Dolhanski, in fact, could not extract from the notary, anything but testy replies. Immediately after his reception at the rectory the old notary became very garrulous, but spoke with Ladislaus only about Marynia, for whom he had an unbounded admiration. At present he feared that Pani Krzycki might not consent to an evening musicale on the day of the funeral of a relative, and that fear did not cease to disturb him. Under this impression he began to demonstrate that music may as well be associated with death as with life; that impressive music always attends funerals, and that as mankind has not devised anything better than music, not even for the worship of God, therefore it may be taken for granted that music facilitates the flight of the soul to heaven, and even salvation. Ladislaus bit his mustache and, without qualification, concurred in this reasoning, knowing that the amiable old gentleman was wont to berate his opponents unmercifully. With this kind of talk, in which, to Dolhanski's great irritation, there was no mention of the will, they passed their time on the way to Jastrzeb. There they were served with tea. As the wind had subsided entirely before the setting sun and the evening was delightful, the ladies, with Gronski, were in the garden. When Ladislaus and his companions followed them, they found Pani Krzycki and Pani Otocka on the bank of the pond, while Miss Anney and Marynia were in a boat on the pond. A ruddy lustre permeated the whole air; the scent of elders, which grew near the water's edge, blended with the odor of the turf, duck-weed, and fish. The water was dark green on the border from alders and willows which hemmed it in, but in the centre, on the overflow, it was golden, with reflections of purple and peacock feathers. The boat floated towards the point, whose narrow girdle from the garden side served as a landing-place. Marynia sat in the middle of the boat, but Miss Anney, standing at the stern, manipulated it with a single oar, propelling and at the same time steering with uncommon skill. On the background of water and sky she loomed up from head to foot with strong and graceful form, her rounded bosom moving in unison with the movements of the oar. At moments she ceased to paddle and when the boat, gliding each moment more slowly, at last stood still upon the smooth water, there could be seen in the mirrored pellucidness another boat, another Marynia, and another Miss Anney. In this picture there was great pastoral calm. The lustre in the heavens grew ruddier as if the entire western world had been embraced in a conflagration. High above the pond, under the flaming cupola of heaven, strings of wild ducks appeared as if tied together by black crosses.
The trees stood motionless and the silence was broken only by the sounds of the windmill, coming from the direction of the dam.
After a while Miss Anney touched shore. Gronski, who was anxious that his "adoration" should not wet her feet, hastened to assist her out of the boat, while the Englishwoman leaped unassisted upon the sand and, approaching the company, said:
"How charming it is here in Jastrzeb!"
"Because the weather is fine," said Ladislaus, drawing nearer. "Yesterday it was cloudy, but to-night it is beautiful."
And having scanned the heavens, he, like a true husbandman, added:
"If it will continue thus, we will start mowing the hay."
And Miss Anney gazed at him, as if she discovered something unusual in the sounds of those words, and began to repeat them in the same fashion that one repeats words which he desires to firmly implant in the memory.
"The hay--the hay."
The party turned towards the house, which was being bleached, or rather rouged, amidst the lime-trees, conversing a little about the funeral and the late Zarnowski, but more about the village, the spring evening, and music. Pani Krzycki assured the newly-arrived ladies that in Jastrzeb before their arrival music was not wanting, as there were so many nightingales in the park that at times they would not let any one sleep. At this Gronski, who was a man of great erudition, began to discourse upon country life; that, in truth, it was, from time immemorial, considered the only real and normal life. He mentioned incidentally the Homeric Kings, "who rejoiced in their hearts, counting sheaves with the sceptre," and various Roman poets. In conclusion he announced, as his opinion, that socialism will shatter to pieces upon agriculture and the soil, because it considers them only as a value, while they are also an affection, or, in other words, not only is a price placed upon them, but they are also loved. Men know what cares are coupled with country life, but in truth it is the only life they prize, as if in it "even bird's milk was not lacking."[1]
To Pani Krzycki, who, next to her children, loved, above everything else in the world, Jastrzeb, the words of Gronski appealed very convincingly, but Dolhanski, recalling a village he once owned and squandered, replied, drawling his words as usual:
"Bird's milk may not be lacking, but money is lacking. Besides, it is amusing to hear these eulogies upon country life pronounced by a rich man who could buy for himself a tract of land and settle in the country, but whom it is necessary to pull out of the city with hooks." Then addressing Gronski:
"Apropos of your Homeric Kings, and with them your Virgils and Horaces, why, in their days there certainly were not such hotels on the Riviera and such clubs in Nice as at present."
