“Am I a Lechit? What does this mean? Are boorishness,Drunkenness, gluttony, gazing from my eyesWith the seven deadly sins, a passion for uproar,Pickled cucumbers, and escutcheons?”
“Am I a Lechit? What does this mean? Are boorishness,Drunkenness, gluttony, gazing from my eyesWith the seven deadly sins, a passion for uproar,Pickled cucumbers, and escutcheons?”
“Am I a Lechit? What does this mean? Are boorishness,
Drunkenness, gluttony, gazing from my eyes
With the seven deadly sins, a passion for uproar,
Pickled cucumbers, and escutcheons?”
“Argue with him,” said Pan Stanislav, “especially when at the root of the matter he is partly right.”
But Marynia, who as soon as Bukatski had begun to speak of work in the country, grew somewhat thoughtful, shook thoughtfulness now from her forehead, and said,—
“When papa was not well,— and never in Kremen has he been so well as recently,—I saved him a little in management, and later that work became for me a habit. Though God knows there was no lack of troubles, it gave me a pleasure that I cannot describe. But I did not understand the cause of this till Pan Yamish explained it. ‘That,’ said he, ‘is the real work on which the world stands, and every other is either the continuation of it, or something artificial.’ Later I understood even thingswhich he did not explain. More than once, when I went out to the fields in spring, and saw that all things were growing, I felt that my heart, too, was growing with them. And now I know why that is: In all other relations that a man holds there may be deceit, but the land is truth. It is impossible to deceive the land; it either gives, or gives not, but it does not deceive. Therefore land is loved, as truth; and because one loves it, it teaches one to love. And the dew falls not only on grain, and on meadows, but on the soul, as it were; and a man becomes better, for he has to deal with truth, and he loves,—that is, he is nearer God. Therefore I loved my Kremen so much.”
Here Marynia became frightened at her own speech, and at this, what would “Stas” think; at the same time reminiscences had roused her. All this was reflected in her eyes as the dawn, and on her young face; and she was herself like the dawn.
Bukatski looked at her as he would at some unknown newly discovered master-piece of the Venetian school; then he closed his eyes, and hid half of his small face in his enormous fantastic cravat, and whispered,—
“Délicieuse!”
Then, thrusting forth his chin from his cravat, he said,—
“You are perfectly right.”
But the logical woman would not let herself be set aside by a compliment.
“If I am right, you are not.”
“That is another matter. You are right because it becomes you; a woman in that case is always right.”
“Stas!” said Marynia, turning to her husband. But there was so much charm in the woman at that moment, that he also looked on her with delight, his eyes smiled, his nostrils moved with a quick motion; for a moment he covered her hand with his, and said,—
“Oh, child, child!”
Then he inclined to her, and whispered,—
“If we were not in this hall, I would kiss those dear eyes and that mouth.”
And, speaking thus, Pan Stanislav made a great mistake, for at that moment it was not enough to feel the physical charm of Marynia, to be roused at the color of her face, her eyes, or her mouth, but it was necessary to feel the soul in her; to what an extent he did not feel it was shownby his fondling words, “O child, child!” She was for him at that moment only a charming child-woman, and he thought of nothing else.
Just then coffee was brought. To end the conversation, Pan Stanislav said,—
“So Mashko has come out a lover, and that after marriage.”
Bukatski swallowed a cup of boiling coffee, and answered, “In this is the stupidity, that Mashko is the man, not in this,—that the love was after marriage. I have not said anything sensible. If I have, I beg pardon most earnestly, and promise not to do so a second time. I have burned my tongue evidently with the hot coffee! I drink it so hot because they tell me that it is good for headache; and my head aches, aches.”
Here Bukatski placed his palm on his neck and the back of his head, and blinked, remaining motionless for a few seconds.
“I am talking and talking,” said he, then, “but my head aches. I should have gone to my lodgings, but Svirski, the artist, is to come to me here. We are going to Florence together; he is a famous painter in water-colors, really famous. No one has brought greater force out of water-colors. But see, he is just coming!”
In fact, Svirski, as if summoned by a spell, appeared in the hall, and began to look around for Bukatski. Espying him at last, he approached the table.
He was a robust, short man, with hair as black as if he were an Italian. He had an ordinary face, but a wise, deep glance, and also mild. While walking, he swayed a little because of his wide hips.
Bukatski presented him to Marynia in the following words,—
“I present to you Pan Svirski, a painter, of the genus genius, who not only received his talent, but had the most happy idea of not burying it, which he might have done as well, and with equal benefit to mankind, as any other man. But he preferred to fill the world with water-colors and with fame.”
Svirski smiled, showing two rows of teeth, wonderfully small, but white as ivory, and said,—
“I wish that were true.”
“And I will tell you why he did not bury his talent,” continued Bukatski; “his reasons were so parochial thatit would be a shame for any decent artist to avow them. He loves Pognembin, which is somewhere in Poznan, or thereabouts, and he loves it because he was born there. If he had been born in Guadeloupe he would have loved Guadeloupe, and love for Guadeloupe would have saved him in life also. This man makes me indignant; and will the lady tell me if I am not right?”
To this Marynia answered, raising her blue eyes to Svirski, “Pan Bukatski is not so bad as he seems, for he has said everything that is good of you.”
“I shall die with my qualities known,” whispered Bukatski.
Svirski was looking meanwhile at Marynia, as only an artist can permit himself to look at a woman, and not offend. Interest was evident in his eyes, and at last he muttered,—
“To see such a head all at once, here in Venice, is a genuine surprise.”
“What?” asked Bukatski.
“I say, that the lady is of a wonderfully well-defined type. Oh, this, for example” (here he drew a line with his thumb along his nose, mouth, and chin). “And also what purity of outline!”
“Well, isn’t it true?” asked Pan Stanislav, with excitement. “I have always thought the same.”
“I will lay a wager that thou hast never thought of it,” retorted Bukatski.
But Pan Stanislav was glad and proud of that interest which Marynia roused in the famous artist; hence he said,—
“If it would give you any pleasure to paint her portrait, it would give me much more to have it.”
“From the soul of my heart,” answered Svirski, with simplicity; “but I am going to Rome to-day. There I have begun the portrait of Pani Osnovski.”
“And we shall be in Rome no later than ten days from now.”
“Then we are agreed.”
