ByWŁADYSŁAW REYMONT
The door opened suddenly with a bang, letting the wind into the room, and a silent, sinister crowd of peasants began to pour in from the dark hall. They did not even say, "The Lord be praised!"[18]
The miller dropped his spoon on the table, and looked round in astonishment from one to the other. Then he turned down the lamp which was flaring from the draught.
"There are rather a lot of you," he muttered.
"There are more waiting outside," Jędrzej, one of the peasants, said, coming forward quickly.
"Have you any business to settle with me?"
"We didn't come here just for a talk," someone said, shutting the door.
"Then sit down; I shall have finished supper in a minute."
"To your good health! We will wait a while...."
The miller began to sip up his porridge hastily. The peasants meanwhile settled themselves onthe benches round the stove, warming their backs and carefully watching Jędrzej, who had sat down by the table and was leaning his elbows on it in deep reflection.
"Beastly weather this!" the miller accosted them.
"Real March weather."
"It's always like this before the spring."
Here the conversation broke off again, and the only thing to be heard in the silence of the room was the miller's spoon scraping along the earthenware bowl. But outside someone was stamping the mud off his boots, while at times the howling gusts of wind struck the walls till they creaked, and the rain beat against the steamed window-panes.
"Jadwiś!" called the miller, wiping his short moustache with his hand.
A strong and very good-looking girl, not wearing a peasant's dress, appeared from a side room. She threw a keen glance at the peasants, and, taking the bowl in her arm, went out again with a rolling gait.
"What is this business?" began the miller, taking snuff.
Not a hand was stretched out towards the snuff; the peasants' faces had suddenly clouded. Someone cleared his throat, others scratched their heads in indecision, and they all looked at Jędrzej, who, straightening himself and fixinghis light, searching eyes on the miller, said slowly:
"We have come to make you tell us who the thieves were."
The miller started back, stared, spread out his arms, and stuttered: "In the Name of the Father and the Son! How should I know that?..."
"We think you are the man to know," Jędrzej said in a lower voice, standing up. The other peasants also got up, and planted themselves round the miller in a circle, like a thick wall, fixing him with eyes as keen as a hawk's, so that the blood mounted to his face. "We have come to you for the truth," Jędrzej whispered impressively.
"And you must tell us—you've got to!" the rest echoed in low, stern voices.
"What truth? Are you mad? How am I to know? Am I a party to thieves? Or what?..." He spoke quickly, turning the light up and down with trembling hands.
"We know very well that you're honest; but you know who the thieves are. So come, how was it? They stole your horses in the autumn, but you did nothing; and not long ago they stole money from you—you even caught them in your bedroom—and again you did nothing and didn't have them taken up, and never even told the policeman about them."
"Why should I? Do you want me to losemore money? What good would the Court or the police do? They'd catch the wind in the field and bring it bound to me! May God repay those scoundrels at the Judgment Day for the wrong they have done me!"
"It's plain, from all you say, that you're afraid to let out who they are."
"If I knew, do you think I'd be the worse off through them, and not tell? Was it for nothing...."
"You keep going round in a circle," Jędrzej interrupted him roughly. "We didn't come here to quarrel with you, but to get at the truth; and we're in a hurry, for the whole village is waiting, some outside your house and some in the cottages. So we ask you as a friend to tell us who stole your money."
"If I had known it myself, the Court and all the village would have known by now," the miller excused himself anxiously, looking in alarm at the set, suspicious faces round him. But Jędrzej threw himself forward impatiently, and his eyes shone with anger. Without thinking what he was doing, he took the miller by the shoulder, and said abruptly in a firm voice:
"What you are saying isn't true! But if you will swear to it in church, we will trust you and leave you in peace."
The miller sat down and began to talk with feigned amusement:
"Ha, ha! You're in a larky mood, I see, as if it were Carnival. Of course, if you all go in a crowd to a fellow and threaten him with sticks, he'll be ready to swear to anything you like. I tell you the truth: I know nothing about this, and I know nothing about the thieves. You can believe me if you like; if not, then don't. But you won't force me to swear to it, for you have no right to try me...."
He stood up, rolling his eyes defiantly.
"Indeed, that's what we came for—and to carry out the sentence justly," Jędrzej said so firmly that the miller started back in terror, and was unable to get out a word.
The peasants surrounded him in gloomy silence, fixing their burning eyes on him, and shuffling their feet impatiently. So menacing and full of stern resolution did they look that he was at a loss to know what to do, and merely stood wiping the perspiration from his bald head and casting frightened glances round the circle of stubborn, set faces. He realized that this was not only idle talk, but the beginning of something terrible. He sat down again on a bench, and took pinch after pinch of snuff to help himself to arrive at some decision. Then Jędrzej went up to him, and said solemnly:
"You neither want to tell the truth nor to swear to it. So it's plain you are a party to those thieves!"
The miller sprang up as hastily as if something close beside him had been struck by lightning, upsetting the bench as he did so.
"Jesus! Mary! have I to do with thieves? You say this to me?"
"I say it and repeat it!"
"And we repeat it too!" they all shouted together, shaking their fists at him. Their heads were bent forward; their glances were like vultures' beaks, ready to tear.
Attracted by the noise, Jadwiś burst into the room and stood petrified.
"What's up here?" she asked anxiously.
The peasants dropped their clenched hands, and began to clear their throats.
"We don't want women here, listening and blabbing it all out afterwards," someone said angrily.
"She'd better go back where she came from."
"Look after the geese, and don't come poking your nose into men's business!" they shouted still louder. Jadwiś ran out of the room in a furious temper, slamming the door after her.
Again Jędrzej stretched his hand forward, and said:
"I tell you, miller, the time for trial and punishment has come!"
"And for bringing order into the world!..."
"And for weeding out wrong and planting justice!..." The words rang out menacingly,and again the peasants shook their clenched fists in the miller's frightened face.
"Good God! what do you fellows want? What am I guilty of?" he gasped, terrified, looking round from side to side. But, without heeding him, Jędrzej began to speak quickly and in a low, hard voice which penetrated the miller like frost.
"As he won't confess, he is guilty. Take him, and we will try him at the church.... Everyone who wrongs the people will be brought to a just trial, and be heavily sentenced. Take him, you fellows!"
"Jesus! Mary! Men!..." the miller stammered in deadly fear, looking round distractedly, for the peasants all advanced towards him together. "Men!... How can I tell you?... I have sworn to it. They'll burn the house down or kill me if I say who they are.... Merciful Jesu! Let me be! I'll tell you everything! I'll tell you!" His voice quavered, for several hands had already seized him and were dragging him towards the door.
