My Dear,—I am lodging at Via Tritone, Pension Française. Visit my Warsaw lodgings; see if Snopchinski looks after my little boys properly, and if the birds of Saint Francis have seeds and water in plenty. When spring comes, it will be needful to open the windows and cages; whichever bird wishes to stay, let it stay, and whichever one wishes to go, let it fly. The boys of the genushomo sapiensshould have good food, since I left money therefor, and besides little moralizing, but much love. Snopchinski is a worthy man, but a hypochondriac. He says this comes from snows. When he is attacked by what he calls “chandra,” he looks for whole weeks on his boots, and is silent; but one must talk with little boys, to give them confidence. This is all that touches Warsaw.I am printing here in French, in the typography of the journal “L’Italie,” that work of mine which I discussed with thee. They laugh at my French a little, and at me, but I am used to that. Bukatski came here. He is a good, beloved fellow! he has grown strange to the last degree, and says that he drags his feet after him, though I have not noticed it. He loves both Marynia and thee, and indeed every one, though he denies it. But when he begins to talk, one’s ears wither. May the Lord God bless thee, dear boy, and thy honest Marynia! I should like to be at thy wedding, but I know not whether I shall finish my work before Easter; listen, therefore, now to what I tell thee, and know that I write this letter to that end. Donot think that the old man is talking just to talk. Thou knowest, besides, that I have been a teacher; that the inheritance from my brother freed me from that occupation; that I have had experience and have seen things. If ye have children, do not torture them with knowledge; let them grow up as God wills. I might stop here; but thou art fond of figures, hence I will give thee figures. A little child has as many hours of labor as a grown man in office, with this difference, that the man talks during office hours with his colleagues, or smokes cigarettes; the child must strain its attention continually, or lose the clew of lessons, and cease to understand what is said to it. The man goes home when his work is done; the child must prepare for the following day, which takes four hours from a capable child, from one less capable six. Add to this, that poorer pupils give lessons frequently, the rich take them, which, added, gives twelve hours. Twelve hours’ labor for a child! Dost understand that, my dear? Canst thou realize what sickly natures must grow up in such conditions,—natures out of joint, inclined to the wildest manias, crooked, wilful? Dost thou understand how we are filling cemeteries with our children, and why the most monstrous ideas find supporters? Ah, at present they are limiting the hours of labor in factories even for grown people, but touching children at school philanthropy is silent. Oh, but that is a field! that is a service to be rendered; that is a coming glory and sainthood. Do not torture thy children with learning, I beg thee—and I beg Marynia; promise me both of you. I do not speak just to speak, as Bukatski says sometimes, but I speak from the heart; and this is the greatest reform for which future ages are waiting, the greatest after the introduction of Christ into history. Something wonderful happened to me in Perugia a few days since, but of that I will tell thee sometime, and now I embrace both of you.
My Dear,—I am lodging at Via Tritone, Pension Française. Visit my Warsaw lodgings; see if Snopchinski looks after my little boys properly, and if the birds of Saint Francis have seeds and water in plenty. When spring comes, it will be needful to open the windows and cages; whichever bird wishes to stay, let it stay, and whichever one wishes to go, let it fly. The boys of the genushomo sapiensshould have good food, since I left money therefor, and besides little moralizing, but much love. Snopchinski is a worthy man, but a hypochondriac. He says this comes from snows. When he is attacked by what he calls “chandra,” he looks for whole weeks on his boots, and is silent; but one must talk with little boys, to give them confidence. This is all that touches Warsaw.
I am printing here in French, in the typography of the journal “L’Italie,” that work of mine which I discussed with thee. They laugh at my French a little, and at me, but I am used to that. Bukatski came here. He is a good, beloved fellow! he has grown strange to the last degree, and says that he drags his feet after him, though I have not noticed it. He loves both Marynia and thee, and indeed every one, though he denies it. But when he begins to talk, one’s ears wither. May the Lord God bless thee, dear boy, and thy honest Marynia! I should like to be at thy wedding, but I know not whether I shall finish my work before Easter; listen, therefore, now to what I tell thee, and know that I write this letter to that end. Donot think that the old man is talking just to talk. Thou knowest, besides, that I have been a teacher; that the inheritance from my brother freed me from that occupation; that I have had experience and have seen things. If ye have children, do not torture them with knowledge; let them grow up as God wills. I might stop here; but thou art fond of figures, hence I will give thee figures. A little child has as many hours of labor as a grown man in office, with this difference, that the man talks during office hours with his colleagues, or smokes cigarettes; the child must strain its attention continually, or lose the clew of lessons, and cease to understand what is said to it. The man goes home when his work is done; the child must prepare for the following day, which takes four hours from a capable child, from one less capable six. Add to this, that poorer pupils give lessons frequently, the rich take them, which, added, gives twelve hours. Twelve hours’ labor for a child! Dost understand that, my dear? Canst thou realize what sickly natures must grow up in such conditions,—natures out of joint, inclined to the wildest manias, crooked, wilful? Dost thou understand how we are filling cemeteries with our children, and why the most monstrous ideas find supporters? Ah, at present they are limiting the hours of labor in factories even for grown people, but touching children at school philanthropy is silent. Oh, but that is a field! that is a service to be rendered; that is a coming glory and sainthood. Do not torture thy children with learning, I beg thee—and I beg Marynia; promise me both of you. I do not speak just to speak, as Bukatski says sometimes, but I speak from the heart; and this is the greatest reform for which future ages are waiting, the greatest after the introduction of Christ into history. Something wonderful happened to me in Perugia a few days since, but of that I will tell thee sometime, and now I embrace both of you.