Marynia returned thanks, blushing to her ears. But Bukatski began to take farewell, and drew Svirski after him. When they had gone out, he said,—
“We have time yet. Come to Floriani’s for a glass of cognac.”
Bukatski did not know how to drink, and didn’t likespirits; but since he had begun to take morphine, he drank more than he could endure, because some one had told him that one neutralized the other.
“What a delightful couple those Polanyetskis are!” said Svirski.
“They are not long married.”
“It is evident that he loves her immensely. When I praised her, his eyes were smiling, and he rose as if on yeast.”
“She loves him a hundred times more.”
“What knowledge hast thou in such matters?”
Bukatski did not answer; he only raised his pointed nose, and said, as if to himself, —
“Oh, marriage and love have disgusted me; for it is always profit on one side, and sacrifice on the other. Polanyetski is a good man, but what of that? She has just as much sense, just as much character, but she loves more; therefore life will fix itself for them in this way,—he will be the sun, he will be gracious enough to shine, to warm, will consider her as his property, as a planet made to circle around him. All this is indicated to-day. She has entered his sphere. There is in him a certain self-confidence which angers me. He will have her with an income, but she will have him alone without an income. He will permit himself to love, considering his love as virtue, kindness, and favor; she will love, considering her love as a happiness and a duty. Look, if you please, at him, the divine, the resplendent! I want to go back and tell them this, in the hope that they will be less happy.”
Meanwhile the two men had taken seats in front of Floriani’s, and soon cognac was brought to them. Svirski thought some time over the Polanyetskis, and then inquired,—
“But if the position is pleasant for her?”
“I know that she has short sight; she might be pleased quite as well to wear glasses.”
“Go to the deuce! glasses on a face like hers—”
“This makes thee indignant; but the other makes me—”
“Yes, for thou hast a kind of coffee-mill in thy head, which grinds, and grinds everything till it grinds it into fine dust. What dost thou want of love in general?”
“I, of love? I want nothing of love! Let the devil take him who wants anything of love! I have sharp pains in my shoulder-blades from it. But if I were other thanI am, if I had to describe what love ought to be, if I wanted anything of it, then I should wish—“
“What? hop! jump over!”
“That it were composed in equal parts of desire and reverence.”
Then he drank a glass of cognac, and added after a while,—
“It seems to me that I have said something which may be wise, if it is not foolish. But it is all one to me.”
“No! it is not foolish.”
“As God lives, it is all one to me.”
After a stay of one week in Florence, Pan Stanislav received his first letter from Bigiel concerning the business of the house, and news so favorable that it almost surpassed his expectations. The law prohibiting export of grain because of the famine was proclaimed. But the firm had enormous supplies bought and exported previously; and because prices, especially at the first moment, had risen excessively abroad, Bigiel and Polanyetski began to do perfect business. Speculation, planned and carried through on a great scale, turned out so profitable that from well-to-do people, which they were before, they had become almost rich. For that matter Pan Stanislav had been sure of his business from the beginning, and entertained no fears; the news, however, pleased him both with reference to profit and his own self-love. Success intoxicates a man and strengthens his self-confidence. So, in talking with Marynia, he was not able to refrain from giving her to understand that he had an uncommon head, unquestionably higher than all those around him, like a tree the loftiest in the forest; that he is a man who always reaches the place at which he has aimed,—in a word, a kind of phnix in that society, abounding in men who know not how to help themselves. In the whole world he could not have found a listener more willing and ready to accept everything with the deepest faith.
“Thou art a woman,” said he, not without a shade of loftiness; “therefore why tell thee the affair from the beginning, and enter into details. To thee, as a woman, I can explain all best if I say thus: I was not in a condition yesterday to buy the medallion with a black pearl which I showed thee at Godoni’s; to-day I am, and will buy it.”
Marynia thanked him, and begged that he would not do so; but he insisted, and said that nothing would restrain him, that that was resolved on, and Marynia must consider herself the owner of the great black pearl, which, on such a white neck as hers, would be beautiful. Then he fell to kissing that neck; and when finally he had satisfied himself, but still felt the need of a listener of some sort, he began to walk in the room, smiling at his wife and at his own thoughts, saying,—
“I do not mention those who do nothing: Bukatski, for instance, who is known to be good for nothing, nor asses like Kopovski, who is known to have a cat’s head; but take even men who do something,—men of mind seemingly. Never would Bigiel seize a chance on the wing: he would set to thinking over it, and to putting it off; to-day he would decide, and to-morrow be afraid, and the time would be gone. What is the point in question? First, to have a head, and second, to sit down and calculate. And if one decides to act, then act. It is needful, too, to be cool, and not pose. Mashko is no fool, one might think; but see what he has worked out! I have not gone his way, and shall not follow him.”
Thus speaking, he continued to walk and to shake his thick, dark hair; and Marynia, who, in every case, would have listened to his words with faith, received them now as an infallible principle, all the more that they rested on tangible success.
He stopped before her at last, and said,—
“Knowest what I think? that coolness is judgment. It is possible to have an intelligent head, to take in knowledge as a sponge absorbs liquid, and still not to have sound, sober judgment. Bukatski is for me a proof of this. Do not think me vain; but if I, for instance, knew as much about art as he does, I should have a sounder judgment concerning it. He has read so much, and caught up so many opinions, that at last he has none of his own. Surely, from the materials which he has collected, I should have squeezed out something of my own.”
“Oh, that is sure,” said Marynia, with perfect confidence.
Pan Stanislav might have been right in a certain view. He was not a dull man by any means, and it may be that his intelligence was firmer and more compact than Bukatski’s; but it was less flexible and less comprehensive. This did not occur to him. He did not think, also, that in that moment, under the influence of boastfulness, he was saying things before Marynia which the fear of ridicule and criticism would have restrained him from saying before strangers, sceptical persons. But he did not restrain himself before Marynia; he judged that if he couldpermit himself such little boastfulness before any one, it was before his wife. Besides, as he himself said, “He had taken her, and all was over.” Moreover, she was his own.
