Children of the Soil

No one contradicted her, for events like that in the world had been seen; therefore after lunch, Pani Bronich, embracing Nitechka, whispered in her ear, —

“Oi, thou, thou, future heiress!”

But in the evening she said to Pan Ignas, —

“Be not astonished if I so mix up in everything, but I am your mamma. So mamma is immensely curious to know what kind of ring you are preparing for Nitechka? It will be something beautiful, of course. There will be so many people at the betrothal. And, besides, you have no idea what a fastidious girl! She is so æsthetic even in trifles; and she has her own taste, but what a taste! ho, ho!”

“I should like,” answered Pan Ignas, “the stones to be of colors denoting faith, hope, and love, for in her is my faith, my hope, and my love.”

“A very pretty idea! have you said this to Nitechka? Do you know what? Let there be a pearl in the middle, as a sign that she is a pearl. Symbols are in fashion now. Have I told you that Pan Svirski, when he gave her lessons, called her ‘La Perla’? Ah, yes, I did. You do not know Pan Svirski? He, too – Yozio Osnovski told me that he would come to-morrow. Well, then, a sapphire, a ruby, an emerald, and in the middle a pearl? Oh, yes! Pan Svirski, too – Will you be at the funeral?”

“Whose funeral?”

“Pan Bukatski’s. Yozio Osnovski told me that Pan Svirski brought home his body.”

“I did not know him; I have never seen him in my life.”

“That is better; Nitechka would prefer that you had not known him. God in His mercy forgive him in spite of this, – that for me he was never a sympathetic person, and Nitechka could not endure him. But the little one will be glad of the ring; and when she is glad, I am glad.”

The “Little One” was glad not only of the ring, but of life in general. The rôle of an affianced assumed for her increasing charm. Beautiful nights came, very clear, during which she and Pan Ignas sat together on the balcony. Nestling up to each other, they looked at the quivering of light on the leaves, or lost their gaze in the silver dust of the Milky Way, and the swarms of stars. From the acacia, growing under the balcony, there rose a strong and intoxicating odor, as from a great censer. Their powers seemed to go to sleep in them; their souls, lulled by silence, turned into clear light, were scattered in some way amidst the depth of night, and were melted into unity with the soft moonlight; and so the two, sitting hand in hand, half in oblivion, half in sleep, lost well-nigh the feeling of separate existence and life, preserving a mere semi-consciousness of some sort of general bliss and general “exaltation of hearts.”

Pan Ignas, when he woke and returned to real life, understood that moments like those, in which hearts melt in that pantheism of love, and beat with the same pulsation with which everything quivers that loves, unites, and harmonizes in the universe, form the highest happiness which love has the power to give, and so immeasurable that were they to continue they would of necessity destroy man’s individuality. But, having the soul of an idealist, he thought that when death comes and frees the human monad from matter, those moments change into eternity; and in that way he imagined heaven, in which nothing is swallowed up, but everything simply united and attuned in universal harmony.

Lineta, it is true, could not move with his flight; but she felt a certain turning of the head, as it were, a kind of intoxication from his flight, and she felt herself happy also. A woman even incapable of loving a man is still fond of her love, or, at least, of herself, and her rôle in it; and, therefore, most frequently she crosses the threshold of betrothal with delight, feeling at the same time gratitude to the man who opens before her a new horizon of life. Besides, they had talked love into Lineta so mightily that at last she believed in it.

And once, when Pan Ignas asked her if she was sure of herself and her heart, she gave him both hands, as if with effusion, and said, —

“Oh, truly; now I know that I love.”

He pressed her slender fingers to his lips, to his forehead, and his eyes, as something sacred; but he was disquieted by her words, and asked, —

“Why ‘now’ for the first time, Nitechka? Or has there been a moment in which thou hast thought that thou couldst not love me?”

Lineta raised her blue eyes and thought a moment; after a while, in the corners of her mouth and in the dimples of her cheeks, a smile began to gather.

“No,” said she; “but I am a great coward, so I was afraid. I understand that to love you is another thing from loving the first comer.” And suddenly she began to laugh. “Oh, to love Pan Kopovski would be as simple as bon jour; but you – maybe I cannot express it well, but more than once it seemed to me that that is like going up on some mountain or some tower. When once at the top, a whole world is visible; but before that one must go and go, and toil, and I am so lazy.”

Pan Ignas, who was tall and bony, straightened himself, and said, —

“When my dear, lazy one is tired, I’ll take her in my arms, like a child, and carry her even to the highest.”

“And I will shrink up and make myself the smallest,” answered Lineta, closing her arms, and entering into the rôle of a little child.

Pan Ignas knelt before her, and began to kiss the hem of her dress.

But there were little clouds, too, on that sky; the betrothed were not the cause, however. It seemed to the young man at times that his feelings were too much observed, and that Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta examined too closely whether he loves, and how he loves. He explained this, it is true, by the curiosity of women, and, in general, by the attention which love excites in them; but he would have preferred more freedom, and would have preferred that they would not help him to love. His feelings he considered as sacred, and for him it was painful to make an exhibition of them for uninvited eyes; at the same time every movement and word of his was scrutinized. He supposed also that there must be female sessions, in which Pani Bronich and Pani Aneta gave their “approbatur;” and that thought angered him, for he judged that neither was in a situation to understand his feelings.