Marynia listened to this letter, looking at the tips of her shoes, like that Snopchinski of whom the Professor wrote. But Pan Stanislav laughed, and said,—
“Have you ever heard anything like this? It is long before our marriage; but he is lamenting over our children, and takes the field on their behalf. This is somewhat the history of my nest.”
After a while he added, “To tell the truth, the fault is mine; for I made him various promises.” And, inclining so that he could see Marynia’s eyes, he asked, “But what do you say to this letter?”
Pan Stanislav, inquiring thus, had chanced on that unhappy moment when a man is not himself, and acts not in accordance with his own nature. He was rather a harsh person generally, but not brutal, and at times was even capable of delicate acts, really womanlike. But now, in his look and in the question directed to a young lady somimosa-like as Marynia, there was something simply brutal. She knew as well as others that after marriage come children; but this seemed to her something indefinite, not to be mentioned, or if mentioned, mentioned in allusions as delicate as lace, or in a moment of emotion, with beating heart, with loving lips at the ear, with solemnity,—as touching what is most sacred in a mutual future. Hence Pan Stanislav’s careless tone outraged and pained her. She thought, “Why does he not understand this?” and she in turn acted not in accordance with her nature; for, as happens frequently with timid persons in moments of bitterness and confusion, they exhibit greater anger than they feel.
“You should not treat me in this way!” cried she, indignantly. “You should not speak to me in this way!”
Pan Stanislav laughed again with feigned gayety.
“Why are you angry?” inquired he.
“You do not act with me as is proper.”
“I do not understand the question.”
“So much the worse.”
The smile vanished from his lips; his face grew dark, and he spoke quickly, like a man who has ceased to reckon with his words.
“Perhaps I am stupid; but I know what is right and what is not. In this way life becomes impossible. Whoever makes great things out of nothing must not blame others. But, since my presence is disagreeable, I go!”
And, seizing his hat, he bowed, and went out. Marynia did not try to detain him. For a while offence and anger stifled in her all other sensations; then there remained to her only an impression, as if from the blow of a club. Her thoughts scattered like a flock of birds. Above them towered only one dim idea: “All is over! he will not return!” Thus fell the structure which had begun to unite in such beautiful lines. Emptiness, nothingness, a torturing, because objectless life, and a chilled heart,—that is what remained to her. And happiness had been so near! But that which had taken place so suddenly was something so strange that she could not explain immediately. She went to the writing-desk, and began mechanically to arrange papers in it, with a certain objectless haste, as if there could be any reason at that moment for arranging them. Then she looked at Litka’s photograph, and sat down quickly with her hands on her eyes and temples. After a time itoccurred to her that Litka’s will must be stronger than the will of them both, and a ray of hope shone in on her suddenly. She began to walk in the room, and to think on what had passed; she recalled Pan Stanislav, not only as he had been just then, but earlier,—two, three days, a week before. Her regret became greater than her feeling of offence, and it increased with her affection for Pan Stanislav. After a time she said in her soul that she was not free to forget herself; that it was her duty to accept and love Pan Stanislav as he was, and not strive to fix him to her ideas. “That is, he is a living man, not a puppet,” repeated she, a number of times. And a growing feeling of fault seized her, and after that compunction. A heart submissive by nature, and greatly capable of loving, struggled against sound sense, which she possessed undoubtedly, and which now told her in vain that reason was not on Pan Stanislav’s side, and that, moreover, she had said nothing which needed pardon. She said to herself, “If he has a good heart, even to a small extent, he will return;” but she was seized also with fear in view of the self-love of men in general, and of Pan Stanislav in particular,—she was too intelligent not to note that he cared greatly to pass for an unbending person. But considerations of that kind, which an unfriendly heart would have turned to his disadvantage, had made her tender only on his behalf.
Half an hour later she was convinced to the depth of her soul that the fault lay only on her side; that “she had tormented him so much already” that she ought to yield now,—that is, to be the first to extend a hand in conciliation. That meant in her mind to write a few peace-making words. He had suffered so much from that affair of Kremen that this was due to him. And she was ready even to weep over his fate. She hoped, withal, that he, the bad, ugly man, would estimate what it cost her to write to him, and would come that same evening.
It had seemed to her that nothing was easier than to write a few cordial phrases, which go directly from one heart to another. But how difficult! A letter has no eyes, which fill with tears; no face, which smiles both sadly and sweetly; no voice, which trembles; no hands to stretch forth. You may read and understand a letter as you like; it is merely black letters on paper as impassive as death.