In general, he had not felt so happy and satisfied at any time in life as then. He had experienced material success, and considered the future as guaranteed; he had married a woman, young, charming, and clever, for whom he had become a dogma,—and the position could not be otherwise, since her lips were not dry for whole days from his kisses,—and whose healthy and honest heart was filled with gratitude for his love. What could be lacking to him? What more could he wish? He was satisfied with himself, for he ascribed in great part to his own cleverness and merit, his success in so arranging life that everything promised, peace and prosperity. He saw that life was bitter for other men, but pleasant for him, and he interpreted the difference to his own advantage. He had thought once that a man wishing peace had to regulate his connection with himself, with mankind, with God. The first two he looked on as regulated. He had a wife, a calling, and a future; hence he had given and secured to himself all that he could give and secure. As to society, he permitted himself sometimes to criticise it, but he felt that in the bottom of his soul he loved it really; that even if he wished, he could not do otherwise; that if in a given case it were necessary to go into water or fire for society, he would go,—hence he considered everything settled on that side too. His relation with God remained. He felt that should that become clear and certain, he might consider all life’s problems settled, and say to himself definitely, “I know why I have lived, what I wanted, and why I must die.” While not a man of science, he had touched enough on science to know the vanity of seeking in philosophy so-called explanations or answers which are to be sought rather in intuition, and, above all, in feeling, in so far as the one and the other of these are simple,—otherwise they lead to extravagance. At the same time, since he was not devoid of imagination, he saw before him, as it were, the image of an honest, well-balanced man, a good husband, a good father, who labors and prays, who on Sunday takes his children to church, and lives a life wonderfully wholesome from a moral point of view. That picture smiled at him; and in life so much is done for pictures. Hethought that a society which had a great number of such citizens would be stronger and healthier than a society which below was composed of boors, and above of sages, dilettanti, decadents, and all those forbidden figures with sprained intellects. One time, soon after his acquaintance with Marynia, he had promised himself and Bigiel that on finishing with his own person, and with people, he would set about this third relation seriously. Now the time had come, or at least was approaching. Pan Stanislav understood that this work needed more repose than is found on a bridal trip, and among the impressions of a new life and a new country, and that hurry of hotels and galleries in which he lived with Marynia. But, in spite of these conditions, in the rare moments when he was with his own thoughts, he turned at once to that problem, which for him was at that time the main one. He was subject meanwhile to various influences, which, small in themselves, exercised a certain action, even because he refrained purposely from opposing them. Of these was the influence of Marynia. Pan Stanislav was not conscious of it, and would not have owned to its existence; still the continual presence of that calm soul, sincerely and simply pious, extremely conscientious in relation to God, gave him an idea of the rest and peace to be found in religion. When he attended his wife to church, he remembered the words which she said to him in Warsaw, “Of course; it is the service of God.” And he was drawn into it, for at first he went to church with her always not to let her go alone, and later because it gave him also a certain internal pleasure,—such, for example, as the examination of phenomena gives a scientist specially interested in them. In this way, in spite of unfavorable conditions, in spite of journeys, and a line of thought interrupted by impressions of every sort, he advanced on the new road continually. His thoughts had at times great energy and decisiveness in this direction. “I feel God,” said he to himself. “I felt Him at Litka’s grave; I felt Him, though I did not acknowledge it, in the words of Vaskovski about death; I felt Him at marriage; I felt Him at home, in the plains, and in this country, in the mountains above the snow; and I only ask yet how I am to glorify Him, to honor and love Him? Is it as pleases me personally, or as my wife does, and as my mother taught me?”
In Rome, however, he ceased at first to think of thesethings; so many external impressions were gathered at once in his mind that there was no room for reflection. Moreover, he and Marynia came home in the evening so tired that he remembered almost with terror the words of Bukatski, who, at times, when serving them as cicerone for his own satisfaction, said, “Ye have not seen the thousandth part of what is worth seeing; but that is all one, for in general it is not worth while to come here, just as it is not worth while to stay at home.”
Bukatski was then in a fit of contradiction, overturning in one statement what he had seemed to affirm in the preceding one.
Professor Vaskovski came, too, from Perugia to greet them, which pleased Marynia so much that she met him as she would her nearest relative. But, after satisfying her first outbursts of delight, she observed in the professor’s eyes, as it were, a kind of melancholy.
“What is the matter?” inquired she. “Do you not feel well in Italy?”
“My child,” answered he, “it is pleasant in Perugia, and pleasant in Rome—oh, how pleasant! Know this, that here, while walking on the streets, one is treading on the dust of the world. This, as I repeat always, is the antechamber to another life—but—”
“But what?”
“But people—you see, that is, not from a bad heart, for here, as well as everywhere, there are more good than bad people; but sometimes I am sad, for here, as well as at home, they look on me as a little mad.”
Bukatski, who was listening to the conversation, said,—
“Then the professor has more cause for sadness here than at home.”
“Yes,” answered Vaskovski; “I have so many friends there, like you, who love me—but here, no—and therefore I am homesick.”
Then he turned to Pan Stanislav: “The journals here have printed an account of my essay. Some scoff altogether. God be with them! Some agree that a new epoch would begin through the introduction of Christ and His spirit into history. One writer confessed that individuals treat one another in a Christian spirit, but that nations lead a pagan life yet. He even called the thought a great one; but he and all others, when I affirm this to be a mission which God has predestined to us, and other youngest of the Aryans, seizetheir sides from laughter. And this pains me. They give it to be understood also that I have a little here—”
And poor Vaskovski tapped his forehead with his finger. After a while, however, he raised his head and said,—
“A man sows the seed in sadness and often in doubt; but the seed falls on the field, and God grant that it spring up!”
Then he began to inquire about Pani Emilia; at last he turned to them his eyes, which were as if wakened from sleep, and asked naïvely,—
“But it is pleasant for you to be with each other?”
Marynia, instead of answering, sprang to her husband, and, nestling her head up to his shoulder, said,—
“Oh, see, Professor, this is how we are together,—so!”
And Pan Stanislav stroked her dark head with his hand.
A week later Pan Stanislav took his wife to Svirski’s on Via Margutta. Svirski they saw almost daily. They had grown accustomed to the artist and liked him; now he was to paint Marynia’s portrait. At the studio they found the Osnovskis, with whom acquaintance was made the more easily since the ladies had met some years before at a party, and Pan Stanislav had been presented on a time to Pani Osnovski, at Ostend; he needed merely to remember her now. Pan Stanislav, it is true, did not recollect whether at that epoch, when, after looking at every young and presentable woman, he asked himself, “Is it this one?” he had asked this touching the present Pani Osnovski; he might have done so, however, for she had the reputation then of being a comely, though rather flighty young person. Now she was a woman of six or seven and twenty, very tall, a fresh, though dark brunette, with cherry lips, dishevelled forelock, and somewhat oblique violet eyes, which gave her face a resemblance to Chinese faces, and at the same time a certain expression of malice and wit. She had a strange way of bearing herself, which consisted in thrusting back her shoulders and pushing forward her body; in consequence of this, Bukatski said of her that she carried her busten offrande.
