Children of the Soil

He smiled at her with gratitude, and was silent. But at that moment Panna Helena entered the room, and pressing Pan Stanislav’s hand, said, —

“How well it is that you have come! I wanted to take counsel with you.”

“I am at your service.”

“I beg you to come to my room.”

She conducted him to the adjoining room, indicated a chair to him, then, sitting down opposite, was silent, as if collecting her thoughts.

Pan Stanislav, looking at her under the lamp, noticed, for the first time, a number of silvery threads in her bright hair, and remembered that that woman was not thirty yet.

She began to speak in her cool and decisive voice, —

“I do not request counsel precisely, but assistance for my relative. I know that you are a real friend of his, and, besides, you have shown me so much kindness at the death of my father that I shall be grateful the rest of my life for it; and now I will speak more openly with you than with any one else. For personal reasons, which I will not touch, and of which I can only say that they are very painful, I have decided to create for myself other conditions of life, – conditions for me more endurable. I should have done so long since, but while my father was living I could not. Then Ignas’s misfortune came. It seemed to me my duty not to desert the last relative bearing our name, for whom, besides, I have a heartfelt and real friendship. But now, thanks be to God! he is saved. The doctors answer for his life; and if God has given him exceptional capacities and predestined him to great things, nothing stands in the way of his activity.”

Here she stopped, as if she had fallen to thinking suddenly of something in the future, after which, when she had roused herself, she spoke on, —

“But by his recovery my last task is finished, and I am permitted to return to my original plan. There remains only the property of which my father left a considerable amount, and which would be altogether useless to me in my coming mode of life. If I could consider this property my own personally, I might dispose of it otherwise, perhaps; but since it is family property, I consider that I have no right to devote it to foreign objects while any one of the family is alive who bears the name. I do not conceal from you that attachment to my cousin moves me; but I judge that I do above all that which conscience commands, and besides carry out the wish of my father, who did not succeed in writing his will, but who – I know with all certainty – wished to leave a part of his property to Ignas. I have provided for myself not in the degree which my father thought of doing, but still I take more than I need. Ignas inherits the rest. The act of conveyance has been written by Pan Kononovich according to all legal rules. It includes this house, Yasmen, the property in Kutno, the estates in Poznan and the moneys with the exception of that portion which I have retained for myself, and a small part which I have reserved for Panna Ratkovski. It is a question now only of delivering this document to Ignas. I have asked two doctors if it is not too early, and if the excitement might not harm him. They assure me that it is not too early, and that every agreeable news may only act on his health beneficially. This being the case, I wish to finish the matter at once, for I am in a hurry.”

Here she smiled faintly. Pan Stanislav, pressing her hand, asked, with unfeigned emotion, —

“Dear lady, I do not inquire through curiosity, What do you intend?”

Not wishing evidently to give an explicit answer, she said, —

“A person has the right always to take refuge under the care of God. As to Ignas, he has an honest heart and a noble character, which will not be injured by wealth; but the property is very considerable, and he is young, inexperienced; he will begin life in conditions changed altogether, – hence I wish to ask you, as a man of honor and his friend, to have guardianship over him. Care for him, keep him from evil people, but above all remind him that his duty is to write and work further. For me it was a question, not only of saving his life, but his gifts. Let him write; let him pay society, not for himself only, but for those too whom God created for His own glory and the assistance of men, but who destroyed both themselves and their gifts.”

Here her lips became pale on a sudden, her hands closed, and the voice stopped in her throat. It might seem that the despair accumulated in her soul would break all bounds immediately; but she mastered herself after a while, and only her clinched hands testified what the effort was which that action had cost her.

Pan Stanislav, seeing her suffering, judged that it would be better to turn her thought in another direction, toward practical and current affairs; hence he said, —

“Evidently this will be an unheard of change in the life of Ignas; but I too hope that it will result only in good. Knowing him, it is difficult to admit another issue. But could you not defer the act for a year, or at least half a year?”

“Why?”

“For reasons which do not lie in Ignas himself, but which might have connection with him. I do not know whether the news has reached you that the marriage of Panna Castelli to Kopovski is broken, and that the position of those ladies is tremendously awkward in consequence. Through breaking with Ignas, they have made public opinion indignant, and now their names are on people’s tongues again. It would be for them a perfect escape to return to Ignas; and it is possible to suppose that when they learn of your gift, they will surely attempt this, and it is unknown whether Ignas, especially after so short an interval, and weakened as he is, might not let himself be involved by them.”

Panna Helena looked at Pan Stanislav with brows contracted from attention, and, dwelling on what he said, she answered, —

“No. I judge that Ignas will choose otherwise.”

“I divine your thought,” said Pan Stanislav; “but think, – he was attached to that other one beyond every estimate, to such a degree that he did not wish to outlive the loss of her.”

