Children of the Soil

“And now I repeat once again an earnest prayer: send me even a couple of words about Ignas. Oh, if this were not so irreparable!” said he, extending his hand to Pan Stanislav. “Till we meet again! till we meet again! I will write to Ignas, too, but now I must go, for my wife is waiting. God grant us to see each other in happier times! Till we meet! A most cordial greeting to the lady,” and he went out.

“What is to be done?” thought Pan Stanislav. “Limit myself to sending the letter to Pan Ignas in his lodgings, or look for him, or wait for him here? It would be well not to leave him alone at such a time; but I must return in the evening to Marynia, so that he will be alone in any case. Besides, who can hinder him from hiding? In his place, I should hide too, – I must go to Pani Emilia’s.”

He felt so tired from that sudden tragedy, from thoughts about himself, and thoughts about the difficult rôle which he had to play with Pan Ignas, that he remembered with some satisfaction that he must go to Pani Emilia’s and take her to Buchynek. For a moment he was tempted to defer the interview with Pan Ignas, and the delivery of the letter, till the following day; but it occurred to him that if Pan Ignas did not find him at home, he might go to Buchynek.

“Better let him know everything here,” thought he; “in view of Marynia’s condition, I must keep everything perfectly secret from her, – both what has happened, and what may happen hereafter. I must warn every one to be silent. Pan Ignas would do better to go abroad; I could tell Marynia that he is in Scheveningen, and later, that they disagreed and separated there.”

Now again he began to walk with long strides through the room, and repeat, —

“The irony of life! the irony of life!”

Then bitterness and reproaches flamed in on his soul with a new current. He was seized by a wonderful feeling, as it were, of some kind of responsibility for what had happened. “Deuce take it!” repeated he; “but I am not to blame at least in this matter.” After a while, however, it cane to his head that if he were not to blame personally, he, in every case, was a stick from the same forest as Panna Castelli, and that such as he had infected that social-moral atmosphere in which such flowers might spring up and blossom. At this thought he was carried away by savage anger.

The bell in the entrance was heard now. Pan Stanislav was a man of courage, but at the sound of that bell he felt his heart beat in alarm. He had forgotten his promise to lunch with Svirski, and at the first moment he was sure that Pan Ignas was coming. He recovered only when he heard the voice of the artist, but he was so wearied that Svirski’s coming was disagreeable.

“Now he will let out his tongue; he will talk,” thought he, with displeasure.

But he decided to tell Svirski all, for the affair could not be kept secret in any case. The point for him was that Svirski, if he visited Buchynek, should know how to bear himself before Marynia. He was mistaken in supposing that Svirski would annoy him with theories about ungrateful hearts. The artist took the matter, not from the side of general conclusions, but that of Pan Ignas. To conclusions he was to come later; at present, while listening to the narrative, he only repeated, “A misfortune! May God protect!” But at times, too: “May the thunderbolts crush!” when his fists of a Hercules were balled in anger.

Pan Stanislav was carried away somewhat, and attacked Panna Castelli without mercy, forgetting that he was uttering thereby a sentence on himself. But, in general, the conversation gave him relief. He regained at last his usual power of management; he concluded that in no case could he leave Pan Ignas at such a moment, so he begged Svirski to take his place, conduct Pani Emilia to Buchynek, and excuse to Marynia his absence with counting-house duties. Svirski, who had no reason now to visit Prytulov, agreed very willingly, and since the carriage engaged by Pan Stanislav had arrived, both drove to Pani Emilia’s.

Labor beyond her strength – labor which, as a Sister of Charity, she had to fulfil – brought on a disease of the spine. They found her emaciated and changed, with a transparent face and eyelids half closed. She walked yet, but by leaning on two sticks and not having full use of her lower limbs. As labor had brought her near life, so sickness had begun to remove her from it. She was living in the circle of her own thoughts and reminiscences, looking at the affairs of people somewhat as though a dream, somewhat as from the other shore. She suffered very little, which the doctors considered a bad sign; but, as a Sister of Charity, she had learned something of various diseases, and knew that there was no help for her, or, at least, that help was not in human power, and she was calm. To Pan Stanislav’s inquiries she answered, raising her eyelids with effort, —

“I walk poorly; but it is well for me that way.”

And it was well for her. One moral scruple alone gave her trouble. In her soul she believed most profoundly that were she to visit Lourdes she would regain her health surely. She did not wish to go because of the remoteness of Lourdes from Litka’s grave, and because of her own wish for death. But she did not know whether she had a right to neglect anything to preserve the life given her, and especially whether she had a right to put a hindrance in the way of grace and miracles, and she was disturbed.

At present, however, the thought of seeing Marynia smiled on her, and she was ready for the road; Svirski was to take her at five. The two men went now to the lunch agreed on, for Svirski, in spite of his amazement at the affair of Pan Ignas, felt as hungry as a wolf. After they had sat down at table, they remained a while in silence.

