On the Field of Glory

CHAPTER XI

They were unable to go that same day to Belchantska, for Pan Gideon weakened considerably after bleeding, and said that some rest was needed. Next morning, however, he felt brighter; he had grown young, as it were, and he approached his own mansion with good hope, though with a certain disquiet. Occupied with his own thoughts entirely, he spoke little along the way with the prelate, but when they were entering the village he felt his disquiet increasing.

"This is a wonder to me," said he. "Ere this time I came home as a man who is master, and all others were concerned about this, with what face would I greet them; while now I am the anxious one, I ask myself how will they greet me."

"Virgil has said," replied the prelate, "'amor omnia vincit' (love conquers everything), but he forgot to add, that it changes everything also. This Delilah will not shear your locks, for you are bald, but that I shall see you spinning at her feet, as Hercules spun at the feet of Omphale, is certain."

"Ei! my nature is not of that kind. I have known always how to hold in my fists both servants and household."

"So people say, but for this very reason it lies in the position that some one will take you in hand very thoroughly."

"The hand is a dear one!" said Pan Gideon, with a joyousness which for him was unusual.

They drove very slowly, for the mud in the village was terrible; since they had started from Radom not so soon after midday, night had fallen already. In the cottages at the two sides of the road light came from the windows and stretched in red lines to the cottages opposite. Here and there near the fence appeared some human form, that of a woman, or of a man who, seeing the travellers, bared his head and bowed as low as his girdle. It was clear from these bowings, which seemed excessive, that Pan Gideon held people in his fist, nay more, that he held them too firmly, and that Father Voynovski blamed him, not without reason, for tyranny. But the old noble felt in his bosom a softer heart than had ever been in it till that evening, so looking at those bent figures, and seeing the windows of those cottages leaning earthward, he said, -

"I will grant some favor to those subjects whose part she takes always."

"Oh, see to it that thou do so," said the prelate.

And they were silent. Pan Gideon was occupied for a time with his own thoughts, then he added, -

"I know that you need no advice in this matter; but you must explain to the lady what a benefaction is becoming ready for her, and that I think about her first of all; but in case of resistance, which I do not expect, – well, then even scold her in some degree."

"You said that you did not wish to constrain her."

"I said so, but it is one thing if I were to threaten, and another if some one else, who, besides, is a spiritual person, exposes her ingratitude."

"Leave that task to me. I have undertaken it and will use my best efforts; but I will talk to the girl in the most tender way possible."

"Very well, very well! But one word more. She feels great abhorrence for Tachevski, but should there be any mention of him it would be well to say something more against him."

"If he has acted as you say, this will not be needed."

"We are arriving. Well! In the name of the Father and the Son-"

"And the Holy Ghost-Amen!"

They arrived, but no one came out to meet them, for the wheels made no sound because of deep mud, and the dogs did not bark at the horses or at the men, whom they recognized. It was dark in the hall, for the servants were evidently sitting in the kitchen; and it happened that when Pan Gideon first called, "Is any one here?" no one came to him, and at the second call, in sharper tones, the young lady herself appeared.

She came holding a light in her hand, but since she was in the gleam of it and they in the darkness she, not seeing them at once, remained near the threshold; and they did not speak for a moment since to begin with, it seemed a special sign to them, that she had come out before others, and second, because her beauty astonished them as much as if they had never beheld it till that moment.

The fingers with which she grasped the candle seemed transparent and rosy; the gleam crept along her bosom, lighted her lips and her small face which looked somewhat drowsy and sad, perhaps because her eyes were in a deep shade while her forehead and the glorious bright hair, which was as a crown just above it, were still in full radiance. And she all in quiet and splendor stood there in the gloom like an angel created from ruddy brightness.

"Oh, as God is dear to me, a vision!" said the prelate.

Then Pan Gideon called, -

"Anulka!"

Leaving the light on a nitch of the chimney, she ran to them and gave greeting, joyously. Pan Gideon pressed her to his heart with much feeling, commanded her to rejoice at the arrival of a guest so distinguished, a man famous as a giver of counsel, and when after greeting they entered the dining-hall he asked, -

"Is supper over?"

