SCENE I.

SO RUNS THE WORLD

BY HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

AUTHOR OF "QUO VADIS," ETC.

Translated by S.C. de SOISSONS

Contents

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

ZOLA

WHOSE FAULT?

THE VERDICT

WIN OR LOSE

PART FIRST

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ.

I once read a short story, in which a Slav author had all the lilies

and bells in a forest bending toward each other, whispering and

resounding softly the words: "Glory! Glory! Glory!" until the whole

forest and then the whole world repeated the song of flowers.

Such is to-day the fate of the author of the powerful historical

trilogy: "With Fire and Sword," "The Deluge" and "Pan Michael,"

preceded by short stories, "Lillian Morris," "Yanko the Musician,"

"After Bread," "Hania," "Let Us Follow Him," followed by two problem

novels, "Without Dogma," and "Children of the Soil," and crowned by a

masterpiece of an incomparable artistic beauty, "Quo Vadis." Eleven

good books adopted from the Polish language and set into circulation

are of great importance for the English-reading people--just now I am

emphasizing only this--because these books are written in the most

beautiful language ever written by any Polish author! Eleven books of

masterly, personal, and simple prose! Eleven good books given to

the circulation and received not only with admiration but with

gratitude--books where there are more or less good or sincere pages,

but where there is not one on which original humor, nobleness, charm,

some comforting thoughts, some elevated sentiments do not shine. Some

other author would perhaps have stopped after producing "Quo Vadis,"

without any doubt the best of Sienkiewicz's books. But Sienkiewicz

looks into the future and cares more about works which he is going to

write, than about those which we have already in our libraries, and he

renews his talents, searching, perhaps unknowingly, for new themes and

tendencies.

When one knows how to read a book, then from its pages the author's

face looks out on him, a face not material, but just the same full of

life. Sienkiewicz's face, looking on us from his books, is not always

the same; it changes, and in his last book ("Quo Vadis") it is quite

different, almost new.

There are some people who throw down a book after having read it, as

one leaves a bottle after having drank the wine from it. There are

others who read books with a pencil in their hands, and they mark

the most striking passages. Afterward, in the hours of rest, in the

moments when one needs a stimulant from within and one searches for

harmony, sympathy of a thing apparently so dead and strange as a book

is, they come back to the marked passages, to their own thoughts,

more comprehensible since an author expressed them; to their own

sentiments, stronger and more natural since they found them in

somebody else's words. Because ofttimes it seems to us--the common

readers--that there is no difference between our interior world and

the horizon of great authors, and we flatter ourselves by believing

that we are 'only less daring, less brave than are thinkers and poets,

that some interior lack of courage stopped us from having formulated

our impressions. And in this sentiment there is a great deal of truth.

But while this expression of our thoughts seems to us to be a daring,

to the others it is a need; they even do not suspect how much they are

daring and new. They must, according to the words of a poet, "Spin

out the love, as the silkworm spins its web." That is their capital

distinction from common mortals; we recognize them by it at once; and

that is the reason we put them above the common level. On the pages

of their books we find not the traces of the accidental, deeper

penetrating into the life or more refined feelings, but the whole

harvest of thoughts, impressions, dispositions, written skilfully,

because studied deeply. We also leave something on these pages. Some

people dry flowers on them, the others preserve reminiscences. In

every one of Sienkiewicz's volumes people will deposit a great many

personal impressions, part of their souls; in every one they will find

them again after many years.

There are three periods in Sienkiewicz's literary life. In the

first he wrote short stories, which are masterpieces of grace and

ingenuity--at least some of them. In those stories the reader will

meet frequent thoughts about general problems, deep observations of

life--and notwithstanding his idealism, very truthful about spiritual

moods, expressed with an easy and sincere hand. Speaking about

Sienkiewicz's works, no matter how small it may be, one has always the

feeling that one speaks about a known, living in general memory work.

Almost every one of his stories is like a stone thrown in the midst

of a flock of sparrows gathering in the winter time around barns: one

throw arouses at once a flock of winged reminiscences.