“I wanted to make one other request of you,” said Pan Stanislav at last, “to inform Panna Helena of everything that has happened, and also to tell her not to mention the matter to my wife.”

“I will do so,” said Svirski. “I will go this very day to Yasmen, as if to walk, and try to see her. Should she not receive me, I will send her a note, stating that it is a question of Pan Ignas. If she wishes to come to Warsaw, I will bring her, for I shall return to-day in every case. Did Osnovski say whether Panna Ratkovski had gone with them,” inquired the artist, after a pause, “or will she stay in Prytulov?”

“He said nothing. Usually Panna Ratkovski lives with her old relative, Pani Melnitski. If she goes, it will be as company for Pani Osnovski, whose angelic nature got a palpitation of the heart at sight of what has happened.”

“Ah!” said Svirski.

“Yes. There is no other cause for it. Panna Ratkovski was stopping with the Osnovskis, so that Kopovski might seem to court her; but since he was courting another, there is no further reason for her stay there.”

“As God lives, this is something fabulous!” said Svirski; “so that all, with the exception of Pani Osnovski, fell in love with that hoopoo.”

Pan Stanislav smiled ironically and nodded his head; on his lips were sticking the words, “without exception, without exception!”

But now Svirski began his conclusions about women, from which he had refrained so far.

“Do you see; do you see? I know German and French and especially Italian women. The Italians in general have fewer impulses, and less education, but they are honester and simpler. May I not finish this macaroni, if I have seen anywhere so many false aspirations and such discord between natures which are vulgar and phrases which are lofty! If you knew what Panna Ratkovski told me of Kopovski! Or take that ‘Poplar,’ that ‘Column,’ that ‘Nitechka,’ that Panna Castelli, that Lily, is it not? You would swear that she was a mimosa, an artist, a sibyl, a golden-haired tall ideal. And here she is for you! She has shown herself! She has chosen, not a living person, but a lay-figure; not a man, but a puppet. When it came to the test, the sibyl turned into a waiting-maid. But I tell you that they are all palpitating for fashionable lay-figures. May thunderbolts singe them!”

Here Svirski extended his giant fist, and wanted to strike the table with it; but Pan Stanislav stopped the hand in mid-air, and said, —

“But you will admit that something exceptional has happened.”

Svirski began to dispute, and to maintain that “they are all that way,” and that all prefer the measure of a tailor to that of Phidias. Gradually, however, he began to regain his balance, and acknowledge that Panna Ratkovski might be an exception.

“Do you remember when you inquired touching the Broniches, I said the ladies are canaille, canaille! neither principles nor character, parvenu souls, nothing more? He was a fool, and you know her. God guarded me; for if they had known then that I have some stupid old genealogical papers, wouldn’t they have made sweet faces at me, and I might have fixed myself nicely! May the woods cover me! I will go, as you see me, with Pan Ignas abroad, for I have enough of this.”

They paid, and went out on to the street.

“What will you do now?” inquired Svirski.

“I shall go to look for Pan Ignas.”

“Where will you find him?”

“I think among the insane, with his father; if not, I will wait for him at my own house.”

But Pan Ignas was approaching the restaurant just at that moment. Svirski was the first to see him at a distance.

“Ah, there he goes!”

“Where?”

“On the other side of the street. I should know him a verst away by his jaw. Will you tell him everything? If so, I will go. You have no need of spectators.”

“Very well.”

Pan Ignas, on seeing them, hurried his steps and stood before them, dressed elegantly, almost to a fit, and with a glad face.

“My father is better,” said he, with a voice panting a little; “I have time and will drop in at Prytulov to-day.”

But Svirski, pressing his hand firmly, went off in silence. The young man looked after him with surprise.

“Was Pan Svirski offended at anything?” asked he, looking at Pan Stanislav; and he noticed then that his face too had a serious, almost stern, expression.

“What does this mean?” asked he, “or what has happened?”

Pan Stanislav took him by the hand, and said, with a voice full of emotion and cordiality, —

“My dear Pan Ignas, I have esteemed you always, not only for exceptional gifts, but for exceptional character; I have to announce very bad news to you, but I am sure that you will find in yourself strength enough, and will not give way to the misfortune.”

“What has happened?” asked Pan Ignas, whose face changed in one moment.

Pan Stanislav beckoned to a droshky, and said, —

“Take a seat. To the bridge!” cried he, turning to the driver. Then, taking out Osnovski’s letter, he gave it to Pan Ignas.

The young man tore open the envelope hurriedly, and began to read.

Pan Stanislav put his arm with great tenderness around his friend’s body, not taking his eyes from his face, on which as the man read were reflected amazement, incredulity, stupefaction, and, above all, terror without limit. His cheeks became as white as linen; but it was evident that, feeling the misfortune, he did not grasp its extent yet, and did not understand it thoroughly, for he looked at Pan Stanislav as if without sense, and inquired with a low voice, full of fear, —