Children of the Soil

“That may be. People laugh at him. I do not know how far the youngest of the Aryans are fitted to carry out his idea; but the idea itself, as God lives, is so uncommon, so Christian, and honest, that the man had to be a Vaskovski to come to it. Permit me to dress. The heat here is almost as in Italy, and it is better to exercise in a single shirt.”

“But best not to exercise at all in such heat.”

Here Pan Stanislav looked at Svirski’s arms and said, —

“But you might show those for money.”

“Well; not bad biceps! But look at these deltoids. That is my vanity. Bukatski insisted that any one might say that I paint like an idiot; but that it was not permitted any one to say that I could not raise a hundred kilograms with one hand, or that I couldn’t hit ten flies with ten shots.”

“And such a man will not leave his biceps nor his deltoids to posterity.”

“Ha! what’s to be done? I fear an ungrateful heart; as I love God, I fear it so much. Find me a woman like Pani Polanyetski, and I will not hesitate a day. But what should I wish you, – a son or a daughter?”

“A daughter, a daughter! Let there be sons; but the first must be a daughter!”

“And when do you expect her?”

“In December, it would seem.”

“God grant happily! The lady, however, is healthy, so there is no fear.”

“She has changed greatly, has she not?”

“She is different from what she was, but God grant the most beautiful to look so. What an expression! A pure Botticelli. I give my word! Do you remember that portrait of his in the Villa Borghese? Madonna col Bambino e angeli. There is one head of an angel, a little inclined, dressed in a lily, just like the lady, the very same expression. Yesterday that struck me so much that I was moved by it.”

Then he went behind the screen to put on his shirt, and from behind the screen he said, —

“You ask why I don’t marry. Do you know why? I remember sometimes that Bukatski said the same thing. I have a sharp tongue and strong biceps, but a soft heart; so stupid is it that if I had such a wife as you have, and she were in that condition, as God lives, I shouldn’t know whether to walk on my knees before her, or to beat the floor with my forehead, or to put her on a table, in a corner somewhere, and adore her with upraised hands.”

“Ai!” said Pan Stanislav, laughing, “that only seems so before marriage; but afterward habituation itself destroys excess of feeling.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m so stupid – ”

“Do you know what? When my Marynia is free, she must find for thee just such a wife as she herself is.”

“Agreed!” thundered Svirski, from behind the screen. “Verbum! I give myself into her hands; and when she says ‘marry,’ I will marry with closed eyes.”

And appearing, still without a coat, he began to repeat, “Agreed, agreed! without joking. If the lady wishes.”

“Women always like that,” answered Pan Stanislav. “Have you seen, for instance, what that Pani Osnovski did to marry our Pan Ignas to Panna Castelli? And Marynia helped her as much as I permitted; she kept her ears open. For women that is play.”

“I made the acquaintance of that Pan Ignas at your house yesterday. He is an immensely nice fellow; simply a genial head. It is enough to look at him. What a profile, and what a woman-like forehead! and with that insolent jaw! His shanks are too long, and his knees must be badly cut, but his head is splendid.”

“He is the Benjamin of our counting-house. Indeed, we love him surpassingly; his is an honest nature.”

“Ah! he is your employee? But I thought he was of those rich Zavilovskis; I have seen abroad often enough a certain old original, a rich man.”

“That is a relative of his,” said Pan Stanislav; “but our Zavilovski hasn’t a smashed copper.”

“Well,” said Svirski, beginning to laugh, “old Zavilovski with his daughter, the only heiress of millions, a splendid figure! In Florence and Rome half a dozen ruined Italian princes were dangling around this young lady; but the old man declared that he wouldn’t give his daughter to a foreigner, ‘for,’ said he, ‘they are a race of jesters.’ Imagine to yourself, he considers us the first race on earth, and among us, of course, the Zavilovskis; and once he showed that in this way: ‘Let them say what they like,’ said he; ‘I have travelled enough through the world, and how many Germans, Italians, Englishmen, and Frenchmen have cleaned boots for me? but I,’ said he, ‘have never cleaned boots for any man, and I will not.’”

“Good!” answered Pan Stanislav, laughing; “he thinks boot-cleaning not a question of position in the world, but of nationality.”

“Yes, it seems to him that the Lord God created other ‘nations’ exclusively so that a nobleman from Kutno may have some one to clean his boots whenever he chooses to go abroad. But doesn’t he turn up his nose at the marriage of the young man? for I know that he thinks the Broniches of small account.”

“Maybe he turns up his nose; but he has become acquainted with our Pan Ignas not long since. They had not met before, for ours is a proud soul, and would not seek the old man first.”

“I like him for that. I hope he has chosen well, for – ”

“What! do you know Panna Castelli? What kind of a person is she?”

“I know Panna Castelli; but, you see, I am no judge of young ladies. Ba! if I knew them, I would not have waited for the fortieth year as a single man. They are all good, and all please me; but since I have seen, as married women, a few of those who pleased me, I do not believe in any. And that makes me angry; for if I had no wish to marry – well, I should say, leave the matter! but I have the wish. What can I know? I know that each woman has a corset; but what sort of a heart is inside it? The deuce knows! I was in love with Panna Castelli; but for that matter I was in love with all whom I met. With her, perhaps, even more than with others.”

