Children of the Soil

The doctor turned his pale blue eyes to her, and, gazing into her face with a certain intensity, said slowly, —

“In an hour you will lie down, and will fall asleep directly; you will sleep unbrokenly for six or eight hours, – let us say eight. To-morrow you will be strong and refreshed. And now good-night.”

“But drops to the little one, if she wakes?” asked Pani Emilia.

“Another will give the drops; you will sleep. Good-night.” And he took farewell.

Pan Stanislav wished to follow him to inquire alone about Litka, but he thought that a longer talk of that kind might alarm Pani Emilia; hence he preferred to omit it, promising himself that in the morning he would go to the doctor’s house and talk there with him. After a while, when he was alone with Pani Emilia, he said, —

“Do as the doctor directed; you need rest. I promise to go to Litka’s room now, and I will not leave her the whole night.”

But Pani Emilia’s thoughts were all with the little girl; so, instead of an answer, she said to him directly, —

“Do you know, after the attack, she asked several times for you before she fell asleep. And for Marynia too. She fell asleep with the question, ‘Where is Pan Stas?’”

“My poor beloved child, I should have come anyhow right after dinner. I flew here barely alive. When did the attack begin?”

“In the forenoon. From the morning she was gloomy, as if foreboding something. You know that in my presence she says always that she is well; but she must have felt ill, for before the attack she sat near me and begged me to hold her hand. Yesterday, I forgot to tell you that she put such strange questions to me: ‘Is it true,’ inquired she, ‘that if a sick child asks for a thing it is never refused?’ I answered that it is not refused unless the child asks for something impossible. Some idea was passing through her head evidently, for in the evening, when Marynia ran in for a moment, she put like questions to us. She went to sleep in good humor, but this morning early she complained of stifling. It is lucky that I sent for the doctor before the attack, and that he came promptly.”

“It is the greatest luck that he went away with such certainty that the attack would not be repeated. I am perfectly sure that that is his conviction,” answered Pan Stanislav.

Pani Emilia raised her eyes: “The Lord God is so merciful, so good, that – ”

In spite of all her efforts, she began to sob, for repressed alarm and despair were changed to joy in her, and she found relief in tears. In that noble and spiritualized nature, innate exaltation disturbed calm thought; by reason of this, Pani Emilia never gave an account to herself of the real state of affairs; now, for example, she had not the least doubt that Litka’s illness had ended once for all with this recent attack, and that thenceforth a time of perfect health would begin for the child.

Pan Stanislav had neither the wish nor the heart to show her a middle road between delight and despair; his heart rose with great pity for her, and there came to him one of those moments in which he felt more clearly than usually how deeply, though disinterestedly, he was attached to that enthusiastic and idealistic woman. If she had been his sister, he would have embraced her and pressed her to his bosom; as it was, he kissed her delicate, thin hands, and said, —

“Praise be to God; praise be to God! Let the dear lady think now of herself, and I will go to the little one and not stir till she wakes.” And he went.

In Litka’s chamber there was darkness, for the window-blinds were closed, and the sun was going down. Only through the slats did some reddish rays force their way; these lighted the chamber imperfectly and vanished soon, for the sky began to grow cloudy. Litka was sleeping soundly. Pan Stanislav, sitting near her, looked on her sleeping face, and at the first moment his heart was oppressed painfully. She was lying with her face toward the ceiling; her thin little hands were placed on the coverlid; her eyes were closed, and under them was a deep shadow from the lashes. Her pallor, which seemed waxen in that reddish half-gloom, and her open mouth, finally, the deep sleep, – gave, her face the seeming of such rest as the faces of the dead have. But the movement of the ruffles on her nightdress showed that she was living and breathing. Her respiration was even calm and very regular. Pan Stanislav looked for a long time at that sick face, and felt again, with full force, what he had felt often, when he thought of himself, – namely, that nature had made him to be a father; that, besides the woman of his choice, children might be the immense love of his life, the chief object and reason of his existence. He understood this, through the pity and love which he felt at that moment for Litka, who, a stranger to him by birth, was as dear to him then as would have been his own child.

“If she had been given to me,” thought he; “if she lacked a mother, – I would take her forever, and consider that I had something to live for.”

And he felt also that were it possible to make a bargain with death, he would have given himself without hesitation to redeem that little “kitten,” over whom death seemed then to be floating like a bird of prey over a dove. Such tenderness seized him as he had not felt till that hour; and that man, of a character rather quick and harsh, was ready to kiss the hands and head of that child, with a tenderness of which not even every woman’s heart is capable.

Meanwhile it had grown dark. Soon Pani Emilia came in, shading with her hand a blue night-lamp.

“She is sleeping?” asked she, in a low voice, placing the lamp on the table beyond Litka’s head.

“She is,” answered Pan Stanislav, in an equally low voice.

Pani Emilia looked long at the sleeping child.

“See,” whispered Pan Stanislav, “how regularly and calmly she breathes. To-morrow she will be healthier and stronger.”

“Yes,” answered the mother, with a smile.

“Now it is your turn. Sleep, sleep! otherwise I shall begin to command without pity.”

Her eyes continued to smile at him thankfully. In the mild blue light of the night-lamp she seemed like an apparition. She had a perfectly angelic face; and Pan Stanislav thought in spite of himself that she and Litka looked really like forms from beyond the earth, which by pure chance had wandered into this world.

“Yes,” answered she; “I will rest now. Marynia has come, and Professor Vaskovski. Marynia wishes absolutely to remain.”

“So much the better. She manages so well near the little girl. Good-night.”

“Good-night.”