The other characteristics of his stories are uncommonness of his

conceptions, masterly compositions, ofttimes artificial. It happens

also that a story has no plot ("From the Diary of a Tutor in Pozman,"

"Bartek the Victor"), no action, almost no matter ("Yamyol"), but the

reader is rewarded by simplicity, rural theme, humoristic pictures

("Comedy of Errors: A Sketch of American Life"), pity for the little

and poor ("Yanko the Musician"), and those qualities make the reader

remember his stories well. It is almost impossible to forget--under

the general impressions--about his striking and standing-out figures

("The Lighthouse Keeper of Aspinwall"), about the individual

impression they leave on our minds. Apparently they are commonplace,

every-day people, but the author's talent puts on them an original

individuality, a particular stamp, which makes one remember them

forever and afterward apply them to the individuals which one meets

in life. No matter how insignificant socially is the figure chosen by

Sienkiewicz for his story, the great talent of the author magnifies

its striking features, not seen by common people, and makes of it a

masterpiece of literary art.

Although we have a popular saying: _Comparaison n'est pas raison_,

one cannot refrain from stating here that this love for the poor, the

little, and the oppressed, brought out so powerfully in Sienkiewicz's

short stories, constitutes a link between him and François Coppée, who

is so great a friend of the friendless and the oppressed, those who,

without noise, bear the heaviest chains, the pariahs of our happy and

smiling society. The only difference between the short stories of

these two writers is this, that notwithstanding all the mastercraft of

Coppée's work, one forgets the impressions produced by the reading

of his work--while it is almost impossible to forget "The Lighthouse

Keeper" looking on any lighthouse, or "Yanko the Musician" listening

to a poor wandering boy playing on the street, or "Bartek the Victor"

seeing soldiers of which military discipline have made machines rather

than thinking beings, or "The Diary of a Tutor" contemplating the pale

face of children overloaded with studies. Another difference between

those two writers--the comparison is always between their short

stories--is this, that while Sienkiewicz's figures and characters are

universal, international--if one can use this adjective here--and can

be applied to the students of any country, to the soldiers of any

nation, to any wandering musician and to the light-keeper on any sea,

the figures of François Coppée are mostly Parisian and could be hardly

displaced from their Parisian surroundings and conditions.

Sometimes the whole short story is written for the sake of that which

the French call _pointe_. When one has finished the reading of "Zeus's

Sentence," for a moment the charming description of the evening and

Athenian night is lost. And what a beautiful description it is! If

the art of reading were cultivated in America as it is in France

and Germany, I would not be surprised if some American Legouvé or

Strakosch were to add to his répertoire such productions of prose as

this humorously poetic "Zeus's Sentence," or that mystic madrigal, "Be

Blessed."

"But the dusk did not last long," writes Sienkiewicz. "Soon from the

Archipelago appeared the pale Selene and began to sail like a silvery

boat in the heavenly space. And the walls of the Acropolis lighted

again, but they beamed now with a pale green light, and looked more

than ever like the vision of a dream."

But all these, and other equally charming pictures, disappear for a

moment from the memory of the reader. There remains only the final

joke--only Zeus's sentence. "A virtuous woman--especially when she

loves another man--can resist Apollo. But surely and always a stupid

woman will resist him."

Only when one thinks of the story does one see that the ending--that

"immoral conclusion" I should say if I were not able to understand the

joke--does not constitute the essence of the story. Only then we find

a delight in the description of the city for which the wagons cater

the divine barley, and the water is carried by the girls, "with

amphorae poised on their shoulders and lifted hands, going home, light

and graceful, like immortal nymphs."

And then follow such paragraphs as the following, which determine the

real value of the work:

"The voice of the God of Poetry sounded so beautiful that it performed

a miracle. Behold! In the Ambrosian night the gold spear standing on

the Acropolis of Athens trembled, and the marble head of the gigantic

statue turned toward the Acropolis in order to hear better.... Heaven

and earth listened to it; the sea stopped roaring and lay peacefully

near the shores; even pale Selene stopped her night wandering in the

sky and stood motionless over Athens."

"And when Apollo had finished, a light wind arose and carried the song

through the whole of Greece, and wherever a child in the cradle heard

only a tone of it, that child grew into a poet."

What poet? Famed by what song? Will he not perhaps be a lyric poet?

