Chapter 6

The dinner passed off very pleasantly. A married couple, like these two, are born matchmakers. The very sight of them sets people thinking: "If married life is like that, let us go and commit matrimony." I at least saw it for the first time in a quite different light,--not as the prose of life, a commonplace, more or less skilfully disguised indifference, but as a thing to be desired.

Aniela evidently read our future in the same light; I saw it in her eyes shining with happiness.

After dinner I remained in the dining-room with Sniatynski, who liked a quiet talk over a glass of cognac after his coffee. The elder ladies went to the drawing-room, and Aniela took Pani Sniatynska upstairs to show her some photographs of Volhynia. I questioned Sniatynski about his new play, the fate of which seemed to make him a little anxious. Our conversation drifted on to those times when we both tried our sprouting wings. He told me how afterwards, step by step, he had worked his way upward; how he had been full of doubts, and still doubted his power, in spite of having acquired a certain reputation.

"Tell me," I asked, "what do you do with your fame?"

"How do you mean what I do with my fame?"

"For instance, do you wear it as a crown on your head, or as a golden fleece round your neck? do you put it over your writing-desk, or hang it up in your drawing-room? I only ask as a man who has no idea what to do with it if he once obtains it?"

"Let us suppose I have won it; the man must be deuced ill-bred mentally either to wear the so-called fame as an ornament or to put it up for show. I confess that at first it gratifies one's vanity; but only a spiritual parvenu would find it sufficient to fill the whole life, or take the place of real happiness. It is quite another thing to be conscious you are doing good work; that the public appreciates it, and that your work calls forth an echo in other minds,--a public man has the right to feel pleased with that. But as to feeling gratified when somebody, looking more or less foolish, comes up and says: 'We are indebted to you for so much pleasure;' or, when a dinner does not agree with me, our daily press remarks: 'We communicate to our readers the sad news that our famous XX suffers from a stomachache,'--pshaw! what do you take me for, that such a thing could give me satisfaction?"

"Listen," I said, "I am not inordinately vain; but I confess that, when people speak of my extraordinary talents, and regret that I make not a better use of them, it flatters me; and though I feel more than ever my uselessness, it gives me pleasure; humankind is fond of approbation."

"That is because you pity yourself, and in that you are quite right. But you are turning away from the question. I do not say that it would give one pleasure to be called an ass."

"But the public esteem that goes hand in hand with fame?"

Sniatynski, who is very lively and always walks about the room, sitting down on any table or chair, now sat on the window-sill, and replied:--

"Public esteem? You are wrong there, old fellow; there is no such thing. Ours is a strange society, dominated by a pure republican jealousy. I write plays, work for the stage; very good. I have gained a certain reputation; better still. Now, these plays excite the jealousy,--of another playwright, you think? Not at all; it is the engineer, the bank clerk, the teacher, the physician, the railway official,--in short, people who never wrote a play in their lives,--that envy you. All these in their intercourse will show that they do not think much of you, will speak slightingly of you behind your back, and belittle you on purpose, so as to add an inch or two to their own height. 'Sniatynski? who is he? Yes, I remember; he dresses at the same tailor as I.' Such is fame, my dear fellow."

"But if must be worth something, since people risk their lives for it?"

Sniatynski grew thoughtful, and replied with a certain gravity:--

"In private life it is worth something; you can make a footstool of it for the woman you love."

"You will gain a new fame by this definition."

Sniatynski rushed at me with lively impetuosity.

"Yes, yes; put all your laurels into a cushion, go to the dear one, and say to her: 'This for which people risk their lives; this which they consider supreme happiness, appreciate more than wealth,--I have got it, striven for it; and now put your dear feet on it at once.' If you do this, you will be loved all your life. You wanted to know what fame is good for, and there you are."