Pan Stanislav was alone again, and began to think of Marynia. At the very intelligence that he would see her soon he could not think of aught else; and now he put the question to himself: “In what lies this wonderful secret of nature in virtue of which I, for example, did not fall in love with Pani Emilia, decidedly more beautiful than Marynia, likely better, sweeter, more capable of loving, – but with that girl whom I know incomparably less, and, justly or unjustly, honor less?” Still with every approach of his to Marynia there rose in him immediately all those impulses which a man may feel at sight of a chosen woman, while a real womanly form, like that of Pani Emilia, made no other impression on him than if she had been a painting or a carving. Why is this, and why, the more culture a man has, the more his nerves become subtile, and his sensitiveness keener, the greater difference does he make between woman and woman? Pan Stanislav had no answer to this save the one which that doctor in love with Panna Kraslavski had given him: “I estimate her coolly, but I cannot tear my soul from her.” That was rather the description of a phenomenon than an answer, for which, moreover, he had not the time, since Marynia came in at that moment.

They nodded in salutation; he raised a chair then, and put it down softly at Litka’s bed, letting Marynia know by a sign that she was to sit there. She began to speak first, or rather, to whisper.

“Go to tea now. Professor Vaskovski is here.”

“And Pani Emilia?”

“She could not sit up. She said that it was a wonder to her, but she must sleep.”

“I know why: the doctor hypnotized her, and he did well. The little girl is indeed better.”

Marynia gazed into his eyes; but he repeated, —

“She is really better – if the attack will not return, and there is hope that it will not.”

“Ah! praise be to God! But go now and drink tea.”

He preferred, however, to whisper to her near by and confidentially, so he said, —

“I will, I will; but later. Let us arrange meanwhile so that you may rest. I have heard that your father is ill. Of course you have been watching over him.”

“Father is well now, and I wish to take Emilia’s place absolutely. She told me that the servants had not slept either all last night, for the child’s condition was alarming before the attack. It is needful now that some one be on the watch always. I should wish, therefore, so to arrange that we – that is, I, you, and Emilka – should follow in turn.”

“Very well; but to-day I will remain. If not here, I shall be at call in the next chamber. When did you hear of the attack?”

“I did not hear of it. I came as I do usually in the evening to learn what was to be heard.”

“Pani Emilia’s servant hurried to me while I was dining. You can imagine easily how I flew hither. I was not sure of finding her alive. What wonder, since during dinner I talked almost all the time of Litka with Bukatski and Vaskovski, till Mashko came with the announcement of his marriage.”

“Is Mashko going to marry?”

“Yes. The news has not gone around yet; but he announced it himself. He marries Panna Kraslavski; you remember her?”

“She who was at the Bigiels that evening. She is a good match for Mashko, Panna Kraslavski.”

There was silence for a moment. Marynia, who, not loving Mashko, had rejected his hand, but who more than once had reproached herself for her conduct with regard to him, thinking that she had exposed him to deception and suffering, could find only comfort in the news that the young advocate had borne the blow so easily. Still the news astonished her for the time, and also wounded her. Women, when they sympathize with some one, wish first that some one to be really unhappy, and, secondly, they wish to alleviate the misfortune themselves; when it turns out that another is able to do that, they undergo a certain disillusion. Marynia’s self-love was wounded also doubly. She had not thought that it would be so easy to forget her; hence she had to confess that her idea of Mashko as an exceptional man had no basis. He had been for her hitherto a kind of ace in the game against Pan Stanislav; now he had ceased to be that. She felt, therefore, let matters be as they might, somewhat conquered. This did not prevent her, it is true, from informing Pan Stanislav, with a certain accent of truth, that his news caused her sincere and deep joy, but at bottom she felt in some sort offended by him because he had told her.

For a certain time Pan Stanislav had acted with her very reservedly, and in nothing had he betrayed what was happening within him. He did not feign to be too cool, for they had to meet; therefore, in meeting her he maintained even a certain kindly freedom, but for this very reason she judged that he had ceased to love her, and such is human nature, that though the old offence was existing yet, and had even increased in the soul of the young woman, though her first disillusion had changed as it were into a spring, giving forth new bitterness continually, still the thought that her repugnance was indifferent to him irritated Marynia. Now it seemed to her that Pan Stanislav must even triumph over her mistake as to Mashko; and at this, that in every case she, who shortly before had the choice between Mashko and him, has that choice no longer, and will fall, as it were, into a kind of neglect somewhat humiliating.

But he was far from such thoughts. He was glad, it is true, that Marynia should know that, by exalting Mashko above him, she had been mistaken fundamentally; but he had not dreamed even of taking pleasure in this or triumphing because of her isolation, for at every moment and at that time more than any other he was ready to open his arms to her, press her to his bosom, and love her. He was working, it is true, continually and even with stubbornness to break in himself those feelings; but he did this only because he saw no hope before him, and considered it an offence against his dignity as a man to put all the powers of his soul and heart into a feeling which was not returned. To use his own expression, he wished to avoid surrender, and he did avoid surrender, to the best of his power; but he understood perfectly that such a struggle exhausts, and that even if it ends with victory it brings a void, instead of happiness. Besides, he was far yet from victory. After all his efforts he had arrived at this only, – that his feeling was mingled with bitterness. Such a ferment dissolves love, it is true, for the simple reason that it poisons it; and in time this bitterness might have dissolved love in Pan Stanislav’s heart. But what an empty result! Sitting then near Marynia and looking at her face and head, shone on by the light of the lamp, he said to himself, “If only she wished!” That thought made him angry; but since he wanted to be sincere with himself, he had to confess that if only she wished he would bend to her feet with the greatest readiness. What an empty result, then, and what a position without escape! For he felt that the misunderstanding between them had increased so much that even if Marynia desired a return of those moments passed in Kremen, self-love and fear of self-contradiction would close her lips. Their relations had become so entangled that they might fall in love more easily a second time than come to an understanding.