But this observation was passed in silence, or rather it was interrupted by a musical passage intoned to Marynia in an old wooden voice by the notary who wanted in this manner to illustrate the junction of two phrases in Bruch's concerto. Afterwards various other phrases incessantly resounded until the party returned to the house. Gronski knew the mania of the old man and envied him for having found something in life which filled it out so completely for him. He was a highly educated dilettante, but had settled upon nothing permanently in life and did not consecrate all his spiritual powers to anything exclusively. This was partly due to his environment, and partly to his own fault. The profoundest essence of his soul was a sad scepticism. One of his friends, Kloczewski, called him "an ecclesiastic in a dress-suit." Somehow, the final result of Gronski's meditation upon the future and human life, individual as well as collective, was the conviction that the future and the human life may, with time, become different, but never better. So he thought that it might be worth while not to spare efforts to make them sometime better, but it would not be worth while that they should be different only. This thought protected him, however, from the bordering pessimism, as he understood that the measure of happiness and misfortune rested not on the external, but in the man himself, and that as long as otherwise did not meanbetter, then by the same reasoning it did not also meanworse. At bottom he was persuaded that the one and the other were only a mistake and a delusion, and that everything, not excluding life, was one great vanity. In this manner, he revered, across the sea of ages, the true Ecclesia.
But, being at the same time a man of sentiment, he fell in a continual clash with himself, his sentiment always craving for something, while his sad scepticism iterated that it was not worth while to desire anything. His feelings were preyed upon by the thought that his views were in conflict with life, while life was an imperative necessity. Therefore, whoever with doubts corroded its roots injured humanity, and Gronski did not desire to injure anybody, much less his own people. For this reason the ecclesiastic, contending that all was vanity, wrangled within him, with the patriot who said, for instance, that national suffering was not in vain. But this state of affairs bred within him such incessant discord that he envied men of action who journey through life without any whys or wherefores, as well as people who absolutely succumb to one great feeling.
For the old notary and Marynia, such a great feeling was music; so that as often as Gronski saw them together, so often did he have before his eyes a living example that things do exist with which one can fill out his life from dawn until the last moments,--if only one does not subject them to a too close analysis.
At the supper the aged notary was occupied solely with music and Marynia. To the others, with the exception of the lady of the house, upon whom permission for the concert depended, he replied irascibly; especially to Dolhanski, who several times tried to elicit from him some information about the will. His angry and apoplectic face cleared up only after Pani Krzycki announced that she would have no objections to devoting the remainder of the evening to decorous music, and that she herself would be glad to listen to Marynia, whom she had not heard since the last charitable concert in Krynica.
Towards the close of the supper the old gentleman again began to get impatient, remarking that it was a pity to waste time in eating, and discussing even music, if light and frivolous, with profane individuals who had no conception of the real art. He became more interested after listening to the reasonings of Gronski, who began to talk about the origin of music and refute the Darwinian theory that songs and the sounds of the primitive string instruments arose in some misty era of the human race from the amorous declarations and calls of men and women in the forests. Gronski shared the opinion of those who against these views cited the fact that among the most savage tribes no traces of love-songs exist, but in their place are found war-songs and martial music. The theory of calling through the forests appeared to the ladies more poetical. Gronski placated them with the statement that this did not lessen the civilizing importance of music, that it, with the dance, was one of the first factors which promoted among the scattered tribes of men a certain organization.
"The Papuans," he said, "who gather together for the performance of a war or ceremonial dance in accordance with the rhythm of even their wildest music, by that act alone submit to something, introduce some kind of order, and form the first social ties."
"That means," observed Dolhanski, "that every nation owes its origin to some primitive 'high-diddle-diddle, the cat and the fiddle.'"
"Of course it is so," angrily answered the old notary.
Afterwards turning to Gronski, he said: "Please proceed. We can at least learn something."
"Yes, please proceed," repeated Marynia.