Further discussions were cut short by the entrance of Pani Sniatynska and Aniela. They were dressed for going out to the hot-houses. What an imp of mischief lurks in that little woman. She came up to her husband to ask his permission to go out, which he granted, insisting only that she should wrap herself up warm; she turned to me and said with a roguish smile,--

"You will let Aniela go, will you not?"

That Aniela should blush furiously was only natural, but that I, an old stager, a razor sharpened against the strops of so many experiences, should have betrayed so much confusion, I cannot forgive myself. But, putting on a semblance of self-possession, I went up to Aniela, and raising her hand to my lips, said:--

"It is Aniela who gives orders at Ploszow, and I am her humble subject."

I should have liked to take Sniatynski with me and join the excursion, but refrained. I felt a want to speak about Aniela, my future marriage, and I knew that sooner or later Sniatynski himself would broach the question. I gave him an opening after the ladies had left us by saying:--

"And do you still believe as firmly as ever in your life-dogmas?"

"More than ever, or rather, the same as ever. There is no expression more worn to tatters than the word 'love;' one scarcely likes to use it; but between ourselves, I tell you; love in the general meaning, love in the individual sense does not permit of criticism. It is one of the canons of life. My philosophy consists in not philosophizing about it at all,--and the deuce take me if for the matter of that, I consider myself more foolish than other people. With love, life is worth something; without, it is not worth a bag of chaff."

"Let us see what you have to say about individual love,--or better still, put in its place woman."

"Very well, let it be woman."

"My good friend, do you not perceive on what brittle foundation you are building human happiness?"

"On about as brittle a foundation as life,--no more nor less!"

I did not want to drift into a discussion of life and death, and pulled Sniatynski up.

"For mercy's sake, do not generalize about individual happiness. You chanced to find the right woman, another might not."

He would not even listen to that. According to his view, ninety out of a hundred were successful. Women were better, purer, and nobler than men.

"We are rascals all, in comparison with them!" he shouted, waving his arms and snaking his leonine mane. "Nothing but rascals! It is I who say it,--I, who study mankind closely, if only for the reason that I am a playwright."

He was sitting astride on his chair, attacking me, as it were, with the chairback, and went on with his usual impetuosity:--

"There are, as Dumas says, apes from the land of Nod, who know neither curb nor bridle; but what are eyes given for but to see that you do not take to wife an ape from Nod? Generally speaking a woman does not betray her husband nor deceive him, unless he himself corrupts her heart, tramples on her feelings, or repulses and estranges her by his meanness, his selfishness, narrowness, and his miserable, worthless nature. You must love her! Let her feel that she is not only your female, but the crown of your head, as precious as your child and friend; wear her close to your heart, let her feel the warmth of it, and you may rest in peace; year after year she will cling closer to you, until you two are like Siamese twins. If you do not give her all that, you pervert her, estrange her by your worthlessness,--and she will leave you. She will leave you as soon as she sees nobler hands stretched out for her; she is forced to do it, as this warmth, this appreciation, are as necessary to her life as the air she breathes."

He charged me with the chairback as with a battering ram. I retreated before him until we had come close to the window; there he jumped up.

"How blind you are! In presence of such social drought, such utter absence of general happiness as stamps our time, not to grasp this felicity that is within reach! Shiver on the forum, and not light a fire at home! Idiotism can go no farther! I tell you plainly, go and get married."

He pointed through the window at Aniela, who with his wife was coming back from the hot-houses, and added: "There is your happiness. There it patters in fur boots on the frozen snow. Take her by weight of gold, by weight in carats rather! You simply have no home, not only in a physical sense, but in a moral, intellectual meaning; you have no basis, no point of rest, and she will give you all that. But do not philosophize her away as you have philosophized away your abilities and your thirty-five years of life!"

He could not have told me anything better, nobler, or what chimed in more with my own desires. I pressed his hands and replied:--

"No, I will not philosophize her away, because I love her."

Upon this the ladies entered, and Pani Sniatynska observed:--

"We heard some disputes when we were leaving, but I see peace is restored. May I ask what you have been discussing?"

