Part 22

"Then I will throw in for you a few more things," said Gronski; "drunkenness, cynicism, a stupid pose of despair, thoughtless hypercriticism, scoffing at misfortune, fouling one's own nest, spitting at blood and suffering, undermining faith in the future, and blasphemy against the nation. Have you yet enough?"

"I have not enough of wine. Order some more, order some more!"

"I will not order any more wine, but I will tell yet more, that you err in claiming that these are native products. They are brought by a certain wind which evidently has fanned you."

But Swidwicki, who this time had no desire to quarrel but did have a desire to drink, evidently wishing to change the subject of the conversation, unexpectedly exclaimed:

"Apropos of winds, what a pity that such sensible people as the Prussians commit one gross blunder."

Gronski, who had already risen to bid him farewell, was overcome temporarily by curiosity.

"What blunder?" he asked.

"That they assume super-villeiny to be superhumanity."

"In this you are right."

"I feel a contempt for myself as often as I am right."

"Then we will leave you with your wine and your contempt."

Saying this, Gronski nodded to Dolhanski and they departed. Swidwicki's last words, however, caused him to reflect; so after a while he said:

"Now people's minds are haunted by the Prussians and they are reminded of them by the slightest cause. After all, Swidwicki's description of them was apposite."

"If you knew how little I am interested in Swidwicki's descriptions."

"Nevertheless, you vie with him and talk in a similar strain," answered Gronski.

After which, pursuing further the train of his thoughts, he said:

"Nietzsche also did not perceive that the susceptibility and appreciation of other people's woes becomes manifest only upon the culmination of the creative ..."

"Good, good, but at this moment I am more interested in what Krzycki is going to do about Miss Anney."

Dolhanski, who could not endure Swidwicki, would have been sorely afflicted, if he had suspected that the same question occurred to the latter's mind.

Remaining alone, Swidwicki recalled Gronski's recital and began to laugh, as the thought of such unusual complications amused him immensely. He imagined to himself what excitement must have prevailed at Krzycki's and at Pani Otocka's, and how far the affair would agitate the circles of their relatives and acquaintances. And suddenly he began to soliloquize in the following manner:

"And if I paid Miss Anney a visit? It even behooves me to leave her a card. That would be eminently proper. I may not find her in--that does not matter much, but if I should find her in, I will try to see whether her legs are not too bulky at the ankles. For culture, education, even polish may be acquired, but delicate ligaments of the legs and hands it is necessary to inherit through a whole series of generations. That furious Pauly, nevertheless, has a sufficiently thin ligature. The devil, however, knows who her father was, I will go. If I do not find one, I shall find the other."

And he went. He was admitted not by the man-servant but by Pauly; so he smiled at her in his most ingratiating manner and said:

"Good-day, pretty fennel-flower! Is Panna Hanka Skibianka at home?"

"What Hanka Skibianka?" she asked in surprise.

"Then, the little lady does not know the great tidings?"

"What great tidings? I do not know any."

"That the mistress of the little lady is not named Miss Anney?"

"Do not upset our heads."

"I give the little lady my word of honor. Ask Pan Gronski, or Pan Krzycki, who is chewing off his fingers from mortification. I give you my word of honor. I also could tell you more, but if the little lady is not curious I will go. Here is my card for Panna Ski-bian-ka."

The eyes of the girl sparkled with curiosity. She took the card mechanically.

"I do not say that you should go, but I do not believe," she said hurriedly.

"And I know yet more."

"What is it?"

"I will whisper it in your ear."

It did not occur to Pauly that there was no necessity for Swidwicki speaking in a whisper. She leaned towards him with a palpitating heart and, though he flooded her with his breath, saturated with the odor of wine, she did not withdraw her head.

"What is it?" she repeated.

"That Panna Skibianka is a peasant woman from Zarnow!"

"That is untrue!"

"As I love God."

And, saying this, he suddenly smacked her ear with a broad kiss.

