which are painful. Osnovski would have been glad to leave his two friends; but people accustomed for long years to observe certain forms pay attention to appearances unconsciously, even in the deepest misfortune, hence he wanted to find some easy and natural means of leaving Pan Stanislav and the artist; but not being able to find it, he merely continued the awkward position. Finally, he began to take farewell of them in the unexpected and unnatural way of a man who has lost his head. At the last moment, however, he determined otherwise. Such a comedy seemed to him unendurable. He had had enough of it. It flashed into his head that he ought not to make a secret of anything; that in avoidance of every mention of misfortune there is something abject. On his face constraint was clear, and suffering; but, halting, he began to say with a broken voice, losing breath every moment, —
“Gentlemen, I beg pardon for detaining you longer. But you know that I have separated from my wife – I do not see any reason why I should not speak of it, especially with persons so honorable and so near – I declare to you, gentlemen, that that was – that that happened so – that is, that I wished it myself, and that to my wife nothing – ”
But the voice stuck in his throat, and he could not speak further. Evidently he wanted to take the fault on himself; but on a sudden he felt all the incredibility, all the extent and desperate emptiness of a lie like that, which must be a mere sound of words, so that not even the feeling of any duty, nor any social appearance could justify him. And, losing his head altogether, he went into the crowd, bearing with him his grapes and unfathomable misfortune.
Svirski and Pan Stanislav went on in silence under the impression of this misfortune.
“As God is true,” said Pan Stanislav at length, “his heart is breaking.”
“For such a man,” answered the artist, “there is nothing except to wish death.”
“And still he has not deserved such a fate.”
“I give you my word,” said Svirski, “whenever I think of him, I see him kissing her hands. He did it so often that I cannot imagine him otherwise. And what sets me to thinking again is this, that misfortune, like death, severs the relations of people, or if it does not sever relations completely, it estranges people. You have not known him long, but I, for example, lived on intimate terms with him, and now he is to me somehow farther away, while I am to him more a stranger; there is no help in this case, and that is so sad.”
“Sad and wonderful – ”
But Svirski stopped on a sudden, and exclaimed, —
“Do you know what? May a thunderbolt burn that Pani Osnovski! Panna Helena said that it was not permitted to despair of a man while he was living; but as to that one, let a thunderbolt shake her!”
“There was not in the world, perhaps, a woman more worshipped than she,” said Pan Stanislav.
“There you have them,” answered Svirski, passionately. “Women, taking them in general – ”
But all at once he struck his glove across his mouth.
“No!” cried he. “To the devil with my old fault! I have promised myself not to make any general conclusions about women.”
“I said that he worshipped her,” continued Pan Stanislav, “because now I simply do not understand how he can live without her.”
“But he must.”
Osnovski was forced really to live without his wife, but he was not able. In Prytulov and in Warsaw, which were full of reminiscences of her, life soon became for him unendurable; hence a month later he started on a journey. But, already out of health when he left Warsaw, he caught cold in an over-heated car, and in Vienna fell so ill that he had to take to his bed. The cold, which at first was considered influenza, turned into a violent typhus. After a few days the sick man lost consciousness, and lay in a hotel at the mercy of strange doctors and strange people, far from home and his friends. But afterward in the fever which heated his brain and confused his thoughts it seemed to him that he saw near his bedside the face dearest in life to him, beloved at all times, beloved in loneliness, in sickness, and in presence of death. It seemed to him that he saw it even when he had regained consciousness, but was so weak that he could not move yet, nor speak, nor even arrange his own thoughts.
Later the vision disappeared. But he began to inquire about it from the Sisters of Charity, who were sent, it was unknown by whom, and who surrounded him with the most tender care; and he began to yearn beyond measure.
