The day for Ferdinand's return had arrived. Adler got up at five
o'clock in the morning according to his custom, drank his coffee at
eight from his large china mug, inscribed with the motto: "Mit Gott
für König und Vaterland," and visited the factory. At eleven he sent
the carriage and a luggage cart to the station, and then sat down in
the portico and waited, his face as apathetic and dull as usual. From
time to time he looked at his watch. The sun was hot; the scent of
mignonette and acacia from the courtyard mingled with the pungent
smell of smoke from the factory. The sky was clear and the air quite
still. Adler wiped the perspiration from his face, and kept changing
his position on the iron seat. The old mill-owner did not eat his
lunch at twelve, and did not drink his beer out of the big pot with
the pewter lid, as he had done every day for forty years.
At one o'clock the carriage with Ferdinand arrived, followed by the
empty cart. Ferdinand was a tall, rather thin, but strongly built
young man with fair hair and blue eyes. He wore a Scotch cap with
ribbons and a light circular cape. As soon as he saw him, the
mill-owner drew up his huge figure to its full height, and holding out
his arms and giving one of his big laughs, exclaimed:
"Well, Ferdinand, how are you?"
The son jumped out of the carriage, embraced his father and kissed him
on both cheeks.
"Has it been raining here, that you have your trousers turned up?" he
said.
The father glanced at his trousers.
"Ha, ha! How the rascal notices everything!" he roared. "Johann!
Lunch!"
He took his son's cape and travelling bag, and gave him his arm as if
he were a lady. Looking back into the courtyard, he asked: "Why, the
cart is empty! Why haven't you brought your luggage from the station?"
"My luggage? Why, father, do you think I am married and drag about
boxes and portmanteaux with me? My things are in the dressing-bag;
besides the fittings, there are a couple of shirts and a few pairs of
gloves--that's all."
He talked vivaciously and in a loud voice, and laughed much. Pressing
his father's hand several times, he continued: "Well, and how are you,
father? What's the news? I am told you are doing very well with your
piqués and dimities.... Let us sit down."
They clinked their glasses and finished their lunch quickly. When they
had retired to the study, Ferdinand said, lighting a cigar:
"I must introduce the French way of living here, and especially the
French way of cooking."
The father made a grimace.
"Why? Isn't the German cuisine good enough?"
"The Germans are pigs!"
"What?" said the old man.
"I say the Germans are pigs," laughed the son. "They neither know how
to eat nor how to enjoy themselves."
"Well," interrupted the father, "and what are you?"
"I? I am a human being--in other words, a citizen of the world."
That his son should call himself cosmopolitan mattered little to
Adler, but he was much hurt by the wholesale relegation of Germans to
the class of unclean animals.
"I thought, my dear Ferdinand, that you might have learnt some sense
for the sixty thousand roubles you have spent."
The son flung away his cigar and fell on his father's neck.
"What an excellent father you are!" he exclaimed, kissing him. "What a
fine example of a real, stereotyped, conservative Baron! Well, don't
frown--cheer up! Come, don't look so glum!"
He seized him by his hands and drew him into the middle of the room.
Tapping his chest, he said:
"What a chest! ... what calves! If I had a young wife, I should know
who to be jealous of. And you really mean to say all the same that you
agree with these dead and stale theories? 'The devil take the Germans
and their cookery!' That is a motto worthy of the age and of strong
men."
"You must be crazy," interrupted the father, somewhat pacified. "But
what are you if you have ceased to be a German?"
"I?" replied Ferdinand with mock seriousness. "Among Germans I am a
Polish nobleman, Adler von Adlersdorf; among Frenchmen I am a
republican and a democrat."
Such was Ferdinand's first meeting with his father, and such were the
spiritual gains of his stay abroad, paid for with sixty thousand
roubles.
On the same day father and son drove over to see Pastor Boehme. The
mill-owner introduced Ferdinand to him as a converted sinner who had
spent much money and gained much experience for it. The pastor
tenderly embraced his godson and held up to him as an example his son,
Józef, who was working hard, and would continue to work to the end of
his life. Ferdinand replied that work was really the only thing that
gave human beings the right to exist. He added that he himself had
been a little inconsiderate in spending his life among the people of a
nation which boasted of its levity and idleness. Finally he asserted
that one Englishman worked as much as two Frenchmen or three Germans,
and that he had for this reason lately acquired a great respect for
the English. Adler was astonished at his son's earnestness and the
sincerity of his conviction, and Boehme remarked that young wine must
ferment and that his experienced eye could detect a change for the
better in Ferdinand, which was worth more than the expenditure of
sixty thousand roubles. After these solemn words the old people, with
the addition of the Frau Pastor, sat down to a bottle of hock, and
talked of their children.
"You know, dear Gottlieb," said the pastor, "I am beginning to admire
Ferdinand. From being a young windbag of a fellow he has now become a
_verus vir_. He has experience and judgment, and knows himself too."