So Gronski began further to speak of the history of music; how through the entire course of ages it served war, ceremonies of state, as well as religious and secular, and how considerably later it outspread its own wings, on which it soars as at present, like an eagle, over the entire human race.
"A strange art," he concluded; "the most primitive; yet to-day resting more than any other upon science; the most precisely confined within certain technical requirements, as if bound by dams and dykes; yet the most illimitable, the most mystical; overflowing the borders of existence and life. Perhaps this gives it such incomprehensible power over the human soul; speaking the least expressive of tongues and at the same time the most idealistic. It is the most powerful spur to action. Yes, to the Polish regiments in the battle of Gravelotte the Prussian bands played 'Poland is not yet lost,' and everywhere you may behold the same. Play to the Frenchmen the 'Marseillaise,' the Germans 'Wacht am Rhein,' how their hands begin to quiver! Even the eyes of phlegmatic Englishmen and Americans sparkle when they hear 'Rule Britania' or 'Yankee Doodle.' Strange art!--the most cosmopolitan and at the same time the most national,--universal and individual."
"One thing you did not say and that is that of all arts it is the purest," added Pani Otocka.
"Attempts have been made to illegitimatize it," answered Gronski, "but licentiousness never can be rhythmical nor harmonical, and for that reason from these attempts there was born an antichrist of music."
But Ladislaus, who was a trifle bored and would have preferred to talk with the light-haired Miss Anney, spoke out with the evident desire to close the discussion.
"Yes, it is plain that not only every nation but every man has his own music. I, for instance, am always willing to hear a concert or an opera, but I admit, that when sometimes the boys and girls at work in the field sing until the pitchforks and harrows ring, that is the only music for me."
"Slavonian, Lechite, Piast--come to my arms," drawled Dolhanski.
Ladislaus blushed a little from fear that the young Englishwoman and his refined female relatives might judge him too rustical, but they glanced at him with a certain sympathy. Only the beard of the old classical notary drooped with his nose in a manner boding no good, and from his lips he mumbled a half-distinct grumble:
"To some folks it is sufficient, when anything jingles in their ears."
But recollecting that it would not be agreeable to Pani Krzycki if caustic remarks were directed against her son, he cast an uneasy look at her and became silent.
The supper was finished. The company went to the salon in which prevailed coolness and the slight scent of jasmine blown in from the garden by the light evening breezes before the windows were closed. In the glass doors appeared the big full moon, which but recently arose slowly in the heaven, still ruddy after a bath in the evening twilight. Pani Otocka sat at the piano; beside her the notary began to blow, as if with anger, into the flute; while behind them stood Marynia with a violin at her shoulder. Gronski with rapture gazed at her luxuriant dark hair; her peaceful, arched eyebrows under a forehead plainly immaculate; her small countenance; her slender, growing, childlike form, and thought that this sight alone would suffice for music, or at least that such a violinist might pass for its incarnation and symbol. Ladislaus, although he had previously enlisted in the ranks of the English faction, could not remove his eyes from her. After completing his university education, he had accompanied his mother on a journey to Italy. He visited various galleries and, though he lacked solid artistic culture, nevertheless the thought crossed his mind that this maiden with the bright and peaceful countenance, bending over the violin, might have served the old masters as a model for Saint Cecilia or for one of those angelic violin-players which he had seen in the paintings of Fra Angelico.
The other listeners, like Pani Krzycki, her children, the instructress, and Miss Anney, gazed at her as if at a miracle-working image. Only one, Laskowicz, young Stas' tutor, did not share in the general rapture. He was a medical student who, owing to the closing of the university, was earning money by teaching for the further pursuit of his studies, and he found himself, together with his inexorable hatred for the "pampered" of this world, like Pilate in Credo, in this country home. His convictions by this time were not a secret to anybody in Jastrzeb; he was tolerated, however, with that improvident indulgence of which the Polish nobility is only capable, upon the principle that "the greatest radical must eat," and also in the hope that Stas was yet too young to be infected with the "evil spirit" by his tutor.
To Laskowicz, when he looked at the gentle young lady, it seemed that she was a flower which grew higher than the hands of a proletaire could reach; therefore she was bred to the injury of the proletariat. This was sufficient for him to look on both sides with reluctance and a readiness to hate.