"No. The servants were to bring it from the kitchen, and that is why no one was standing at the entrance."

The prelate looked at the old noble, and asked, -

"Then perhaps without waiting?"

"No, no," answered Pan Gideon, "Pani Vinnitski will be here directly."

Thereupon Pani Vinnitski made herself felt in reality, and fifteen minutes later they sat down to heated wine and fried eggs. The prelate ate and drank well, but at the end of the supper his face became serious, and he said, turning to Panna Anulka, -

"My gracious young lady, God knows why people call me a counsellor and why they take advice of me, but since your guardian does so, I must speak with you on a certain task of importance which he has given my poor wit to accomplish."

When Pan Gideon heard this, the veins swelled on his forehead; the young lady paled somewhat, and rose in disquiet, for, through some unknown reason, it seemed to her that the prelate would talk about Yatsek.

"I beg you to another room," said he.

And they left the dining-hall.

Pan Gideon sighed deeply once and a second time; then he drummed on the table with his fingers, and feeling the need of talking down his internal emotion by words of some kind, he said to Pani Vinnitski, -

"Have you noticed how all the relatives of my late wife hate Anulka?"

"Especially the Krepetskis," answered Pani Vinnitski.

"Ha! they almost grit their teeth when they see her; but soon they will grit them still harder."

"How is that?"

"You will learn in good season; but meanwhile we must find a bed for the prelate."

After a time Pan Gideon was alone. Two servants came to remove the supper dishes, but he sent them away with a quick burst of anger, and there was silence in the dining-hall, only the great Dantsic clock repeated loudly and with importance: tik-tak! tik-tak! Pan Gideon placed his hand on his bald head and began to walk in the chamber. He approached the door beyond which the prelate was talking with Anulka, but he heard merely sounds in which he distinguished the voice but not the words of the prelate. So in turn he walked and halted. He went to the window, for it seemed to him that there he would breathe with more freedom. He looked for a while at the sky, with eyes from which expression had vanished, – that sky over which the wind was hurrying the torn clouds of spring, with light on their upper edges through which the pale moon seemed to rise higher and higher. As often as he rested an evil foreboding took hold of him. He looked through the window close to which black limbs of trees were wrestling back and forth with the wind, as if in torment; in the same way his thoughts were struggling back and forth, disordered, evil, resembling reproaches of conscience, and painful forebodings that some bad thing would happen, and that near punishment was waiting-but when it grew bright out of doors, again better hope entered him.

Every one has a right to think of his own happiness-as to Yatsek Tachevski it was of little importance what such people do! What was the question at present? The happiness and calm future of a young girl; but besides this there smiled on him a little life in his old age-and this belongs to him. This only is real, the rest is wind, wind!

And he felt again a turning of the head, and black spots danced before his vision, but that lasted very briefly. Then he approached the door behind which his fate was in the balance. Meanwhile the light on the table acquired a long wick and the chamber grew gloomy. At times the voice of the prelate became sharper, so that words would have reached the ear of Pan Gideon had it not been for that loud and continuous "tik-tak." It was easy to understand that such a conversation could not end quickly, still, Pan Gideon's alarm grew and grew, turning, as it were, into certain wonderful questions woven into the past, with memories not only of former misfortunes and pain, but also of former unextinguished transgressions, of former grievous sins, and of recent injustices inflicted not only on Tachevski, but on others.

"Why and wherefore shouldst thou be happy?" asked his conscience.

And he would have given at that moment he knew not how much if even Pani Vinnitski might return to the chamber, so that he should not be alone with those thoughts of his. But Pani Vinnitski was occupied somewhere with work in another part of the mansion, while in that dining-hall there was nothing but the clock with its "tik-tak!"

"For what deed should God reward thee?" asked his conscience.

Pan Gideon felt now that if that girl, who was at once like a flower and an angel, should fail him, there would be a darkness in his life which would last till the night of death should descend on him.