IV

Miss Anney's letter bore the impress of extraordinary simplicity. At the beginning she said that from the moment when he proposed for her hand she was compelled to reveal her former name; while in the continuation it contained an equally simple account of herself and her family from the time of their departure from Rzeslewo. This sad course of events she related in the following words:

"My father came from Galicia and had in America relatives of whom he heard that through labor they had amassed fortunes. Learning of this, he decided to settle there also and seek his fortune beyond the ocean. We left Rzeslewo at a time when you were in Warsaw. I knew how to write as I was taught that in the manor-house, and would have informed you about this if I had known your address. We went, not saying anything to anybody, to Hamburg, and at that place there occurred what often happens to peasant emigrants. The agent tricked us, defrauded us of our money, and placed us on a vessel bound not for America but for England. Thrown upon the pavements of London, we soon fell into dire want. For the passage to America there now was no means. My mother died of typhoid fever in a hospital and father, from despair and nostalgia, declined rapidly in health. Under these circumstances we were found by Mr. Anney, one of the best and noblest men in the world, a friend and patron of the Poles, who gave us employment. But the succor came too late, and my father died in the course of a year. I remained in the factory and worked in it until the accident which changed my status entirely. The Anney family had only one child, a daughter, whom they loved beyond everything in the world and surrounded with a solicitude all the greater because she was threatened by a pulmonary ailment. Once it happened that Miss Anney, while visiting the factory, was almost carried away by the driving-wheel of the machinery. I rushed to her assistance, imperilling a little my own life, and from that time the gratitude of the Anney family for me had no bounds. They took me from the factory to themselves, and in this manner I became the companion and afterwards the bosom friend of their daughter. A Pole, an emigrant of the year '63, a friend of Mr. Anney and a man well educated, taught us both, and me, separately, in Polish. I endeavored to benefit, as much as lay in my power, from these lessons, and after two years was able to approach a little the intellectual plane of my friend and my environment. But Agnes--for such was the Christian name of Miss Anney--began to fail in her health. Then Mr. Anney sold his factory and we all, including our instructor, removed to Italy. There about three years were passed in a search for the best climate for our dearest patient. All efforts proved unavailing, however, as God took His angel unto Himself. After Agnes' death, the Anneys, remembering that I loved with my whole soul our dead one, adopted me as their own child and gave me not only their family name, but desiring to overcome their despair, suffering, and sorrow, even the Christian name of the deceased. Nevertheless, the sorrow could not be overcome, and though I tried with my whole heart to be to them some sort of comfort in life, in the course of two years both followed their greatest love.

"And this is the end of my history. And after that came those events which brought me nearer to you; therefore I desire to justify my conduct in your eyes. I have a right to the name which I bear, and my life from the time of the departure from Rzeslewo has been pure. Conscience reproaches me with only one new error. This was that I did not confess to the Anneys that I already was unworthy of their care. But for such a confession I lacked strength. I loved too much my Agnes and feared that they would separate me from her. Later I did not want to add to their affliction. I did not have the strength. At times, also, I think that now when they look upon me from heaven and see everything, they forgive me for keeping that secret. Beyond this I once more repeat and swear that my life has been pure. But in my memory I have only coffins and coffins, and of my Rzeslewo days there remains to me only the recollection of you. I could not forget either my sin or my happiness. Often during the life of my adopted sister, while gazing into her chaste eyes, I struggled with remorse, and at the same time I wept from intense longing. After that, being left alone in the world, I had nothing to cherish in my heart, and I began to yearn yet more. When, after the death of the Anneys, I became acquainted and grew intimate with Zosia Otocka in Brussels, I accidentally learned from a conversation that she was your relative. Then I related to her my entire life, not concealing anything, and she not only did not spurn me, but loved me yet more. Emboldened by her goodness, I confessed to her my longing for the old days and Rzeslewo. Perhaps it may be a new fault on my part that I confided to Zosia my insurmountable desire of seeing yet once more in my life, Jastrzeb, Rzeslewo, and--why should I not state the whole truth?--and you. Then Zosia said to me: 'I understand you; ride with me to Jastrzeb as Miss Anney, as you cannot do otherwise. Nobody will recognize you and you will take a reckoning with your own heart. Perhaps reality may extinguish the rainbow of recollections. If they are assuaged forever, so much the better for you; if he should fall in love with you, so much the worse for him; if your former echoes reawaken, then we will assume that this was predestination.' Such was Zosia's advice, and for that reason, when your mother invited her and Marynia, I also accompanied them to Jastrzeb. But I do not wish to pass for any better than I am. I confess that on the road I always had in mind Zosia's words: 'If he falls in love with you, so much the worse for him,' and I wished that to happen. I was certain that you had entirely forgotten me, and I thought that if now you fell in love with me without any requital, that it would be a sort of condign punishment for your forgetfulness and a kind of triumph for myself and--if not such a womanly revenge as books tell of,--at least a great solace to my self-love. But it happened otherwise, for I forgot to take into account that I had a heart, not of foreign books, but of a Polish village--simple and faithful. When I saw Rzeslewo, Jastrzeb, and you, I wanted only to weep and weep, as I wept at Pan Zarnowski's funeral, and I discovered within me that Hanka, who years before loved you with her first childish love and afterwards with such affection, did not love any one else. You know, sir, what happened further. If you do not return, I will not bear any resentment towards you, but do not harbor any ill-will against me. I, too, merely skirted along the rim of happiness."