"Woman, madame," I said.

"And what was the result?"

"As you see, a treaty of peace sealed by a grasp of the hand, and something further may come of it in the course of time."

The sledge was already waiting at the door. The short day was drawing to its close, and they had to go back; but as the weather was calm, and the snow on the drive as smooth as a parquetted floor, we resolved, Aniela and I, to accompany them as far as the high-road.

And so we did. After having said good-by to our charming visitors, we went slowly homeward. It was already dusk; in the dim light I could still see Aniela's face. She seemed moved, perhaps had opened her heart to Pani Sniatynska, and even now hoped for the long deferred word. It was almost burning on my tongue; but, oh, wonder! I who never yet had lost all my self-possession, I who was used to play upon heartstrings, who at a fencing match of that kind, if not cleverly, at least with perfect composure guarded myself against the most masterly strokes, I was as deeply moved as a lad in his teens. What a difference from former sentiments. I was afraid I could not find words to express myself,--and remained silent.

Thus in silence we approached the veranda. The snow was slippery; I offered her my arm, and when she leaned on it I felt how all my desires were centred in her. The feeling grew so intense that it thrilled my nerves like electric sparks. We entered the hall. There was nobody there; not even the lamps were lit, the only light came in fitful gleams from the open stoves. In this half-light and in silence I began to relieve Aniela of her furs, when suddenly the warmth emanating from her body seemed to enter into my veins; I put my arm around her, and drawing her close to me I pressed my lips on her brow.

It was done almost unconsciously, and Aniela must have been greatly startled, for she made not the slightest resistance. Presently a footstep became audible; it was the servant with the lamps. She went upstairs, and I, deeply moved, entered the dining-room.

To every man who is ever so little enterprising, similar events occur in the course of life. I am no exception, but, as a rule, I always kept the mastery over myself. Now it was different. Thoughts and sensations whirled across my brain like leaves before a gale. Fortunately the dining-room was empty; my aunt and Aniela's mother were in the drawing-room, where I joined them after a while. My thoughts were so far away that I scarcely heard what they were saying to me. I felt restless. I seemed to see Aniela sitting in her room, pressing her hands to her temples, trying to realize what it all meant. Soon Aniela herself came down. I felt relieved, as I had feared she might not come down again for the evening. She had two burning spots on either side of her face, and eyes bright as if from recent slumber. She had tried to cool her face with powder; I saw the traces on her left temple. The sight of her moved me; I felt that I loved her deeply.

Presently she stooped over some needlework. I saw that her breath came and went irregularly, and once or twice I intercepted a quick glance full of unsettled questions and trouble.

In order to set her mind at rest I thrust myself into the conversation of the elder ladies, who were speaking about Sniatynski, and said:--

"Sniatynski considers me a kind of Hamlet, and says I philosophize too much; but I am going to show him that he is mistaken, and that not later than to-morrow."

I laid some stress on the "to-morrow," and Aniela caught the meaning, for she gave me a long look; but my aunt, all unconscious, asked:--

"Are you going to see him to-morrow?"

"We ought to go and see his play, and if Aniela agrees we will all go to-morrow."

The dear girl looked at me shyly but trustingly, and said, with indescribable sweetness:--

"I will go with great pleasure."

There was a moment when I could scarcely contain myself, and felt I ought to speak there and then; but I had said "to-morrow," and refrained.

I feel like a man who shuts his eyes and ears before taking the final plunge. But I really think it is a costly pearl I shall find at the bottom of the deep.

CASA OSORIA, 6 March.

Yesterday I arrived at Rome. My father is not quite so bad as I had feared. His left arm and the left side of his body are almost paralyzed, but the doctor tells me his heart is not threatened, and that he may live for years.

7 March.

I left Aniela in doubt, expectation, and suspense. But I could not do otherwise. The day following the Sniatynskis' visit, the very day I was going to ask Aniela to be my wife, I received a letter from my father telling me about his illness.