It was some time before he was able to speak. He fell panting on the table. They stood round him, and someone gave him a little water to drink, while others said in a friendly way:
"Don't be afraid; no one who is on the side of the people will have a hair on his head touched."
"Only confess the whole truth."
"We know you're an honest man, and will tell us the scoundrels' names."
The miller writhed inwardly, like an eel when it is trodden upon; he went hot and cold, and became alternately pale and red. Suddenly he drew himself up, ready for anything. But before he began to speak he glanced into the next room.
There was a glimpse of Jadwiś, as though she were just jumping away from behind the door. He looked out of the window, and then, standing up before the group of peasants, he crossed himself and said:
"I am telling you the truth as though I were at Confession; it was the two Gajdas and the Starszy."[19]
There was silence. The men stood petrified and stared at one another, panting and drawing long, hoarse breaths. Jędrzej was the first to speak:
"That's what we were thinking, but we couldn't be sure. Now we know what we want to know. We know them, the filthy scoundrels!" He banged his fist on the table. "They are weeds that must be torn up by the roots so that they mayn't spread. Both the Gajdas—father and son? And the Starszy is the third? Then, in God's Name, we'll go to them, and you'll go with us, miller, so that you may tell them the truth to their face."
"I'll go and tell them—that I will! It's asif a weight had fallen from my shoulders. I'll stand up and tell them they're robbers and thieves. Good God! I knew what they were up to, but I daren't breathe a word about it. May they be broken upon the wheel for my sin in being such a coward! I was ashamed to look people in the face when everyone was calling out about those robberies.... The rascals! they took away my horses; I sent them the ransom through the Starszy, but they didn't give them back.... And afterwards I caught them in my bedroom: they fleeced me of every penny, and they threatened me with their knives.... As if that weren't enough, I had to swear I'd not let out who'd done it!"
"The whole neighbourhood has suffered through them."
"They have stolen a great many horses and cows from people, and a lot of money."
"It was easy for them to do all that, for the Starszy gave them the go-by, and went shares with them...."
"They had a gay time at our expense; let them pay for it now...."
"If everyone talks, I'll have my say, too," someone exclaimed. "I know that the Gajdas betrayed the priest for having married the young couple from Podlasia."[20]
"What!... They even betrayed the priest?"
"And the postmaster's daughters who taught the children[21]—it must have been they who betrayed them?"
"So it was! So it was! We know that!" the miller asserted rancorously.
"Then it's they who robbed and killed the Jews in the forest!"
"Sure enough, it's the Gajdas! It's they!... The carrion!... The mean wretches! The scoundrels!" The peasants began to curse, thumping their sticks on the ground and stamping. Their eyes shot fire, and they raised their clenched fists.
"Let's have done with them! Punish those swine! Try them! Try them!"
"Then let's go quickly before they escape us!" Jędrzej cried.
"Skin them!... Batter them to death like mad dogs!" they shouted, pressing through the doorway. The miller blew out the light and went with them.
They were no sooner outside the house than Jadwiś ran out. She glided stealthily along the wall, looking anxiously after them and wondering wherever they could be going on a night like that, and what their reason for going could be.
For it was a real March night, cold, wet, andwindy. The whole world was wrapped in thick darkness. The sleet lashed the men's faces and took away their breath, and the damp cold penetrated them to the marrow; the wind swept through the orchards from all sides; the snowy ridges of the fields alone showed white in the blackness. But, without noticing the wretched weather, the peasants walked along briskly, spurting the mud from under their feet. They went stealthily one after the other past the low cottages which sat along the highroad like tired old market women taking a rest, or nestled in their orchards so that only the snowy roofs, resembling white hoods, could be seen through the swaying trees.
Jędrzej walked in front. Every now and then he gave orders in a low voice, and someone left the line, ran up to a window, and, hammering at it with his fist, cried:
"Come out! It's time!"
The light in the cottage would be extinguished at once, and the door would creak. Black shadows, feeling their way with sticks, would creep out and join the crowd in silence.
They now walked still closer together and with even greater caution, looking carefully in all directions.
Suddenly Jędrzej looked back nervously; he had distinctly heard the mud splash as if someone were running after them, and there was a shadowcreeping along stealthily under the hedge. But directly the peasants stopped all was quiet and there was nothing to be seen; the only sounds were the roar of the wind, and now and again the dogs barking furiously in their kennels.
They moved on more slowly, but several now began to cross themselves in terror; some sighed, while others felt a cold shudder go through them. Yet no one said a word or hesitated; they went forward with a steady movement like an oncoming, threatening cloud drawing together slowly and silently before it suddenly flashes with lightning and scatters hail on the ground.
They passed the public-house, which was brilliantly lighted; some of them sniffed in the familiar smell, and would have liked to have gone inside to have a drink. This, however, Jędrzej would not allow. He made them draw up into the middle of the road, for they had now nearly reached the policeman's house; its white walls shone in the distance. The lively strains of a concertina came through the brightly lighted windows.
The peasants stopped opposite the house, and scarcely dared to breathe.
"Now keep a good look-out," Jędrzej said, "and the minute the bell rings, go into the room all together and get him by the head, and a rope round him. But be careful he doesn't give you the slip, or else he'll do a lot of harm.... Don't make a noise and scare him away."
Several peasants silently left the crowd and crept up to the house in the darkness. In the meantime the others marched on quickly towards the large square at the end of the village, where only a few little lights were shining. The space between these last houses and the snowy fields was filled by the church and a thicket of trees which looked like a black mountain rocking slightly in the breeze.
The Gajdas' house stood near the church, a little way from the road, and was partly hidden by a large orchard, so that the lights from the windows showed through the close branches like wolves' eyes. The men turned towards it at once, but in places the mud was knee-deep, for the puddles had become like pools, and frozen snow-drifts blocked the road. They went carefully step by step to avoid the obstructions, and made a circle as though intentionally prolonging the way. Near the fence they halted for an instant; Jędrzej bade them keep silence, stole to the side of the window, and peeped in.
The room was large; the whitewashed walls were hung with pictures, and lighted by a lamp suspended from the ceiling. Several people were sitting at the table under the lamp, having supper, and talking together in low voices. The bright fire crackling on the hearth threw red gleams over one side of the room. A girl was walking up and down, nursing a screaming baby.