The signature was "Hanka." Ladislaus' chin quivered from time to time while he was reading the letter and his eyes grew dim. He began to repeat the signature "Hanka, Hanka." He rose abruptly and paced over the room with big steps. His thoughts rolled into a ball in his head like clouds in the heavens; they collected and scattered in all directions like a startled stud of horses on the wild steppes of the Ukraine. He read the letter a second and third time, and under its influence there began to glide before his eyes pictures of the past as distinct as if all that which occurred some time ago had happened but yesterday. He recalled those bright moonlight nights when he stole away to the mill, and that village girl, fragrant with the hay, who, to the question of whether she loved him, whispered in reply, "Of course," and threw her yet half-childish arms around his neck and hugged him to her breast with such strength that no other love could make a sincerer avowal. He recollected that he nevertheless loved her at that time, and when he missed her, longed for her, and even inquired of the people about the blacksmith's family--but with reserve and faint-heartedly, as fear closed his lips.

Subsequently that girl was erased from his memory so completely that even the light pangs of conscience which he felt on her account vanished; nothing remained. It was well with him in the world and he sought new sensations, while she was seized by the whirlwind of life and was hurled like a wretched leaf upon a foreign land, where she suffered from sheer starvation. Nevertheless, neither at that time, nor later, when good people took care of her, did she forget him nor did she cease to long for him. Ladislaus was not a deep connoisseur of the human soul; he felt, nevertheless, that what for him was simply a love adventure, a shallow enjoyment of the senses, a transient impression which disperses to the winds like the fragrance of flowers, for her became a new life; a surrender of her whole being and whole soul, too pure and too noble for her to seek a new happiness upon new paths. And now he understood why that coveted Miss Anney of to-day, charming as a dream, brilliant, surrounded by affluence and arousing admiration, wrote to him that she had a heart not of foreign books but of a Polish village--simple and faithful. He understood also why the letter was signed "Hanka." Suddenly and irrevocably were banished all his suspicions, and her words, "my life from the moment of the departure from Rzeslewo has been pure," touched him to the extent that he began to upbraid himself that he should for a moment have thought that it could have been otherwise. At once he seemed to himself to be little, mean, and unworthy of that noble and exalted soul. But through his heart and head there coursed during the last moments so many thoughts, impressions, and feelings that he was uncertain whether the final sensibility of his own shortcomings and wretchedness would be lasting. Nevertheless, he was seized with an ever-increasing tenderness, and more and more became obliterated that difference between Hanka and Miss Anney which was so irritating to him in the first moments. Now, on the contrary, the recollection that this simple girl of old and that fascinating lady of to-day were one and the same woman penetrated him with a kind of thrill, resembling a thrill of joy. The memory that at one time he possessed the other began to waken in him, as it were, a hunger and a new passion for the present one, and the thought of her charms intensified the play of his young blood. But he strove to stifle within him those impressions with the consciousness of the responsibilities which were imposed upon him. Above all things he propounded to himself the question. What should a man of honor do who had betrayed and therefore wronged a girl, almost a child, who was in love with him, and later, after a few years, met her under a changed name and fell in love with her? There was only one answer; even if he did not fall in love, if her love continued, he ought to assume all the consequences of his acts. If she remained a simple-minded rustic who never could understand him, or if she had deviated from the path of rectitude, even in such a case, it would not, for his vexed soul, be sufficient reason for washing his hands and withdrawing from the affair; and so much the more, since the girl had bridged the intellectual and social chasm which separated them, and in addition ennobled her own soul and had not ceased to love. "Yes it is so. I would spit in my own eyes," said Ladislaus (not thinking at that moment that in practice an act like that would be a trifle difficult to perform), "if I hesitated any longer. There is only one thing to do and I will do that at once." Having formed this resolution, he took a deep breath like a man, from whose heart a heavy load has fallen--and as much as he at first became little in his own eyes, so now he began to gain in stature. He did not, however, propound the question, what would happen if Miss Anney did not have such wondrous eyes, gazing with a heavenly streak, nor such a countenance, whose color reminded him of the petals of a white rose, nor those other charms which attracted his eyes. He said to himself that many of his acquaintances could not afford to form a similar resolution; he was pleased with himself; and that it was easier for him to do so because he was impelled thereto by his heart and senses, he deemed not as lessening the worthiness of the act itself, but as his own good fortune. He foresaw, however, that he would yet have to do with his mother as well as with the so called opinion of society, which is not concerned about principles but only about gossip, and which seeks, above all things, food for its own stupid malice. But he expected to reconcile his mother, and as to the malicious, smiling ironically upon the slightest provocation, his nostrils, distended at the very thought, and his clenched teeth boded them no good. But this anticipated knightly action was a matter of the future; in the meantime his impetuous nature urged him to immediate action. He determined to go to his mother at once and definitely come to an understanding with her. Glancing, however, at his watch, he became aware of the fact that it was almost three o'clock in the morning. In view of this, that was impossible. Not feeling, however, the least need of sleep, and desiring absolutely to do something, he sat down to write letters. First, he inclosed Miss Anney's letter in an envelope, because he wanted to send it to his mother before the decisive interview took place; after which he started to write to Miss Anney, but soon stopped, as it occurred to him that since he gave his word that he would remain silent for a week, he did not have the right to do it. Instead, after a brief deliberation, he wrote a few words to Pani Otocka, praying that she would permit him to visit her that day.