With that the door opened on a sudden and Panna Sieninski came in from the next chamber. She was pale; there were tears in her eyes; and behind her was the prelate.

"Art thou weeping?" asked Pan Gideon, with a hoarse, stifled voice.

"From gratitude, guardian," cried she, stretching her hands to him.

And she fell at his knees there.

CHAPTER XII

That evening, or late at night, Pani Vinnitski appeared in the room of her relative, and, finding the young lady still dressed, she talked to her.

"I cannot recover from amazement," said she; "sooner should I have looked for death than that such an idea should have come to the head of Pan Gideon."

"Neither did I look for it."

"How is it then? And is it so, really? I know not what to do, to be glad, or the opposite. We know that the prelate as a spiritual person has better judgment than the laity. He is right when he says that till death thou wilt have a roof over thy head, and that roof thy own, not another's. But Pan Gideon is old" – here she spoke lower-"art thou not a little afraid of him?"

"It is all in the past; there is nothing to think of at present," answered Anulka.

"How dost thou say that?"

"I say that I owe him gratitude for a refuge, and a morsel of bread, and that these are poorly paid for by my person which no one else cares for; but since he cares, that too, is a favor on his part."

"He began long ago to wish for this," said the old woman mysteriously. "After he had talked to-day with thee he called me. I thought that there was something wrong with the supper, and that he would reproach me, but he said nothing. I saw that for some reason he was cheerful, and all at once he broke the news to me. My legs trembled under me. 'What is the matter?' asked he. 'You are turned, like Lot's wife, to a pillar of salt,' said he. 'Is it because I have taken such a mushroom?' 'No,' I answered, 'but because it is so unexpected.' 'With me,' said he, then, 'that is an old idea. Like a fish at the bottom of a river it was unknown till some one helped it to swim to the surface. And dost thou know who that was?' I felt sure that it was the prelate. 'Not at all,' said he, 'but Pan Grothus.'"

A moment of silence followed.

"But I thought Pan Yatsek-" said Anulka through her set teeth.

"Why Yatsek?"

"To show that he did not care for me."

"Thou knowest that Yatsek has not seen Pan Gideon."

Then Anulka began to repeat feverishly, -

"Yes, I know! He had something else in his head! Let that go! I do not want to know anything. I do not, I do not! It is all finished, and finished forever."

A dry, nervous weeping shook her bosom. After a moment she repeated again, -

"It is finished beyond recall!" Then they knelt down to an "Our Father," which they repeated each evening in company.

Next day Anulka appeared with a calm face, but something had changed in her, something remained unexpressed, something had shut itself up in her. She was not sad, but all at once, she had grown, as it were, some years older, and she had in her now a certain calm dignity, so that Pan Gideon, who hitherto had taken into account himself only, began without noting it, to consider her also. In general he was unable to command himself, and it seemed to him specially strange that he felt in some sense his dependence on Anulka. He began to fear those thoughts which she did not express, but which she might conceal in her spirit. He tried to forestall such, and put in place of them others, of the kind which he wanted. Even the silence of Pani Vinnitski was oppressive and seemed to him suspicious; so he worked out fantastic pictures, talked, joked, but there flashed up in his steel eyes at times certain gleams of impatience.

Meanwhile news of his engagement had gone through the neighborhood. Of this engagement he now made no secret; on the contrary, he sent letters announcing it to Pan Serafin, and to his nearest neighbors; he wrote letters to the Kohanovskis, to the Podlodovskis, to the Sulgostovskis, to Pan Grothus, to the Krepetskis, and even to distant relatives of his late wife, with invitations to the betrothal, after which the marriage would be celebrated immediately.

Pan Gideon would have preferred to get a dispensation from the banns even, but unfortunately it was the Lenten season, and he had to wait till after Easter. He took both women, therefore, to Radom where the young lady was to find her wedding outfit, and he to buy horses more showy than those which he had at that time in his stables.