"Oh yes," confirmed the Frau Pastor, "he reminds me altogether of our
Józio. Do you remember, father, when Józio was here last vacation he
said the same thing about the English? Dear boy!"
And the kind, thin lady sighed and pulled at the bodice of her black
dress, which seemed to have been made in expectation of greater
corpulence.
Ferdinand meanwhile was walking in the garden with Annette, the pretty
daughter of the pastor. They had known each other from childhood, and
the young girl had greeted the companion, whom she had not seen for so
long, warmly and even enthusiastically. They walked about together for
nearly an hour; but as the day was very hot, Annette had suddenly
complained of a headache and gone up to her room, and Ferdinand
returned to the old people. He was sulky and did not talk much. This
did not astonish the pastor and his wife. A young man would naturally
prefer the society of a young girl. Soon after Adler and his son
returned home, and Ferdinand informed his father that he would have to
go to Warsaw the next day.
"What for?" asked his father. "Have you got tired of home in eight
hours?"
"Not in the least; only, you see, I need shirts and some suits, and
also a carriage in which I can pay visits in the neighbourhood."
These reasons did not seem conclusive to the elder man. He said that
the housekeeper could go to Warsaw to order the clothes; and if he
bought a carriage, he would like to buy it himself from a
carriage-builder of his acquaintance. It was difficult to agree about
the clothes, but it was finally settled that a suit should be sent to
the tailor as a pattern. Ferdinand did not look at all pleased at
this.
"I suppose you keep a riding horse?"
"No; what good would it be to me?" replied the mill-owner.
"Well, but I must have one, and I hope you will at least not refuse me
this?"
"Of course not."
"I should like to go into the town to-morrow to see if one of the
nobility has a good horse for sale. You won't object to that?"
"Not in the least."
By ten o'clock in the morning Ferdinand had left home to go into the
town, and a few minutes later Boehme's cart and horse drew up in the
courtyard. The pastor seemed unusually excited. When he hurried into
the room, there were two flushed spots between his whiskers and his
long nose. As soon as he saw Adler, he called out:
"Is Ferdinand at home?"
Adler was astonished, and noticed that his friend's voice was
trembling.
"Why? What do you want Ferdinand for?" he asked.
"The scoundrel! He's a bad lot! Do you know what he said to Annette
yesterday?"
Adler's face showed that he neither knew nor suspected anything.
"He actually," continued the pastor, getting still more excited, "he
asked her...." He broke off, and exclaimed indignantly: "The
insolence! The shame of it!"
"What is the matter with you?" asked Adler, growing anxious. "What did
he say to her?"
"He asked her to leave the window of her room open for him at night."
The poor pastor, from the excess of his feelings, flung his panama hat
on the floor.
In matters which had nothing to do with the manufacture and sale of
cotton goods Adler took a long time to think. The chord that would
have been touched by the wrong done to the girl was missing in his
heart; but he had a feeling of friendship for the pastor, and starting
from this basis and reasoning phlegmatically and logically, he came to
the conclusion that, if the young girl had listened to the proposal,
Ferdinand would have to marry her. In any case he would have to marry
her; the old man saw no other way out of it.
This then was the end of it! A few hours after his arrival, and a few
minutes after his excellent speech about his improvement, Ferdinand
had put himself into such a position that he, the son of a
millionaire, would have to marry a dowerless girl--the pastor's
daughter! Instead of enjoying life at his side, and seeing him take
the best of what money, youth and unrestrained freedom could give, he
would now have to marry the boy to this girl.
It was only after the nervous old Boehme had begun to cry in his anger
that Adler's wrath burst out in words.
"He is a scoundrel, that fellow!" he shouted. "A week ago I paid sixty
thousand roubles for him, and now he extorts more money from me and
behaves like this on the top of it all!"
He lifted his hands and shook them like Moses when he threw down the
stone tablets on the heads of the worshippers of the golden calf.
"I will thrash him!" roared the mill-owner.
Seeing his excitement, and guessing that a stick in Adler's hand might
have deplorable results, the pastor pacified him.
"My dear Gottlieb, that is quite unnecessary. Leave it to me, and I
will tell Ferdinand either not to come to our house, or to behave in a
decent and Christian way."
"Johann!" shouted the manufacturer, and when the footman appeared he
continued without softening his voice: "Send to the town at once for
Ferdinand. I will flog the scoundrel!"
The footman looked amazed and frightened, but the pastor gave him a
knowing look, and the sagacious Johann went out.
"Dear Gottlieb," said Boehme, "Ferdinand is too old to be flogged
with a stick, or even to be reprimanded too violently. Excessive
severity will not only fail to improve him, but may cause him to lay
hands on his own life; he is an ambitious boy."