CHAPTER LXVIII
After the solemnity of the christening, and after the departure of Svirski and Pan Ignas, the Polanyetskis began to live again a secluded and home life, seeing scarcely any one except the Bigiels, Pani Emilia, and Vaskovski. But it was pleasant for them in that narrow circle of near friends, and pleasantest of all with themselves. Pan Stanislav was greatly occupied; he sat long in the counting-house and outside the counting-house, settling some business of which no one else knew anything. But, after finishing his work, he hurried home now with greater haste than when, as betrothed, he flew every day to the lodgings of the Plavitskis. His old liveliness returned, his old humor and confidence in life. Soon he made a discovery which seemed to him wonderful, – namely, that not only did he love his wife with all his power as his wife and the one dearest to him, but that he was in love with her as a woman, without alarm or effort, it is true, without transitions from joy to doubts and despair, but with all the emotions of sincere feeling, with a whole movement of desire, with a continually uniform fresh sensitiveness to her feminine charm, and with an untiring care, which watches, foresees, acts, anticipates, wishes, and strives continually not to injure happiness, and not to lose it. “I shall change into an Osnovski,” said he, humorously; “but to me alone is it permitted to be an Osnovski, because my little one will never become a Pani Aneta.” He said “my little one” to her often now, but there was in that as much respect as petting. He understood, too, that he never should have loved her so, if she had been other than she was; that all was the result of her immense, honest will, and of that sort of wonderful rectitude which issued from her as naturally as heat from a hearth. Pan Stanislav knew that his mind was the more active, his thought the more far-reaching, and his knowledge profounder than her knowledge; still he felt that through her, and through her alone, all that which was in him had become in some way more finished and more noble. Through her influence all those principles acquired by him passed from his head, where they had been a dead theory, to his heart, where they became active life. He noticed, too, that not only happiness, but he himself was her work. There was in this even a little disillusion for him, since he saw, without any doubt, that had he found some common kind of woman he might have turned out some common kind of man. At times he wondered even how she could have loved him; but he called to mind then her expression, “service of God,” and that explained to him everything. For such a woman marriage, too, was “service of God,” as was love also, not by some wild power lying beyond the will of people, but precisely by an act of honest will, by serving an oath, by serving God’s law, by serving duty. Marynia loved him because he was her husband. Such was she, and that was the end of the question! For a long time Pan Stanislav was not able to see that all that which he worshipped in her was enjoined directly by the first catechism which one might take up, and that in her training had not killed the catechism. Perhaps she had not been reared with sufficient care; but she had been taught that she must serve God, and not use God to serve herself.
Pan Stanislav, not understanding well the reasons why she was what she was, admired her increasingly, honored and loved her. As to her, while taking things without exaggeration, she did not conceive an excessive opinion of herself; she understood, however, that life had never been so pleasant for her as it then was; that she had passed through certain trials; that during those trials she had acted honorably; that she had endured the trials with patience; that the Lord God had rewarded her. And this feeling filled her with peace. Her health came back completely; she felt, therewith, very pleasant, and very much beloved. That “Stas,” whom formerly she had feared a little, inclined his dark head frequently to her knees with submissiveness almost; and she thought with delight that “that man was not at all bending by nature, and that if he did bend, it was because he loved much.” And she just grew every day. Gratitude rose in her, and she paid him for his love with her whole heart.
The young “Aryan” filled his rôle of a ray in the house splendidly. Sometimes it was, indeed, a ray connected with noise; but when he was in good-humor, and when, lying in his favorite position, with his legs raised at right angles, he drew cries of delight from himself, all the male and female population of the house gathered around his cradle. Marynia covered his legs, calling him “naughty boy;” but he pulled off the cover every instant, thinking, evidently, that if a man of character has determined to kick, he should hold out in his undertaking bravely. He laughed while he kicked, showing his little toothless gums, crowing, twittering like a sparrow, cooing like a dove, or mewing like a cat. On such occasions his nurse and mother talked for whole hours with him. Professor Vaskovski, who had lost his head over the boy altogether, maintained with perfect seriousness that that was an “esoteric speech,” which should be phonographed by scientists, for it might either disclose thoroughly the mystery of astral existence, or, at least, touch on its main indications.
In this way the winter months passed in the house of the Polanyetskis. In January, Pan Stanislav began to make journeys on some business, and after each return he had long consultations with Bigiel. But from the middle of January he stayed at home permanently, never going out, unless to the counting-house, or to take short excursions with Marynia and Stas in the carriage. The uniformity of their life, or rather the uniformity of its calmness and happiness, was interrupted only by news of acquaintances in the city, brought most frequently by Pani Bigiel. In this way Marynia learned that Panna Ratkovski, who, of late, had not shown herself anywhere, had established a refuge for children from the income secured her by Panna Helena, and that Osnovski had gone really to Egypt, not alone, however, but with his “Anetka,” with whom, after returning to health, he reunited himself. Pan Kresovski, the former second of Mashko, had seen them in Trieste, and declared to Pan Stanislav ironically that “the lady had the look of a submissive penitent.” Pan Stanislav, knowing from experience how a person is crushed in misfortune, and what sincerity there may be in penitence, replied with perfect seriousness that since her husband had received Pani Osnovski, no decent man had a right to be more exacting than he was.