Finally, when the dawn began to peer into the room and mingle with the light of the lamps, he thought of repose, but though he felt great weariness, he could not fall asleep, and mentally he conversed with his mother and Miss Anney until sunrise. He fell into a sound slumber only when the morning bustle in the hotel began and did not awake until late. Dressing himself, he rang for the servant and ordered him to deliver Miss Anney's letter to his mother, but at the last minute he made up his mind to take it to her himself. But in the rooms engaged by his mother he found only the younger members of the family and the French governess, who informed him that "madame" went to church early in the morning.

V

Pani Krzycki had indeed gone to church and confession, for in the grief which befell her, she needed consolation and advice. And her grief was real and profound. She lived in times in which various ancient prejudices and prepossessions clashed, and were becoming more and more obliterated, yielding place to new democratic ideas. As she often heard that the wave of these new ideas might bring benefit and salvation to the country, she, notwithstanding that her habits and former conceptions conflicted with them, not only did not struggle against them, but quietly acquiesced in them in a passive manner. This was easier for her as it never occurred to her that personally she would ever have anything to do with them. For her it was the same as if somebody had installed modern furniture in a few rooms in Jastrzeb, which were not continually occupied. Let them stay there since fashion requires it and since in the other rooms there are old armchairs, heirlooms, in which one can rest comfortably. And now, suddenly she was ordered to move to that new part of the house; suddenly she was confronted by the fact that her son was in love with a peasant woman from Rzeslewo and was about to marry her. Then in the first moments everything within her was stirred up; the old instincts and customs began to cry out. That silent and passive acquiescence in the new ideas crumbled like a building of sand, and the whole course of events appeared to the indignant citizeness-noblewoman as an unworthy intrigue in which the victim to be sported with was her son and with him, the entire Krzycki family. Amazement that the chief partner and almost author of this intrigue could be a being whom she regarded as the incarnation of all feminine virtues, and whom she desired her son should marry, only aggravated her anger. In vain did Zosia explain to her that her son was the betrayer of an innocent child and Miss Anney was an angel, and that in bringing her to Jastrzeb, she did not have any sinister designs and did only that which every other woman in her place, sympathizing with a wronged and longing woman, would have done. "If the most fervent wish of Miss Anney was to behold once more in her life the place in which her life was undone, and the man whom she could not forget and who was the author of her undoing, then it was due to her; and everybody who has the slightest heart ought to understand this. And let Aunt say," she continued, "whether I could betray her secret and whether an impossible situation would not have been created for her." The usually quiet and gentle Zosia became so wrought up in defence of her friend that she plainly told Pani Krzycki that even if Laudie fell in love with Miss Anney without any requital that it would be only what he deserved and, besides, since "Aninka" did not accept his proposal and gave him a week's time for consideration, he could withdraw it; in such case, however, "Aninka" would not be the only one whose respect he forfeited. But all this was pouring oil upon fire and only increased the ire of Pani Krzycki who declared that, at any rate, she and her son were victims of a plot. After which she moved to a hotel, announcing at the time of her departure that her feet would never again cross the threshold of that house.