It angered him also that Kopovski was invited to Prytulov, and that he went there in company with all; but in this case it was for him a question only of Osnovski, whom he loved sincerely. The pretext for the invitation was the portrait not finished yet by Lineta. Pan Ignas understood now clearly that everything took place at the word of Pani Aneta, who knew exactly how to suggest her own wishes to people as their own. At times even it came to his head to ask Lineta to abandon the portrait; but he knew that he would trouble her, as an artist, with that request, and, besides, he feared lest people might suspect him of being jealous of a fop, like “Koposio.”[11 - Nickname for Kopovski.]

CHAPTER XLVIII

Svirski had come indeed from Italy with Bukatski’s body; and he went at once on the following day to Pan Stanislav’s. He met only Marynia, however, for her husband had gone outside the city to look at some residence which had been offered for sale. The artist found Marynia so changed that he recognized her with difficulty; but since he had liked her greatly in Rome, he was all the more moved at sight of her now. At times, besides, she seemed to him so touching and so beautiful in her way, with the aureole of future maternity, and besides she had brought to him so many artistic comparisons, with so many “types of various Italian schools,” that, following his habit, he began to confess his enthusiasm audibly. She laughed at his originality; but still it gave her comfort in her trouble, and she was glad that he came, – first, because she felt a sincere sympathy with that robust and wholesome nature; and second, she was certain that he would be enthusiastic about her in presence of “Stas,” and thus raise her in the eyes of her husband.

He sat rather long, wishing to await the return of Pan Stanislav; he, however, returned only late in the evening. Meanwhile there was a visit from Pan Ignas, who, needing some one now before whom to pour out his overflowing happiness, visited her rather often. For a while he and Svirski looked at each other with a certain caution, as happens usually with men of distinction, who fear each other’s large pretensions, but who come together the more readily when each sees that the other is simple. So did it happen with these men. Marynia, too, helped to break the ice by presenting Pan Ignas as the betrothed of Panna Castelli, who was known to Svirski.

“Indeed,” said Svirski, “I know her perfectly; she is my pupil!”

Then, pressing the hand of Pan Ignas, he said, —

“Your betrothed has Titian hair; she is a little tall, but you are tall, too. Such a pose of head as she has one might look for with a candle. You must have noticed that there is something swan-like in her movements; I have even called her ‘The Swan.’”

Pan Ignas laughed as sincerely and joyously as a man does when people praise that which he loves most in life, and said with a shade of boastfulness, —

“‘La Perla,’ do you remember?”

Svirski looked at him with a certain surprise.

“There is such a picture by Raphael in Madrid, in the Museum del Prado,” answered he. “Why do you mention ‘La Perla’?”

“It seems to me that I heard of it from those ladies,” said Pan Ignas, beaten from the track somewhat.

“It may be, for I have a copy of my own making in my studio Via Margutta.”

Pan Ignas said in spirit that there was need to be more guarded in repeating words from Pani Bronich; and after a time he rose to depart, for he was going to his betrothed for the evening. Svirski soon followed, leaving with Marynia the address of his Warsaw studio, and begging that Pan Stanislav would meet him in the matter of the funeral as soon as possible.

In fact, Pan Stanislav went to him next morning. Svirski’s studio was a kind of glass hall, attached, like the nest of a swallow, to the roof of one in a number of many storied houses, and visitors had to reach him by separate stairs winding like those in a tower. But the artist had perfect freedom there, and did not close his door evidently, for Pan Stanislav, in ascending, heard a dull sound of iron, and a bass voice singing, —

“Spring blows on the world warmly;
Hawthorns and cresses are blooming.
I am singing and not sobbing,
For I have ceased to love thee too!
Hu-ha-hu!”

“Well,” thought Pan Stanislav, stopping to catch breath, “he has a bass, a real, a true bass; but what is he making such a noise with?”

When he had passed the rest of the steps, however, and then the narrow corridor, he understood the reason, for he saw through the open doors Svirski, dressed to his waist in a single knitted shirt, through which was seen his Herculean torso; and in his hands were dumb-bells.

“Oh, how are you?” he called out, putting down the dumb-bells in presence of his guest. “I beg pardon that I am not dressed, but I was working a little with the dumb-bells. Yesterday I was at your house, but found only Pani Polanyetski. Well, I brought our poor Bukatski. Is the little house ready for him?”

Pan Stanislav pressed his hand. “The grave is ready these two weeks, and the cross is set up. We greet you cordially in Warsaw. My wife told me that the body is in Povanzki already.”

“It is now in the crypt of the church. To-morrow we’ll put it away.”

“Well, to-day I will speak to the priest and notify acquaintances. What is Professor Vaskovski doing?”

“He was to write you. The heat drove him out of Rome; and do you know where he went? Among the youngest of the Aryans. He said that the journey would occupy two months. He wishes to convince himself as to how far they are ready for his historical mission; he has gone through Ancona to Fiume, and then farther and farther.”

“The poor professor! I fear that new disillusions are waiting for him.”