The same happens with "Lux in Tenebris." One reads again and again

the description of the fall of the mist and the splashing of the rain

dropping in the gutter, "the cawing of the crows, migrating to the

city for their winter quarters, and, with flapping of wings, roosting

in the trees." One feels that the whole misery of the first ten pages

was necessary in order to form a background for the two pages of

heavenly light, to bring out the brightness of that light. "Those who

have lost their best beloved," writes Sienkiewicz, "must hang

their lives on something; otherwise they could not exist." In such

sentences--and it is not the prettiest, but the shortest that I have

quoted--resounds, however, the quieting wisdom, the noble love of

that art which poor Kamionka "respected deeply and was always sincere

toward." During the long years of his profession he never cheated nor

wronged it, neither for the sake of fame nor money, nor for praise nor

for criticism. He always wrote as he felt. Were I not like Ruth of

the Bible, doomed to pick the ears of corn instead of being myself a

sower--if God had not made me critic and worshipper but artist and

creator--I could not wish for another necrology than those words of

Sienkiewicz regarding the statuary Kamionka.

Quite another thing is the story "At the Source." None of the stories

except "Let Us Follow Him" possess for me so many transcendent

beauties, although we are right to be angry with the author for having

wished, during the reading of several pages, to make us believe an

impossible thing--that he was deceiving us. It is true that he has

done it in a masterly manner--it is true that he could not have done

otherwise, but at the same time there is a fault in the conception,

and although Sienkiewicz has covered the precipice with flowers,

nevertheless the precipice exists.

On the other hand, it is true that one reading the novel will forget

the trick of the author and will see in it only the picture of an

immense happiness and a hymn in the worship of love. Perhaps the poor

student is right when he says: "Among all the sources of happiness,

that from which I drank during the fever is the clearest and best." "A

life which love has not visited, even in a dream, is still worse."

Love and faith in woman and art are two constantly recurring themes

in "Lux in Tenebris," "At the Source," "Be Blessed," and "Organist of

Ponikila."

When Sienkiewicz wrote "Let Us Follow Him," some critics cried angrily

that he lessens his talent and moral worth of the literature; they

regretted that he turned people into the false road of mysticism, long

since left. Having found Christ on his pages, the least religious

people have recollected how gigantic he is in the writings of Heine,

walking over land and sea, carrying a red, burning sun instead of a

heart. They all understood that to introduce Christ not only worthily

or beautifully, but simply and in such a manner that we would not be

obliged to turn away from the picture, would be a great art--almost a

triumph.

In later times we have made many such attempts. "The Mysticism" became

to-day an article of commerce. The religious tenderness and simplicity

was spread among Parisian newspaper men, playwrights and novelists.

Such as Armand Sylvèstre, such as Theodore de Wyzewa, are playing at

writing up Christian dogmas and legends. And a strange thing! While

the painters try to bring the Christ nearer to the crowd, while

Fritz von Uhde or Lhermitte put the Christ in a country school, in a

workingman's house, the weakling writers, imitating poets, dress Him

in old, faded, traditional clothes and surround Him with a theatrical

light which they dare to call "mysticism." They are crowding the

porticos of the temple, but they are merely merchants. Anatole France

alone cannot be placed in the same crowd.

In "Let Us Follow Him" the situation and characters are known, and

are already to be found in literature. But never were they painted so

simply, so modestly, without romantic complaints and exclamations. In

the first chapters of that story there appears an epic writer with

whom we have for a long time been familiar. We are accustomed to

that uncommon simplicity. But in order to appreciate the narrative

regarding Antea, one must listen attentively to this slow prose and

then one will notice the rhythmic sentences following one after the

other. Then one feels that the author is building a great foundation

for the action. Sometimes there occurs a brief, sharp sentence ending

in a strong, short word, and the result is that Sienkiewicz has given

us a masterpiece which justifies the enthusiasm of a critic, who

called him a Prince of Polish Prose.

In the second period of his literary activity, Sienkiewicz has

produced his remarkable historical trilogy, "The Deluge," "With Fire

and Sword," and "Pan Michael," in which his talent shines forth

powerfully, and which possess absolutely distinctive characters from

his short stories. The admirers of romanticism cannot find any better

books in historical fiction. Some critic has said righteously about

Sienkiewicz, speaking of his "Deluge," that he is "the first of Polish

novelists, past or present, and second to none now living in England,

France, or Germany."