Almost immediately she told Marynia that, as they were sitting in the same studio, they ought to consider each other as colleagues; and told Pan Stanislav that she remembered him, from the ball at Ostend, as a good dancer andcauseur, and therefore that she would not delay in taking advantage of that knowledge now. To both she said that it was very agreeable to her, that she was delighted with Rome, that she was reading “Cosmopolis,” that she was in love with the Villa Doria, with the view from the Pincian, that she hoped to see the catacombs in company with them, and that she knew the works of Rossi, in Allard’s translations. Then, pressing Svirski’s hand, and smiling coquettishly at Pan Stanislav, she went out, declaring that she gave way to one worthier than herself, and left the impression of a whirlwind, a Chinese woman, and a flower. Pan Osnovski, a veryyoung man, with a light blond face without significance, but kindly, followed her, and hardly had he been able to put in a word.
Svirski drew a deep breath.
“Oh, she is a storm!” said he; “I have a thousand difficulties in keeping her at rest two minutes.”
“But what an interesting face!” said Marynia. “Is it permitted to look at the portrait?”
“It lacks little of being finished; you may look at it.”
Marynia and Pan Stanislav approached the portrait, and could express admiration without excess of politeness. That head, painted in water-colors, had the strength and warmth of an oil painting, and at the same time the whole spiritual essence of Pani Osnovski was in it. Svirski listened to the praises calmly; it was clear that he was pleased with his work. He covered the picture, and carried it to a dark corner of the studio, seated Marynia in an armchair already in position, and began to study her.
His persistent gaze confused her somewhat,—her cheeks began to flush; but he smiled with pleasure, muttering,—
“Yes; this is another type,—earth and heaven!”
At moments he closed one eye, which confused Marynia still more; at moments he approached the cardboard, and again drew back, and again studied her; and again he said, as if to himself,—
“In the other case, one had to bring out the devil, but here womanliness.”
“As you have seen that immediately, I feel sure of a masterpiece,” said Pan Stanislav.
All at once Svirski stopped looking at the paper and at Marynia, and, turning to Pan Stanislav, smiled joyously, showing his sound teeth.
“Yes, womanliness! and her own womanliness, that is the main characteristic of the face.”
“And seize it, as you seized the devil in the other one.”
“Stas!” exclaimed Marynia.
“It is not I who invented that, but Pan Svirski.”
“If you wish, we will say imp, not devil,—a comely imp, but a dangerous one. While painting, I observe various things. That is a curious type,—Pani Osnovski.”
“Why?”
“Have you observed her husband?”
“Somehow I was so occupied with her that I had no time.”
“There it is: she hides him in such a degree that he is hardly visible; and, what is worse, she herself does not see him. At the same time he is one of the most worthy men in the world, uncommonly well-bred, considerate to others in an unheard-of degree, very rich, and not at all stupid. Moreover, he loves her to distraction.”
Here Svirski began to paint, and repeated, as if in forgetfulness,—
“Lo-ves her to dis-trac-tion. Be pleased to arrange your hair a little about the ear. If your husband is a talker, he will be in despair, for Bukatski declares that when I begin work my lips never close, and that I let no one have a word. She, do you see, may be thus far as pure as a tear, but she is a coquette. She has an icy heart with a fiery head. A dangerous species,—oh, dangerous! She devours books by whole dozens,—naturally French books. She learns psychology in them, learns of feminine temperaments, of the enigma of woman, seeks enigmas in herself, which do not exist at all in her, discovers aspirations of which yesterday she knew nothing. She is depraving herself mentally; this mental depravation she considers wisdom, and makes no account of her husband.”
“But you are a terrible man,” remarked Marynia.
“My wife will hide to-morrow from fear, when the hour for sitting comes,” said Pan Stanislav.
“Let her not hide; hers is a different type. Osnovski is not at all dull; but people, and especially, with your permission, women, are so unwise, that if a man’s cleverness does not hit them on the head, if a man lacks confidence in himself, if he does not scratch like a cat and cut like a knife, they do not value him. As God lives, I have seen this in life a hundred times.”
After a while he closed one eye again, gazed at Marynia, and continued,—
“In general, how foolish human society is! More than once have I put to myself this question: Why is honesty of character, heart, and such a thing as kindness, less valued than what is called mind? Why, in social life, are two categories pre-eminent, wise and foolish? It is not the custom, for example, to say, virtuous and unvirtuous; to such a degree is it not the custom, that the very expressions would seem ridiculous.”
“Because,” said Pan Stanislav, “mind is the lantern with which virtue and kindness and heart must light theway for themselves, otherwise they might break their noses, or, what is worse, break the noses of other people.”
Marynia did not utter, it is true, a single word; but in her face it was possible to read distinctly, “How wise this Stas is—terribly wise!”
“Wise Stas” added meanwhile,—
“I am not speaking of Osnovski now, for I do not know him.”
“Osnovski,” said Svirski, “loves his wife as his wife, as his child, and as his happiness; but she has her head turned, God knows with what, and does not repay him in kind. Women interest me, as an unmarried man, immensely; more than once have I talked whole days about women, especially with Bukatski, when they interested him more than they do now. Bukatski divides women into plebeian souls, by which he means poor and low spirits, and into patrician souls,—that is, natures ennobled, full of the higher aspirations, and resting on principles, not phrases. There is a certain justice in this, but I prefer my division, which is simply into grateful and ungrateful hearts.”
Here he withdrew from the sketch for a moment, half closed his eyes, then, taking a small mirror, placed it toward the picture, and began to look at the reflection.
