Children of the Soil

“Thou knowest that I have rather cool blood; but, in truth, it seems at times a dream. That a man should permit himself to insult me because I sell my own property, simply passes human understanding.”

“What dost thou think of doing? Old Plavitski will be the first to warm Gantovski’s ears, and force him to beg thy pardon.”

Mashko’s face took on such a cold and determined expression of wrath that Pan Stanislav thought, —

“Well, ‘the bear’ has brewed beer of a kind that he did not expect; now he must drink it.”

“No one has ever offended me without being punished, and no one ever will. This man not only has insulted me, but has done me a wrong beyond estimation.”

“He is a fool, simply irresponsible.”

“A mad dog, too, is irresponsible, but people shoot him in the head. I talk, as thou seest, coolly; listen, then, to what I say: a catastrophe has come to me, from which I shall not rise.”

“Thou art speaking coolly; but anger is stifling thee, and thou art ready to exaggerate.”

“Not in the least; be patient, and hear me to the end. The position is this: If my marriage is stopped, or even put off, a few months, the devils will take me, with my position, my credit, my Kremen, and all that I have. I tell thee that I am travelling with the last of my steam, and I must stop. Panna Kraslavski does not marry me for love, but because she is twenty-nine years of age, and I seem to her, if not the match she dreamed of, at least a satisfactory one. If it shall seem that I am not what she thinks, she will break with me. If those ladies should discover to-day that I sold the oak in Kremen from necessity, I should receive a refusal to-morrow. Now think: the scandal was public, for it was in presence of my subordinates. The matter will not be kept secret. I might explain to those ladies the sale of the oak, but yet I shall be an insulted man. If I do not challenge Gantovski, they may break with me, as a fellow without honor; if I challenge him, – remember that they are devotees, and, besides, women who keep up appearances as no others that I know, – they will break with me then as a man of adventures. If I shoot Gantovski, they will break with me as a murderer; if he hits me, they will break with me as an imbecile, who lets himself be insulted and beaten. In a hundred chances there are ninety that they will act in this way. Is it clear to thee now why I said that the devils will take me, my credit, my position, and Kremen in addition?”

Pan Stanislav waved his hand with all the easy egotism to which a man can bring himself in reference to another, who, at the bottom of things, is of little account to him.

“Bah!” said he; “maybe I will buy Kremen of thee. But the position is difficult. What dost thou think, then, of doing with Gantovski?”

To this Mashko answered: “So far I pay my debts. Thou dost not wish to be my groomsman; wilt thou be my second?”

“That is not refused,” answered Pan Stanislav.

“I thank thee. Gantovksi lives in the Hotel Saxe.”

“I will be with him to-morrow.”

Immediately after Mashko’s departure, Pan Stanislav went to spend the evening at Plavitski’s; on the road he thought, —

“There are no jokes with Mashko, and the affair will not finish in common fashion; but what is that to me? What are they all to me, or I to them? Still, how devilishly alone a man is in the world!”

And all at once he felt that the only person on earth who cared for him, and who thought of him, not as a thing, was Marynia.

And, in fact, when he came, he knew from the very pressure of her hand that this was true. She said to him, in greeting, with her mild and calm voice, —

“I had a presentiment that you would come. See, here is a cup waiting for you.”

CHAPTER XXIII

When Pan Stanislav came to the Plavitskis’ he found there Gantovski. The young men greeted each other at once with evident coldness and aversion. There was not in the whole world that day an unhappier man than Gantovski. Old Plavitski bantered him as usual, and even more than usual, being in excellent humor because of his relative, the old lady from whom he expected a considerable inheritance. Gantovski’s presence was awkward for Marynia; and she strove in vain to hide this annoyance by kindness and a cordial reception. At last Pan Stanislav almost feigned not to see him. It was evident, too, that Gantovski had not confessed anything before old Plavitski, and that he was trembling lest Pan Stanislav might refer to his adventure with Mashko, or tell it outright.

Pan Stanislav understood this at once, as well as the advantage over “the bear” which was given him by his silence; wishing to use it in the interest of Mashko, he was silent for a time, but could not forego the pleasure of punishing Gantovski in another way. He occupied himself the whole evening with Marynia, as he had not done since Litka’s death. This filled Marynia with evident delight. Leaving Gantovski to her father, she walked with Pan Stanislav through the room and talked confidentially; then they sat under the palm, where Pan Stanislav had seen Pani Emilia after the funeral, and talked about her approaching admission to the order of Sisters of Charity. To Gantovski it seemed at times that only people who were betrothed could speak in that way; and he felt then what must be felt by a soul not in purgatory, for in purgatory a soul has hope yet before it, but what is felt by a soul when entering the gate with the inscription “Lasciate ogni speranza” (Leave every hope). Seeing them together in this way, he thought, too, that perhaps Polanyetski had bought the oak with the land so as to obtain for Marynia even a part of Kremen, and therefore with her will and knowledge. And this being the case, the hair rose on his head at the mere thought of how he had blundered in raising a scandal with Mashko. Plavitski, on his part, hearing his half conscious, but altogether inappropriate answers, amused himself still more at the expense of the “rustic,” who on the city pavement had lost what remained of his wit. Plavitski considered himself now as the model of a man of the “capital.”