Sienkiewicz being himself a nobleman, therefore naturally in his

historical novels he describes the glorious deeds of the Polish

nobility, who, being located on the frontier of such barbarous nations

as Turks, Kozaks, Tartars, and Wolochs (to-day Roumania), had defended

Europe for centuries from the invasions of barbarism and gave the time

to Germany, France, and England to outstrip Poland in the development

of material welfare and general civilization among the masses--the

nobility being always very refined--though in the fifteenth century

the literature of Poland and her sister Bohemia (Chechy) was richer

than any other European country, except Italy. One should at least

always remember that Nicolaus Kopernicus (Kopernik) was a Pole and

John Huss was a Chech.

Historical novels began in England, or rather in Scotland, by the

genius of Walter Scott, followed in France by Alexandre Dumas _père_.

These two great writers had numerous followers and imitators in all

countries, and every nation can point out some more or less successful

writer in that field, but who never attained the great success of

Sienkiewicz, whose works are translated into many languages, even

into Russian, where the antipathy for the Polish superior degree of

civilization is still very eager.

The superiority of Sienkiewicz's talent is then affirmed by this fact

of translation, and I would dare say that he is superior to the father

of this kind of novels, on account of his historical coloring, so much

emphasized in Walter Scott. This important quality in the historical

novel is truer and more lively in the Polish writer, and then he

possesses that psychological depth about which Walter Scott never

dreamed. Walter Scott never has created such an original and typical

figure as Zagloba is, who is a worthy rival to Shakespeare's Falstaff.

As for the description of duelings, fights, battles, Sienkiewicz's

fantastically heroic pen is without rival.

Alexandre Dumas, notwithstanding the biting criticism of Brunetière,

will always remain a great favorite with the reading masses, who are

searching in his books for pleasure, amusement, and distraction.

Sienkiewicz's historical novels possess all the interesting qualities

of Dumas, and besides that they are full of wholesome food for

thinking minds. His colors are more shining, his brush is broader,

his composition more artful, chiselled, finished, better built, and

executed with more vigor. While Dumas amuses, pleases, distracts,

Sienkiewicz astonishes, surprises, bewitches. All uneasy

preoccupations, the dolorous echoes of eternal problems, which

philosophical doubt imposes with the everlasting anguish of the

human mind, the mystery of the origin, the enigma of destiny, the

inexplicable necessity of suffering, the short, tragical, and sublime

vision of the future of the soul, and the future not less difficult to

be guessed of by the human race in this material world, the torments

of human conscience and responsibility for the deeds, is said by

Sienkiewicz without any pedanticism, without any dryness.

If we say that the great Hungarian author Maurice Jokay, who also

writes historical novels, pales when compared with that fascinating

Pole who leaves far behind him the late lions in the field of

romanticism, Stanley J. Weyman and Anthony Hope, we are through with

that part of Sienkiewicz's literary achievements.

In the third period Sienkiewicz is represented by two problem novels,

"Without Dogma" and "Children of the Soil."

The charm of Sienkiewicz's psychological novels is the synthesis so

seldom realized and as I have already said, the plastic beauty and

abstract thoughts. He possesses also an admirable assurance of

psychological analysis, a mastery in the painting of customs and

characters, and the rarest and most precious faculty of animating

his heroes with intense, personal life, which, though it is only an

illusionary life, appears less deceitful than the real life.

In that field of novels Sienkiewicz differs greatly from Balzac, for

instance, who forced himself to paint the man in his perversity or in

his stupidity. According to his views life is the racing after riches.

The whole of Balzac's philosophy can be resumed in the deification of

the force. All his heroes are "strong men" who disdain humanity and

take advantage of it. Sienkiewicz's psychological novels are not

lacking in the ideal in his conception of life; they are active

powers, forming human souls. The reader finds there, in a

well-balanced proportion, good and bad ideas of life, and he

represents this life as a good thing, worthy of living.

He differs also from Paul Bourget, who as a German savant counts how

many microbes are in a drop of spoiled blood, who is pleased with any

ferment, who does not care for healthy souls, as a doctor does not

care for healthy people--and who is fond of corruption. Sienkiewicz's

analysis of life is not exclusively pathological, and we find in his

novels healthy as well as sick people as in the real life. He takes

colors from twilight and aurora to paint with, and by doing so he

strengthens our energy, he stimulates our ability for thinking about

those eternal problems, difficult to be decided, but which existed and

will exist as long as humanity will exist.