"They're at home—they're in there!" Jędrzej whispered, turning to the crowd. He was trembling all over, and almost unable to breathe or to speak and tell half the men to go and watch the house from the backyard and fields.
But, quickly composing himself, he led the rest boldly through the gate up to the house. They had already reached it, when the dogs began to howl so dismally somewhere in the backyard that they hesitated for a moment.
"That's our lot has come upon the dogs. Come on! If they put up a fight in there, knock them down with your sticks, the swine!—No pity!" Jędrzej whispered. Dragging the miller after him and crossing himself, he walked sharply into the hall, the other peasants close behind him, shoulder to shoulder. They entered the room in a body, looking black and determined.
There was some commotion. The Gajdas jumped up from the table, their mouths open with amazement. But the elder one recovered his presence of mind in a trice, and, dropping on to a stool, he pulled his son by the sleeve to make him sit down too.
"Glad to see you!" he cried with ironical friendliness. "Ha, ha! What grand guests! Even the miller and Jędrzej! Quite a party!"
"Sit down, neighbours!" the young Gajda put in, throwing frightened glances round the peasants, and mechanically dipping his spoon into the dish.
But no one sat down, and not a hand was stretched out in greeting. They all stood as still as posts, and Jędrzej alone came forward, saying sternly:
"Stop eating; we have more important business in hand."
"Business? Supper is more important to us!" the old man snapped insolently.
"I tell you: stop! So stop!" Jędrzej thundered.
"Hah! You are very domineering in a strange cottage!"
"I command, and you must obey, you dirty dogs!"
The Gajdas jumped to their feet, pale and shaking with fear. But they clenched their teeth and looked as fierce as wolves, ready for anything.
"What do you want?" the younger man asked, choking with fury.
"To try you and punish you—you robbers!" Jędrzej cried in a terrible voice. It was as if the ceiling were falling on them, for they cowered under these words.
Death seemed to sweep through the silence which followed, for even breathing ceased for a moment; only the baby began to cry louder than before. Suddenly the Gajdas sprang towards the door, the younger brandishing his knife, the older man snatching up his axe; but before they could strike, the peasants had thrown themselves upon them, and in the scuffle whichfollowed blows from sticks rained down upon them, a score of hands grasped them by the head, neck, and legs, and they were lifted bodily from the ground, like fragile plants.
The storm went round the room; there were cries and confusion; tables, benches, and chairs flew in all directions; the women sobbed; with curses and shouts, a convulsed mass of men rolled on to the floor, hit against the wall several times, and finally fell asunder.
At length the Gajdas lay on the ground, bound with ropes, like sheep, and shouting at the top of their voices. They cursed horribly as they struggled to free themselves.
"Take them to the church door; they shall be tried there!" Jędrzej ordered.
They dragged them out of the house and almost along the ground across the square, driving them on with sticks, for they resisted, yelling with all their might. The women ran by their side, sobbing and whining for pity; the men kicked them away as if they were so many bitches. "Peal the church bell! Let all the village come together!" the miller cried.
The landscape was lighted by the snow which had begun to fall heavily.
The bell rang out with a deep sound, like a fire-alarm, and then went on pealing without ceasing, mournfully and ominously, so that the crows flew up cawing from the belfry and circled overthe church. From the village came a crowd of women and children, running and shouting.
"Men! Have pity! Help! For Heaven's sake!" the Gajdas shouted, trying desperately to free themselves. But no one answered; the whole crowd went on in deep silence. Thus they entered the churchyard, took their prisoners up to the church door, and threw them down there.
"What are we guilty of? What do you mean? Help!" the Gajdas shouted once more, making an effort to get up. But someone gave them a kick, and they fell down again like logs, cursing and vowing dreadful vengeance on the whole village.
Standing with his back against the church door, Jędrzej took off his cap and cried in a loud, solemn voice:
"Brothers! Poles!"
The women's screaming was hushed, and the crowd drew into a close circle, straining to listen, for the wet snow, which was falling thickly, made hearing difficult.
"I tell you this, brothers: just as the peasant goes out with his harrow in the spring to rake his field which he ploughed in the autumn, that it may be free from weeds before he puts in good seed, so now the time has come to weed out the wrong in the world.... They have already done this in other districts and parishes; they have turned out the District Clerk at Olsza, they havekilled the thieves at Wola, and driven away others from Grabica. And the people have taken this upon themselves—upon themselves; for things in this world are so badly managed that we peasants have to work and sweat, pay rates, and send up recruits. But if any of us has a grievance, there is only God and useless grumbling left him."
"Ay, that's it—that's it!"
"This I tell you: the time has come for us peasant people not to look for help to anyone else, but to rely on ourselves. We must manage for ourselves; we must defend ourselves from being ill-treated, and take the law into our own hands! We have waited for long years, and had to put up with all kinds of wrongs done to us, and no one has come to the rescue or helped us in any way. For the Courts are not for those who want justice; the laws are not for peasants; and there's no protection for those who have been wronged. Everyone with any sense knows that. So there seems to be no other way but do as other villages are doing."
"Kill the carrion! Finish them off! Tear them with wild horses!" they began to shout frantically at once, attacking the Gajdas with their sticks.
"Silence! Stop there, you fools!" Jędrzej roared, putting himself in front of the Gajdas to protect them. "Wait! We all know they are robbers, thieves, and traitors who deserve punishment; but first let everyone who has anythingto charge them with come forward and say it to their face. For we have come here to sentence and not to murder them. We don't want to play off our revenge on them, but to punish them justly."
The people crowded together more closely, for everyone felt awkward at being the first to come forward. There was a loud hubbub of voices as they recalled their grievances and pressed with threats towards the prisoners. At last the miller stepped forward, and, raising his hand, said solemnly:
"I swear before God and men that they stole my horses and four hundred roubles. I caught them in the act.... At the point of the knife they forced me to swear that I would not give them away. They threatened me with revenge if I did. They are robbers of the worst sort."
"And I swear that the Gajdas stole my cow," said another man.
"And they took my sow."
"And my mare and foal," others deposed.
The assembled people listened in grim silence.
The snow suddenly ceased to fall and the wind increased, beating round the church and tearing at the swaying, moaning trees; large grey clouds flew across the sky; but the steady voices continued their accusations uninterruptedly. At intervals there was an ominous murmur and the thumping of sticks, or else the Gajdas cried:
"That's not true! They're giving wrong evidence! The thieves from Wola did all that! Don't believe it!"
But fresh people came forward, accusing them of still heavier crimes.