Marynia had just torn the third sheet, when the face of Pan Plavitski, as wrinkled as a roast apple, and withmustaches freshly dyed, showed itself at the door partly open.
“Is Polanyetski not here?” inquired he.
“He is not, papa.”
“But will he come this evening?”
“I do not know,” answered she, with a sigh.
“If he comes, my child, tell him that I will return not later than an hour from now; and that I wish to speak with him.”
“And I too wish to speak with him,” thought Marynia.
And when she had torn the third sheet she took the fourth and was thinking whether to turn the whole quarrel into a jest, or simply to beg his pardon. The jest might not please him; in the pardon there was something warmer, but how difficult it was! If he had not fled, it would have sufficed to extend her hand; but he flew out as if shot from a sling, the irritable man, though so much loved.
And, raising her eyes, she began to work intently with her dark head, when on a sudden the bell sounded in the entrance. Marynia’s heart was beating like a hammer; and through her head flew these questions, like lightning,—
“Is it he? Is it not he?”
The door opened; it was he.
He came in with the look of a wolf, his head down, his face gloomy. Evidently he was very uncertain how she would receive him; but she sprang up, her heart beating like a bird’s heart; her eyes radiant, happy, touched greatly by his return; and, running to him, she laid her hands on his shoulders.
“But how good! how nice! And do you know, I wanted to write to you.”
Pan Stanislav, pressing her hands to his lips, was silent for some time; at last he said,—
“You ought to give the order to throw me downstairs.” In a rapture of thankfulness he drew her up to him, kissed her lips, eyes, temples, and hair, which became unbound in the pressure. In such moments it seemed to him always that he would find everything that goes to make great and perfect love. At last he released her and continued,—
“You are too good. Though that is better, it subdues me. I came to beg your forgiveness, nothing more. I regained my senses at once. I reproached myself for my last words, and I cannot tell you how sorry I was. I walkedalong the street, thinking to see you in the window, perhaps, and note from your face whether I might come in. After that I could not restrain myself, and returned.”
“I beg pardon; it was my fault. You see the torn paper; I wrote and wrote.”
He devoured with his eyes her hair, which she had arranged hastily. With blushing face, from which joy was beaming, with eyes laughing from happiness, she seemed to him more beautiful than ever, and desired as never before.
Marynia noticed, too, that he was looking at her hair; and confusion struggled with pure womanly coquetry. She had fastened it awkwardly by design, so that the tresses were falling more and more on her shoulders; while she said,—
“Do not look, or I’ll go to my room.”
“But that is my wealth,” said Pan Stanislav; “and in my life I have never seen anything like it.”
He stretched his hands to her again, but she evaded.
“Not permitted, not permitted,” said she; “as it is; I am ashamed. I ought to have left you.”
Her hair, however, came gradually to order; then both sat down and conversed quietly, though looking into each other’s eyes.
“And you wished really to write?” asked Pan Stanislav.
“You see the torn paper.”
“I say that, in truth, you are too good.”
She raised her eyes, and, looking at the shelf above the bureau, said,—
“Because the fault was mine. Yes; only mine.”
And, judging that she could not be too magnanimous, she added after a moment, blushing to her ears and dropping her eyes,—
“For, after all, the professor is correct in what he writes about learning.”
Pan Stanislav wanted to kneel down and kiss her feet. Her charm and goodness not only disarmed him, but conquered him thoroughly.
“That I am annihilated is true,” cried he, as if finishing some unexpressed thought with words. “You conquer me utterly.”
She began to shake her head joyously. “Ei! I don’t know; I am such a coward.”
“You a coward? I will tell you an anecdote: In Belgium I knew two young ladies named Wauters, who hada pet cat, a mild creature, mild enough, it would seem, to be put to a wound. Afterward one of the young ladies received a tame hare as a gift. What do you think? The cat was so afraid that from terror he jumped on to every shelf and stove. One day the ladies went to walk; all at once they remembered that the cat was alone with the hare. ‘But will not Matou hurt the hare?’ ‘Matou? Matou is so terrified that he is ready to go out of his skin!’ And they walked on quietly. They came home an hour later. And guess what had happened? They found only the ears of the hare. That is precisely the relation of young ladies to us. They are afraid seemingly; but afterward nothing is left of us but ears.”
And Pan Stanislav began to laugh, and Marynia with him; after a while he added,—
“I know that of me only ears will be left.”
He did not tell the truth, however; for he felt that it would be otherwise. Marynia too, after thinking a while, said,—
“No; I have not such a character.”
“That is better too; for I will tell you sincerely what conclusions I have drawn from my life observations: the greater egotism always conquers the less.”
“Or the greater love yields to the less,” answered Marynia.
“That comes out the same. As to me, I confess that I should like to hold some Herod, see, this way, in my hand” (here Pan Stanislav opened his fingers and then closed them into a fist); “but with such a dove as you, it is quite different. With you I think we shall have to fight to restrain you from too much self-abnegation, too much personal sacrifice. Such is your nature, and I know whom I take. For that matter all say so, and even Mashko, who is no Solomon, said: ‘She may be unhappy with thee; thou with her, never.’ And he is right. But I am curious to know how Mashko will be for his wife. He has a firm hand.”