Reports came to him that among the relatives who had hoped to inherit everything not only after his late wife, but after him, there was as much movement as there is in a beehive; but this pleased him, since he hated them all from his innermost spirit, and was planning at all times to harm them. Those tidings of meetings, whispered conferences, and counsels shortened his visit to Radom. And when at last his stay there was ended, and the horses together with new harness were purchased, he returned on Easter eve to his mansion. Guests began to arrive almost at the same time, for the betrothal was to take place on the third day after Easter.

First came the Krepetskis who were both the nearest relatives and nearest neighbors. The father was almost eighty years old, with the visage of a vulture, and renowned as a miser. He had three daughters: Tekla, the youngest, was pretty and pleasant; Agneshka and Johanna were not youthful, they were testy old maids with pimples on their cheeks at all seasons. He had a son, Martsian, nicknamed Pniak (stump) in the neighborhood. He bore the name justly, for at the first glance he seemed a great stump; he had a mighty chest, and broad shoulders. His bow-legs were so short that he was almost dwarflike, and his arms reached his kneepans. Some thought him a hunchback; he was not, however, but his head without a neck was fixed so closely to his body that his high shoulders reached his ears, very nearly. Out of that head peered prominent, lustful eyes, and his face was like that of a he-goat. A small beard which he wore as if in defiance of general custom, increased the resemblance.

He did not serve as a warrior, for he had been ridiculed from service, for which reason he had had in his time many duels. There was uncommon strength in his stumpy body, and people feared him in all places, since he was a quarreller and a road-blocker, who, in every affair, was glad to seek pretexts; he was as irritable as a vicious beast, and wounded savagely in Radom one Krepetski, his cousin, a handsome and worthy young man who almost died of the injuries then inflicted. He felt respect only for Yatsek, whose skill at the sabre was known to him, and before the Bukoyemskis, one of whom, Lukash, threw him over a fence like a bundle of straw once in Yedlina. He had the deserved reputation of being a great profligate. Pan Gideon had driven him out of the mansion a few years before that, because he had looked too much in goat fashion at Panna Anulka, a little girl at that period. But since then some years had passed, and, as they had met later in Radom, and in neighboring houses, Pan Gideon invited him now with the family.

Immediately after the Krepetskis came the Sulgostovskis, twin brothers, who so resembled each other that when they put on coats of like fashion no man could distinguish them; next came three remote Sulgostovskis from beyond Prityk-and then a numerous family formed of nine people, the handsome Zabierzovskis. From Yedlinka came Pan Serafin, but alone, since his son had gone to his regiment already; Pan Podlodovski, the starosta, once the agent of the great lord in Zamost; the Kohanovskis; the priest from Prityk; the prelate Tvorkovski from Radom, who was to bless the ring, and many small nobles from near and distant places, some even without invitation, with this idea, that a guest though quite unknown would be sure to find welcome, and that when there is a chance to eat and drink a man should not miss it.

Belchantska was crowded with carriages and wagons, the stables were filled with horses, the outbuildings with servants of all sorts; everywhere in the mansion were colored coats, sabres, shaven foreheads; and with these went Latin, the twittering of women, farthingales, laces, and various ornaments. Maids were flying around with hot water, and tipsy servants with excellent wine in decanters. From morning until night-hours the kitchen was steaming like a tar pit. The windows of the mansion gleamed and flashed every evening, so that the whole place around there was radiant.

And amid all this tumult Pan Gideon moved through the chambers, walked about and gave welcome, magnificent, important, grown young as it were for the second time, dressed in crimson, and wearing a sabre which glittered with jewels, a sabre which Panna Anulka had inherited; it was her only dowry from wealthy forefathers. If giddiness seized him he leaned on an armchair, and again he moved forward, showed honor to guests who were personages, and struck one heel against the other when greeting older ladies; but above all he followed with eyes which were more and more enamoured "his Anulka," who bloomed in that many-colored throng. Amid glances which were frequently ill-wishing, frequently jealous, and filled sometimes with venom, she was as fair as a lily, somewhat sad, or only conscious, it may be, of the weight of that fact which she had to encounter.