He prefers green fields, the perfume of flowers, health, virtue, to

Zola's liking for crime, sickness, cadaverous putridness, and manure.

He prefers _l'âme humaine_ to _la bête humaine_.

He is never vulgar even when his heroes do not wear any gloves, and he

has these common points with Shakespeare and Molière, that he does not

paint only certain types of humanity, taken from one certain part of

the country, as it is with the majority of French writers who do not

go out of their dear Paris; in Sienkiewicz's novels one can find every

kind of people, beginning with humble peasants and modest noblemen

created by God, and ending with proud lords made by the kings.

In the novel "Without Dogma," there are many keen and sharp

observations, said masterly and briefly; there are many states of the

soul, if not always very deep, at least written with art. And his

merit in that respect is greater than of any other writers, if we

take in consideration that in Poland heroic lyricism and poetical

picturesqueness prevail in the literature.

The one who wishes to find in the modern literature some aphorism

to classify the characteristics of the people, in order to be able

afterward to apply them to their fellow-men, must read "Children of

the Soil."

But the one who is less selfish and wicked, and wishes to collect for

his own use such a library as to be able at any moment to take a book

from a shelf and find in it something which would make him thoughtful

or would make him forget the ordinary life,--he must get "Quo Vadis,"

because there he will find pages which will recomfort him by their

beauty and dignity; it will enable him to go out from his surroundings

and enter into himself, _i.e_., in that better man whom we sometimes

feel in our interior. And while reading this book he ought to leave

on its pages the traces of his readings, some marks made with a lead

pencil or with his whole memory.

It seems that in that book a new man was aroused in Sienkiewicz, and

any praise said about this unrivaled masterpiece will be as pale as

any powerful lamp is pale comparatively with the glory of the sun.

For instance, if I say that Sienkiewicz has made a thorough study of

Nero's epoch, and that his great talent and his plastic imagination

created the most powerful pictures in the historical background, will

it not be a very tame praise, compared with his book--which, while

reading it, one shivers and the blood freezes in one's veins?

In "Quo Vadis" the whole _alta Roma_, beginning with slaves carrying

mosaics for their refined masters, and ending with patricians, who

were so fond of beautiful things that one of them for instance used to

kiss at every moment a superb vase, stands before our eyes as if it

was reconstructed by a magical power from ruins and death.

There is no better description of the burning of Rome in any

literature. While reading it everything turns red in one's eyes, and

immense noises fill one's ears. And the moment when Christ appears

on the hill to the frightened Peter, who is going to leave Rome, not

feeling strong enough to fight with mighty Caesar, will remain one of

the strongest passages of the literature of the whole world.

After having read again and again this great--shall I say the greatest

historical novel?--and having wondered at its deep conception,

masterly execution, beautiful language, powerful painting of the

epoch, plastic description of customs and habits, enthusiasm of

the first followers of Christ, refinement of Roman civilization,

corruption of the old world, the question rises: What is the

dominating idea of the author, spread out all over the whole book? It

is the cry of Christians murdered in circuses: _Pro Christo_!

Sienkiewicz searching always and continually for a tranquil harbor

from the storms of conscience and investigation of the tormented mind,

finds such a harbor in the religious sentiments, in lively Christian

faith. This idea is woven as golden thread in a silk brocade, not only

in "Quo Vadis," but also in all his novels. In "Fire and Sword" his

principal hero is an outlaw; but all his crimes, not only against

society, but also against nature, are redeemed by faith, and as a

consequence of it afterward by good deeds. In the "Children of the

Soul," he takes one of his principal characters upon one of seven

Roman hills, and having displayed before him in the most eloquent way

the might of the old Rome, the might as it never existed before and

perhaps never will exist again, he says: "And from all that nothing

is left only crosses! crosses! crosses!" It seems to us that in "Quo

Vadis" Sienkiewicz strained all his forces to reproduce from one side

all the power, all riches, all refinement, all corruption of the

Roman civilization in order to get a better contrast with the great

advantages of the cry of the living faith: _Pro Christo!_ In that

cry the asphyxiated not only in old times but in our days also find

refreshment; the tormented by doubt, peace. From that cry flows hope,

and naturally people prefer those from whom the blessing comes to

those who curse and doom them.