But, in the meanwhile, the moment for beginning the concert had arrived. For some time Marynia had been drawing the bow over the chords, turning the ringlets of the violin, and passing her fingers over the notes, indicating something to her sister and the notary; afterwards silence ensued, interrupted only by the indistinct talk of the servants, assembled beyond the windows, who for the first time in their lives were to hear the young lady play on the violin.
The first chords of the moonlight sonata are sounded and a vision begins. Lo! a pale ray creeps stealthily through a crevice and touches the forehead of a sleeper, as if it wanted to arouse thought; afterwards the lips, as if it wished to waken words, and later the bosom, as if it desired to stir the heart. But the weary body slumbered in a heavy sleep. In its place the soul emerges from its embrace, like a butterfly from a cocoon, and flies into space. The night is bright and silent. Below, alders are dimly wrapped in muslin mists. On the sylvan meadows nymphs dance their rites, accompanied by the playing of a faun on a flute. About, stand with flaming azure eyes, stags, crowned with antlers. On the heath, glow-worms glimmer; on the moss, phosphorate toadstools, under whose canopies tiny elfs watch the gambols. From the decaying vegetation and fens rise Jack-o'-lanterns which flit about lightly and mysteriously, as if seeking something in vain. The moon ascends each moment higher and higher, and bounteous dew falls.
Over the vast fields rivers wind in silvery ribbons and tracks of the roadways can be seen leading to towns and castles. Through the narrow Gothic windows the moon's lustre invades silent castle-halls, where lurk the ghosts of dead knights and maidens. At the feet of the castles, cities slumber. In the calm light the roofs of houses whiten and crosses on the towers glitter. From the blossoming orchards, with the vapors rises the fragrance of flowers and grass. But lighter than the fragrance and the moonlight the winged soul soars higher and farther. The lowly habitations of men vanish; likewise vanish the forests, vales, sparkling shields of ponds, and the white threads of streams. Gradually lofty regions are attained.
And lo, the mountains! Amidst the crags sleeps the translucent buckler of the lake. In the chasms lies concealed cool dusk. The needles of the glaciers shine verdantly. On the declivities and rocky nests rest the weary clouds and mists; and on the peaks, on the eternal snow the moonlight reposes. Even the wind has fallen asleep. How still, ethereal, and immense! Here the moon is the only sentinel of silence and the human soul the only living entity. Free as a mountain eagle, detached from the flesh, enamoured with the expanse, desolation, and silence, happy, and sad with a supernal sorrow, dissolved in the stillness, she hovers and courses above the precipices; and again flies farther on, entirely abandoned to pleasure, flight, and speed.
And the mountains have already disappeared beneath her and lo! some voices rise and reach from below as if summoning her to them. It is the sea. It, alone, never sleeps; restless and vast, it dashes wave after wave against the shore, as if it were an immense pulsation of life. Its monstrous lungs heave and fall eternally and at times groan in complaint of endless toil.
The ruffled expanse of the sea throbs with the opalescent lunar lustre and the silvery laces of stars, and on those illuminated tracks, in the distance appears, wakeful as the sea itself, a ship with sails and a sanguinary light in the rounded windows.
But thou, oh soul, mountest higher and higher. Already the earth is left somewhere at the bottom of the abyss. Thou, light as down, dost pass feathery clouds, which have strayed upon the heights and dost pierce space flooded with splendor--empty and cool. There thou liest upon thine own wings and floatest about in luminous nothingness; higher and higher; and now doth scintillate and change color over thee, in gold and purple, the jewels of heaven, and thou dost frolic and swing in the unattainable ether, serene, freed from the dross of matter as if, beyond the limits of time and space, thou wert already partly admitted into heaven.
The firmament of heaven grows each moment darker, but the moon, great as the world, shines more and more brightly. Already we behold her glistening plains, mangled, wild, studded by mountain peaks, perforated with the blackness of craters, bleak, frosty, and lifeless. Thus in the abyss of space appears this silvery, corpse-like wanderer, who speeds around the earth as if condemned by a divine command to a perpetual race. Above and about her, an immensity which the swooning brain is incapable of comprehending. A new galaxy of stars twinkle sanguinarily and powerfully, like distant fire-places. The music of spheres is heard. Here Eternity fans with her breath and a supernal chill prevails.
