CHAPTER I

If Pastor Boehme's worthiness could have been weighed on a pair of scales, the reverend gentleman would have been obliged to travel on a goods truck. But as worthiness cannot be classified under any of the three mathematical dimensions, but comes under the fourth, which does not belong to the world of realities, he travelled in a little one-horse britzka instead.

To the fat, well-groomed pony, the flies, the heavy collar, the sultry day, and the dusty road were of much greater interest than the virtues of his master, or even his whip. His master took the whip with him only for fear of being laughed at, for he never used it. In fact, he would have been unable to use it; for when he exhibited his worthy personality, with its short whiskers, panama hat, and white and pink percoline coat, on the roads, he had to hold the reins firmly in one hand to prevent the old pony from stumbling, and with the other he poured out continual and benevolent, but ineffectual blessings on all passers-by. For they all took off their caps to him; regardless of religious differences they liked the "worthy German."

On this particular July afternoon the reverend gentleman was on his way to perform one of his minor spiritual duties, namely that of first grieving his neighbour and then comforting him. In short, he was going to see his friend Gottlieb Adler, to inform him that his son, Ferdinand, had run into debt abroad, and subsequently to exhort the father to forgive his prodigal son.

Gottlieb Adler was the owner of a cotton-mill. The road along which the pastor was driving connected the mill with the railway-station; it was a well-kept road, though it had not been planted with trees. A little country town lay on the left, and the factory on the right, at some distance. The black and red roofs of the workmen's cottages peeped from the sheltering plane-trees, limes and poplars; behind them lay a large four-storied building in the shape of a horseshoe. This was the factory. A thicker clump of trees close by indicated Adler's garden; it surrounded an elegant villa with some farm buildings attached. The sun was flooding everything with golden light. The tall red-brick chimney sent out thick, curling smoke, and had the wind been in his direction the pastor would have heard the busy roar of the engines and the noise of the power-looms. But as it was, nothing disturbed the peaceful silence except the whistle of a distant train and the rattling of his own cart. A quail diving into the corn was singing its little song.

The constant attention needed to prevent the fat pony from stumbling at last wore out the pastor; so trusting to the mercy of Him who delivered Daniel from the lions' den and Jonah from the whale's belly, he tied the reins to the back of the seat, and folded his hands as in prayer. Boehme loved to dream, and a gentle doze helped to open memory's enchanted gates. He now recalled (probably for the hundredth time that year and at the same spot) another factory, somewhere in the plains of Brandenburg, where he and his friend Gottlieb Adler had spent their childhood. They were sons of fairly well-to-do master-weavers, were born in the same year, and went to the same elementary school. A quarter of a century passed after they left it before they met again. Boehme had finished his theological studies at the University of Tübingen, and Adler had amassed some twenty thousand thalers.

On Polish soil, far away from their Fatherland, they met again. Boehme had been appointed pastor of a Protestant parish, and Adler had set up a little cotton-mill. Another quarter of a century had now passed, during which they had never been separated; they visited each other several times every week. Adler's little mill had grown into a huge factory which at the moment employed some six hundred workmen, and brought him in a clear profit of several thousand roubles a year. Boehme had remained poor except for the profit of several thousand blessings yearly.

The two friends also differed in other respects. The pastor had a son who was now finishing his studies at the technical college at Riga, and who looked forward to supporting himself, his parents and his sister for the rest of their lives. Adler's only son had never even completed his school course; he was now travelling abroad, and his only concern was to get as much as he could for himself out of his father's money. While the pastor was fairly satisfied with his several thousand blessings a year, and only wondered sometimes whether his daughter, aged eighteen, would marry well, Adler was ever impatient for his banking account to reach the desired sum of a million roubles as quickly as possible, and he often worried himself with thoughts as to what would ultimately become of his son.

At the present moment Boehme was quite content to look at the cornfields around him and the sky above--scattered with white and grey clouds--and to recall the memories of childhood; a similar factory in the shape of a horseshoe, the same kind of trees, and the same villa with a pond in the garden.... What a pity there was no village school here, no almshouses, no hospital! Adler had forgotten to build these, although he had copied the shape of the Brandenburg factory. "Had there not been a school there," the pastor reflected, "Adler would never have been a millionaire, nor I a pastor."

The britzka was now approaching the factory, and the noise became audible and roused the musing pastor. A group of dirty children in ragged dresses or only in shirts were playing in the road. Vans with cotton goods became visible behind the wall which surrounded the yard, and Adler's villa appeared to the left in all its elegance. The pastor could now distinctly see the summer-house in the garden, near the pond, where he and his friend usually sat drinking their hock and talking of old times and current news.