Sienkiewicz considers the Christian faith as the principal and even

the only help which humanity needs to bear cheerfully the burden and

struggle of every-day life. Equally his personal experience as well as

his studies made him worship Christ. He is not one of those who say

that religion is good for the people at large. He does not admit such

a shade of contempt in a question touching so near the human heart.

He knows that every one is a man in the presence of sorrow and the

conundrum of fate, contradiction of justice, tearing of death, and

uneasiness of hope. He believes that the only way to cross the

precipice is the flight with the wings of faith, the precipice made

between the submission to general and absolute laws and the confidence

in the infinite goodness of the Father.

The time passes and carries with it people and doctrines and systems.

Many authors left as the heritage to civilization rows of books, and

in those books scepticism, indifference, doubt, lack of precision and

decision.

But the last symptoms in the literature show us that the Stoicism

is not sufficient for our generation, not satisfied with Marcus

Aurelius's gospel, which was not sufficient even to that brilliant

Sienkiewicz's Roman _arbiter elegantiarum_, the over-refined patrician

Petronius. A nation which desired to live, and does not wish either to

perish in the desert or be drowned in the mud, needs such a great help

which only religion gives. The history is not only _magister vitae_,

but also it is the master of conscience.

Literature has in Sienkiewicz a great poet--epical as well as lyrical.

I shall not mourn, although I appreciate the justified complaint about

objectivity in _belles lettres._ But now there is no question what

poetry will be; there is the question whether it will be, and I

believe that society, being tired with Zola's realism and its

caricature, not with the picturesqueness of Loti, but with catalogues

of painter's colors; not with the depth of Ibsen, but the oddness of

his imitators--it seems to me that society will hate the poetry which

discusses and philosophizes, wishes to paint but does not feel, makes

archeology but does not give impressions, and that people will turn to

the poetry as it was in the beginning, what is in its deepest essence,

to the flight of single words, to the interior melody, to the

song--the art of sounds being the greatest art. I believe that if in

the future the poetry will find listeners, they will repeat to the

poets the words of Paul Verlaine, whom by too summary judgment they

count among incomprehensible originals:

"_De la musique encore et toujours_."

And nobody need be afraid, from a social point of view, for

Sienkiewicz's objectivity. It is a manly lyricism as well as epic,

made deep by the knowledge of the life, sustained by thinking, until

now perhaps unconscious of itself, the poetry of a writer who walked

many roads, studied many things, knew much bitterness, ridiculed many

triflings, and then he perceived that a man like himself has only one

aim: above human affairs "to spin the love, as the silkworm spins its

web."

S.C. DE SOISSONS.

"THE UNIVERSITY," CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

PART SECOND

SO RUNS THE WORLD

ZOLA.

I have a great respect for every accomplished work. Every time I put

on the end of any of my works _finis_, I feel satisfied; not because

the work is done, not on account of future success, but on account of

an accomplished deed.

Every book is a deed--bad or good, but at any rate accomplished--and a

series of them, written with a special aim, is an accomplished purpose

of life; it is a feast during which the workers have the right to

receive a wreath, and to sing: "We bring the crop, the crop!"

Evidently the merit depends on the result of the work. The profession

of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream. A

farmer, bringing the crop to his barn, has this absolute surety, that

he brings wheat, rye, barley, or oats which will be useful to the

people. An author, writing even with the best of faith, may have

moments of doubt, whether instead of bread he did not give poison,

whether his work is not a great mistake or a great misdeed, whether it

has brought profit to humanity, or whether, were it not better for the

people and himself, had he not written anything, nothing accomplished.

Such doubts are foes to human peace, but at the same time they are a

filter, which does not pass any dirt. It is bad when there are too

many of them, it is bad when too few; in the first case the ability

for deeds disappears, in the second, the conscience. Hence the

eternal, as humanity, need of exterior regulator.

But the French writers always had more originality and independence

than others, and that regulator, which elsewhere was religion, long

since ceased to exist for them. There were some exceptions, however.

Balzac used to affirm that his aim was to serve religion and monarchy.

But even the works of those who confessed such principles were not in

harmony with themselves. One can say that it pleased the authors to

understand their activity in that way, but the reading masses could

understand it and often understood it as a negation of religious and

ethical principles.