Return, over-indulged swan, return, oh soul, before some occult rapids and whirlpools seize thee and tear thee forever from the earth.
Thou returnest from the pinnacle of all-existence, bathed in the waves of infinity, purer and more perfect. Lo, thou furlest thy wings! Look, in the depths beneath are those downy, light clouds, which now thou greetest as thine own and kin. Below, the earth. The protuberances of the mountains flash to the moon; at their feet sobs the sea. And now lower, the vague outlines of forests, enveloped in mist. Again whiten the cities, silent towers and roofs of villages sunk in sleep. The night grows pale. On the moors, ostlers build fires and play on fifes. The roosters crow. The day breaks. It is dawn.
The strains subsided and silence ensued. Marynia stood near the piano with a countenance, composed as usual, but seemingly, awakened from a dream.
The aged notary sat for a while with bowed head, moving his toothless jaws; afterwards he rose, and when the young maid placed the violin beside the key-board, he ardently kissed her hands; after which he threw a challenging look at those present as if he sought the person who would dare to protest against that mark of homage or deem it a superfluous act. Nobody, however, protested because under the enchantment of that music that happened with the listeners which always happens with mankind, when fanned by the breath of genius. As sometimes in a dream it seems to a person that having shoved himself off the earth with his feet, he afterwards reels a long time in the air, so, too, their bodies became lighter, less material, as if deprived of those heavy and gross elements which bound them to the earth. Their nerves became more susceptible and subtle and their souls more volatile, approaching more closely those boundaries on which eternity begins. It was an unconscious feeling; after the passage of which the daily life was to encompass and drag them down. But during this momentary exaltation there awakened within them, unknown to themselves, a power of apprehending, appreciating, and feeling beauty, and in general such things as in their customary moods they had not felt and did not know that they could have felt.
Even the young and unfledged physician, Laskowicz, notwithstanding all his prejudices, could not resist this influence. The moment when Marynia stood up to play, he began to scrutinize her from his dark corner in the salon and examine her form as an anatomist. He was conscious that there was something brutal in this, but such a viewpoint gave him satisfaction, as being proper for an investigator and a man of his convictions. He started to persuade himself that this young lady of the so called higher spheres was for him merely an object which one should examine in the same manner as a corpse on the dissecting-table is examined. So, when tuning her violin, she bent her head, he took a mental inventory of the Latin names of all her cranial bones, repelling the thought which, against his will, rushed to his head that this was, however, an extraordinarily noble skull. Afterwards, during the first moments after the beginning of the concert, he became occupied with the nomenclature of the muscles of her hands, arms, breast, limbs, outlined under her dress and whole figure. But as he was not only a medical student and a socialist, but also a young man, this anatomical review ended in the conclusion that this was a girl, not yet sufficiently developed, but exceedingly pretty and attractive, resembling a spring flower. From that moment he began, to a certain extent, to forgive her connection with spheres living "from the wrongs of the proletariat," and could not get rid of the thought that if, as a result of some unheard-of social upheaval, such "a saintly doll" became dependent upon his favor or disfavor, then such a state of affairs would bring to him an indescribably coy delight.
But when Beethoven placed his hands upon his head, there awakened within him better and higher instincts. He saw during the performance the lips and eyebrows of the young lady contract, and began to concede that "she, however, felt something." In consequence of this, his ill-will towards her began to melt away, although slowly and with difficulty. He half confirmed, half conjectured that not only the hands but also the soul played. He did not have sufficient culture for music to appeal to him as it did, for instance, to Gronski, nevertheless there awakened within him a certain dismal consciousness that this was something, like the air, which all breasts can breathe, regardless of whether they love or hate. Amazement seized him at the thought that there were things lying beyond the swarm of human passions. At the conclusion he so identified music with the figure of the playing girl that when the old notary, at the end of the concert, kissed her hands, he almost felt inclined to do the same.