And finally they reproached them with the murder of the Jews and with betraying the postmaster's daughters and the priest, with committing arson, joining in drinking bouts with the police, and not going to church: any known misdemeanour was hastily raked up and thrown furiously at their miserable heads. There was a great clamour, for each man tried to shout down the other, everyone cursed and swore to avenge himself, and was so eager to beat the Gajdas that Jędrzej, unable to restrain them all, shouted angrily:
"Hold your noise, and let me have a say!"
The hubbub subsided slightly, and only the women continued their quarrelsome chattering.
"Do you plead guilty?" he asked, bending over them.
"No! We're wrongly charged! They are lying—that's all their spite! We swear to it!" they cried in despair.
"If you plead guilty, you will get a lighter sentence," he urged them, relenting a little.
The miller, Jędrzej, and those few who were less excited, still tried to protect them from the enraged crowd, which moved on towards themlike a storm, shouting and flourishing sticks. But the women managed to jump at them and scratch them spitefully.
The scene at the church door became more terrible every instant.
"We must have the priest here before we finish with them!... The priest!" the miller cried suddenly.
The people stopped. Someone ran to fetch the Vicar.
"Or shall we put off carrying out the sentence till to-morrow?" the miller proposed.
Thumping their sticks together, the crowd shouted:
"Let's have done with them!... No need for such scoundrels to have a priest!... Let them die like dogs! No delay, or else they'll run and fetch the Cossacks! Kill them off!"
But the Gajdas, feeling that this brought a possibility of rescue, began to implore despairingly:
"Men, have pity! Send the priest; we want to make our confession! The priest!..."
Unfortunately for them, the priest was not at home. He had gone away somewhere the previous evening.
"Then let them make their confession before all the people," someone said.
"Very good! Yes, let them confess—and tell the truth!" the rest assented.
Someone cut the ropes binding their hands, and set them on their knees before the church door.
"Open the church! They are going to make their confession! Open it!" shouted many voices.
But Jędrzej exclaimed: "No need of that! It's a sin to bring such scoundrels into the house of God; it's enough that we allow them to come on to consecrated ground. Quiet there!" he called to the dissatisfied women who kept on talking; and, bending over the Gajdas, he said:
"Now confess; but only say the plain truth. The people have power to forgive you your trespasses." He knelt down beside them, and all the rest followed his example, sighing and crossing themselves.
The Gajdas mumbled something, looking round meanwhile in all directions.
"Speak up! Louder! They even want to cheat God!" the crowd shouted indignantly.
The elder Gajda, who seemed to have lost heart completely, began to shiver, and burst out crying, confessing his sins through heavy sobs.
A dead silence spread through the crowd; no one dared to breathe, or even cough; that pitiful voice, spreading through the darkness like a pool of blood, was the only sound besides the bell pealing overhead and the soughing trees.
The people were awestruck, and their flesh began to creep. They beat their breasts in terror; here and there a moan broke from them; an icyfear penetrated them, for Gajda, while all the time throwing the blame on his son and the policeman, not only pleaded guilty to what he was accused of, but to many other even worse crimes....
When he had finished he prostrated himself with outstretched arms, striking his head on the threshold of the church door. His entreaties for mercy were so piteous that many people in the crowd began to cry also.
"Now let Kacper confess!" the men howled. "Kacper! Get on, you blackguard! Be quick!" They began to beat and kick him, till he raised himself, exclaiming furiously:
"You're blackguards yourselves! You want to murder innocent people! You're thieves and traitors yourselves!"
He cursed and threatened them dreadfully, till the old man begged him to stop.
"You'd better knuckle under, son. Confess; then perhaps they'll pardon you. Knuckle under!..."
"I won't! I won't beg for mercy from blackguards! Dogs! Damned scoundrels! Carrion! I've no need to confess myself. Let them kill me—the swine! Only let them dare to do it! The Cossacks will give it them back for me to-morrow. Only let them touch me!"
He roared this like a wild beast, and, suddenly springing to his feet and belabouring the nearest bystanders with his fists, he began to beat his waymadly through the crowd. The old man slipped after him like a wolf. There was a fearful outcry, but the Gajdas were instantly overpowered and thrown down, like a bundle of rags, where they had lain before.
"They are trying to run away!" Jędrzej shouted angrily. "They are threatening vengeance! Punish them, you fellows! Beat them to death like mad dogs! Let everyone have a go at them—everyone—whoever believes in God!"
The crowd swayed like a forest, and flung itself upon the men; a hundred sticks rose and fell with a hollow crash, and the air was rent with a terrific roar as though the whole world were breaking to pieces. It was like a whirlwind raging and then suddenly subsiding. Only curses and women's shrieks and the thud of sticks were heard in the darkness now, while at moments wild, piercing cries rang out from the men who were being murdered.
And a few minutes later there was nothing at the church door but a black shapeless mass pounded into the slush; it gave out a sickly smell of blood.
The bell ceased. But the men had not yet had time to get their breath before the news spread from the village that the policeman had escaped. The peasants came running one after the other, talking and shouting:
"The policeman has made off! We went intohis room when the bell began to ring, and he had gone."
"He escaped through the larder. The miller's daughter had warned him."
"Of course; we saw her go in! She gave him the tip. It was she!"
"That's a lie!" the miller bawled, springing towards them and threatening them with his fists.
"We all know that she got herself into trouble with the policeman—all of us!" the women cried; and everyone suddenly knew something about the matter, and put in his word.
Then Jędrzej began to speak again: "You people, listen! Brothers! We have punished only these; but the biggest thief has run away. We must catch him.... For that is how we will punish everyone who does wrong to the people, steals, and is a traitor. Jump on your horses and hunt him down! Quick! Get on your horses, you fellows! He has made off to the town; catch him! Alive or dead, we must get him! Hurry up there, or else he may play us a dirty trick! Look sharp!"
They poured out of the churchyard and ran hurriedly towards the village. In no time a number of peasants were tearing towards the town at full speed, their horses scattering the mud from under their feet.
The village became almost deserted, exceptfor a few women in the churchyard, who were crying bitterly.
Keeping to the middle of the road, and heedless of the sleet beating into his face, the miller dragged himself homewards. He breathed with difficulty, and often paused, sighing heavily. At times he staggered, at times he stopped short, as though petrified; and now and then a low, pained whisper broke from the depth of his tortured heart.
"You—my daughter! So that's what you are!—With the policeman!" he repeated involuntarily.