Here something happened which Pan Stanislav had not expected, for Panna Helena, who had always such control of herself and was almost stern, opened her thin arms in helplessness, and said, —

“Ah, if that were true, – if there were not for him any other happiness save in her! Oh, Pan Polanyetski, I knew that he ought not to do that; but there are things stronger than man, and they are things which he needs for life absolutely – and besides – ”

Pan Stanislav looked at her with astonishment; after a while she added, —

“Besides, while one lives, one may enter on a better road any moment.”

“I did not suppose that I should hear anything like this from her,” thought Pan Stanislav. And he said aloud, —

“Then let us go to Ignas.”

Pan Ignas received the news first with amazement, and then with delight; but that delight was as if external. It might be supposed that, by the aid of his brain, he understood that something immensely favorable had met him, and that he had told himself that he must be pleased with it, but that he did not feel it with his heart. His heart declared itself only in the care and interest with which he asked Panna Helena what she intended to do with herself, and what would become of her. She was not willing to answer him, and stated, in general terms, that she would withdraw from the world, and that her resolve was unchangeable. She implored of him this, which clearly concerned her most, not to waste his powers and disappoint people who were attached to him. She spoke as a mother, and he, repeating, “I will write again the moment I recover,” kissed her hands and had tears in his eyes. It was not known, however, whether those tears meant sympathy for her, or the regret of a child abandoned by a good and kind nurse; for Panna Helena told him that from that moment she considered herself a guest in his house, and in two days would withdraw. Pan Ignas would not agree to this, and extorted the promise from her to remain a week longer. She yielded at last, through fear of exciting him and injuring his health. Then he grew calm, and was as gladsome as a little boy whose prayer has been granted. Toward the end of the evening, however, he grew thoughtful, as if remembering something, looked around with astonished eyes on those present, and said, —

“It is wonderful, but it seems to me as if all this had happened before some time.”

Pan Stanislav, wishing to give a more cheerful tone to the conversation, asked, laughing, —

“Was it during previous existences on other planets? It was, was it not?”

“In that way everything might have happened some other time,” said Pan Ignas.

“And you have written the very same verses already – on the moon?”

He took up a book lying on the table, looked at it, grew thoughtful, and said at last, —

“I will write again, but when I recover completely.”

Pan Stanislav took farewell and went out. That evening Panna Ratkovski removed to her little chamber at Pani Melnitski’s.

CHAPTER LXII

The separation of the Osnovskis, who in social life occupied a position rather prominent, and the great fortune which fell on a sudden to Pan Ignas, were the items of news with which the whole city was occupied. People who supposed that Panna Helena had taken the young man to her house to marry him were stunned from amazement. New gossip and new suppositions rose. People began to whisper that Pan Ignas was a son of old Zavilovski; that he had threatened his sister with a law-suit for concealing the will; that she chose to renounce all and go abroad rather than be exposed to a scandalous law-suit. Others declared that the cause of her departure was Panna Ratkovski; that between those two young ladies scenes had taken place unparalleled, – scenes to arouse indignation. In consequence of this, self-respecting houses would not permit Panna Ratkovski to cross their thresholds. There were others, too, who, appearing in the name of public good, refused simply to Panna Helena the right of disposing of property in that fashion, giving at the same time to understand that they would have acted more in accord with public benefit.

In a word, everything was said that gossip and meddling and frivolity and low malice could invent. Soon new food for public curiosity arrived under the form of news of a duel between Osnovski and Kopovski, in which Osnovski was wounded. Kopovski returned to Warsaw soon after with the fame of a hero of uncommon adventures in love and arms, – stupider than ever, but also more beautiful, and in general so charming that at sight of him hearts young and old began to beat with quickened throb.

Osnovski, wounded rather slightly, was under treatment in Brussels. Svirski received from him a brief announcement soon after the duel, that he was well, that in the middle of winter he would go to Egypt, but, before that, would return to Prytulov. The artist came to Pan Stanislav with this news, expressing at the same time the fear that Osnovski was returning only to avenge his wrongs afresh on Kopovski.

“For I am sure,” said he, “that if he is wounded, it is because he permitted it. According to me, he wished to die simply. I have shot with him more than once at Brufini’s, and know how he shoots. I have seen him hit matches, and am convinced that had he wished to blow out Koposio, we shouldn’t see him to-day.”

“Perhaps not,” answered Pan Stanislav; “but since he talks of going to Egypt, ’t is clear that he does not intend to let himself be killed. Let him go, and let him take Pan Ignas.”

“It is true that Pan Ignas ought to see the world a little. I should like to go from here to see him. How is he?”

“I will go with you, for I have not seen him to-day. He is well, but somehow strange. You remember what a proud soul he was, shut up in himself. Now he is in good health, as it were, but has become a little child; at the least trouble there are tears in his eyes.”

After a while the two went out together.

“Is Panna Helena with Pan Ignas yet?” inquired Svirski.

“She is. He takes her departure to heart so much that she has pity on him. She was to go away in a week; now, as you see, the second week has passed.”

“What does she wish specially to do with herself?”

“She says nothing precise on this point. Probably she will enter some religious order and pray all her life for Ploshovski.”