“You ask what I mean by grateful and ungrateful hearts,” said he, turning to Marynia, though she had not asked about anything. “A grateful heart is one which feels when it is loved, and is moved by love; and in return for the loving, loves more and more, yields itself more and more, prizes the loving, and honors it. The ungrateful heart gets all it can from the love given; and the more certain it feels of this love, the less it esteems it, the more it disregards and tramples it. It is enough to love a woman with an ungrateful heart, to make her cease loving. The fisherman is not concerned for the fish in the net; therefore Pani Osnovski does not care for Pan Osnovski. In the essence of the argument this is the rudest form of egotism in existence,—it is simply African; and therefore God guard Osnovski, and may the Evil One take her, with her Chinese eyes of violet color, and her frizzled forelock! To paint such a woman is pleasant, but to marry—we are not such fools. Will you believe it, I am in so much dread of an ungrateful heart that I have not married so far, though my fortieth year has sounded distinctly?”
“But it is so easy to recognize such a heart,” said Marynia.
“May the Evil One take what is bad!” answered Svirski. “Not so easy, especially when a man has lost sense and reason.”
Bending his athletic form, he looked at the sketch some time, and said,—
“Well, enough for to-day. As it is, I have talked so continuously that flies must have dropped from the walls. To-morrow, if you hear too much, just clap your hands. I do not talk so with Pani Osnovski, because she herself likes to talk. But how many titles of books have I heard? Enough of this! I wanted to say something more, but have forgotten. Ah! this is it,—you have a grateful heart.”
Pan Stanislav laughed, and invited Svirski to dinner, promising him the society of Bukatski and Vaskovski.
“With great delight,” answered Svirski; “I am as much alone here as a wild beast. As the weather is clear and the moon full, we will go later to see the Colosseum by moonlight.”
The dinner took place, however, without Bukatski’s mental hobbies, for he felt out of health, and wrote that he could not come. But Svirski and Vaskovski suited each other excellently, and became friends right away. Only while he was working did Svirski let no one have a word; in general, he liked to hear others, knew how to listen, and, though the professor and his views seemed to him comical sometimes, so much sincerity and kindness was evident in the old man that it would have been difficult for him not to win people. His mystic face and the expression of his eyes struck the artist. He sketched him a little in his mind; and, while listening to his talk about the Aryans, he thought how that head would look if all that was in it were brought out distinctly.
Toward the end of the dinner the professor asked Marynia if she would like to see the Pope. He said that in three days a Belgian pilgrimage was to arrive, and that she might join it. Svirski, who knew all Rome and all the monsignores, guaranteed to effect this with ease. When he heard this, the professor looked at him, and inquired,—
“Then you are almost a Roman?”
“Of sixteen years’ standing.”
“Is it possible!”
Here the professor was somewhat confused, fearing lest he had committed some indiscretion, but still wishing to know what to think of a man so sympathetic, he overcame his timidity, and inquired,—
“But of the Quirinal, or the Vatican?”
“From Pognembin,” answered Svirski, frowning slightly.
The end of the dinner interrupted further explanations and converse. Marynia could scarcely sit still at the thought that she would see the Capitol, the Forum, and the Colosseum by moonlight. In fact, somewhat later they were driving toward the ruins along the Corso, which was lighted by electricity.
The night was calm and warm. Around the Forum and Colosseum the place was completely deserted; as, for that matter, it is in the day sometimes. Near the church of Santa Maria Liberatrice some person in an open window was playing on a flute, and one could hear every note in the stillness. On the front of the Forum a deep shadow fell from the height of the Capitol and its edifices; but farther on it was flooded with clear, greenish light, as was also the Colosseum, which seemed silver. When the carriage halted at the arches of the gigantic circus, Pan Stanislav, Svirski, and Vaskovski entered the interior, and pushed toward the centre of the arena, avoiding the fragments of columns, friezes, piles of bricks, stones, and bases of columns standing here and there, and fragments piled up near the arches. Under the influence of silence and loneliness, words did not rise to their lips. Through the arched entrances came to the interior sheaves of moonlight, which seemed to rest quietly on the floor of the arena, on the opposite walls, on the indentations, on openings in the walls, on breaks, on the silvered mosses and ivy, covering the ruin here and there. Other parts of the building, sunk in impenetrable darkness, produced the impression of black and mysterious gulleys. From the low-placed cunicula came the stern breath of desolation. Reality was lost amidst that labyrinth and confusion of walls, arches, bright spots, bright stripes, and deep shadows. The colossal ruin seemed to lose its real existence, and to become a dream vision, or rather, a kind of wonderful impression composed of silence, night, the moon, sadness, and the remembrance of a past, mighty, but full of blood and suffering.
Svirski began to speak first, and in a subdued voice,—
“What pain, what tears, were here! what a measureless tragedy! Let people say what they please, there is something beyond human in Christianity; and that thought cannot be avoided.”
Here he turned to Marynia, and continued,—
“Imagine that might: a whole world, millions of people, iron laws, power unequalled before or since, an organization such as has never been elsewhere, greatness, glory, hundreds of legions, a gigantic city, possessing the world,—and that Palatine hill over there, possessing the city; it would seem that no earthly power could overturn it. Meanwhile two Jews come,—Peter and Paul, not with arms, but a word; and see, here is a ruin, on the Palatine a ruin, in the Forum a ruin, and above the city crosses, crosses, crosses and crosses.”
Again there was silence; but from the direction of Santa Maria Liberatrice the sound of the flute came continually.
After a while Vaskovski said, pointing to the arena,—
“There was a cross here, too, but they have borne it away.”
Pan Stanislav was thinking, however, of Svirski’s words; for him they had a more vital interest than they could have for a man who had finished the spiritual struggle with himself. At last he said, following his own course of thought,—
“Yes, there is something beyond human in this; some truth shines into the eyes here, like that moon.”
They were going slowly toward the entrance, when a carriage rattled outside. Then in the dark passage leading to the centre of the circus, steps were heard; two tall, figures issued from the shade into the light. One of these, dressed in gray stuff, which gleamed like steel in the moonlight, approached a number of steps to distinguish the visitors better, and said all at once,—
“Good-evening! The night is so beautiful that we, too, came to the Colosseum. What a night!”
Pan Stanislav recognized the voice of Pani Osnovski.
Giving her hand, she spoke with a voice as soft as the sound of that flute which came from the direction of the church,—
“I shall begin to believe in presentiments, for really something told me that here I should find acquaintances. How beautiful the night is!”