Here and there the washing was hanging out of the windows of the workmen's cottages. The inhabitants were nearly all at work at the mill; only a few pale, hollow-cheeked women greeted the pastor with the words:

"May the Lord be praised!"

"For ever and ever!" he answered, raising his battered old panama hat.

Meanwhile the britzka had turned to the left, for the pony, needing no further guiding, trotted into the courtyard of the villa residence. A groom came out at once, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and helped the pastor out.

"Is your master at home?"

"He is at the factory; I'll run and tell him you are here, sir."

The pastor entered the portico. Having divested himself of his coat, the reverend gentleman now revealed himself in a long frock-coat which made his short legs look still shorter, while the long nose adorning his faded face seemed to grow in proportion. The pastor folded his hands and waited, reminding himself of the object of his visit, and rehearsing a well-thought-out address, which was to be divided into three parts according to the laws of rhetoric. The introductory part dealt with the unfathomable ways of Providence which lead human beings along thorny paths to eternal joy; the second part dwelt on the story of young Ferdinand Adler, who was unable to return to the paternal home until his creditors had been satisfied.... This was likely to produce an outburst of wrath on the part of the father, and a long list of Ferdinand's misdoings. But when the angry cotton-spinner would be on the point of disinheriting his son, there would follow the third part of the pastor's address, which would include a reconciliation. Boehme intended to allude to the story of the Prodigal Son, to touch lightly on the fact that his friend was himself responsible for Ferdinand's bad upbringing, and that in expiation of this sin he should offer the sum demanded by the creditors as a sacrifice.

While the pastor was rehearsing his plan of action, Adler appeared. He was huge and of clumsy build, already slightly bent; with large feet, a big round nose, and thick lips like those of a negro. He had thin fair whiskers and no moustache, and was dressed in a long grey frock-coat of an unfashionable cut, and trousers to match. When he took off his hat in order to mop the perspiration off his forehead, he showed tow-coloured, closely cropped hair, and projecting light blue eyes without eyebrows.

The millionaire walked with a heavy tread like a trooper; his big arms stood out from his body like the ribs of some antediluvian animal. His broad chest heaved and fell like a pair of smith's bellows as he greeted the pastor from a distance with phlegmatic nods and loud guffaws; but he did not smile. Indeed, it would have been difficult to imagine what a smile would look like on this fleshy, apathetic face which Nature had fashioned so roughly. Yet it was not repulsive, merely rather strange; it did not inspire fear, only the feeling that opposition to those clumsy hands would be useless. Obviously it was impossible to get at the heart of this battering-ram in human form, but, if injured, the whole fabric would collapse like a building the foundations of which had crumbled away.

"How are you, Martin?" Adler called from the lowest step of the staircase. Shaking the pastor's hand firmly, he went on: "Ah, of course, you were in Warsaw yesterday.... Have you heard anything of my boy? The rascal writes so rarely.... Probably the only person who knows his whereabouts is the banker."

As they stood together in the portico, the little pastor looked, beside his friend, like "a locust beside a camel."

"Well, tell me," Adler continued, sitting down on a little cast-iron seat; its metallic sound as it creaked under his weight harmonized strangely with the thundering roar of the factory. "Has Ferdinand not written to the bank?"

Boehme found himself plunged unwillingly into the middle of his business. Sitting down on the seat facing Adler, he remembered with marvellous presence of mind the opening part of his speech--namely the unfathomable ways of Providence.

The pastor had one drawback; this was that he could not speak fluently without his glasses, which he was in the habit of mislaying. He felt that he ought now to begin the introduction; but how was he to begin without his glasses? He cleared his throat and fidgeted, turned out his pockets and found nothing. Where could he have left his spectacles? He quite forgot his opening sentences.

Adler, who knew his friend by heart, began to feel uneasy.

"Why are you fidgeting like that?" he asked.

"I am sorry--it is very annoying--I have left my spectacles behind."

"What do you want your spectacles for? You are not going to preach a sermon, are you?"

"No, but you see----"

"I am asking about Ferdinand--any news of him?"

"I will tell you presently," Boehme said, grimacing. Again he put his hand into his breast pocket, and took out a letter and a large purse, but no spectacles.

"I wonder if I left them in the britzka," he said, turning towards the steps.

Adler, who knew that the pastor carried only important documents in his breast pocket, snatched the letter from his hand.

"My dear Gottlieb," Boehme said, confused; "give me back the letter; I will read it to you myself, but I must first find my glasses."

He ran out into the courtyard, but returned in dismay a few minutes later, not having found them.