“But is he loved much?”
“Not so much as awhile ago, when a certain young lady coquetted with him.”
“Yes; for he wasn’t so wicked as a certain ‘Pan Stas.’”
“That will be a wonderful marriage. She is not ill-looking, though she is pale, and has red eyes. But Mashko marries for property. He admits that she doesn’t lovehim; and when that adventure with Gantovski took place (he is brave, too), he was certain that those ladies would choose the opportunity to break with him. Meanwhile it turned out just the opposite; and imagine, Mashko is now alarmed again, because everything moves as if on oil. It seems to him suspicious. There are certain strange things there; there exists also, as it seems, a Pan Kraslavski—God knows what there is not. The whole affair is stupid. There will be no happiness in it,—at least, not such as I picture to myself.”
“And what do you picture to yourself?”
“Happiness in this,—to marry a reliable woman, like you, and see the future clearly.”
“But I think it is in this,—to be loved; but that is not enough yet.”
“What more?”
“To be worthy of that love, and to—”
Here Marynia was unable for a time to find words, but at last she said,—
“And to believe in a husband, and work with him.”
Pan Stanislav was not mistaken. Everything went so favorably for Mashko, Pani and Panna Kraslavski acted so admirably, that he was more and more alarmed. At moments he laughed at this; and since he had had no secret from Pan Stanislav for some time, he said one day, with complete cynicism,—
“My dear, those are simply angels; but my hair stands on end, for something is hidden in this.”
“Better thank the Lord God.”
“They are too ideal; they are faultless; they are even without vanity. Yesterday, for example, I gave them to understand that I am an advocate only because to my thinking sons of the best families should undertake something in these times, be something. Guess what they answered? That that is as good a position as any other; that every employment is worthy in their eyes, provided it is work; and that only poor and empty natures could be ashamed of work. They shot out so many packages of commonplace that I wanted to answer with a sentence from copy-books, such as ‘Honor is a steep cliff,’ or something of that sort. Polanyetski, I tell thee there is something concealed there. I thought that it was papa, but it is not papa. I have news of him: he lives in Bordeaux; he calls himself De Langlais; and he has his own domestic hearth, not so much legally, as numerously, surrounded, which he maintains with a pension received from Pani Kraslavski.”
“What harm is that to thee?”
“None whatever.”
“If it is that way, they are unhappy women,—that is all.”
“True; but if their income answers to the misfortune? Remember that I have burdens. Besides, seest thou, if they are such women as they pretend, and if, also, they are rich, I am ready to fall in love really, and that would be stupid; if it appears that they have nothing, or little, I am ready, also, to fall in love, and that would be still more stupid. She has charms for me.”
“No; that would be the one wise thing in every case. But think of thyself, Mashko, a little of me and the Plavitskis. It is known to thee that I have not the habit of being mild in those matters, and the dates of payment are approaching.”
“I’ll fire up the boiler once more with credit. For that matter, thou and they have a mortgage on Kremen. In a couple of days there will be a betrothal party at Pani Kraslavski’s, after which I hope to learn something reliable.”
Here Mashko began a monologue,—
“But that a positive man, such as I am, should go into a forest in this way, passes belief. On the other hand, there is not a man, even among those who know best how every one stands, who would let himself doubt of Pani Kraslavski’s property. And they are so noble!”
“Thy fears are probably baseless,” interrupted Pan Stanislav, with certain impatience. “But thou, my dear fellow, art not positive in any sense, for thou hast been always pretending, and art pretending still, instead of looking to that which gives thee bread.”
A few days later the betrothal party took place in fact. Marynia was there; for Pani Kraslavski, who liked Plavitski, whose relatives were known to her, did not avoid association with him as she did with the Bigiels. Mashko brought such of his acquaintances as had well-known names. They had monocles on their eyes, and their hair parted in the middle; for the greater part very young, and mainly not very quick-witted. Among them were the five brothers Vyj, who were called Mizio, Kizio, Bizio, Brelochek, and Tatus. They were nicknamed the five sleeping brothers, since they felt the impulses of life in their legs exclusively, and were active only in the carnival, but became perfectly torpid, at least in a mental sense, during Lent. Bukatski loved them, and amused himself with them. Baron Kot was there, who, because he had heard something from some one of a certain ancient Kot of Dembna, added always, when he was presented, “of Dembna,” and who always answered everything that was said to him with: “Quelle drôle d’histoire!” Mashko was on the footing ofthouwith all these, though he treated them with a certain species of disregard, as well as Kopovski,—a young man with a splendid ideal head, and also splendid eyes without thought. Pan Stanislav andKresovski represented the category of Mashko’s more clever friends. Pani Kraslavski had invited a number of ladies with daughters, among whom the five brothers circled carelessly and coolly, and whose maiden hearts fluttered at the approach of Kopovski, caring less for his mental resemblance to Hamlet, resting on this,—that if not he, his brain might be put into “a nutshell.” A number of dignified bald heads completed the company.