On returning to the hotel, Pan Stanislav and Marynia were surprised somewhat to find the Osnovskis’ cards; and their astonishment rose from this, that, being newly married, it was their duty to make the first visit. For this unusual politeness it was needful to answer with equal politeness, hence they returned the visit on the following day. Bukatski, who saw them before they made it, though he was very unwell, and could barely drag his feet along, brought himself still to one of his usual witticisms, and said to Pan Stanislav, when they were alone for a moment,—
“She will play the coquette; but if thou suppose that she will fall in love with thee, thou art mistaken. She is a little like a razor,— she needs a strap to sharpen herself; in the best event, thou wilt be a strap for her.”
“First, I do not wish to be her strap,” answered Pan Stanislav; “and second, it is too early.”
“Too early? That means that thou art reserving the future for thyself.”
“No; it means that I am thinking of something else, and also that I love my Marynia more and more. And when that ends, too early will be too late, and that Pani Osnovski might dent, but not sharpen herself, on me.”
And Pan Stanislav, in saying this, was sincere: he had his thoughts occupied really with something else; he was too honorable to betray his wife at any time, but even if not, it was too early to begin.
He was so greatly sure of his strength that he felt a certain readiness to expose himself to trial. In other words, it would have given the man a kind of pleasure if Pani Osnovski had dented herself on him.
After lunch he went with Marynia to sit to Svirski; the sitting, however, was short, since the artist was judge in some exhibition, and had to hasten to a meeting. They returned home, and Pan Osnovski came to them a quarter of an hour later.
Pan Stanislav, after his conversation with Svirski, had a kind of compassion for Osnovski, but also a sort ofsmall opinion. Marynia, however, felt for him a living sympathy; she was won by what she had heard of his kindness and delicacy, as well as his attachment to his wife. It seemed to her now that all these qualities were as if written on his face,—a face by no means ugly, though it had pimples here and there.
After the greeting, Osnovski began to speak with the confident freedom of a man accustomed to good society:
“I come at the instance of my wife with a proposal. Praise to God, visiting ceremonies are ended between us, though abroad it is not worth while to reckon too precisely in this matter. The affair is this: We are going to St. Paul’s to-day, and then to the Three Fountains. That is outside the city; there is an interesting cloister in the place, and a beautiful view. It would be very agreeable to us if you would consent to make the trip in our company.”
Marynia was always ready for every trip, especially in company, and with pleasant conversation; in view of this she looked at her husband, waiting for what he would say. Pan Stanislav saw that she wished to go, and, besides, he thought in his soul, “If the other wants to dent herself, let her do it.” And he answered,—
“I would consent willingly, but this depends on my superior power.”
His “superior power” was not sure yet whether the obedient subordinate meant that really; but, seeing on his face a smile and good-humor, she made bold to say at last,—
“With much thankfulness; but shall we not cause trouble?”
“Not trouble, but pleasure,” answered Osnovski. “In that event the matter is ended. We’ll be here in a quarter of an hour.”
In fact, they set out a quarter of an hour later. Pani Osnovski’s Chinese eyes were full of satisfaction and repose. Wearing an iris-colored robe, in which she might pass for the eighth wonder of the world, she looked really like a rusalka.[6]And before they had reached St. Paul’s, Pan Stanislav did not know how Pani Osnovski, who had not spoken on this subject to him, had been able somehow to say to him, or at least to give him to understand, more or less as follows: “Thy wife is a pleasant little woman from the country; of my husband nothing need be said.We two only are able to understand each other and share impressions.“
But he resolved to torment her. When they arrived at St. Paul’s, which Pani Osnovski did not mention otherwise than as “San Poolo fuori le Mura,”[7]her husband wished to stop the carriage, but she said,—
“We will stop when returning, for we shall know then how much time is left for this place; but now we’ll go straight to the Three Fountains.”
ning to Pan Stanislav, she continued, “There are in this famous place various things, about which I should like to ask you.”
“Then you will do badly, for I know nothing at all of these matters.”
It appeared soon, on passing various monuments, that of the whole party Pan Osnovski knew most. The poor man had been studying the guide-books from morning till evening, so that he might be a guide for his wife, and also to please her with his knowledge. But she cared nothing for explanations which her husband could give, precisely because they came from him. The insolent self-assurance with which Pan Stanislav had confessed that he had no idea of antiquities was more to her taste.
Beyond St. Paul’s opened out a view on the Campagna with its aqueducts, which seemed to run toward the city in haste, and on the Alban hills, veiled, as they were, with the blue haze of distance,—a view at once calm and bright. Pani Osnovski gazed for some time with a dreamy look, and then inquired,—
“Have you been in Albani or Nemi?”
“No,” answered Pan Stanislav; “sitting to Svirski breaks the day so for us that we cannot make long excursions till the portrait is finished.”
“We have been there; but when you are going, take me with you, take me with you! Is it agreed? Will you permit?” added she, turning to Marynia. “I shall be a fifth wheel to some extent, but never mind. Besides, I shall sit quietly, very quietly, in a corner of the carriage, and not give out one mru mru! Is it agreed?”
“Oi! little one, little one,” said Pan Osnovski.
But she continued, “My husband will not believe that I am in love with Nemi; but I am. When I was there, it seemed to me that Christianity had not reached the placeyet; that in the night certain priests come out and celebrate pagan rites on the lake. Silence and mystery! there you have Nemi. Will you believe that when I was there the wish came to me to be a hermit, and it has not left me to this moment? I would build a cell on the bank of the lake for myself, and wear a robe long and gray, like the habit of Saint Francis of Assisi, and go barefoot. What would I give to be a hermit! I see myself at the lake—”
“Anetka,[8]but what would become of me?” inquired Osnovski, half in jest, half in earnest.
“Oh, thou wouldst console thyself,” said she, curtly.
“Thou wouldst be a hermitess,” thought Pan Stanislav, “if on the other side of the lake there were a couple of dozen dandies gazing through glasses to see what the hermitess was doing, and how she looked.”
He was too well-bred to tell her this directly; but he told her something similar, and which could be understood.
“Naturally,” said she, laughing; “I should live by alms, and should have to see people sometimes; if you came to Nemi, I should come to you too and repeat in a very low voice,‘Un soldo! un soldo!’”
Saying this, she stretched her small hands to him, and shook them, repeating humbly,—
“Un soldo per la povera! un soldo!”
And she looked into his eyes.
Pan Osnovski spoke meanwhile to Marynia.