And he clenched his fist in his bitterness; but he was trembling as in a fever, and heavy tears rolled fast down his face.
BySTEFAN ŻEROMSKI
Dr. Paweł Obareckireturned home in rather a bad temper from a whist-party, where he had been paying his respects to the priest, in company with the chemist, the postmaster and the magistrate, for sixteen successive hours, beginning the previous evening. He carefully locked the door of his study so that no one, not even his housekeeper, aged twenty-four, should disturb him. He sat down at the table, glared angrily at the window without knowing why, and drummed on the table with his fingers. He realized that he was in for another fit of his "metaphysics."
It is a well-established fact that a man of culture who has been cast out by the irresistible force of poverty from the centres of intellectual life into a small provincial town succumbs in time to the deadening effects of wet autumn, lack of means of communication, and the absolute impossibility of sensible conversation for days together. He develops into a carnivorous and vegetable-eating animal, drinks an excessive quantity of bottled beer, and becomes subject to fitsof weariness resembling the weakness that precedes physical sickness. He swallows the boredom of a small town unconsciously, as a dog swallows dirt with his food. The actual process of decay begins at the moment when the thought "Nothing matters" takes hold of the organism. This was the case with Dr. Obarecki of Obrzydłówek. At the period of his life when this story begins, he had already come to the end of the resources of Obrzydłówek as regards his brain, his heart, and his energy.
He had an unconquerable horror of intellectual effort, could walk up and down his study for hours together, or lie on the couch with an unlighted cigar in his mouth, straining his ear to catch a sound which would foretell an interruption of the oppressive silence, anxiously longing for something to happen: if only someone would come and say something, or even turn somersaults! The autumn usually oppressed him specially; there was something painful in the silence brooding over Obrzydłówek from end to end on a late autumn afternoon—something despairing that roused one to an inward cry for help. As though a fine cobweb were being spun across it, his brain elaborated ideas which were sometimes coarse and occasionally positively absurd.
His only diversion was whistling and his conversations with his housekeeper. They turned on the remarkable superiority of roast porkstuffed with buckwheat to pork with any other kind of stuffing; but at times they became very improper.
The sky was frequently half covered by a cloud resembling enormous bays and promontories; unable to disperse, it would lie motionless, threatening to burst suddenly over Obrzydłówek and the distant lonely fields. The fine snow from this cloud would fasten in crystals on the window-panes, while the wind made weird penetrating sounds like an exhausted baby crying out its last sobs close by at a corner of the house. Stripped of their leaves and lashed by the driving snow, wild pear trees swayed their branches over the distant field paths.... There was something of a catarrhal melancholy in this landscape, which unconsciously induced sadness and restless fear. The same chronic melancholy lasted in a diminishing degree through the spring and summer. Without any tangible cause, a malignant sadness had settled in the doctor's heart. He had fallen into a fatal state of idleness, so that it had even become too much effort to read Alexis' novels.
Dr. Paweł's "metaphysics," with which he was seized from time to time, consisted in a few hours' severe self-examination. This was followed by a violent inflowing of memories, a hasty amassing of shreds of knowledge, and a furious struggle of all his nobler instincts against the stifling inactivity;he indulged in reflections, outbursts of bitterness, firm resolutions, and projects. Naturally all this led to nothing, and passed in time like any other more or less acute illness. A good sleep would cure him of "metaphysics" as of a headache, and enable him to wake up fresh the next morning, with more energy to meet the tedium of daily life, and with a greater mental capacity for the invention of the most savoury dishes. This endemia of "metaphysics" made the doctor realize, however, when his mind was filled with the philosophy of strong common sense, that beneath his existence as a well-fed animal there was a hidden wound, incurable and unspeakably painful, like that of a diseased bone.
Dr. Obarecki had come to Obrzydłówek six years before, directly after completing his medical training, with a few exceptionally useful ideas in his mind and a few roubles in his pocket. There had been a great deal of talk at that time of the necessity of finding enlightened people who would settle in God-forsaken backwood places like Obrzydłówek. He had listened to the apostles of these schemes. Young, high-minded and reckless, he had within a month of settling in the town declared war against the local chemist and barbers, who encroached upon the medical profession. It was twenty-five miles to the nearest larger town, so the local chemist had exploited the situation. Those who wished to profit byhis medicaments had to pay a high price for them. He and the barbers, who got a percentage on the business, played into each others' hands. Consequently they were able to build themselves fine houses and wear "kacalyas" trimmed with bearskin. They went about with an air of dignity like "supporters"[22]at the Corpus Christi procession. When gentle hints and heated arguments had broken against the chemist's resistance, who declared the doctor's point of view to be a youthful Utopia, he scraped together a small sum and bought a travelling medicine-chest, which he carried with him on his rounds. He made up the medicines on the spot, sold them at a nominal price or gave them away, taught hygiene, made experiments, and worked perseveringly and with the utmost enthusiasm, giving himself no time for proper rest and sleep. It was a foregone conclusion that when the news of his portable chemist's shop, his giving his services to the people free of charge, and other things illustrating his point of view, became known, his windows were smashed. As Baruch Pokoik, the only glazier in Obrzydłówek, was busy at the time celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, the doctor was obliged to paste up the window-panes with paper, and keep watch at night, revolver in hand. The windows were, in fact,broken periodically, until wooden shutters were procured for them. Rumours were spread among the common people that the doctor had intercourse with evil spirits, while the better educated were told that he was ignorant of his profession. Patients who wished to consult him were kept away by threats and noisy demonstrations outside the house.
The young doctor paid no attention to all this, and relied on the ultimate triumph of truth. But truth did not triumph—it is difficult to say why not. By the end of the year his energy was slowly ebbing away. Close contact with the ignorant masses had disillusioned him more than words can say. His lectures on hygiene, entreaties and arguments had fallen like the seed on rocky ground. He had done all that was in his power—and it had been in vain.
To speak candidly, people can hardly be expected to restore their neglected health by simple laws of hygiene when they have to go without boots in winter, dig up rotten potatoes from other people's fields in March to get themselves a meal, and grind alderbark to powder so as to mix it with a very slender supply of pilfered rye flour.
Imperceptibly things began not to matter to the doctor. "If they will eat rotten potatoes, let them eat them! I can't help it, even if they eat them raw...."
The Jewish inhabitants of the little town were the only ones who continued to consult the idealist; they were not frightened by evil spirits, and the cheapness of the medicines greatly attracted them.