In the meanwhile, Ladislaus said to Miss Anney:
"As long as Jastrzeb has been Jastrzeb, never yet has such music been heard. I am not a connoisseur, but must admit that this has captivated me. Besides, though I am often in the city, it has always so happened that I never have had an opportunity of seeing a woman play on the violin. And this is so beautiful that I now have an impression that only women should play the violin."
"One gets such an impression when he hears Marynia play."
"Assuredly. I even begin to understand Pan Gronski. You, of course, know that she is his adoration?"
"The greatest in the world. And mine and everybody's who knows her,--and soon she will be yours."
"I do not deny that she will be, only I doubt whether she will be the greatest."
A temporary pause in the conversation followed, after which Ladislaus, not desiring that Miss Anney should take his words as an untimely compliment, added:
"In any event, I owe her gratitude for music which is slightly different from that which we hear every evening in spring and summer."
"What kind of music is that?"
"From dusk to moon-rise the orchestra of frogs, and afterwards the concert of nightingales, which, after all, I do not hear, as, after daily toil, I am sound asleep. The frog band has already commenced. This also has its charm. If you care to hear it, let us go out upon the veranda. The night is almost as warm as in summer."
Miss Anney rose and together they went on the veranda, which the servants, who listened under the windows to Marynia's performance, had already left, and only in the distance the blooming jasmines, shaded by the dusk, whitened. From the pond came the croakings of the confederation of frogs, drowsy and, at the same time, resembling choral prayers.
Miss Anney for a while listened to these sounds and afterwards said:
"Yes, this also has its charm, particularly on a night like this."
"Are not nights the same in England?"
"No, not as quiet. There is hardly a corner there to which the whistling of locomotives or the factory noises do not reach. I like your villages for their quiet and their distance from the cities."
"So, then, this is not the first time that you have seen a Polish village?"
"No. I have passed the last month with Zosia Otocka."
"I wish that our Jastrzeb would find favor in your eyes. It is too bad that you chanced here upon a funeral. That is always sad. I saw that you were even affected."
"It reminded me of something," answered Miss Anney.
Whereupon, evidently desiring to change the subject of the conversation, she again began to peer into the depths of the garden.
"How everything blooms and smells agreeably here!"
"Those are jasmines and elders. Did you observe on the forest road, riding to Jastrzeb, that the edges of the woods are planted with elders? That is my work."
"I only observed it at the bridge, where an old building stands. What kind of building is that?"
"That is an ancient mill. At one time there was a great deal of water in the stream beside it, but later my uncle, Zarnowski, drained it off to the fish-ponds in Rzeslewo and the mill stood still. Now it is a ramshackle building in which for over ten years we have stored hay instead of keeping it in hayricks. Folks say that the place is haunted, but I myself circulated, in its time, that myth."
"Why?"
"First, so that they should not steal the hay, and again because it was of much concern to me that no one should pry in there."
"What an invention!"
"I told them that near the bridge during night-time the horses get frightened and that something in the mill laughs; which is true, because owls laugh there."
"Perhaps it would have been better to have told them that something in there weeps."
"Why?"
"For greater effect."
"I do not know. Laughter in the night in the solitude creates a greater impression. People fear it more."
"And nobody peeps in there?"
"Not a soul. Now, if they only would not steal the hay, it would be all the same to me, but at that time I was anxious to screen myself from the eyes of men--"
Here Ladislaus bit his tongue, observing in the moonlight that Miss Anney's eyebrows frowned slightly. He understood that in repeating twice that it was important to him that no one should pry into the mill, he committed a breach of etiquette and, what was worse, had presented himself to the young English lady as some provincial boaster, who gives the impression that often he has been forced to seek various hiding-places. So desiring to erase the bad impression, he added quickly:
"When a student, I wrote verses and for that reason sought solitude. But now all that has passed away."
"That usually passes away," answered Miss Anney. And she turned to the doors of the salon, but without unnecessary haste, as if she desired to show Ladislaus that she accepted as good coin his explanations and that her return was not a manifestation of displeasure. He remained a while, angry at himself and yet more angry at Miss Anney for the simple reason that the indiscretion was committed solely by him and he could not blame her for anything.
"In any case," he said to himself, "that is some deucedly penetrating Puritan."
And he began to repeat, with some indignation, her last words:
"That usually passes away."