This remark had a sudden effect on Adler. He opened his eyes wide and
fell back into a chair.
"What is that you are saying, Martin?" he gasped. "Johann! Water!"
Johann brought the water, and the old man calmed down by degrees. He
gave no more orders to fetch Ferdinand.
"Yes, the madcap might do such a thing," he whispered in depression,
and dropped his head on his chest.
This strong and energetic old man understood that his son had taken
the wrong turning and ought to be led back, but he did not know how to
do it.
Late at night Ferdinand returned home in an excellent temper. He
looked for his father in all the rooms, left the doors open, and beat
a tattoo on tables and chairs with his walking-stick, singing in a
loud and false baritone:
"Allons, enfants de la patrie...."
He reached the study and stood before his father, with his Scotch cap
perched on the back of his head, his waistcoat unbuttoned, and
smelling of wine; sparks of mirth, untempered by reason, were burning
in his eyes. When he came to the line
"Aux armes, citoyens!"
his enthusiasm was such that he flourished his cane over his father's
head.
The old man was not accustomed to people who waved sticks over him. He
sprang up from his chair, and looking fiercely at his son, cried: "You
are drunk, you scoundrel!"
Ferdinand stepped back and said coolly: "Please don't call me a
scoundrel, father; if I get accustomed to being called such names at
home, it might not make the slightest difference to me if anyone else
called me or my father these names. One can get accustomed to
anything."
The moderate tone and clear exposition did not fail to impress the
cotton-spinner.
"You are without honour," he said after a while; "you wanted to seduce
old Boehme's daughter."
"Did you think it likely I should try to seduce the mother?" asked
Ferdinand in a tone of astonishment.
"Stop these bad jokes," the father said angrily; "the pastor has been
here to-day, and requests that you do not set foot in his house again.
He refuses to have anything to do with you."
"What a pity!" Ferdinand laughed, throwing his cap down on a pile of
papers, and himself at full length upon the sofa. "He is really doing
me the greatest favour by releasing me from those dull visits. They
are a queer lot. The old man believes that he is living among
cannibals, and is always converting somebody or rejoicing at
somebody's conversion. The old woman has nothing but water on the
brain, in which that learned snail, Józio, swims about. The daughter
is sacred like an altar at which only pastors are allowed to
officiate. When she has had two children, she will be a skeleton like
her mother, and then I congratulate her husband. How dreadfully dull
and pedantic all these people are!"
"Very well, they may be pedantic," said his father; "but if you had
been with them you would not have squandered sixty thousand roubles."
Ferdinand had just started a yawn, but did not finish it. He sat up on
the sofa and looked sorrowfully at his father.
"I see, father, you will never forget those few thousand roubles."
"Certainly I shan't forget them," shouted the old man. "How can a man
in his right mind spend so much money for devil knows what? I was
going to tell you that yesterday."
Ferdinand took his feet off the sofa, smacked his knee with his hand,
and feeling that his father's anger did not go very deep, began:
"My dear father, let us for once in our lives have a reasonable talk.
I suppose you do not look upon me any more as a child?"
"You are a monkey," the old man said abruptly. His heart was touched
by his son's seriousness.
"Well then, father, as a man who looks below the surface of things,
you probably understand, though you won't confess to it, that I am
such as Nature and our family made me. Our family does not consist of
such units as the pastor and his son. Our family was once upon a time
given the name of 'Adler,'[24] not 'frog' or 'crab.' If you look at it
even from the physical point of view, you can see that it consists of
people with huge frames. It possesses a man who has gained millions
and an excellent position in a strange country only through the work
of his ten fingers. That shows that our family has imagination and
strength."
Ferdinand said all this with true or feigned emotion, and his father
was much impressed.
"Is it my fault," he went on, gradually raising his voice, "that I
have inherited this imagination and this strength from my ancestors? I
must live more fully and do more than a 'stone' or a 'flower,' or even
an ordinary 'bird'--for I am an 'eagle.' I am not satisfied with a
narrow corner; I must have the world. My strength requires that I
should either have great obstacles to overcome and difficult
circumstances to master, or else I must have plenty of dissipation.
Otherwise I should burst. Men of temperament either wreck empires or
become criminals. Bismarck smashed beer-mugs on the heads of the
Philistines before he smashed up the Austrian and French Empires. He
was then exactly what I am to-day. To rise to the surface and to be a
true 'eagle,' I must have suitable circumstances; I am not living in
my proper sphere now. I have nothing to fix my attention on, and
nothing to wear out my strength; that is why I am so fast. If I
weren't, I should die like an eagle in a cage. You have your aims in
life; you order about hundreds of workmen, and set engines in motion;
you have had a big fight to assert yourself against others and to get
your money. I have not even got that pleasure. What is there for me to
do?"
"Who prevents you from taking an interest in the factory, or ordering
the people about and increasing our capital? That would be a better
thing than to go and waste it."
