Children of the Soil

“Well; but enough for to-day.”

Lineta put down her brush, and after a moment went to wash her hands. Pan Ignas remained there, answering, with more or less presence of mind, questions put to him; but he wanted to go. He feared the conversation with Pani Bronich, and, with the habit of cowards, he wished to defer it till the morrow; he wanted, besides, to remain a while with his own thoughts, to arrange them, to estimate better the significance of what had happened. For at that moment he had in his head merely a certain chaos of indefinite thoughts; he understood that something unparalleled had happened, – something from which a new epoch in life would begin. At the very thought of this, a quiver of happiness passed through him, but also a quiver of fear, for he felt that now it was too late to withdraw; through love, through confession, through declaration to the lady and to her family, he must advance to the altar. He desired this with his whole soul; but he was so accustomed to consider everything that was happiness as a poetic imagining, as something belonging exclusively to the world of thought, art, and dreams, that he almost lacked daring to believe that Lineta could become his wife really. Meanwhile he had barely endurance to sit out the time; and when Lineta returned, he rose to take leave.

She gave him her hand, cooled by fresh water, and said, —

“Will you not wait for aunt?”

“I must go; and to-morrow I will take farewell of you and Pani Bronich.”

“Then till our next meeting!”

This farewell seemed to Pan Ignas, after what had happened, so inappropriate and cold that despair seized him; but he had not the daring to part before people otherwise, all the more that Pani Aneta was looking at him with uncommon attention.

“Wait! I have something to do in the city; we’ll go together,” said Osnovski, as he was going out.

And they went together; but barely were they outside the gate of the villa, when Pan Osnovski stopped, and put his hand on the poet’s arm.

“Pan Ignas, have you not quarrelled a little with Lineta?”

Pan Ignas looked at him with great eyes.

“I? with Panna Lineta?”

“Yes, for you parted somehow coldly. I thought you were as far, at least, as hand-kissing.”

Pan Ignas’s eyes grew still larger; Osnovski laughed, and said, —

“Well, I’ll tell you the truth. My wife, as a woman who is curious, looked at you, and said that something had happened. My Pan Ignas, you have in me a great friend, who, besides, knows what it is to love. I can say to you only one thing, – God grant you to be as happy as I am!”

When he had said this, he began to shake his guest’s hand; and Pan Ignas, though confused to the highest degree, was barely able to refrain from falling on his neck.

“Have you really some work to-day? Why did you go?”

“I will tell you sincerely. I wanted to collect my thoughts, and, besides, fear of Pani Bronich seized me.”

“Then you do not know aunt? Her head, too, is warm with the question. Come with me a bit of the road, and then go back without ceremony. On the way you will collect your thoughts; by that time Pani Bronich will be at home, and you will tell her your little story, at which she will weep. Nothing else threatens you. Remember, too, that if you are fortunate you are to thank mainly my Aneta, for, as God lives, she has filled Castelka’s head, as your own sister might. She has such an impetuous head, and at the same time such an honest heart. Equally good women there may be, but a better there is not on earth. It seemed to us a little that that fool Kopovski was inclined to Castelka, and Aneta was tremendously angry. They like Kopovski; but to let her marry such a man – that would be too much.”

Thus talking, he took Pan Ignas by the hand, and after a moment, continued, “We are to be relatives soon; let us drop ceremony and say thou to each other. I must tell thee further: I have no doubt Castelka loves thee with her whole heart, for she is a true woman also. Besides, they have turned her head with thee greatly; but she is so young yet that I tell thee to throw fuel on the fire – throw it! Dost understand? What is begun should become rooted; this can happen easily, for hers is really an uncommon nature. Do not think that I wish to forewarn or to frighten thee. No; it is a question only of making things permanent. That she loves thee is not subject to doubt. If thy eyes had but seen her when she was carrying thy book around, or what happened when she and thou were returning from the theatre. A stupid thought came to my head then. I spoke of having heard that old Zavilovski wished to make thy acquaintance because he had planned to marry thee to his daughter, so that his property might not leave the name; and imagine to thyself, that poor girl, when she heard this, became as pale as paper, so that I was frightened, and took back my words in all haste. What is thy answer to this?”

Pan Ignas wanted to laugh and to weep; but he merely pressed to his side, and pressed with all his force, Osnovski’s hand, which he held under his arm, and said, after a while, —

“I am not worthy of her, no.”

“Well, and after that ‘no’ perhaps thou wilt say, ‘No, I do not love her properly.’”