"Make haste, dear boy," he wrote, "for I should like to see you before I die, and I feel my bark very close to the shore."

After the receipt of such a letter I took the first train, and never stopped until I reached Rome. When leaving Ploszow I had very little hope to find my father alive. In vain my aunt tried to comfort me, saying if things were so bad he would surely have sent a telegram instead of a letter.

I know my father's little oddities, among which is a rooted dislike to telegrams. But my aunt's composure was only put on, at the bottom she felt as frightened as myself.

In the hurry, the sudden shock, and under the horror of my father's likely death, I could not speak of love and marriage. It seemed against nature, almost a brutal thing, to whisper words of love, not knowing whether at the same time my father might not be breathing his last. They all understood that, and especially Aniela.

"I will write to you from Rome," I said before starting; to which she replied: "May God comfort you first."

She trusts me altogether. Rightly or wrongly, I have the reputation of fickleness in regard to women, and Aniela must have heard remarks about it; maybe it is for that very reason the dear girl shows such unbounded confidence in me. I understand, and can almost hear the pure soul saying: "They wrong you,--you are not fickle; and those who accuse you of fickleness do not know what love means, and did not love you as truly and deeply as I love you."

Perhaps I am a little fickle by nature, and this disposition, developed under the influence of the barren, empty, worthless sentiments I met with in the world,--this might have dried up my heart and corrupted it altogether; in which case Aniela would have to pay for the sins of others. But I believe the case is not hopeless, and the blessed physician has not come too late. Who knows whether it be ever too late, and that the pure, honest love of a woman does not possess the power to raise the dead? Perhaps, too, the masculine heart has a greater power of recuperation. There is a legend about the rose of Jericho, which, though dry to the core, revives and brings forth leaves when touched by a drop of dew. I have noticed that the male nature has more elasticity than the female. A man steeped in such utter corruption that half of its venom would cover the woman with moral leprosy is able to throw off the contagion, and recover easily not only his moral freshness, but even a certain virginity of heart. It is the same with the affections. I have known women whose hearts were so used up that they lost every capacity of loving, even of respecting anything or anybody. I have never known men like that. Decidedly, love cleanses our hearts. Definitions like these sound strange from a sceptic's pen; but in the first place I have no more belief in my doubts than I have in any other kind of assertions, axioms, and observations which serve general humanity as a basis of life. I am ready to admit at any moment that my doubts are as far removed from the essence of things as are these axioms. Secondly, I am writing now under the influence of my love for Aniela, who, maybe, does not know herself how wisely she is acting, and how by that very trust in me she has secured a powerful hold on my affections. Lastly, whenever I speak of love, or any other principle of life, I speak and write of it as it appears to me in the present. What my opinion about it will be to-morrow, I do not know. Ah, if I but knew that whatever view I take or principle I confess would withstand the blasting scepticism of to-morrow or the days following, I would make it my canon of life, and float along with sails unfurled, like Sniatynski, in the light, instead of groping my way in darkness and solitude.

But I do not intend to go back now to my inner tragedy. As to love in general, from the standpoint of a sceptic in regard to the world and its manifestations, I might say with Solomon, "Vanitas vanitatum;" but I should be utterly blind did I not perceive that of all active principles this is the most powerful,--so powerful indeed that whenever I think of it or my eyes roam over the everlasting ocean of all-life, I am simply struck with amazement at its almightiness. Though these are known things, as much known as the rising of the sun and the tides of the ocean, nevertheless they are always wonderful.