In the last epoch, however, such misunderstanding became impossible,

because the authors began to write, either in the name of their

personal convictions, directly opposite to social principles and ties,

or with objective analysis, which, in its action of life, marks the

good and the evil as manifestations equally necessary and equally

justified. France--and through France the rest of Europe--was

overflowed with a deluge of books, written with such lightheartedness,

so absolute and with such daring, not counting on any responsibility

toward people, that even those who received them without any scruples

began to be overcome with astonishment. It seemed that every author

forced himself to go further than they expected him to. In that way

they succeeded in being called daring thinkers and original artists.

The boldness in touching certain subjects, and the way of interpreting

them, seemed to be the best quality of the writer. To that was joined

bad faith, or unconscious deceiving of himself and others. Analysis!

They analyzed in the name of truth, which apparently must and has the

right to be said, everything, but especially the evil, dirt, human

corruption. They did not notice that this pseudo-analysis ceases to be

an objective analysis, and becomes a sickish liking for rotten things

coming from two causes: in the first place from the corruption of the

taste, then from greater facility of producing striking effects.

They utilized the philological faculty of the senses, on the strength

of which repulsive impressions appear to us stronger and more real

than agreeable, and they abused that property beyond measure.

There was created a certain kind of travelling in putridness, because

the subjects being exhausted very quickly, there was a necessity to

find something new which could attract. The truth itself, in the name

of which it was done, was put in a corner in the presence of such

exigencies. Are you familiar with Zola's "La Terre"? This novel is to

represent a picture of a French village. Try and think of a French

village, or of any other village. How does it look altogether? It is

a gathering of houses, trees, fields, pastures, wild flowers, people,

herds, light, sky, singing, small country business, and work. In all

that, without any doubt, the manure plays an important part, but there

is something more behind it and besides it. But Zola's village looks

as if it was composed exclusively of manure and crime. Therefore

the picture is false, the truth twisted, because in nature the true

relation of things is different. If any one would like to take the

trouble of making a list of the women represented in French novels,

he would persuade himself that at least ninety-five per cent. of

them were fallen women. But in society it is not, and cannot be, so.

Probably even in the countries where they worshipped Astarte, there

were less bad women. Notwithstanding this, the authors try to persuade

us that they are giving a true picture of society, and that their

analysis of customs is an objective one. The lie, exaggeration, liking

for rotten things--such is the exact picture in contemporary novels.

I do not know what profit there is in literature like that, but I

do know that the devil has not lost anything, because through this

channel flows a river of mud and poison, and the moral sense became so

dulled that finally they tolerated such books which a few decades

ago would have brought the author to court. To-day we do not wish to

believe that the author of "Madame Bovary" had two criminal suits. Had

this book been written twenty years later, they would have found it

too modest.

But the human spirit, which does not slumber, and the organism that

wishes to live, does not suffer excess of poison. Finally there came a

moment for hiccoughs of disgust. Some voices began to rise asking for

other spiritual bread; an instinctive sentiment awakes and cries that

it cannot continue any longer in this way, that one must arise, shake

off the mud, clean, change! The people ask for a fresh breeze. The

masses cannot say what they want, but they know what they do not want;

they know they are breathing bad air, and that they are suffocating.

An uneasiness takes hold of their minds. Even in France they are

seeking and crying for something different; they began to protest

against the actual state of affairs. Many writers felt that

uneasiness. They had some moments of doubt, about which I have spoken

already, and those doubts were stronger on account of the uncertainty

of the new roads. Look at the last books of Bourget, Rod, Barrès,

Desjardin, the poetry of Rimbaud, Verlaine, Heredia, Mallarmé, and

even Maeterlinck and his school. What do you find there? The searching

for new essence and new form, feverish seeking for some issue,

uncertainty where to go and where to look for help--in religion or

mysticism, in duty outside of faith, or in patriotism or in humanity?

Above all, however, one sees in them an immense uneasiness. They do

not find any issue, because for it one needs two things: a great idea

and a great talent, and they did not have either of them. Hence the

uneasiness increases, and the same authors who arouse against rough

pessimism of naturalistic direction fell into pessimism themselves,

and by this the principal importance and aim of a reform became

weaker. What remains then? The bizarre form. And in this bizarre form,

whether it is called symbolism or impressionism, they go in deeper and

become more entangled, losing artistic equilibrium, common sense, and

serenity of the soul. Often they fall into the former corruption as

far as the essence is concerned, and almost always into dissonance

with one's self, because they have an honest sentiment that they must

give to the world something new, and they know not what.