One fine morning the doctor awoke to the fact that the flame of inspiration burning brightly in him when he came to the little town, and to which he had trusted to illuminate his path, was extinguished. It had burnt out of its own accord. From that moment the travelling dispensary was locked up, and the doctor was the only one to profit by its contents. It was bitterly galling to him to own himself beaten by the chemist and barbers, and to end the war by locking his medicine-chest away in his cupboard. They had the right to boast that they had conquered, and to divide the spoil. Yet he knew it was not they; he had been conquered by his own weaker nature. He had allowed his high aims and noble actions to be suppressed, maybe because he had begun to attach too much importance to good dinners. Anyway they had been suppressed. He still carried on his practice, but no one seemed to reap any real benefit from his work.
By a strange coincidence all the neighbouring country-houses were in the possession of noble families of feudal character, who treated the doctor in an antiquated manner instead of conforming to the views of the present day. Dr.Paweł had once paid a call at one of these houses, which turned out rather a failure. The nobleman received him in the study, remained in his shirt-sleeves during the interview, and went on quietly eating ham, which he cut with a penknife. The doctor felt his democratic spirit rising within him, made a few unpleasant remarks to the Count, and paid no more visits in the neighbourhood.
He had therefore no other choice than the priest and the magistrate. It is dull, however, to get too much of the priest's company, and the stories told by the magistrate were not worth following. So the doctor was left very much to his own company. To counteract the evil consequences of living alone, he made up his mind to get nearer to Nature, to recover his calm and inner harmony, and regain strength and courage by the discovery of the links which unite man with her. He did not, however, discover these links, though he wandered to the edge of the forest, and on one occasion sank into a bog in the fields.
The flat landscape was surrounded on all sides by a blue-grey belt of forest. A few firs grew here and there on grey sandhills, and waste strips of ground, belonging to God knows whom, were scattered in all directions. The only relief was given by the meadows covered with goat's-beard and yellowish grass, but even this withered prematurely—it was as if the light did not possessenough intensity to develop colour. The sun seemed to shine on that desolate spot only in order to show how arid and depressing it was.
Daily the doctor trudged, umbrella in hand, along the edge of the sandy road, which was full of holes and marked by a tumbled-down fence. This road did not seem to lead anywhere, for it divided into several paths in the middle of the meadows, and disappeared among molehills. Later on it reappeared on the top of a sandhill in the shape of a furrow, and ran into a wood of dwarf pines.
Impatient anger seized the doctor when he looked at that landscape, and a vague feeling of fear made him restless....
The years passed.
The priest's mediation had brought about a reconciliation between the doctor and the chemist, now that it was clear that the doctor's zeal for innovations had cooled. Henceforward the rivals hobnobbed at whist, although the doctor always felt a sense of aversion towards the chemist. By degrees even this slightly lessened. He began to visit the chemist, and to make himself agreeable to his wife. On one occasion he was startled by the result of analyzing his heart, which showed that he was even capable of falling platonically in love with Pani Aniela, whose intellect was as blunt as a sugar-chopper. She was under the entirely mistaken impression that she was slimand irresistible, and talked unceasingly and with unexceptionable zeal of her servant's wickedness. Dr. Paweł listened to Pani Aniela's eloquence for hours together with the stereotyped smile that appears on the lips of a youth who is making himself agreeable to beautiful women while suffering tortures from toothache.
He was no longer capable of starting democratic ideas in Obrzydłówek, though for no better purpose than that of passing the time. He had intended at first to exchange visits with the butcher, but now he would not have done it at any price. If he talked, he preferred that it should be to people with at least a pretence to education. Not only had his energy given out, but also all respect for broader ideas. The wide horizon which once the idealist's eyes could hardly perceive had dwindled down to a small circle, measurable with the toe of a boot. When he had read socialistic articles during the first stages of his moral decay, it had been with bitterness and envy, alternating with the caution of a man who has a certain amount of experience in these matters. Gradually he came to reading them with distrust, then with contempt, and at last he could not conceive why he had ever troubled himself about these ideas which had become absolutely indifferent to him. The longing to make himself into a centre for intellectual life was far from him. He doctored according to routine methods,and succeeded in working up a fairly good practice with the maxim: "Pay me and take yourself off!" His loneliness and the boredom of Obrzydłówek had become familiar to him.
And yet, in spite of everything, at this moment when he sat drumming with his fingers on the table, "metaphysics" had taken hold of him again. Already towards the end of the sixteen hours during which he had been celebrating the priest's name-day by playing whist, he had begun to feel uncomfortable. This was due to the chemist's beginning to talk atheism. Dr. Obarecki knew the hidden reason for this sudden assault on the priest's feelings quite well.
He foresaw that it was meant to be a prelude to a friendship between him and the chemist for the purpose of joining hands in a common utilitarian aim. One would write prescriptions a yard long, and the other exploit the situation. Possibly the chemist would soon pay him a visit and make an open proposal for such a partnership, and the doctor foresaw that he would not have the strength of mind to kick him out. He did not know what reasons to give for the refusal. The course that the interview would take would be this: The chemist would touch on the matter gradually, skilfully, referring to the doctor's need of capital as the cause of his being in difficulties, then bring the conversation round to Obrzydłówek affairs, and point out how much they wouldbenefit the community by joining hands; and the end would be their paddling in the mire together.
Supposing the partnership existed? What then...?
His heart overflowed with bitterness. What had happened? How could he have gone so far? Why did he not tear himself out of the mire? He was an idler, a dreamer, corrupting his own mind—a horrible caricature of himself.
As he looked out of the window, he began to scrutinize his own weaknesses of character in an extraordinarily minute and merciless examination. The snow had begun to fall in large flakes, veiling the melancholy landscape in mist and dimness.
This capricious and unprofitable train of thought was suddenly interrupted by loud expostulations from the housekeeper, who was trying to persuade someone to go away because the doctor was not at home. But wishing to break the tormenting chain of ideas, the doctor went out into the kitchen. A huge peasant was standing there, wearing an untanned sheepskin over his shoulders. He bowed very low to the doctor, so that his lamb's-wool cap brushed the floor; then he pushed the hair back from his forehead, straightened himself, and was preparing for his speech, when the doctor cut him short.
"What's the matter?"
"Please, sir, the Sołtys[23]has sent me."
"Who is ill?"
"It's the schoolmistress in our village. She's been taken bad with something. The Sołtys came to me, and he said: 'Go to Obrzydłówek for the doctor, Ignaz,' he said.... 'Perhaps,' he said...."
