Part 4

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."

VII

The hour was five in the afternoon. The ladies sat on the veranda, at tea, when the young men returned from the city. Miss Anney rose when they appeared and, not wishing to be present, as a stranger, at the family conversation, left on some pretext for her room. Pani Krzycki greeted them with slightly affected calm, because in reality the thought of the will did not leave her for a moment. She was not greedier than the generality of common mortals, but she was immensely concerned that, after her demise, at the distribution of the estate, Ladislaus should have enough to pay off the younger members of the family and to sustain himself at Jastrzeb. And some respectable bequest would in a remarkable manner facilitate the making of such payments. Besides, at the bottom of the noble soul of Pani Krzycki there lay hidden the faith that Providence owed, to a certain extent, greater obligations to the Krzycki family than to any ordinary family. For that reason, even if the whole of Rzeslewo fell to the lot of that family, she would with readiness and willingness submit to such a decree of Providence. Finally, descending from the blood of a people who in certain cases can sacrifice fortune, but love extraordinarily to acquire it without any effort, she fondled all day the thought that such an easy acquisition was about to occur.

But in the countenances of Ladislaus and Gronski she could at once discern that they brought specific intelligence. Dolhanski, who was the first to alight from the carriage, was the first to begin the report.

"I anticipate the question, what is the news?" he said, drawling his expressions with cold irony, "and I answer everything is for the best, for the Rzeslewo Mats and Jacks will have something with which they can travel to Carlsbad."

Pani Krzycki grew somewhat pale and, turning to Gronski, asked:

"What, in truth, gentlemen, have you brought with you?"

"The will in its provisions is peculiar," answered Gronski, "but was executed in a noble spirit. Rzeslewo is devised for a peasants' agricultural school and the interest of the funds is to be devoted to sending the pupils of the school, who have finished their courses, for a year's or two years' practice in country husbandry in Bohemia."

"Or, as I stated, to Carlsbad, Marienbad, Teplitz, and other places of the same character," explained Dolhanski.

A moment of silence followed. Marynia, who was pouring the tea, began, with teapot in hand, to gaze with inquiring look at those present, desiring evidently to unriddle whether they praised or condemned it and whether it gave them pleasure or annoyance. Pani Otocka looked at Gronski with eyes which evinced delight; while Pani Krzycki leaned with both hands upon the cane which she used owing to rheumatism in her limbs, and after a certain time asked in a slightly hoarse voice:

"So, it is for a public purpose?"

"Yes," answered Gronski, "the organization of the school and afterwards the division of the funds for the stay in Bohemia is to be assumed by a special Directory of the Trust Society of this province, and the designated curator of the school is Laudie."

"Too bad it is not I," interposed Dolhanski. "I would arrange it very quickly."

"There are specific bequests," continued Gronski, "and these are very strange. He bequeaths various small sums to the household servants and ten thousand roubles to some Skibianka, daughter of a blacksmith at the Rzeslewo manor, who in his time emigrated to America."

"Skibianka!" repeated Pani Krzycki with astonishment.

Dolhanski bit off the ends of his mustache, smiled, and started to grumble that the nobility was always distinguished for its love of the common people, but Gronski looked at him severely; after which he drew from his pocket a memorandum and said:

"That provision of the will is worded as follows: Whereas the parents of Hanka Skiba or Skibianka emigrated during my sojourn abroad for medical treatment, and I have not had the opportunity of ascertaining where they can be found, therefore I obligate my relative, Ladislaus Krzycki, to cause to be published in all the Polish newspapers printed in the United States and in Parana, advertisements. If the said legatee does not within two years appear to receive the bequest, the entire sum with interest becomes the property of the said Ladislaus Krzycki."

"And I already have announced that I do not intend to accept that specific bequest," cried the young man excitedly.

All eyes were turned toward him; he added:

"I would not think of it; I would not think of it."

"Why not?" asked his mother after a while.

"Because I cannot. Let us suppose that the legatee appears, say for instance, within three years instead of two, what would happen? Would I pocket the bequest and drive her away? No! I could not do that. Finally, there are other considerations of which I do not wish to speak."

In fact, only by these "other considerations," could such a considerable bequest to a simple village girl be explained; therefore Pani Krzycki became silent. After a while she said:

"My Laudie, nobody will coerce, nor even try to persuade you to accept."

But Dolhanski asked:

"Tell me, is this some mythical disinterestedness or is it ill humor caused by your not receiving a greater bequest?"