Adler was reading the letter with great interest; the veins stood out on his forehead, and his eyes seemed to project more than ever.

When he had finished he spat on the floor.

"What a scoundrel, this Ferdinand!..." he burst out. "In two years' time he is fifty-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in debt, though I gave him a yearly allowance of ten thousand roubles."

"Ah, I know!" suddenly exclaimed the pastor, and ran off. "I couldn't have left them anywhere but in the pocket of my overcoat."

He returned triumphantly.

"You are always mislaying your spectacles and finding them again," grumbled Adler, leaning his head on his hand. He looked thoughtful and sad.

"Fifty-eight and twenty--that's seventy-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in two years. How shall I be able to make that up? By Heaven, I don't know."

Meanwhile the pastor had put on his spectacles and regained his usual presence of mind. Though the introduction and the second part of his speech had been lost, there was still the third part left. Boehme was always resourceful in a difficulty, so he cleared his throat, and began:

"Although, dear Gottlieb, your feelings as a father may be deeply wounded, and you may sometimes justly complain----"

Adler roused himself from his reverie, and replied calmly:

"It's more than mere complaining; I have to pay. Johann!" he suddenly shouted, with a voice that shook the roof of the portico.

The footman appeared.

"A glass of water!"

He emptied two glasses, and then said without a shade of excitement: "I must telegraph to Rothschilds' to-night. I will send that rascal a wire too; he must come back; he has had enough travelling."

Boehme realized that not only the chance of the third part of his speech was gone, but that Adler was treating his son far too indulgently. To incur debts of nearly sixty thousand roubles was not only a financial loss, but an abuse of parental confidence, and therefore no light offence. Who knows? If it had not been for this money, Adler might have been persuaded to found a school for the children, without which they were growing up idle and wild. Instead of standing up for the frivolous son, the pastor would now become his censor, which was all the easier for him as he had known him from his childhood. Moreover, he had now recovered his spectacles and his balance of mind.

Adler was leaning back with his hands clasped behind his head, looking at the ceiling. Boehme put his hand on his knee and began:

"My dear Gottlieb, your Christian submission in misfortune sets an excellent example; but as we are very imperfect in the sight of God, it is our duty not only to be resigned, but to be active. Our Lord not only sacrificed Himself, but taught and improved men. Ferdinand is your son in the flesh, and mine in the spirit. In spite of his gifts and good qualities, he does not carry out the injunctions to work which were laid upon man when he was driven from Paradise."

"Johann!" shouted Adler.

The footman instantly appeared.

"The engine is going too fast; tell them to slacken down! It's always like that when I am out of the way."

The footman disappeared, and the pastor continued, undismayed:

"Your son does not work, but wastes the powers of body and mind given him by the Creator. I have told you my principles on this point many times, and in educating my son Józef I have endeavoured to be faithful to them."

Adler shook his head gloomily.

"What is Józef going to do when he leaves the technical college?" he asked unexpectedly.

"Go into an engineering business or factory, and perhaps in time become a director."

"And when he is a director?"

"He will go on working."

"What for?"

Boehme was taken aback.

"In order to be useful to himself and others," he replied.

"Well, if Ferdinand comes back he can be a director here with me; and he is already useful to others by spending seventy-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles--and certainly to himself!"

"But he does not work."

"That is true, but I work for him and for myself. I have done the work of five all my life; why shouldn't he enjoy himself? He won't do it later on; I know that by my own experience. Work is a curse; I have borne it all these years, and I have borne it well, as my fortune proves. If Ferdinand was meant to work hard, as I have done, why should God have given him the money? What will the boy get out of it if he spends his life in adding ten millions to the one I have made, and his son in adding another ten? God has created rich and poor; the rich enjoy life. I myself shall probably never enjoy it; I am too old, and I don't know how to. But why shouldn't my boy enjoy it?"

"My dear Gottlieb," said the pastor, "a good Christian----"

"Johann," interrupted the cotton-spinner, addressing the returning footman and observing that the engine went more slowly, "take a bottle of hock and some cakes into the summer-house. Martin----" He tapped Boehme's shoulder with his heavy hand and guffawed.

On their way into the garden a wretched-looking woman stopped them and threw herself at their feet.

"Please, sir, give me three roubles for the funeral," she sobbed.

Adler calmly drew away.

"Go to the publican," he said; "that's where your fool of a husband wastes his money."

"Oh, sir----"

"Business matters are attended to in the office, not here," interrupted Adler. "Go there."

"I have been there, sir, but they turned me out."

Again she stretched out her arms to embrace his feet.

"Go away!" shouted the manufacturer. "You won't come to work, but you know where to beg for your christenings and funerals."