"All right!" exclaimed Ferdinand, jumping up; "give me some of your
authority, and I will set to work to-morrow. It will be with really
hard work that my wings will grow. Well now, will you give over the
management of the factory to me to-morrow? I will take it over, if
it's only for something to do; I am tired of this empty life."
Had old Adler had tears to shed, he would have cried for joy, but he
had to be satisfied with pressing his son's hand repeatedly. He had
surpassed all his expectations. What a piece of luck that Ferdinand
should wish to take over the management of the factory! In a few years
their fortune would be doubled, and then they would go out into the
world and look for a wider horizon for the young eagle.
The mill-owner slept badly that night. The next morning Ferdinand
really went to the mill, and made the round of all the departments.
The workmen looked at him with curiosity, and vied with one another in
giving him information and carrying out his orders. The jolly,
friendly young man, who was quite the opposite to his stern father,
made a favourable impression on them. But all the same, at ten o'clock
one of the foremen came to the office to complain that the young
gentleman was flirting with his wife and behaving improperly with the
workwomen.
"Nonsense!" said Adler.
In an hour's time the foreman of the spinning department came running
in with a frightened face.
"Pan Adler," he shouted, "Pan Ferdinand has heard that the hands have
had their wages reduced, and he is urging them to leave. He is
repeating this in all the workrooms, and is telling the hands all
sorts of strange things."
"Has the fellow gone out of his mind?" burst out the mill-owner.
He sent for his son immediately, and ran to meet him. They met in
front of the warehouse, Ferdinand with a lighted cigar in his mouth.
"What! you are smoking in the factory? Throw that down at once!" and
the old man took it away from him and stamped on it angrily.
"What do you mean? Am I not allowed to smoke a cigar? I--I?"
"Nobody is allowed to smoke inside the factory," bawled Adler. "You
will set the place on fire. You are stirring up my workpeople. Get out
of this!"
The encounter had many witnesses, and Ferdinand was offended.
"Oh, if you are going to treat me like this, I have done with you.
Upon my honour, I won't set foot in your factory again. I have had
enough of these pleasant home scenes."
He stamped on his cigar and went into the house without even looking
at his father, who was panting hard with mingled feelings of anger and
shame.
When they met again at lunch, old Adler said:
"Well, you need not trouble me with your help. I will give you a
monthly allowance of three hundred roubles, a carriage, horses and
servants, and you can do what you like, provided you promise me to
keep away from the mill."
Ferdinand leaned his elbows on the table, and said:
"My dear father, let us talk like reasonable people. I cannot waste my
life in this house. I have mentioned to you before that I am
threatened with an illness called 'spleen,' and that the doctors have
forbidden me to be bored. As our life here is very monotonous, I feel
already that I am beginning to fail. I do not want to grieve you, but
if I am condemned to death----"
His father was frightened.
"But I am going to give you three hundred roubles a month," he
shouted.
Ferdinand made a contemptuous gesture.
"Well, say four hundred, then."
The son shook his head sadly.
"Six hundred--but the devil take you!" screamed Adler, banging the
table with his fist. "I cannot give more; the mill economies cannot be
strained any further. You will make me bankrupt."
"Well, well, I will try and live on six hundred a month," replied his
son. "Oh, I wish my illness would----"
The wretch knew that it was not worth while going to Warsaw with such
an income, but that here in the country he could be the king of the
local _jeunesse dorée_, and for the present he was satisfied with his
part. He was really a very reasonable young man for his age....
From that day onwards Ferdinand began to live very fast again, though
on a smaller scale than before. He paid visits to all the landowners
in the neighbourhood. The more respectable among them did not receive
him at all, or received him and did not return his call; for old Adler
did not enjoy a good reputation, and his son was known as a
ne'er-do-well. Nevertheless he succeeded in scraping up an
acquaintance with several younger and elderly gentlemen of his own
type, whom he met frequently in the little country town, or
entertained ostentatiously at his father's house, where the cuisine
and cellars greatly attracted them.
The old manufacturer would slip away during these festivities. Though
the titles and perfect manners of some of Ferdinand's friends
flattered his pride, yet on the whole he did not like these men, and
would often say to his old book-keeper:
"If these gentlemen would pool their debts, we could build three
factories the size of ours with the amount."
"A respectable set," whispered the obsequious book-keeper.
"Fools!" said Adler.
"That's what I mean," smiled the book-keeper submissively from under
his shade.
Ferdinand spent whole nights playing cards and drinking. He had many
love adventures, and acquired a bad reputation. Meanwhile the factory
hands were ground down by more and more "economies." Fines were
imposed for coming late, for talking, for damages which were often
purely imaginary. Those who were unable to do arithmetic had their
wages simply reduced. They all cursed their employer and his son, for
they saw the debauchery that was going on, and knew that they
themselves were paying for it.