“That may be true,” answered Pan Ignas, raising his eyes.

“Well, go back now, and tell thy little story to Aunt Bronich. Do not fear being too pathetic; she likes that. Till we meet again, Ignas! I shall be back myself in an hour or so, and we shall have a betrothal evening.”

They pressed each other’s hands, and Osnovski said, with a feeling which was quite brotherly, —

“I repeat once more: God grant thee to find in Castelka such a wife as my Anetka!”

On the way back Pan Ignas thought that Osnovski was an angel, Pani Osnovski another, Pani Bronich a third, and Lineta, soaring above them all on the wings of an archangel, something divine and sacred. He understood at that moment that a heart might love to pain. In his soul he was kneeling at her knees, bowing to the earth at her feet; he loved her, deified her, and to all these feelings, which were playing in him one great hymn, as it were, to greet the dawn, was joined a feeling of such tenderness, as if that magnified woman was also a little child, alone, and wonderfully loved, but a little thing, needing care. He recalled Osnovski’s story of how she had grown pale when they told her that there was a plan to marry him to another; and in his soul he repeated, “Ah, but thou art mine, thou art mine!” He grew tender beyond measure, and gratitude so filled his heart that it seemed to him that he could not repay her in a lifetime for that one moment of paleness. He felt happier than ever before; and at moments the immensity of this happiness almost frightened him. Hitherto he had been a theoretical pessimist, but now reality gave the lie to those passing theories with such power that it was hard for him to believe that he could have deceived himself to such a degree.

Meanwhile he was returning to the villa, inhaling along the way the odor of blooming jasmines, and having some species of dim feeling that that intoxicating odor was nothing external, but simply a part and component of his happiness. “What people! what a house! what a family!” said he to himself; “only among them could my White One be reared!” Then he looked on the sun, setting in calmness; he looked at the golden curtains of evening, bordered with purple; and that calmness began to possess him. In those immense lights he felt boundless love and kindness, which look on the world, cherish, and bless it. He did not pray in words, it is true; but everything was singing one thanksgiving prayer in his soul.

At the gate of the villa he recovered as if from a dream; he saw an old serving-man of the Osnovskis, who was looking at the passing carriages.

“Good-evening, Stanislav,” said he; “but has not Pani Bronich returned?”

“I am just looking, but I do not see her.”

“Are the ladies in the drawing-room yet?”

“They are; and Pan Kopovski, too.”

“But who will open for me?”

“The door is open. I’ve come out only this minute.”

Pan Ignas went up; but, finding no one in the common drawing-room, he went to the studio. There, too, he found no one; but in the adjoining smaller chamber certain low voices reached him through the portière dividing that room from the studio. Thinking to find there both ladies and Kopovski, he drew aside the portière slightly, and, looking in, was stupefied.

Lineta was not in the room; but Kopovski was kneeling before Pani Osnovski, who, holding her hands thrust into his abundant hair, was bending his head back, inclining her face at the same time, as if to place a kiss on his forehead.

“Anetka, if thou love me – ” said Kopovski, with a voice stifled from passion.

“I love – but no! I don’t want that,” answered Pani Osnovski, pushing him away somewhat.

Pan Ignas dropped the portière with an involuntary movement; for a moment he stood before it as if his feet had grown leaden. Finally, without giving himself a clear account of what he was doing, he passed through the studio, where the sound of his steps was deadened on the thick carpet, as it had been when he entered; he passed the main drawing-room, the entrance, the front steps, and came to himself at the gate of the villa.

“Is the serene lord going out?” inquired the old serving-man.

“Yes,” answered Pan Ignas.

He walked away as quickly as if escaping from something. After a time, however, he stopped, and said aloud to himself, —

“Why have I not gone mad?”