"Did she," he thought, "intend to give me to understand that from such grist as is in me nobody could bake any poetry. Perhaps it is true, and I know that better than anyone else, but it is unnecessary for anybody to corroborate the fact."
Under the influence of these thoughts he returned to the salon in not quite good humor, but there the duties of host summoned him to his feminine cousins and that evening he did not converse any more with Miss Anney.
The notary left the same night because his official duties required his presence in the city the following morning. On the day after, Gronski, whom Pani Otocka requested to act as her representative, with Ladislaus and Dolhanski departed for the notarial bureau. All three were troubled and curious about the will, of which the notary did not drop a single hint. Dolhanski feigned a jocose mien and displayed more sangfroid than he really possessed. He was most anxious that something should "drop off" for him. He was a man who had squandered a large fortune, but, not having changed his habits, kept on living as if he had not lost anything. Therefore he sustained himself upon the surface of life by the aid of extraordinary, almost acrobatic, efforts, of which after all he made no secret. In general, he was a sponger and possessed a million faults, but also certain social qualities for which he was esteemed. Belonging to an aristocratic club, he played cards with unusual good luck, but irreproachably. He never borrowed money from people in his own sphere; never gossiped, and was a tolerably loyal friend. Lack of education he supplied with cleverness and a certain intellectual grasp. He jested about himself, but it was unsafe to jest at him, because he possessed, besides wit, a certain candor which bordered upon cynicism. So he was not only countenanced but willingly received. Gronski, for whom Dolhanski had such high regard that he permitted him alone to jest about him, said that if Dolhanski only had as great a gift of making money as he had of spending it, he would have been a millionaire.
But while waiting for such a change, heavy moments fell upon Dolhanski, particularly in spring when the play at the club slackened or when the outing season began. Then he felt fatigued after the winter struggles and sighed for something to turn up which would not require any labor. The will of Zarnowski might be such a gratuity, although Dolhanski did not expect much, as during the lifetime of the deceased he did nothing to deserve it. He even frankly repeated that his precious uncle bored him. He reckoned, however, that something might be sliced off for him; enough for the temporary pacification of his creditors or, better still, for a trip to a fashionable, aristocratic French seaside resort.
Before leaving Warsaw he announced in the club that he would return sitting upon a pillow stuffed with pawn-tickets. At present he attempted, with a certain affected humor, to convince Gronski and Ladislaus that by rights neither Pani Otocka with her sister, nor the Krzyckis, but himself ought to be the chief beneficiary.
"One of the female cousins," he said, "is a warm widow, who has a fat fortune from her husband, and the other is a budding muse, who ought to be satisfied with ambrosia. What a pity, that I am not the sole relative of the deceased!"
Here he addressed Ladislaus:
"The Krzyckis, I think, need not be considered, because you have had, as I heard, a dispute about the Rzeslewo boundary. I hope that you will not get anything."
"What is the use of your hoping?" said Gronski. "Limit, above all things, your wants."
"You remind me of my lamented father," answered Dolhanski.
"He certainly must have repeated that to you often."
"Too often, and besides, he set himself up as an example, but I demonstrated to him, as plainly as two times two are four, that I could and ought to live on a higher scale than he."
"What did you tell him?"
"I spoke to him thus: Firstly, Papa has a son, while I am childless, and again, I am a better noble than he."
"In what respect?"
"Very plainly, since I can count one generation more in my line of nobility."
"Bravo!" exclaimed Krzycki. "What did your father say to that?"
"He called me a dunce, but I saw he was pleased with it. Ah, if my conceits would only please Pani Otocka as they once did Papa. But I am convinced that my constancy and my appetite will avail me naught. My dear cousin is after all more practical than she seems. You would imagine that both sisters live only on the fragrance of flowers; and yet when they learned of a possible inheritance, they hastily arrived at Jastrzeb."
"I can assure you that you are mistaken. Mother invited them last year while in Krynica and now, at least a week before the death of Uncle Zarnowski, she reminded them of their promise. They wrote back that they could not come because they had a guest. Then mother invited the guest also."
"If that is so, it is different. Now, not only do I understand your mother, but as you are a shapely youth and, in addition, younger than myself, I begin to fear for Cousin Otocka's fortune, which more justly belongs to me."