"Do not judge by yourself," answered Krzycki; "but I will tell you something which you certainly will not believe; since this estate is to be devoted to such an object as a peasants' agricultural school, I am highly delighted and have much greater esteem for the deceased. I give you my word that I speak with entire sincerity."

"Bravo!" exclaimed Pani Otocka, "it is pleasant to hear that."

Pani Krzycki looked with pride first upon her son, then upon Pani Otocka; and, though a feeling of disappointment lingered in her heart, said:

"Well, let there be a peasants' school, if only our Jastrzeb peasants will be permitted to send their sons to it."

"That does not admit of any doubt," explained Gronski. "There will be as many pupils as accommodations can be provided for. They may come from all parts, though preference is to be given to Rzeslewo peasants."

"What do they say about the bequest?"

"There were more than a dozen of them at the opening of the will, as they expected a direct gift of all the manor lands to them. Somebody had persuaded them that the deceased left everything to them to be equally divided. So they left very much displeased. We heard them say that this was not the genuine will and that they do not need any schools."

"Most fully do I share their opinion," said Dolhanski, "and in this instance, contrary to my nature, I will speak seriously. For at present there is raging an epidemic of founding schools and no one asks for whom, for what, how are they to be taught in them, and what is the end to be attained. I belong to that species of birds who do not toil, but look at everything, if not from the top, then from the side, and, perhaps for that very reason, see things which others do not observe. So, at times, I have an impression that we are like those children, for instance, at Ostend, who build on the sea-shore forts with the sand. Every day on the beach they erect them and every day the waves wash them away until not a trace of them remains."

"In a way you are right," said Gronski; "but there, however, is this difference: the children build joyfully and we do not."

Afterwards he meditated and added:

"However, the law of nature is such that children grow while the adults rear dykes, not of sand, but of stone upon which the weaves dash to pieces."

"Let them be dashed to pieces as quickly as possible," exclaimed Ladislaus.

But Dolhanski would not concede defeat.

"Permit me then," he said, "since we have not yet grown up and have not yet started to build of stone, to remain a pessimist."

Gronski gazed for a while into the depths of the garden like a man who was pondering over something and then said:

"Pessimism--pessimism! We hear that incessantly nowadays. But in the meanwhile if there exists anything more stupid than optimism, which often passes for folly, it is particularly pessimism, which desires to pose as reason."

Dolhanski smiled a trifle biliously and, turning to the ladies, said, pointing to Gronski:

"Do not take this ill of him, ladies. It often happens for him in moments of abstraction to utter impertinences. He is a good--even intelligent--man, but has the unbearable habit of turning over everything, examining it from all sides, pondering over it, and soliloquizing."

But Marynia suddenly flushed with indignation in defence of her friend and, shaking the teapot which at that moment she held in her hand, began to speak with great ardor:

"That is just right, that is just sensible; that is what everybody ought to do--"

Dolhanski pretended to be awe-stricken and, bowing his head, cried:

"I am vanquished; I retreat and surrender arms."

Gronski, laughing, kissed her hand, while she, abashed at her own vehemence and covered with blushes, began to ask:

"Is it not the truth? Am I not right?"

But Dolhanski already recovered his presence of mind.

"That does not prove anything," he said.

"Why?"

"Because Gronski once promulgated this aphorism: It is never proper to follow the views of a woman, especially if by accident she is right."

"I?" exclaimed Gronski. "Untangle yourself from me. I never said anything like that. Do not believe him, ladies."

"I believe only you, sir," answered Marynia.

But further conversation was interrupted by Pani Krzycki, who observed that it was time for the May mass. In the Jastrzeb manor-house, there was a room especially assigned for that purpose and known as the chapel. At the main wall, opposite the windows, stood an altar with a painting of the Divine Mother of Czestochowo. The walls, altar, painting, and even the candles were decorated with green garlands. On the side tables stood bouquets of elders and jasmines whose fragrance filled the entire room. Sometimes, when the rector of Rzeslewo arrived, he conducted the services; in his absence the lady of the house. All the inmates of the house, with the exception of Laskowicz, during the entire month of May met every evening in the chapel. At present the gentlemen followed the ladies. On the way Ladislaus asked Gronski:

"Is Miss Anney a Catholic?"

"To tell you the truth, I do not know," answered Gronski, "but it seems--but look, she is entering also. So she must be a Catholic. Perhaps her name is Irish."