And suddenly madness seemed to him possible, for he felt that he was losing the thread of his thoughts; that he could not give himself an account of anything; that he understood nothing, believed nothing. Something began to tear in him, fall away. How was it? That house which a moment before he thought to be some kind of blessed retreat of exceptional souls, conceals the usual falsehood, the usual wickedness, the usual vileness of life, – a wretched and shameful comedy. And his Lineta, his White One, is breathing such an atmosphere, living in such an environment, existing with such beings! Here Osnovski’s words occurred to him: “God grant thee to find in Castelka such a wife as I have in my Anetka!” “I thank thee,” thought Pan Ignas, and he began to laugh, in spite of himself. Neither evil nor vileness were to him a novelty: he had seen them, and he knew that they existed; but for the first time life showed them to him with such a merciless irony, as that through which Pan Osnovski, – a man who had shown him the heart of a brother; a man honest, just, kind as few people in the world are – turned out to be also a fool, a kind of exalted idiot, exalted through his faith and his feeling; an idiot through a woman. And for the first time, too, he saw clearly what a bad and contemptible woman may make of a man, without any fault of his. On a sudden new, dreadful horizons of life opened before him, – whole regions, the existence of which he had not suspected; he had understood before that an evil woman, like a vampire, may suck the life out of a man, and kill him, and that seemed to him demonic, but he had not imagined that she could make a fool of him also. He could not master that thought. But still, Osnovski was ridiculous when he wished him to be as happy with his future wife as he with Anetka; there was no help for this case either. One should not so love as to grow blind to that degree.

Here his thoughts passed to Lineta. At the first moment he had a feeling that from that vileness in the house of the Osnovskis, and from that doubt which was born in his heart, a certain shadow fell on her also. After a while he began, however, to cast out that feeling as though it were profanation, treason against innocence, treason against a being as pure as she was beloved, and defiling in thought her and her angelic plumage. Indignation at himself seized him. “Does such a dove even think evil?” asked he, in his soul. And his love rose still more at the thought that “such a super-pure child” must come in contact with such depravity. He would take her with the utmost haste possible from Pani Osnovski’s, guard her from that woman’s influence, seize her in his arms, and bear her from that house, in which her innocent eyes might be opened on evil and depravity. A certain demon whispered at moments to his ear, it is true, that Osnovski, too, believes as he does, and that he would give his own blood in pledge for his wife’s honesty; he too would count every doubt a profanation of her sacredness. But Pan Ignas drove away those whisperings with dread. “It is enough to look into her eyes,” said he; and at the mere thought of those eyes, he was ready to beat his own breast, as if lie had sinned most grievously. He was also angry at himself because he had come out, because he had not waited for Pani Bronich, and had not strengthened himself with the sight of Lineta. He remembered now how he had pressed her hand to his lips; how she, changing from emotion, said to him, “Speak with aunt.” How much angelic simplicity and purity there was in those words! what honesty of a soul, which, loving, wishes to be free to love before the whole world! Pan Ignas, when he thought of this, was seized by a desire to return; but he felt that he was too much excited, and that he could not explain his former presence if the servant should mention it.

Then again the picture rose before his eyes of Kopovski kneeling to Pani Osnovski; and he fell to inquiring of himself what he was to do in view of this, and how he was to act. Warn Osnovski? he rejected this thought at once with indignation. Shut himself in with Pani Osnovski, and give her a sermon, eye to eye? She would show him the door. After a time it came to his head to threaten Kopovski, and force from him a promise to cease visiting the Osnovskis. But soon he saw that that, too, was useless. Kopovski, if he had even a small share of courage, would give him the lie, challenge him; in such a case he would have to be silent, and people would think that the scandal rose because of Panna Castelli. Pan Ignas was sorry for Osnovski; he had conceived for the man a true friendship, and, on the other hand, he was too young to be reconciled at once with the thought that evil and human crookedness were to continue unpunished. Ah! but if at that juncture he could have counselled with some one, – for instance, with Pan Stanislav or Marynia. But that could not be. And after long thought he resolved to bury all in himself, and be silent.

At the same time, from the passionate prayer of Kopovski and the answer of Pani Aneta, he inferred that the evil might not have passed yet into complete fall. He did not know women; but he had read no little about them. He knew that there exists some for whom the form of evil has more charm than the substance; that there are women devoid of moral sense, but also of passion, who have just as much desire for a prohibited adventure as they have repugnance to complete fall, – in a word, those who are incapable of loving anybody, who deceive their lovers as well as their husbands. He recalled the words of a certain Frenchman: “If Eve had been Polish, she would have plucked the apple, but not eaten it.” A similar type seemed to him Pani Aneta; vice might be in her as superficial as virtue, and in such case the forbidden relation might annoy her very soon, especially with a man like Kopovski.

Here, however, Pan Ignas lost the basis of reasoning and the key to the soul of Pani Aneta. He would have understood relations with any other man more readily than with Kopovski, – that archangel with the brains of an idiot. “A poodle understands more of what is said to him,” thought Pan Ignas; “and a woman with such aspirations to reason, to science, to art, to the understanding of every thought and feeling, could lower herself for such a head!” He could not explain this to himself, even with what he had read about women.