“This is called Three Fountains,” said he, “for there are three springs here. Saint Paul’s head was cut off at this place; and there is a tradition that the head jumped three times, and that on those places springs burst forth. The place belongs now to the Trappists. Formerly people could not pass a night here, there was such fever; now there is less, for they have planted a whole forest of eucalyptuses on the hills. Oh, we can see it already.”
But Pani Osnovski, bending back somewhat, half closed her eyes for a moment, and said to Pan Stanislav,—
“This Roman air intoxicates me. I am as if beside myself. At home I cannot force from life more than it gives me; but here I am demoralized, I feel that something is wanting to me. Do I know what? Here one feels something, divines something, yearns for something. Maybe that is bad. Maybe it is not right for me to say this. But I say always what passes through my mind.At home, when a child, they called me Little Sincerity. I shall beg my husband to take me hence. It may be better to live in my own narrow shell, like a nut, or a snail.“
“It may be pleasant in shells for nuts or snails,” answered Pan Stanislav, with gravity, “but not for birds, and besides birds of paradise, of which there is a tradition that they have no legs and can never rest, but must fly and fly.”
“What a beautiful tradition!” exclaimed Pani Osnovski. And, raising her hands, she began to move them, imitating the motion of wings, and repeating,—
“This way, forever through the air.”
The comparison flattered her, though she was astonished that Pan Stanislav had uttered it with a serious voice, but with an inattentive and, as it were, ironical face. He began to interest her, for he seemed very intelligent, and more difficult to master than she had expected.
Meanwhile they arrived at Three Fountains. They visited the garden, the church, and the chapel, in the basement of which three springs were flowing. Pan Osnovski explained, in his kind, somewhat monotonous voice, what he had read previously. Marynia listened with interest; but Pan Stanislav thought,—
“Still to live three hundred and sixty-five days in a year with him, must be a little tiresome.”
That justified Pani Osnovski in his eyes for the moment; she, taking upon herself now the new role of bird of paradise, did not rest for a moment, not merely on the ground, but on any subject. First she drank eucalyptus liquor, which the cloister prepared as a means against fever; then she declared decisively that if she were a man she would be a Trappist. Later, however, she remembered that her sailing career would be agreeable “ever between sea and sky, as if living in endlessness;” at last the wish to become a great, a very great writer, gained the day against everything else,—a writer describing the minutest movements of the soul, half-conscious feelings, desires incompletely defined, all forms, all colors, all shades. The party learned also, as a secret, that she was writing her memoirs, which “that honest Yozio” considers a masterpiece; but she knows that that is nothing, she has not the least pretensions, and she ridicules Yozio and the memoirs.
“Yozio” looks at her with loving eyes, and with great affection on his pimpled face, and says with a protest,—
“As to the memoirs, I beg pardon greatly.”
They drove away about sundown. There were long shadows from the trees; the sun was large and red. The distant aqueducts and the Alban hills were gleaming in rose-color. They were halfway when the “Angelus” was sounded in the tower of St. Paul’s, and immediately after were heard a second, a third, a tenth. Each church gave the signal to the succeeding one; and such a mighty chorus was formed as if the whole air were ringing, as if the “Angelus” had been sounded not merely by the city, but the whole region, the plains, and the mountains.
Pan Stanislav looked on Marynia’s face, lighted by the golden gleams. There was great calm in it and attention. It was evident that she was repeating the “Angelus” now, as she had repeated it in Kremen, when it was sounded in Vantory. Always and everywhere the same. Pan Stanislav remembered again the “service of God.” It seemed to him more simple and pacifying than ever. But now, while approaching the city, he understood the permanence, the vitality, the immensity, of those beliefs. “All this,” thought he, “has endured thus for a thousand and a half of years; and the strength and certainty of this city is only in those towers, those bells, that permanence of the cross, which endures and endures.” Again Svirski’s words came to him: “Here a ruin, on the Palatine a ruin, in the Forum a ruin, but over the city crosses, crosses, crosses and crosses.” It seemed to him beyond a doubt that in that very permanence there is something superhuman. Meanwhile the bells sounded, and the heavens above the city were covered with twilight. Under the impression produced by the praying Marynia, and the bells, and that vesper feeling, which seemed to hover over the city and the whole land, the following thought began to take form in Pan Stanislav, who had much mental directness: “What an idiot and vain fool should I be, in view of the needs of faith and that feeling of God, were I to seek some special forms of love and reverence of my own, instead of accepting those which Marynia calls ‘service of God,’ and which still must be the best, since the world has lived nearly two thousand years in them!” Then the reasoning side of this thought struck him as a practical man, and he continued to himself, almost joyously: “On one side the traditions of a thousand years, the life of God knows how many generations and how many societies, for which there was and is delight in those forms, the authority for Godknows how many persons who consider them as the only forms; on the other side, who? I, a partner in the commission house of Bigiel and Polanyetski; and I had the pretension to think out something better into which the Lord God would fit Himself more conveniently. For this it is needful at least to be a fool! I, besides, am a man sincere with myself; and I could not endure it if from time to time the thought came to me,—I am a fool. But my mother believed in this, and my wife believes; and I have never seen greater peace in any one than in them.”
Here he looked at Marynia once and a second time; she had finished evidently her “Angelus,” for she smiled at him in answer, and inquired,—
“Why so silent?”
“We are all silent,” he answered.
And so it was, but for various reasons. While Pan Stanislav was occupied with his thoughts, Pani Osnovski attacked him a number of times with her eyes and her words. He answered her words with something disconnected, and did not notice her glances in any way. He simply offended her: she might have forgiven him, she might have been pleased even, if to her statement that she wished to be a nun, he had answered with impudence concealed in polished words; but he wounded her mortally when he ceased to notice her, and in punishment she ceased also to notice him.
But as a person of good breeding she became all the politer to Marynia. She inquired touching her plans on the following day; and, learning that they were to be at the Vatican, she announced that she and her husband had tickets of admission, and would use the opportunity also.
“You know the dress?” inquired she. “A black robe, and black lace on the head. One looks a little old in them, but no matter.”
“I know; Pan Svirski forewarned me,” answered Marynia.
“Pan Svirski always talks of you to me when I am sitting to him. He has great regard for you.”
“And I for him.”
During this conversation they arrived at the hotel. Pan Stanislav received such a slight and cool pressure of the hand from the fair lady that, though his head was occupied with something else, he noticed it.
“Is that a new method,” thought he, “or have I said something that displeased her?”