In the chapel the candles were already lit, though the sun had not entirely set and stood in the windows, low, golden, and ruddy, casting a lustre on the white cloth which covered the altar and on the heads of the women. At the very altar the lady of the house knelt, behind her the lady visitors; after them the female servants and the old asthmatic lackey, while the gentlemen stood at the wall between the windows. The customary songs, prayers, and litanies began. Their sweetness struck Gronski. There was in them something of spring and at the same time of the evening. The impression of the spring was created by the flowers, and of the evening by ruddy lustre entering through the windows, and the soft voices of the women who, repeating the choral words of the litanies, reminded one of the last chirp of birds, subsiding before the setting of the sun. "Healer of the sick. Refuge of sinners, Comforter of the afflicted," repeated Pani Krzycki; and those soft, subdued voices responded, "Pray for us,"--and thus did that country home pray on that May evening. Gronski, who was a sceptic, but not an atheist, like a man of high culture, at first felt the æsthetic side of this childlike "good-night" borne by these women to a benign deity. Afterwards, as if desiring to corroborate the truth of Dolhanski's assertion that he was wont to turn over every subject on every side and to ponder over every phenomenon, he began to meditate upon religious manifestations. It occurred to him that this homage rendered to a deity was an element purely ideal, possessed solely by humanity. He recalled that as often as he happened to be in church and saw people praying, so often was he struck by the unfathomable chasm which separates the world of man from the animal world. As a matter of fact, religious conceptions can only be formed by higher and more perfect organisms; therefore he drew the conclusion that if there existed beings ten times more intelligent than mankind, they would, in their own way, be ten times more religious. "Yes, but in their own way," Gronski repeated, "which perhaps might be very different." His spiritual drama (and he often thought that there were many people like him) was this: that the Absolute appeared to him as an abyss, as some synthetic law of all the laws of existence. Thus he presumed that according to a degree of mental development it was impossible to imagine that law in the form of the kindly old man or in the eye on the radiant triangle, unless one takes matters symbolically and assumes that the old man and the eye express the all-basis of existence, as the horizontally drawn eight denotes infinity. But in such case what will this all-basis be for him? Always night, always an abyss, always something inscrutable; barely to be felt by some dull sensation and not by any clear perception, from whose power can be understood the phenomenon of existence and an answer be made to the various whys and wherefores. "Mankind," mused Gronski, "possesses at the same time too much and too little intelligence. For, after all, to simply believe one must unreservedly shut the blinds of his intellectual windows and not permit himself to peer through them; and when he does open them he discovers only a starless night." For this reason he envied those middle-aged persons, whose intelligence reared mentally edifices upon unshaken dogmas, just as lighthouses are built upon rocks in the sea. Dante could master the whole field of knowledge of his time and yet, notwithstanding this, could traverse hell, purgatory, and paradise. The modern man of learning could not travel thus, for if he wished to pass in thought beyond the world of material phenomenon, he would see that which we behold in Wuertz's well-known painting, a decapitated head; that is, some element so undefined that it is equivalent to nothing.

But the tragedy, according to Gronski, lay not only in the inscrutability of the Absolute, in the impossibility of understanding His laws, but also in the impossibility of agreeing on them and acknowledging them from the view point of human life. There exist, of course, evil and woe. The Old Testament explains them easily by the state of almost continual rage of its Jah. "Domine ne in furore tuo arguas me, neque in ira tua corripias me," and afterwards "saggittae tuae infixae sunt mihi et confirmasti super me manuo tuum." And once having accepted this blind fury and this "strengthening of the right hand," it is easy to explain to one's self in a simple manner misfortune. But already in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes doubts whether everything in the world is in order. The New Testament sees evil in matter in contraposition to the soul; and that is clear. However, viewing the matter, in the abstract, as everything is a close chain of cause and effect, therefore everything is logical, and being logical it cannot per se be either evil or good, but may appear propitious or unfavorable in its relation to man. Besides, that which we call evil or misfortune may, according to the absolute laws of existence, and in its profundity, be wise and essential principles of development, which are beyond human comprehension, and therefore something which in itself is an advantageous phenomenon.

Yes, but in such case, whence does man derive the power to oppose his individual thoughts and his concrete conceptions to this universal logic? If everything is a delusion, why is the human mind a force, existing, as it were, outside of the general laws of existence? There is this something, unprecedented and at the same time tragical, that man must be subjected to these laws and can protest against them. On earth spiritual peace was enjoyed only by the gods, and is now only by animals. Man is eternally struggling and crying veto, and such a veto is every human tear.