The moment came, however, when the young men were left alone, for Marynia was occupied with tea in the next room, and Plavitski had gone for cigars to his study; Pan Stanislav turned then to Gantovski, —

“Let us go together after tea,” said he; “I wish to speak with you touching your collision with Pan Mashko.”

“Of course,” answered Gantovski, gloomily, understanding that Polanyetski was Mashko’s second.

Meanwhile they had to remain for tea, and sit long enough after that, for Plavitski did not like to go to bed early, and summoned Gantovski to a game of chess. During the play, Marynia and Pan Stanislav sat apart and conversed with animation, to the heartfelt torment of “the bear.”

“The arrival of Gantovski must be pleasing to you,” said Pan Stanislav, all at once, “for it brings Kremen to your mind.”

Astonishment flashed over Marynia’s face that he was the first to mention Kremen. She had supposed that, in virtue of a tacit agreement, he would cover that question with silence.

“I think no more now of Kremen,” answered she, after a pause.

This statement was not true, for in her heart’s depth she was sorry for the place in which she had been reared, – the place of her labor for years, and of her shattered hopes; but she thought herself forced to speak thus by duty, and by the feeling for Pan Stanislav, which was increasing continually.

“Kremen,” added she, with a voice of some emotion, “was the cause of our earliest quarrel; and I wish now for concord, concord forever.”

While saying this, she looked into Pan Stanislav’s eyes with a coquetry full of sweetness, which a bad woman is able to put on at any time, but an honest woman only when she is beginning to love.

“She is wonderfully kind,” thought he. Straightway he added aloud, “You might have a fabulous weapon against me, for you might lead me to perdition with kindness.”

“I do not wish to lead you to that,” replied she.

And in sign that she did not, she began to shake her dark, shapely head laughingly; and Pan Stanislav looked at her smiling face, and her mouth a trifle too large, and said mentally, —

“Whether I love her, or love her not, no one attracts me as she does.”

In fact, she had never occupied him and never pleased him more, even when he felt no shade of doubt that he loved her, and when he was struggling with that feeling. But at last he took farewell of her, for it had grown late; and after a while he and Gantovski found themselves on the street.

Pan Stanislav who never had been able to guard himself from impulsiveness, stopped the unfortunate “bear,” and asked almost angrily, —

“Did you know that it was I who bought the oak at Kremen?”

“I did,” answered Gantovski; “for your agent, that man who says that he is descended from Tartars – I forget what his name is – was at my house in Yalbrykov, and told me that it was you.”

“Why, then, did you make the scandal with Pan Mashko, not with me?”

“Do not push me to the wall so,” answered Gantovski, “for I do not like it. I raised the scandal with him, not with you, because the Plavitskis have nothing to do with you; but that man is obliged to pay them yearly from Kremen the amount he has engaged to pay, and if he ruins Kremen, he will have nothing to pay from. If you wished to know why I attacked him, you know now.”

Pan Stanislav had to confess in his soul that there was a certain justice in Gantovski’s answer; hence he began the conversation at once from another side, —

“Pan Mashko has begged me to be his second, that’s why I interfere in this question. I shall call on you to-morrow as a second; but as a private man, and a relative, though a distant one, of Pan Plavitski, I can tell you to-day only this, – that you have rendered the poorest service to Pan Plavitski, and if he and his daughter are left without a morsel of bread, they will have you to thank for it. This is the truth!”

Gantovski’s eyes became perfectly round.

“Without a morsel of bread? They will thank me for it?”

“That is the position,” repeated Pan Stanislav. “But listen carefully. Without reference to the result of the scandal, the circumstances are such that it may have the most fatal results. I say this to you, on my word: you have, perhaps, ruined Pan Plavitski, and taken from him and his daughter the way, or rather the means, of living.”

If Gantovski really did not like to be pressed to the wall, it was time for him then to show his dislike; but Gantovski had lost his head utterly, and stood in amazement, with open mouth, unable to find an answer; and only after a time did he begin, —

“What? How? In what way? Be sure that it will not come to that, even if I have to give them Yalbrykov.”