“What dost thou think of Pani Osnovski?” asked he of Marynia in the evening.
“I think that Pan Svirski may be right in some measure.”
And Pan Stanislav answered: “She is writing at this moment ‘memoirs,’ which ‘Yozio’ considers a masterpiece.”
Next morning when Marynia came out to her husband he hardly knew her. Dressed in black, and with a black lace veil on her head, she seemed taller, more slender, darker, and older. But he was pleased by a certain solemnity in her which recalled the ceremony of their marriage. Half an hour later they started. On the road Marynia confessed to fear, and a beating of the heart. He pacified her playfully, though he, too, was moved somewhat; and when, after a short drive, they entered the gigantic half-circle in front of St. Peter’s, he felt also that his pulse was not beating as every day, and, besides, he had a strange feeling of being smaller than usual. Near the steps, where stood a number of Swiss guards, arrayed in the splendid uniform invented by Michael Angelo, they found Svirski, who led them up with a throng of people, mostly Belgians. Marynia, who was somewhat dazed, did not know herself when she entered a very spacious hall, in which the throng was still denser, excepting on a space in the centre, where the Swiss guards were posted in lines, and kept a broad passage open. The crowd, among which the French and Flemish languages were to be heard, whispered in low voices, and turned their heads and eyes toward a passage, in which, from time to time, appeared, through the adjoining hall, forms in remarkable costumes, which reminded Pan Stanislav of galleries in Antwerp or Brussels. It seemed to him that the Middle Ages were rising from the dead: now it was some knight of those ages, in a helmet, different indeed from helmets on the ancient portraits, but with steel on his breast; now a herald in a short red dalmatica, and with a red cap on his head; at times through the open door appeared purple cardinals, or violet bishops, ostrich feathers, lace on black velvet, and heads immensely venerable, white hair and faces, as if from a sarcophagus. But it was evident that the glances of the throng were falling on those peculiar dresses and colors and faces, as if, in passing, that their eyes were waiting for something beyond, something higher, some other heart; it was clear that in people’s minds attention was fixed aswas feeling in their souls, in waiting for a moment which comes once in a lifetime, and is memorable ever after. Pan Stanislav, holding Marynia by the hand, so as not to lose her in the throng, felt that hand tremble from emotion; as to him, in the midst of those silent crowds and beating hearts, before that historical dignity of former ages rising from the dead, as it were, in the midst of that attention and expectation, he felt a second time the wonderful impression of becoming smaller and smaller, till he was the smallest that he had ever been in life.
At that moment a low and rather panting voice whispered near them,—
“I have been looking for you, and found you with difficulty. The ceremony will begin at once, it seems.”
But it was not to begin at once. The monsignor acquaintance greeted Svirski meanwhile, and, speaking a few words to him, conducted the whole party politely to the adjoining hall, which was fitted in crimson damask. Pan Stanislav saw with astonishment that this hall, too, was full of people, with the exception of one end, which was reserved by a guard of honor, and in which was an armchair on an elevation, and before it a number of prelates and bishops conversing confidentially. Here expectation and attention were more expressly visible. It was evident that people were holding their breath; and all faces had a solemn, mysterious expression. The azure clearness of the day, mingled with the purple reflections of the tapestry, filled that hall with a kind of unusual light, in which the rays of the sun, breaking in here and there through the window-panes, appeared very ruddy and of a deeper red.
They waited some time yet; at last, in the first hall a murmur was heard, then a muttering, then a shout, and, finally, in the open side door appeared a white figure borne by the noble guard. Marynia’s hand pressed Pan Stanislav’s nervously; he returned the pressure; and swift impressions, merged in one general feeling of the exceptional and solemn import of the moment, flashed through their minds, as during the ceremony of their marriage.
One of the cardinals began to speak, but Pan Stanislav neither heard nor understood what he said. His eyes, his thoughts, his whole soul, were with the figure clothed in white. Nothing in it escaped his attention,—its unparalleled emaciation, its frailness, its thinness, and its face as pale, and at the same time as transparent, as facesof the dead are. There was in it something which had no physical strength, or in every case it seemed to him simply half body, half apparition, as it were, a light shining through alabaster; a spirit, fixed in some transparent matter; an intermediate link between two worlds; a link human yet, though already preterhuman, earthly so far, but also above earthly things. And through a marvellous antithesis the matter in it seemed to be something apparitional, and the spirit something material.
Afterward, when people began to approach it for a blessing; when Pan Stanislav saw his Marynia at its feet; when he felt that to those knees, already half empyrean, one might still incline as to those of a father,—an emotion surpassing everything seized him; his eyes were as if mist-covered; never in life had he felt himself such a small grain of sand, but at the same time he felt himself a grain of sand in which the grateful heart of a little child was throbbing.
After they had gone out, all were silent. Marynia had eyes as if roused from sleep; Vaskovski’s hands were trembling. Bukatski dragged himself in to lunch; but, being ill, he could not excite conversation in any one. Svirski, strange to say, talked little while Marynia was sitting, and returned continually to the same subject; from time to time he repeated,—
“Yes, yes; whoever has not seen that can have no conception of it. That will remain.”
In the evening Pan Stanislav and Marynia went to see the sunset from Trinità dei Monti. The day ended very beautifully. The whole city was buried in a kind of hazy golden gleam; under their feet, far down in the valley, on the Piazza di Spagna, darkness was beginning, but a darkness yet lighted, in the mild tones of which irises and white lilies were visible among the flowers set out on both sides of the Via Condotti. In the whole picture there was great and undisturbed repose,—a kind of soothing announcement of night and sleep. Then the Piazza di Spagna began to sink more and more in the shade, but the Trinità was shining continually in purple.
Pan Stanislav and Marynia felt this calmness reflected in themselves; they descended the giant stairs then with a wonderful feeling of peace in their souls. All the impressions of the day settled down in them in lines as great and calm as those twilight belts, which were still shining above them.
“Knowest thou,” said Pan Stanislav, “what I remember yet from childhood’s years? That with us at home they always said the evening rosary together.” And he looked with an inquiring glance into Marynia’s eyes.
“Oh, my Stas!” said she, with a voice trembling from emotion, “I did not dare to mention this—my best.”
“‘Service of God,’—dost thou remember?”
But she had said that formerly with such simplicity, and as a thing so self-evident, that she remembered nothing whatever about it.