Panna Kraslavski was dressed in white; in spite of her red eyes, she looked alluring. There was in her, indeed, a certain womanly charm, resting on a wonderful, almost dreamy repose. She recalled somewhat the figures of Perugini. At times she grew bright, like an alabaster lamp, in which a flame flashes up on a sudden; after a while she paled again, but paled not without charm. Dressed in a thin white robe, she seemed more shapely than usual. Pan Stanislav, looking at her, thought that she might have a heart which was dry enough, and a dry enough head, but she could be a genteel wife, especially for Mashko, who valued social gentility above everything else. Their manner toward each other seemed like a cool and pale day, in which the sun does not burn, but in which also a storm is not threatening. They were sitting at the end of the drawing-room, not too near, but also not too far, from the rest of the company; they occupied themselves with each other no more and no less than was proper. In his conversation with her as much feeling was evident as was required, but, above all, the wish to appear a “correct” betrothed; she paid him on her part in the same coin. They smiled at each other in a friendly way. He, as the future leader and head of the house, spoke more than she; sometimes they looked into each other’s eyes,—in a word, they formed the most correct and exemplary couple of betrothed people that could be imagined, in the society sense of the term. “I should not have held out,” said Pan Stanislav to himself. Suddenly he remembered that while she was sitting there in conventional repose, white, smiling, the poor little doctor, who could not “tear his soul from her,” was in equal repose somewhere between the tropics turning to dust, under the ground, forgotten, as if he had never existed; and anger bore him away. Not only did he feel contempt for the heart of Mashko’s betrothed, but that repose of hers seemed now bad taste to him,—a species of spiritual deadness, which once had been fashionable, and which, since they saw in it something demonic, the poets had struck with their thunderbolts, and which, in time, had grown vulgar, and dropped to be moral nonentity and folly. “First of all, she is a goose, and, moreover, a goose with no heart,” thought Pan Stanislav. At that moment Mashko’s alarm at the noble conduct of those ladies grew clear to him to such a degree that Mashko rose in his esteem as a man of acuteness.
Then he fell to comparing his own betrothed with Panna Kraslavski, and said to himself with great satisfaction, “Marynia is a different species altogether.” He felt that he was resting mentally while looking at her. In so much as the other seemed, as it were, an artificial plant, reared, not in broad fresh currents of air, but under glass, in that much did there issue from this one life and warmth, and still the comparison came out to the advantage of Marynia, even in respect to society. Pan Stanislav did not overlook altogether “distinction,” so-called, understanding that, if not always, it frequently answers to a certain mental finish, especially in women. Looking now at one, now at the other, he came to the conviction that that finish which Panna Kraslavski had was something acquired and enslaving, with Marynia it was innate. In the one it was a garment thrown on outside; in the other, the soul,—a kind of natural trait in a species ennobled through long ages of culture. Taking from Bukatski’s views as many as he needed,—that is, as many as were to the point,—Pan Stanislav remembered that he had said frequently that women, without reference to their origin, are divided into patricians, who have culture, principles, and spiritual needs, which have entered the blood, and parvenues, who dress in them, as in mantillas, to go visiting. At present, while looking at the noble profile of Marynia, Pan Stanislav thought, with the vanity of a little townsman who is marrying a princess, that he was taking a patrician in the high sense of the word; and, besides, a very beautiful patrician.
Frequently women need only some field, and a little luck, to bloom forth. Marynia, who seemed almost ugly to Pan Stanislav when he was returning from the burial of Litka, astonished him now, at times, with her beauty. Near her Panna Kraslavski seemed like a faded robe near a new one; and if the fortune of Panna Plavitski had been on a level with her looks, she would have passed, beyonddoubt, for a beauty. As it was, the five brothers, putting their glasses on their equine noses, looked at her with a certain admiration; and Baron Kot, of Dembna, declared confidentially that her betrothal was real luck, for had it not taken place, who knows but he might have rushed in.
Pan Stanislav could note also that evening one trait of his own character which he had not suspected,—jealousy. Since he was convinced that Marynia was a perfectly reliable woman, who might be trusted blindly, that jealousy was simply illogical. In his time he had been jealous of Mashko, and that could be understood; but now he could not explain why Kopovski, for example, with his head of an archangel and his brains of a bird, could annoy him, just because he sat next to Marynia, and doubtless was asking her more or less pertinent questions, to which she was answering more or less agreeably. At first he reproached himself. “Still, it would be difficult to ask her not to speak to him!” Afterward he found that Marynia turned to Kopovski too frequently, and answered too agreeably. At supper, while sitting next her, he was silent and irritated; and when she asked the reason, he answered most inappropriately,—
“I have no wish to spoil the impression which Pan Kopovski produced on you.”
But she was pleased that he was jealous; contracting the corners of her mouth to suppress laughter, and looking at him sedately, she answered,—
“Do you find, too, that there is something uncommon in Pan Kopovski?”
“Of course, of course! When he walks the streets even, it seems that he is carrying his head into fresh air, lest the moths might devour it.”
The corners of Marynia’s mouth bore the test, but her eyes laughed evidently; at last, unable to endure, she said, in a low voice,—
“Outrageously jealous!”
“I? Not the least!”