Thus things continued till the evening of the third day, that is, Tuesday, when the mortars of the mansion thundered in the yard, thus announcing to the guests and the country that the solemn moment had come, the moment of betrothal.

The guests ranged themselves then as a half-circle in the drawing-room, men and women in splendid costumes bright as a rainbow in the light of the candles. In front of them stood Pan Gideon and Panna Anulka. Silence settled down, and the eyes of all people were fixed on the bride, who with downcast eyes, with attention and dignity on her face, without a smile, but not sad, seemed as if drowsy.

The prelate Tvorkovski in his surplice, having near him young Tekla Krepetski, who held a silver plate with rings on it, advanced from the half-circle and addressed those who were soon to be married. He spoke learnedly, long, and with eloquence, showing what were the sponsalia de futuro, and what great importance from the earliest days of Christianity was attached to betrothals. He quoted Tertullian, and the Council of Trent, and the opinion of various learned canonists, then turning to Pan Gideon and Panna Sieninski he explained to them how wise their decision was, what great benefaction they promised each other, and how their future happiness depended on themselves only.

Those present listened with admiration, but also with impatience, for as relatives from whom their inheritance was slipping they looked on that marriage with repugnance. Pan Gideon, who from standing long had grown dizzy, began to rest on one leg and then on the other, and to give signs with his eyes to the prelate to finish; these signs he was not quick to notice, but at last he blessed the rings and put them on the fingers of the affianced.

Then the mortars thundered again in the yard, and from the gallery in the dining-hall was heard a loud orchestra made up of five Radom Jews who played nicely. The guests came now in turn to congratulate, for the greater part with sourness and insincerely. The two Krepetski old maids simply jeered as they courtesied to their "Aunt," and Pan Martsian, when kissing her hands, recommended himself to her graces with such a goat glance that Pan Gideon ought to have driven him from the mansion a second time.

But others, more remote relatives, being better and less greedy, gave sincere, cordial wishes. Now the door of the dining-hall was thrown open; Pan Gideon gave his arm to his betrothed, and after him moved the other couples amid the glitter and the quivering of flames caused by a sudden cold gust which had blown through the entrance. From the kitchen came the servants, half tipsy, with decanters of wine and an unreckonable number of dishes.

From the opening of doors there was such cold air in the dining-hall that guests, while sitting down to the table, were seized the first moment with a shiver, while the flickering of candles made the whole hall, in spite of its elegant furnishing, seem dark and gloomy. But it was proper to hope that wine would soon warm the blood in all present, and wine was not spared by Pan Gideon. He was rather stingy in every-day life, but on exceptional occasions he liked so to show himself that people spoke long of him afterward. This happened now. Behind every guest an attendant was standing with a mossy and big-bellied bottle, while under the table were hidden a number of servants with bottles also, so that in case a guest could not find more to drink on the table he put down a goblet twixt his knees and they filled it immediately. Immense glasses for drinkers, great goblets, glittered in front of each man, but before ladies were smaller glasses, either French or Italian.

The guests did not occupy the whole table, however, for Pan Gideon had commanded to set more plates than there were guests in the mansion. The prelate cast his eyes on those empty places and fell to praising the hospitality of the house and the master; at that moment he rose in his chair somewhat, wishing to arrange the folds of his soutane, hence those present supposed that he was going to offer the earliest toast, and were silent.

"We are listening!" said a number of voices.

"Oh, there is no reason," said the prelate, with joyousness. "There is no toast yet, though the time will come soon for it. I see some of you gentlemen rubbing your heads rather early, and the Kohanovskis are whispering as well as counting on their fingers. It is difficult to expect rhymes from any if not from the Kohanovskis. I wish to say only that it is an old Polish and praiseworthy custom to leave thus a place for a guest who is unexpected."

"Oh," answered Pan Gideon, "as the house is lighted up some one may come from the darkness."

"And perhaps some one is coming," said Kohanovski. "It may be Pan Grothus?"

"No- Pan Grothus has gone to the Diet. If a man comes he will be unexpected."

"But the earth is soft, we shall not hear him."

"Well, a dog is barking under the window, so some one is coming."