"I'll come. Have you got good horses?"
"Fine fast beasts."
The doctor welcomed the thought of this drive, with its physical fatigue and even possible danger. With sudden animation he put on his stout boots and sheepskin, slipped into a fur coat large enough to cover a windmill, strapped on his belt, and went out. The peasant's "beasts" were sturdy and well-fed, though not large. The sledge had high runners and a light wicker body; it was well supplied with straw and covered with homespun rugs. The peasant took the front seat, untied his hempen reins, and gave the horses a cut with the whip.
"Is it far?" the doctor asked as they started.
"A matter of about twenty miles."
"You won't lose your way?"
"Who?... I?" He looked round with an ironical smile.
The wind across the fields was piercing. The runners, crooked and badly carved, ploughed deep furrows in the freshly fallen snow, and piled it up in ridges on either side. Nothing could be seen of the road.
The peasant pushed his cap on one side with a businesslike air, and urged on his horses. They passed a little wood, and came out on an empty space bounded by the forest which stood out against the horizon. The twilight fell, overlaying this severe desert picture with a blue light, which deepened over the forest. Balls of snow thrown up by the horses' hoofs flew past the doctor's head. He could not tell why he longed to stand up in the sledge and shout like a peasant with all his might—shout into that deaf, voiceless, boundless space which fascinated by its immensity as a precipice does. A wild and gloomy night was coming on fast, night such as falls upon deserted fields.
The wind increased and roared monotonously, changing from time to time into a solemn largo. The snow was driving from the side.
"Be careful of the road, my friend, else we shall come to grief," the doctor shouted, immediately hiding his nose again in his fur collar.
"Aho, my little ones!" bawled the peasant to the horses, by way of an answer. His voice was scarcely audible through the storm. The horses broke into a gallop.
Suddenly the snowdrifts began to whirl round madly: the wind blew in gusts; it buffeted the side of the sledge; it howled underneath; it took the men's breath away. The doctor could hear the horses snorting, but could distinguish neitherthem nor the driver. Clouds of snow torn from the ground sped by like a team of horses, and the thud of their hoofs seemed to fill the air. A very pandemonium had burst loose, throwing the power of its sound upward to the clouds, whence it descended again with a crash. The smooth surface was dispersed into down which enveloped the travellers. It was as if monsters were reeling in a mad giant dance, overtaking the sledge from behind, running now in front, now at the sides, and pelting it with handfuls of snow. Somewhere far away a large bell seemed to be droning in a hollow monotone.
The doctor realized that they were no longer driving on the road; the runners moved forward with difficulty and struck against the edge of ruts.
"Where are we, my good fellow?" he exclaimed in alarm.
"I am going to the forest by the fields," the man answered; "we shall get shelter from the wind under the trees. You can go all the way to the village through the forest."
As a matter of fact, the wind soon dropped; only its distant roar could be heard and the snapping of branches. The trees, powdered with snow, stood out against the dark background of night. It was impossible to proceed quickly now, for they had to make their way between snowdrifts and the stems and projecting branches.
After an hour during which the doctor hadfelt truly uncomfortable and alarmed, he at last heard the sound of dogs barking.
"That's our village, sir."
Dim lights flickered in the distance like moving spots. There was a smell of smoke.
"Look sharp, little ones!" the driver cheerily called out to the horses, and slapped himself after the manner of drivers.
A few minutes later they passed at full gallop a row of cottages, buried in snow up to their roofs. Heads were outlined in shadow against the window-panes from which circles of light fell on to the road.
"People are having their supper," the peasant remarked unnecessarily, reminding the doctor that it was time for the supper which he had no hope of eating that day.
The sledge drew up in front of a cottage. When the driver had accompanied the doctor through the passage, he disappeared. The doctor groped for the latch, and entered the miserable little room, which was lighted by a flickering paraffin lamp.
A decrepit old hunchback woman, bent like the crook of an umbrella handle, started from her bed on seeing him, and straightened the handkerchief round her head. She blinked her red eyes in alarm.
"Where is the patient?" the doctor asked. "Have you a samovar?"
The old woman was so perturbed that she did not grasp the meaning of his words.
"Have you a samovar? Can you make me some tea?"
"There is the samovar; but as to sugar——"
"No sugar? What a nuisance!"
"None, unless Walkowa has some, because the young lady——"
"Where is the young lady?"
"Poor thing! she's lying in the next room."
"Has she been ill long?"
"She's been ailing as long as a fortnight. She was taken bad with something."
The woman half opened the door of the next room.
"Wait a moment; I must warm myself," the doctor said angrily, taking off his fur coat.
It was not difficult to get warm in that stuffy little den; the stove threw out a terrific heat, so that the doctor went into the "young lady's" room as quickly as possible.
The lamp that was standing on a table beside the invalid's pillow had been turned low. It was not possible to distinguish the schoolmistress's features, as a large book had been placed as a screen, and the shadow from it fell on her face. The doctor carefully turned up the lamp, removed the book, and looked at her face. She was a young girl.
She had sunk into a feverish sleep; her face,neck and hands, were flushed scarlet and covered with a rash. Her ashen-blonde hair, which was exceptionally thick, was tossed round her face, and lay in rich tresses on the pillow. Her hands were plucking deliriously at the coverlet.
Dr. Paweł bent right down to the sick girl's face, and suddenly, with a voice stifled by emotion, repeated:
"Panna Stanisława, Panna Stanisława, Panna St——"
Slowly and with difficulty the sick girl raised her eyelids, but closed them again immediately. She stretched herself, drew her head from one end of the pillow to the other, and gave a painful low moan. She opened her mouth with an effort and gasped for breath.
The doctor looked round the bare, whitewashed room. He noticed the windows which did not sufficiently keep out the draught, the girl's shoes, shrivelled with having been wet through constantly, the piles of books lying on the table, the sofa and everywhere.
"Oh, you mad girl, you foolish girl!" he whispered, wringing his hands. In distress and alarm he examined her, and took her temperature with trembling hands.
"Typhus!" he murmured, turning pale. He pressed his hand to his throat to stifle the tears which were choking him like little balls of cotton.
He knew that he could do nothing for her—that,in fact, nothing could be done for her. Suddenly he gave a bitter laugh when he remembered that he would be obliged to send the twenty miles to Obrzydłówek for the quinine and antipyrin he wanted.
From time to time Stanisława opened her glassy, delirious eyes, and looked without seeing from beneath her long, curling eyelashes. He called her by the most endearing names, he raised her head, which the neck seemed hardly able to support, but all in vain.