“Well, I will give you an extract from our conversation. You know that yesterday there was a case of catalepsy during the concert; to-day they were talking of that near us; then, among other things, I asked Pan Kopovski if he had seen the cataleptic person. Do you know what he answered? ‘Each of us may have different convictions.’ Well, now, isn’t he uncommon?”
Pan Stanislav was pacified, and began to laugh.
“But I tell you that he simply doesn’t understand what is said to him, and answers anything.”
They passed the rest of the evening with each other in good agreement. At the time of parting, when the Plavitskis, having a carriage with seats for only two persons, were unable to take Pan Stanislav, Marynia turned to him and inquired,—
“Will the cross, whimsical man come to-morrow to dine with us?”
“He will, for he loves,” answered Pan Stanislav, covering her feet with the robe.
She whispered into his ear, as it were great news, “And I too.”
And although he at the moment of speaking was perfectly sincere, she spoke more truth. Mashko conducted Pan Stanislav home. On the road they talked of the reception. Mashko said that before the arrival of guests he had tried to speak to Pani Kraslavski of business, but had not succeeded.
“There was a moment,” said he, “when I thought to put the question plainly, dressing it of course in the most delicate form. But I was afraid. Finally, why have I doubts of the dower of my betrothed? Only because those ladies treat me with more consideration than I expected. As a humor, that is very good; but I fear to push matters too far, for suppose that my fears turn out vain, suppose they have money really, and are incensed because my curiosity is too selfish. It is necessary to count with this also, for I may be wrecked at the harbor.”
“Well, then,” answered Pan Stanislav, “admit this, and for that matter it is likely that they have; but if it should turn out that they have not, what then? Hast a plan ready? Wilt thou break with Panna Kraslavski, or wilt thou marry her?”
“I will not break with her in any case, for I should not gain by it. If my marriage does not take place, I shall be a bankrupt. But if it does, I will state my financial position precisely, and suppose that Panna Kraslavski will break with me.”
“But if she does not, and has no money?”
“I shall love her, and come to terms with my creditors. I shall cease to ‘pretend,’ as thy phrase is, and try to win bread for us both; I am not a bad advocate, as thou knowest.”
“That is fairly good,” answered Pan Stanislav, “but that does not pacify me touching the Plavitskis and myself.”
“Thou and they are in a better position than others, for ye have a lien on Kremen. In a given case thou wilt take everything in thy firm grasp, and squeeze out something. It is worse for those who have trusted my word; and I tell thee to thy eyes that I am concerned more for them. I had, and I have great credit even now. That is my tender point. But if they give me time, I will come out somehow. If I had a little happiness at home, and a motive there for labor—”
They came now to Pan Stanislav’s house, so Mashko did not finish his thought. At the moment of parting, however, he said suddenly,—
“Listen to me. In thy eyes I am somewhat crooked; I am much less so than seems to thee. I havepretended, as thou sayst, it is true! I had to wriggle out, like an eel, and in those wrigglings I slipped sometimes from the beaten road. But I am tired, and tell thee plainly that I wish a little happiness, for I have not had it. Therefore I wanted to marry thy betrothed, though she is without property. As to Panna Kraslavski, dost thou know that there are moments when I should prefer that she had nothing, but, to make up, that she would not drop me when she knows that I too have nothing. I say this sincerely—and now good-night.”
“Well,” said Pan Stanislav to himself, “this is something new in Mashko.” And he entered the gate. Standing at the door, he was astonished to hear the piano in his apartments. The servant said that Bigiel had been waiting two hours for him.
Pan Stanislav was alarmed, but thought that if something unfavorable had caused his presence, he would not play on the piano. In fact, it turned out that Bigiel was in haste merely to get Pan Stanislav’s signature for an affair which had to be finished early next morning.
“Thou mightest have left the paper, and gone to bed,” said Pan Stanislav.
“I slept awhile on thy sofa, then sat at the piano. Once I played on the piano as well as on the violin, but now my fingers are clumsy. Thy Marynia plays probably; such music in the house is a nice thing.”
Pan Stanislav laughed with a sincere, well-wishing laugh.
“My Marynia? My Marynia possesses the evangelical talent: her left hand does not know what her right hand is doing. Poor dear woman! She has no pretensions; and she plays only when I beg her to do so.”
“Thou art as it were laughing at her,” said Bigiel; “but only those who are in love laugh in that way.”
“Because I am in love most completely. At least it seems so now to me; and in general I must say that it seems so to me oftener and oftener. Wilt thou have tea?”
“Yes. Thou hast come from Pani Kraslavski’s?”
“I have.”
“How is Mashko? Will he struggle to shore?”
“I parted with him a moment ago. He came with me to the gate. He says things at times that I should not expect from him.”
Pan Stanislav, glad to have some one to talk with, and feeling the need of intimate converse, began to tell what he had heard from Mashko; and how much he was astonished at finding a man of romantic nature under the skin of a person of his kind.