But later news came from Italy which was more wonderful, and so unheard of that it became the subject of talk, not only for the Polanyetskis and the Bigiels, but the whole city, – namely, that the artist Svirski had asked in Rome for the hand of Panna Castelli, and that they would be married immediately after Easter. Marynia was so much roused by this that she persuaded her husband to write to Svirski and ask if it were true. An answer came in ten days; and when Pan Stanislav entered his wife’s room at last with the letter, holding it by the corner of the envelope, and with the words, “Letter from Rome!” the serious Marynia ran up to him, with cheeks red from curiosity, and the two, standing temple to temple, read as follows: —
“Is it true? No, dear friends, it is not true! But that you should understand why that could not take place, and can never take place, I must speak to you of Pan Ignas. He came here three days since. First I persuaded him to remain in Florence, then to glance at Sienna, Parma, and especially Ravenna. Thence I send him to Athens, and to-morrow he will go by way of Brindisi. Meanwhile he sat with me from morning till evening. I saw that something was troubling the man, and wishing to turn direct conversation to things which concerned him more closely, I asked yesterday carelessly if he had not in his portfolio a half a dozen sonnets on Ravenna. And do you know what took place? At first he grew pale, and answered, ‘Not yet,’ but added that he would begin to write soon; then he threw his hat on the floor suddenly, and began to sob like a child. Never have I seen an outburst of similar suffering. He just wrung his hands, saying that he had murdered his talent; that there was nothing more left in him; that never would he have power to write another line; that he would prefer a hundred times that Panna Helena had not saved him. You see what is happening within him; while people will say, surely, that he does not write because he has money. And this, beyond doubt, will remain so. They have killed the poor man, murdered soul and talent in him, put out the strong fire from which light and warmth might have come to people. And that, see you, I could not forget. God be with Panna Castelli! but it was not right for her to pluck such feathers to make for herself a fan, which she threw out of the window soon after. No! I could not forget this! Never mind what I said in Warsaw, that now she must find a Prince Crapulescu, since no one else will take her; for, besides that kind, there are blind men in the world also, – plenty of them. As to me, I am neither Prince Crapulescu, nor blind. It is permitted to forgive wrongs done to one’s self, but not those done to others; for that would be too easy. And this is all that I can tell you touching this matter, for you yourselves know the rest. I am waiting out the year; then I shall repeat my prayer to Panna Ratkovski. If she wants me, or rejects me, may God bless her in every case; but still that is my unchangeable decision.”
“Indeed!” interrupted Marynia; “but whence did such news come?”
But in the continuation of the letter Svirski gave an exact answer.
“All this gossip” (wrote he), “may have arisen from this that I have seen those ladies rather often. You remember that, during my former stay in Rome, Pani Bronich wrote to me first, and I was with them. Panna Castelli, instead of seeking evasions, blamed herself. I confess that that affected me. Let people say what they like, still in an open confession of fault there is a certain awakening of honesty, a certain courage, a certain turn, a groan of sorrow, which, if it does not redeem the offence, may redeem the soul. And believe me that in this which I say there is more than my heart of butter. Think, also, that in truth it is evil for them. Are the times few in which I have seen the hesitation with which they approach people, and how they are received by persons who have the courage of their principles? So much bitterness has gathered in these two women, that, as Vaskovski said with truth once, they are beginning to be embittered against themselves. That is a terrible position, in which one belongs, as it were, to the world, and carries the burden of a notable scandal. God be with them! Much might be written of this; but I remember always what Panna Helena said, – that one must not despair of a man while he lives. That unfortunate Lineta has changed from grief; she has grown thin and ugly, and I am very sorry for her. I am sorry even for Pani Bronich, who, it is true, bores holes in people’s ears with her lies; but she does it out of attachment to that girl. Still, as I have said, it is permitted only to forgive wrongs done ourselves; but a man would be a kind of gorilla, and not a Christian, if he did not feel a little pity over the misfortunes of people. Whether I shall have the heart to go to them again after having seen the despair of Ignas, I know not. I am not sorry, however, that I was there. People will talk; they will stop talking; and after a year or so, if God grant me and that dear maiden to wait it out, they will see that they are talking nonsense.”
The letter finished with a reference to the Osnovskis, of whose reunion Svirski knew; he had heard, even, various details which were unknown to Pan Stanislav.
“To think” (wrote he) “that God is more powerful than the perversity of man, and also is fabulously merciful, and that sometimes He permits misfortune to beat a man on the head as with a hammer, so as to knock some spark of honesty out of him. I believe now even in the rebirth of such as Pani Aneta. Maybe it is naïve in me, but at times I admit that there are no people in the world who are completely bad. See, something quivered in Pani Aneta even; she nursed him in his sickness. Oi, those women! Everything is so turned around in my head that soon I shall not have an opinion, not merely about them, but about anything.”