He sat down idly on a stool and stared into the flame of the lamp. Truly misfortune, like a deadly enemy, had dealt him a blow unawares from a blunt weapon. He felt as if he were being dragged helplessly into a dark, bottomless pit.
"What is to be done?" he whispered tremblingly.
The cold blast penetrated through a crack in the window like a phantom of evil omen. The doctor felt as if someone had touched him, as if there were a third person in the room besides himself and the patient.
He went into the kitchen and told the servant to fetch the Sołtys immediately.
The old woman instantly drew on a pair of large boots, threw a handkerchief over her head, and disappeared with a comical hobble.
Shortly afterwards the Sołtys appeared.
"Listen! Can you find me a man to ride to Obrzydłówek?"
"Now, doctor?... Impossible!... There's a blizzard; he'd be riding to his death. One wouldn't turn a dog out to-night."
"I will pay—I will reward him well."
The Sołtys went out. Dr. Paweł pressed his temples, which were throbbing as though they would burst. He sat down on a barrel and reflected on something which happened long ago.
Footsteps approached. The Sołtys brought in a farmer's boy in a tattered sheepskin which did not reach to his knees, sack trousers, torn boots, and with a red scarf round his neck.
"This boy?" the doctor asked.
"He says he will go—rash youngster! I can give him a horse. But wherever at this time of——"
"Listen! If you come back in six hours, you will get twenty-five ... thirty roubles from me ... you will get what you like.... Do you hear?"
The boy looked at the doctor as if he meant to say something, but he refrained. He wiped his nose with his fingers, shuffled awkwardly, and waited.
The doctor went back to the school-teacher's bedroom. His hands were shaking, and went up to his temples automatically. He thought of a prescription, wrote it, scratched through what hehad written, tore it up, and wrote a letter to the chemist instead, begging him to despatch a horseman to the town at once, to ask the doctor to send him some quinine. He bent over the sick girl and examined her afresh; then he went into the kitchen and handed the letter to the boy.
"My dear boy," he said in a strange, unnatural voice, laying his hand on the lad's shoulder and slightly shaking him, "ride as fast as the horse will go—never mind him getting winded.... Do you hear, my boy?"
The lad bowed to the ground and went out with the Sołtys.
"Is it long since the teacher settled here with you in the village?" Dr. Paweł asked the old woman who was cowering by the stove.
"It's about three winters."
"Three winters! Did no one live here with her?"
"Who should there be but me? She took me into her service, poor wretch that I am. 'You'll not find a place anywhere else, granny,' she said, 'but there isn't much to do for me, only just a bit here and there.' And now here we are; I'd promised myself that she would bury me.... God be merciful to us sinners!..."
She began unexpectedly to whisper a prayer, detaching one word from the other, and moving her lips from side to side like a camel. Her headshook and the tears flowed down the wrinkles into her toothless mouth.
"She was good——"
Granny began snivelling, and gesticulated wildly, as if she meant to drive the doctor away from her. He returned to the sick-room and began to walk up and down on tiptoe. Round after round he walked after his usual habit. Now and then he stopped beside the bed and muttered between his teeth with a rage that made his lips pale:
"What a fool you have been! It is not only impossible to live like that, but it is not even worth while. You can't make the whole of your life one single performance of duty. Those idiots will take it all without understanding; they will drag you to it by the rope round your neck, and if you let your foolish illusions run away with you, death will make you its victim; for you are too beautiful, too much beloved——"
As fire licks up dry wood, so a past and long-forgotten feeling took possession of him. It revived in him with the strength and the treacherous sweetness of former years. He persuaded himself that he had never forgotten her, that he had worshipped and remembered her up to that very moment. He gazed into the well-known face with an insatiable curiosity, and a dumb, piercing pain began to devour his heart as he thought that for three years she had beenliving here, near him, and he only heard of it when death was on the point of taking her away from him.
All that was befalling him this day seemed to be the consequence of his animal existence, which had led him nowhere except to burrow in the ground. Yet he felt as if suddenly a mysterious horizon opened out before him, an ocean spreading far away into the mist.
With all the effort of impatient despair he grasped at memories, seeking refuge in them from an intolerable reality; he plunged into them as into the rosy halo of a summer dawn. He felt he must be alone, if only for a moment, to think and think. He slipped into a third room which was filled with forms and tables. Here he sat down in the dark to collect his thoughts and contrive some way of saving his patient.
But he began to recall memories:
He was then a poor student in his last year. When he went to the hospital on winter mornings, he stepped carefully so that not everyone should notice how cleverly the holes in his boots had been mended with cardboard. His overcoat was as tight as a strait-jacket, and so threadbare that the old-clothes man would not even give a florin for it when he tried to sell it in the summer. Poverty made him pessimistic, and produced that state of sadness which is more than mere unpleasant depression, but less than actual suffering.To be roused from it, one need only eat a chop or drink a glass of tea; but he frequently had no tea to drink, to say nothing of a dinner to eat. He used to run along the muddy Dłvga Street so as to enter the gate of the Saski Gardens by a quarter to nine.
Here he would meet a young girl and walk past her, looking at her long, heavy, ashen-blonde pigtails. She would not look up, but knitted her brows, which reminded one of the narrow, straight wings of a bird. He used to meet her there daily in the same place. She always walked quickly to the suburb beyond, where she entered a tram going to Praga.
She was not more than seventeen, but looked like a little old maid in her handkerchief thrown carelessly over her fur cap, in her clumsy, old-fashioned cloak, and shoes a size too large for her small feet. She always carried books, maps, and writing materials under her arm. On one occasion, finding himself in possession of a few pence, which were to have paid for his dinner, he was resolved to discover what her daily destination was. He therefore set out in pursuit, and entered the same car, but after he had sat down all his courage had failed him. The unknown measured him with such a look of absolute disdain that he jumped out of the tram immediately, having lost his bowl of broth and achieved nothing.
Yet he felt no grudge towards her; on the contrary,this had only raised her in his estimation. He thought about her unconsciously and uninterruptedly; he strove through the course of whole hours to call to mind her hair, her eyes, her mouth, the colour of her lips. And yet he strained his memory in vain. For scarcely had she vanished from his sight than her features vanished from his memory. Instead there was left a vision like a white cloud without any distinct features; it seemed to hover over him. His thoughts pursued that cloud in longing and humble timidity, with a touch of unconscious regret, sadness, and sympathy, which dominated him altogether.