“And how is it that a wife did not come to your head?”

“Ah, the devil didn’t come to my head! But at that time I hadn’t the money that I have to-day, nor the reputation. I was working for something then; and believe me that no people are so shy of workers as the children of workers. I was afraid that Pan Bronich or Pani Bronich might object, and I was not sure of the lady; therefore I left them in peace.”

“Pan Ignas has no money.”

“But he has reputation, and, besides, there is old Zavilovski; and a connection like that is no joke. Who among us has not heard of the old man? Besides, as to me, to tell the truth, I disliked the Broniches to the degree that at last I turned from them.”

“You knew the late Pan Bronich, then? Be not astonished that I ask, for with me it is a question of our Pan Ignas.”

“Whom have I not known? I knew also Pani Bronich’s sister, – Pani Castelli. For that matter I have been twenty-four years in Italy, and am about forty, – that is said for roundness. In fact, I am forty-five. I knew Pan Castelli, too, who was a good enough man; I knew all. What shall I say to you? Pani Castelli was an enthusiast, and distinguished by wearing short hair; she was always unwashed, and had neuralgia in the face. As to Pani Bronich, you know her.”

“But who was Pan Bronich?”

“‘Teodor’? Pan Bronich was a double fool, – first, because he was a fool; and second, because he didn’t know himself as one. But I am silent, for ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum.’ He was as fat as she is thin; he weighed more than a hundred and fifty kilograms, perhaps, and had fish eyes. In general, they were people vain beyond everything. But why expatiate? When a man lives a while in the world, and sees many people, and talks with them, as I do while painting, he convinces himself that there is really a high society, which rests on tradition, and besides that a canaille, which, having a little money, apes great society. The late Bronich and his present widow always seemed to me of that race; therefore I chose to keep them at a distance. If Bukatski were alive, he would let out his tongue now at their expense. He knew that I was in love with Panna Castelli; and how he ridiculed me, may the Lord not remember it against him! And who knows whether he did not speak justly? for what Panna Lineta is will be shown later.”

“It concerns me most of all to learn something of her.”

“They are good, all good; but I am afraid of them and their goodness, – unless your wife would go security for some of them.”

At this point the conversation stopped, and they began to talk of Bukatski, or rather, of his burial of the day following, for which Pan Stanislav had made previously all preparations.

On the way from Svirski’s he spoke to the priest again, and then informed acquaintances of the hour on the morrow.

The church ceremony of burial had taken place at Rome in its own time, so Pan Stanislav, as a man of religious feeling, invited a few priests to join their prayers to the prayers of laymen; he did this also through attachment and gratitude to Bukatski, who had left him a considerable part of his property.

Besides the Polanyetskis came the Mashkos, the Osnovskis, the Bigiels, Svirski, Pan Plavitski, and Pani Emilia, who wished at the same time to visit Litka. The day was a genuine summer one, sunny and warm; the cemetery had a different seeming altogether from what it had during Pan Stanislav’s former visits. The great healthy trees formed a kind of thick, dense curtain composed of dark and bright leaves, covering with a deep green shade the white and gray monuments. In places the cemetery seemed simply a forest full of gloom and coolness. On certain graves was quivering a shining network of sunbeams, which had filtered in through the leaves of acacias, poplars, hornbeams, birch, and lindens; some crosses, nestling in a thick growth, seemed as if dreaming in cool air above the graves. In the branches and among the leaves were swarms of small birds, calling out from every side with an unceasing twitter, which was mild, and, as it were, low purposely, so as not to rouse the sleepers.

Svirski, Mashko, Polanyetski, and Osnovski took on their shoulders the narrow coffin containing the remains of Bukatski, and bore it to the tomb. The priests, in white surplices now gleaming in the sun, now in the shade, walked in front of the coffin; behind it the young women, dressed in black; and all the company went slowly through the shady alleys, silently, calmly, without sobs or tears, which usually accompany a coffin. They moved only with dignity and sadness, which were on their faces as the shadow of the trees on the graves. There was, however, in all this a certain poetry filled with melancholy; and the impressionable soul of Bukatski would have felt the charm of that mourning picture.

In this way they arrived at the tomb, which had the form of a sarcophagus, and was entirely above ground, for Bukatski during life told Svirski that he did not wish to lie in a cellar. The coffin was pushed in easily through the iron door; the women raised their eyes then; their lips muttered prayers; and after a time Bukatski was left to the solitude of the cemetery, the rustling trees, the twitter of birds, and the mercy of God.

Pani Emilia and Pan Stanislav went then to Litka; while the rest of the company waited in the carriages before the church, for thus Pani Aneta had wished.

Pan Stanislav had a chance to convince himself, at Litka’s grave, how in his soul that child once so beloved had gone into the blue distance and become a shade. Formerly when he visited her grave he rebelled against death, and with all the passion of fresh sorrow was unreconciled to it. To-day it seemed to him well-nigh natural that she was lying in the shadow of those trees, in that cemetery; he had the feeling almost that it must end thus. She had ceased all but completely to be for him a real being, and had become merely a sweet inhabitant of his memory, a sigh, a ray, simply one of that kind of reminiscences which is left by music.