"How could I come to work, sir, just after my confinement?"

"Well then, don't have children if you have no money for their funerals."

With this he pushed the pastor, who was indignant at this scene, through the garden gate. When he had closed it, Boehme stood still.

"I would rather not drink, Gottlieb," he said.

"Oh!" said Adler, wondering.

"The tears of the poor spoil the taste of the wine."

"You need not be afraid; the glasses are clean and the bottles well corked," Adler guffawed.

The pastor flushed, turned away, and hurried into the courtyard without a word.

"Come back, you silly woman!" Adler shouted to the miserable creature, who was crying near the gate. "Here is a rouble, and be off with you!"

He threw her a paper rouble.

"Martin! Boehme!... Come back, the wine is in the summer-house."

But the pastor had got into his cart without his overcoat, and was driving out of the gateway.

"He is a madman," Adler observed to himself. He was not angry with the pastor, who frequently treated him to such scenes.

"These learned people always have a screw loose in their heads," he reflected, looking after the dust raised by the pastor's britzka. "If I were a learned man and had Boehme's income, Ferdinand would now be toiling in a technical college. It is a good thing he is not learned, either."

He turned round, glanced at the stable, where a groom was making a pretence of sweeping, sniffed in the smoke from the factory, looked at the loaded vans, and went into the office.

He ordered a clerk to credit Ferdinand's account with sixty thousand roubles, and wired him instructions to pay his debts and to come home at once.

When Adler left the office, the old German book-keeper, who wore a shade over his eyes and had sat on the same leather stool for many years, looked round suspiciously and whispered to the clerk:

"So we are going to 'economize' again. The young man has spent sixty thousand roubles, and we are going to pay for it."

In a quarter of an hour's time the rumour had reached the engine-house, and in an hour had spread all over the factory, that Adler was going to cut down the wages because his son had squandered a hundred thousand roubles. By the evening Adler knew all that was being said. Some threatened to break his bones, others that they would kill him or set fire to the factory. Some said they would leave, but these were shouted down; for where was one to go? The women wept and the men cursed Adler, invoking God's punishment on him. The cotton-spinner was satisfied. As long as the workpeople cursed they would do nothing worse. He could safely reduce their wages. Those who threatened were chiefly his most faithful men.

During the night a plan of "economy" was prepared. The more a man earned, the larger was the percentage knocked off his wages. There was a general outburst of indignation when these plans became known next day. For some years a bone-setter had been appointed to the factory for urgent cases, and during an outbreak of cholera a doctor had been added. The latter had now nothing to do according to Adler's ideas, and was given notice, and the bone-setter's salary was reduced by half. Both left the factory at once. Some score of workmen followed their example; others did less work than usual, but talked the more. At midday and again in the evening a deputation of workmen waited upon Adler to entreat him not to wrong them in this way. They wept, cursed and threatened, but Adler remained unmoved.

As he had lost sixty thousand roubles through his son, economy would have to bring him in at least fifteen to twenty thousand a year. Nothing could alter this resolution. Besides, why should he alter it? He was not risking anything.

As a matter of fact, the workmen calmed down. Some went to work of their own accord, others were sent away and their places taken by new hands, to whom the wages seemed good. There was a great deal of poverty in the district, and people were asking for employment. The place of the bone-setter was taken "for the present" by an old workman who, in Adler's opinion, was sufficiently acquainted with surgery to attend to slight injuries. As to graver cases--and these were rare--it was agreed to send for the doctor from the town, and the sick workmen and their wives and children were to go there at their own expense. So after this great upheaval matters were all right again at the factory.

Information carefully collected showed Adler that, in spite of all the wrongs he had done his workmen, nothing was going to happen to him--that there was in fact no power on earth which could do him harm.

The pastor, however, to whom Adler went without waiting to make up their difference, shook his head, and shifting his spectacles, said:

"Wrong begets wrong, my dear Gottlieb. You have neglected Ferdinand's education, and you did wrong. He has squandered your money, and you have reduced the workmen's wages in consequence, and done a greater wrong. What will be the end of it all?"

"Nothing," said Adler.

"It cannot be nothing," said Boehme, solemnly raising his hands. "The Almighty has so ordered things that every beginning has an end. Good beginning, good end; bad beginning, bad end."

"Not for me," said the cotton-spinner. "My capital is safely invested, the hands won't burn the mill, and if they do it is insured. If they leave, I shall find others. Besides, where could they go? Or do you think they will kill me? Martin ... do you really think they will?" the giant guffawed, clapping his huge hands together.

"Do not tempt God," the pastor said angrily, and changed the conversation.