“Mashko is not a bad man,” said Bigiel. “He is only on the road to various evasions; and the cause of that is his vanity and respect for appearances. But, on the other hand, that respect for appearances saves him from final fall. As to the man of romance, which thou hast found in him—”
Here Bigiel cut off the end of a cigar, lighted it with great deliberation, wrinkling his brows at the same time, and, sitting down comfortably, continued,—
“Bukatski would have given on that subject ten ironical paradoxes about our society. Now something stuck in my head that he told me, when he attacked us because always we love some one or something. It seems to him that this is foolish and purposeless; but I see in this a great trait. It is necessary to become something in the world; and what have we? Money we have not; intellect, so-so; the gift of making our way in a position, not greatly; management, little. We have in truth this yet—that almost involuntarily, through some general disposition, we love something or somebody; and if we do not love, we feel the need of love. Thou knowest that I am a man of deliberation and a merchant, hence I speak soberly. I call attention to this because of Bukatski. Mashko, for instance, in some othercountry, would be a rogue from under a dark star; and I know many such. But here even beneath the trickster thou canst scratch to the man; and that is simple, for, in the last instance, while a man has some spark in his breast yet, he is not a beast utterly; and with us he has the spark, precisely for this reason, that he loves something.”
“Thou bringest Vaskovski to my mind. What thou art saying is not far from his views concerning the mission of the youngest of the Aryans.”
“What is Vaskovski to me? I say what I think. I know one thing: take that from us, and we should fly apart, like a barrel without hoops.”
“Well, listen to what I will tell thee. This is a thing decided in my mind rather long since. To love, or not to love some one, is a personal question; but I understand that it is needful to love something in life. I too have meditated over this. After the death of that child, I felt that the devil had taken certain sides of me; sometimes I feel that yet. Not to-day; but there are times—how can I tell thee?—times of ebb, exhaustion, doubts. And if, in spite of this, I marry, it is because I understand that it is necessary to have a living and strong foundation under a more general love.”
“For that, and not for that,” answered Bigiel the inexorable in judgment, “for thou are marrying not at all from purely mental reasons. Thou art taking a comely and honest young woman, to whom thou art attracted; and do not persuade thyself that it is otherwise, or thou wilt begin to pretend. My dear friend, every man has these doubts before marrying. I, as thou seest, am no philosopher; but ten times a day I asked myself before marriage, if I loved my future wife well enough, if I loved her as was necessary, had I not too little soul in the matter, and too many doubts? God knows what! Afterward I married a good woman, and it was well for us. It will be well for you too, if ye take things simply; but that endless searching in the mind and looking for certain secrets of the heart is folly, God knows.”
“Maybe it is folly. I too have no great love for lying on my back and analyzing from morn in till night; but I cannot help seeing facts.”
“What facts?”
“Such facts, for example, as this, that my feeling is not what it was at first. I think that it will be; I acknowledgethat it is going to that. I marry in spite of these observations, as if they did not exist; but I make them.”
“Thou art free to do so.”
“And see what I think besides: still it is necessary that the windows of a house should look out on the sun; otherwise it will be cold in the dwelling.”
“Thou hast said well,” answered Bigiel.
Meanwhile winter began to break; the end of Lent was approaching, and with it the time of marriage for Pan Stanislav, as well as Mashko. Bukatski, invited as a groomsman to the former, wrote to him among other things as follows,—
“To thrust forth the all-creative energy from its universal condition,—that is, from a condition of perfect repose,—and force it by means of marriages concluded on earth to incarnate itself in more or less squalling particulars which require cradles and which amuse themselves by holding the great toe in the mouth, is a crime. Still I will come, because stoves are better with you than in this place.”
“To thrust forth the all-creative energy from its universal condition,—that is, from a condition of perfect repose,—and force it by means of marriages concluded on earth to incarnate itself in more or less squalling particulars which require cradles and which amuse themselves by holding the great toe in the mouth, is a crime. Still I will come, because stoves are better with you than in this place.”
In fact, he came a week before the holidays, and brought as a gift to Pan Stanislav a sheet of parchment ornamented splendidly with something in the style of a grave hour-glass, on which was the inscription, “Stanislav Polanyetski, after a long and grievous bachelorhood.”
Pan Stanislav, whom the parchment pleased, took it next day about noon to Marynia. He forgot, however, that it was Sunday, and felt, as it were, disappointed, at finding Marynia with her hat on.
“Are you going out?” inquired he.
“Yes. To church. To-day is Sunday.”
“Ah, Sunday! True. But I thought that we should sit here together. It would be so agreeable.”
She raised her calm blue eyes to him, and said with simplicity, “But the service of God?”
Pan Stanislav received these words at once as he would have received any other, not foreseeing that, in the spiritual process which he was to pass through later on, they would play a certain rôle by reason of their directness, and said as if repeating mechanically,—
“You say the service of God. Very well! I have time; let us go together.”
Marynia received this offer with great satisfaction.
“I am the happier,” said she, on the way, “the more I love God.”
“That, too, is the mark of a good nature; some persons think of God only as a terror.”