After Empedocles, who divined that Eros evolved the worlds from Chaos, metaphysics have not advanced one step. Only death is a power equally absolute; yet in the eternal struggle between the two, love is the stronger; love conquers death by night and day, conquers it every spring, follows death step by step, throwing fresh grain into the gulf it creates. People occupied with every-day affairs forget or do not wish to remember that they are love's servants. It is strange when we come to think of it that the warrior, the chancellor of state, the cultivator of the soil, the merchant, the banker, in all their efforts, which apparently have nothing to do with love, are merely furthering its ends; that is, they serve the law of nature which bids the man to stretch out his arms for the woman. A mad paradox it would seem to a Bismarck if he were told that the final and only aim of all his endeavors is to further the love of Hermann and Dorothea. It seems even to me a paradox; and yet Bismarck's aim is the consolidation of the German empire, and this can be achieved only through Hermann and Dorothea. What else, then, has a Bismarck to do but to create by the help of politics and bayonets such conditions that Hermann and Dorothea may love each other in peace, unite in happiness, and bring up new generations?

When at the university I read an Arabian ghazel in which the poet compares the power of love to that of infernal torments. I forget the name of the poet, but the idea remained in my memory. Truly, love is the one power that lasts for all times, holds the world together, and creates new worlds.

10 March.

To-day I tore up three or four letters to Aniela. After dinner, I went into my father's room to talk with him about my aunt's plans. I found him looking through a lens at some epilichnions with the earth still adhering to them, he had received from the Peloponnesus. How splendid he looked in that light coming through stained windows in the large room full of Etruscan vases, statues more or less mutilated, and all kinds of Greek and Roman treasures. Among these surroundings his face reminded me of a divine Plato or of some other Greek sage. When I entered he interrupted his work, listened attentively to what I had to say, and then asked, "Do you hesitate?"

"No, I do not hesitate, but I am reflecting. I want to know why I want it."

"Then I will tell you this; I was once like you, inclined to analyze not only my own feelings but all manifestations of life. When I came to know your mother I lost that faculty at once. I knew one thing only, that I wanted her, and did not care to know anything else. Therefore if you have a like powerful desire, marry. I express myself wrongly, for if you wish it very much you will do it without anybody's help or advice, and be as happy as I was until your mother died."

We remained silent for some time. If I were to apply my father's words closely to my own case, I should feel small comfort. I love Aniela, there is no doubt; but I have not arrived yet at a state that precludes all reflection. But I do not consider this as a bad sign; it simply means that I belong to a generation that has gone a step farther on the way to knowledge.

There are always two persons within me,--the actor, and the spectator. Often the spectator is dissatisfied with the actor, but at present they both agree.

My father was the first to interrupt the silence.

"Tell me what she is like."

Since a description is an unsatisfactory way of painting a portrait, I showed my father a large and really excellent photograph of Aniela, at which he looked with the keenest interest. I was no less interested in the study of his face, in which I saw not only the roused artist, but also the refined connoisseur of female beauty, the old Leon _l'Invincible_. Resting the photograph on the poor hand half paralyzed, he put on his eyeglass with the right, and then holding the likeness at a longer or shorter distance he began to say: "But for certain details, the face is like one of those Ary-Schaeffer liked to paint. How lovely she would look with tears in her eyes. Some people dislike angelic faces in women, but I think that to teach an angel how to become a woman is the very height of victory. She is very beautiful, very uncommon looking. 'Enfin, tout ce qu'il y a de plus beau au monde--c'est la femme.'"

Here he fumbled with his eyeglass, and then added: "Judging by the face, or rather by the photograph (sometimes one makes mistakes, but I have had some practice), hers is a thoroughly loyal nature. Women of this type are in love with the whiteness of their plumage. God bless you, my boy! I like her very much, this Aniela of yours. I used to be afraid you might end by marrying a foreigner--let it be Aniela."

I came up close to him and he put his arm round my neck.

"I should like to see my future daughter before I die."

I assured him that he would certainly see her shortly. Then I unfolded my plans of bringing Aniela and her mother over to Rome. After a betrothal by letter I might expect as much, and the ladies would not refuse, if only out of consideration for my father. In this case the marriage ceremony would take place at Rome, and that very soon.