"You need have no fear," answered Krzycki drily.
"Does that mean that you prefer pounds to roubles? Considering the rate of exchange, I would prefer them also, but I fear that too many of them might have sunk in the Channel on the way from England."
"If you are so much concerned about that," said Gronski, "you might ask Miss Anney about the precise amount. She is so sincere that she will reply to a certainty."
"Yes, but it is necessary that I should believe her."
"If you knew a little of human nature, you ought to believe her."
"In any case, I would fear a misunderstanding; for if she answered me in Polish, she could make a mistake, and if in English, I might not understand her perfectly."
"She speaks better Polish than you do English."
"I admit that this astonishes me. Whence?"
"Haven't I told you," answered Gronski, with some impatience, "that she was taught from childhood, because her father was an Englishman who had great sympathy for the Poles?"
"De gustibus non est disputandem," answered Dolhanski.
And afterwards he again began to speak of the deceased and of the old notary, mimicking the movements of his toothless jaws and the fury of his look; and finally he announced that if something was not "sliced off" for him he would either shoot himself upon Pani Otocka's threshold or else would drive over to Gorek and offer himself for the hand of Panna Wlocek.
But Gronski was buried in thought about something else during the time of this idle talk, while Ladislaus heard him distractedly as his attention was attracted by the considerable number of peasant carts which they were continually passing by. Supposing that he had forgotten some market-day in the city, he turned to his coachman.
"Andrew," he asked, "why are there so many carts on the road to the city?"
"Ah, those, please your honor, are Rzeslewo peasants."
"Rzeslewo? What have they to do there?"
"Ah! please your honor, on account of the will of the deceased Pan Zarnowski; it is to give them Rzeslewo."
Krzycki turned to Gronski.
"I heard," he said, "that somebody circulated among them such a story, but did not think that they would believe it."
And afterwards again to the coachman:
"Who told them that?"
The old driver hesitated somewhat in his reply:
"The people gossip that it was the Tutor."
Ladislaus began to laugh.
"Oh, stupid peasants!" he said. "Why, he never in his life saw Pan Zarnowski. How would he know about the will?"
But after a moment of meditation he said, partly to his companions and partly to himself:
"Everything must have some object, so if Laskowicz did that, let some one explain to me why he did it."
"Do you suspect him of it?" asked Gronski.
"I do not know, for heretofore I had assumed that one could be a socialist and keep his wits in order."
"Ah, so he is a bird of that nest? Tell me how long has he been with you and what manner of a man is he?"
"He has been with us half a year. We needed an instructor for Stas and some one recommended him to us. We were informed that he would have to leave Warsaw for a certain time to elude the police and, in fact, for that reason received him more eagerly, thinking that some patriotic matter was involved. Later, when it appeared that he was of an entirely different calibre, mother would not permit his dismissal in hope that she might convert him. At the beginning she had lengthy heart-to-heart talks with him and requested me to be friendly with him. We treated him as a member of the family, but the result has been such that he hates us, not only as people belonging to a sphere which he envies, but also, as it seems, individually."
"It is evident," said Dolhanski, "he holds it evil of you that you are not such as he imagined you would be; neither so wicked nor so stupid. And you may rest assured that he will never forgive that in you."
"That may be so. In any case, he will shortly despise us from a distance, for after a month we part. I understand that one can and ought to tolerate all convictions, but there is something in him, besides his principles and hatreds, which is so conflicting with all our customs, and something so strange that we have had enough of him."
"My Laudie," answered Dolhanski, "do not necessarily apply this to yourself, for I speak generally, but since you have mentioned toleration, I will tell you that in my opinion toleration in Poland was and is nothing else than downright stupidity, and monumental stupidity at that."
"In certain respects Dolhanski is right," answered Gronski. "It may be that in the course of our history we tolerated various ideas and elements not only through magnanimous forbearance, but also because in our indolence we did not care to contend with them."
To this Ladislaus, who did not like to engage in general argumentation, said:
"That is all right, but all that does not explain why Laskowicz should spread among the peasants the news that Uncle Zarnowski devised Rzeslewo to them."
"There is, as yet, no certainty that he did," answered Gronski. "We will very soon learn the truth at the notary's."