And in the church that came again to his mind of which he had thought during his first visit to Kremen, when he was at the church in Vantory, with old Plavitski: “Destruction takes all philosophies and systems, one after another; but Mass is celebrated as of old.” It seemed to him that in that there was something which passed comprehension. He who, because of Litka, had come in contact with death in a manner most painful, returned to those dark problems whenever he happened to be in a cemetery, or a church at Mass, or in any circumstances whatever in which something took place which had no connection with the current business of life, but was shrouded in that future beyond the grave. He was struck by this thought,—how much is done in this life for that future; and how, in spite of all philosophizing and doubt, people live as if that future were entirely beyond question; how much of petty personal egotisms are sacrificed for it; how many philanthropic deeds are performed; how asylums, hospitals, retreats, churches are built, and all on an account payable beyond the grave only.
He was struck still more by another thought,—that to be reconciled with life really, it is necessary to be reconciled with death first; and that without faith in something beyond the grave this reconciliation is simply impossible. But if you have faith the question drops away, as if it had never existed. “Let the devils take mourning; let us rejoice;” for if this is true, what more can be desired? Is there before one merely the view of some new existence, in the poorest case, wonderfully curious,—even that certainty amounts to peace and quiet. Pan Stanislav had an example of that, then, in Marynia. Because she was somewhat short-sighted, she held her head bent over the book; but when at moments she raised it, he saw a face so calm, so full of something like that repose which a flower has, and so serene, that it was simply angelic. “That is a happy woman, and she will be happy always,” said he to himself. “And, besides, she has sense, for if, on the opposite side, there were at least certainty, there would be also that satisfaction which truth gives; but to torture one’s self for the sake of various marks of interrogation is pure folly.”
On the way home, Pan Stanislav, thinking continually of this expression of Marynia’s, said,—
“In the church you looked like some profile of Fra Angelico; you had a face which was indeed happy.”
“For I am happy at present. And do you know why? Because I am better than I was. I felt at one time offended in heart, and I was dissatisfied; I had no hope before me, and all these put together formed such suffering that it was terrible. It is said that misfortune ennobles chosen souls, but I am not a chosen soul. For that matter, misfortune may ennoble, but suffering, offence, ill-will, destroy. They are like poison.”
“Did you hate me much then?”
Marynia looked at him and answered, “I hated you so much that for whole days I thought of you only.”
“Mashko has wit; he described this once thus to me: ‘She would rather hate you than love me.’”
“Oi! that I would rather, is true.”
Thus conversing, they reached the house. Pan Stanislav had time then to unroll his parchment hour-glass and show it to Marynia; but the idea did not please her. She looked on marriage not only from the point of view of the heart, but of religion. “With such things there is no jesting,” said she; and after a while she confessed to Pan Stanislav that she was offended with Bukatski.
After dinner Bukatski came. During those few months of his stay in Italy he had become still thinner, which was a proof against the efficacy of “chianti” for catarrh of the stomach. His nose, with its thinness, reminded one of a knife-edge; his humorous face, smiling with irony, had become, as it were, porcelain, and was no larger than the fist of a grown man. He was related both to Pan Stanislav and Marynia; hence he said what he pleased in their presence. From the threshold almost, he declared to them that, in view of the increasing number of mental deviations in the world at present, he could only regret, but did not wonder, that they were affianced. He had come, it is true, in the hope that he would be able to save them, but he saw now that he was late, and that nothing was left but resignation. Marynia was indignant on hearing this; but Pan Stanislav, who loved him, said,—
“Preserve thy conceit for the wedding speech, for thou must make one; and now tell us how our professor is.”
“He has grown disturbed in mind seriously,” replied Bukatski.
“Do not jest in that way,” said Marynia.
“And so much without cause,” added Pan Stanislav.
But Bukatski continued, with equal seriousness: “Professor Vaskovski is disturbed in mind, and here are my proofs for you: First, he walks through Rome without a cap, or rather, he walked, for he is in Perugia at present; second, he attacked a refined young English lady, and proved to her that the English are Christians in private life only,—that the relations of England to Ireland are not Christian; third, he is printing a pamphlet, in which he shows that the mission of reviving and renewing history with the spirit of Christ is committed to the youngest of the Aryans. Confess that these are proofs.”
“We knew these ways before his departure; if nothing more threatens the professor, we hope to see him in good health.”
“He does not think of returning.”
Pan Stanislav took out his note-book, wrote some words with a pencil, and, giving them to Marynia, said,—
“Read, and tell me if that is good.”
“If thou write in my presence, I withdraw,” said Bukatski.
“No, no! this is no secret.”
Marynia became as red as a cherry from delight, and, as if not wishing to believe her eyes, asked,—
“Is that true? It is not.”
“That depends on you,” answered Pan Stanislav.
“Ah, Pan Stas! I did not even dream of that. I must tell papa. I must.”
And she ran out of the room.
“If I were a poet, I would hang myself,” said Bukatski.
“Why?”
“For if a couple of words, jotted down by the hand of a partner in the house of Bigiel and Company, can produce more impression than the most beautiful sonnet, it is better, to be a miller boy than a poet.”
But Marynia, in the rapture of her joy, forgot the notebook, so Pan Stanislav showed it to Bukatski, saying, “Read.”
Bukatski read:—