Such are the present times! Among those searching in darkness,

wandering and weary ones, one remained quiet, sure of himself and his

doctrine, immovable and almost serious in his pessimism. It was Emile

Zola. A great talent, slow but powerful and a potent force, surprising

objectivism if the question is about a sentiment, because it is equal

to almost complete indifference, such an exceptional gift of seeing

the entire soul of humanity and things that it approaches this

naturalistic writer to mystics--all that gives him a very great and

unusual originality.

The physical figure does not always reproduce the spiritual

individuality. In Zola, this relation comes out very strikingly. A

square face, low forehead covered with wrinkles, rough features, high

shoulders and short neck, give to his person a rough appearance.

Looking at his face and those wrinkles around the eyes, you can guess

that he is a man who can stand much, that he is persevering and

stubborn, not only in his projects but in the realization of them; but

what is mere important, he is so in his thinking also. There is no

keenness in him. At the first glance of the eye one can see that he

is a doctrinarian shut up in himself, who does not embrace large

horizons--sees everything at a certain angle, narrow-mindedly yet

seeing distinctly.

His mind, like a dark lantern, throws a narrow light in only one

direction, and he goes in that direction with immovable surety.

In that way the history of a series of his books called "Les

Rougon-Macquart" becomes clear.

Zola was determined to write the history of a certain family at the

time of the Empire, on the ground of conditions produced by it, in

consideration of the law of heredity.

There was a question even about something more than this

consideration, because this heredity had to become the physiological

foundation of the work. There is a certain contradiction in the

premises. Speaking historically Rougon-Macquart had to be a picture

of French society during its last times. According to their moral

manifestations of life, therefore, they ought to be of themselves more

or less a normal family. But in such a case what shall one do with

heredity? To be sure, moral families are such on the strength of

the law of heredity--but it is impossible to show it in such

conditions--one can do it only in exceptional cases of the normal

type. Therefore the Rougon are in fact a sick family. They are

children of nervousness. It was contracted by the first mother of the

family, and since that time the coming generations, one after another,

followed with the same stigma on their foreheads. This is the way the

author wishes to have it, and one must agree with him. In what way,

however, can a history of one family exceptionally attainted with a

mental disorder be at the same time a picture of French society, the

author does not explain to us. Had he said that during the Empire

all society was sick, it would be a trick. A society can walk in the

perilous road of politics or customs and be sick as a community, and

at the same time have healthy individuals and families. These are two

different things. Therefore one of the two: either the Rougon are

sick, and in that case the cycle of novels about them is not a picture

of French society during the Empire--it is only a psychological

study--or the whole physiological foundations, all this heredity

on which the cycle is based, in a word Zola's whole doctrine, is

nonsense.

I do not know whether any one has paid attention to Zola at this _aut

aut_! It is sure that he never thought of it himself. Probably it

would not have had any influence, as the criticisms had no influence

on his theory of heredity. Critics and physiologists attacked him

ofttimes with an arsenal of irrefutable arguments. It did not do any

good. They affirmed in vain that the theory of heredity is not proved

by any science, and above all it is difficult to grasp it and show it

by facts; they pointed in vain that physiology cannot be fantastical

and its laws cannot depend on the free conception of an author.

Zola listened, continued to write, and in the last volume he gave

a genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart, with such a

serenity as if no one ever doubted his theory.

At any rate, this tree has one advantage. It is so pretentious, so

ridiculous that it takes away from the theory the seriousness which it

would have given to less individual minds. We learn from it that from

a nervously sick great-grandmother grows a sick family. But the one

who would think that her nervousness is seen in descendants as it is

in the physical field, in a certain similar way, in some inclination

or passion for something, will be greatly mistaken. On the contrary,

the marvellous tree produces different kinds of fruit. You can find

on it red apples, pears, plums, cherries, and everything you might

desire. And all that on account of great-grandmother's nervousness. Is

it the same way in nature? We do not know. Zola himself does not have

any other proofs than clippings from newspapers, describing different

crimes; he preserved these clippings carefully as "human documents,"

and which he uses according to his fancy.

It can be granted to him, but he must not sell us such fancy for

the eternal and immutable laws of nature. Grandmother did have

nervousness, her nearest friends were in the habit of searching for

remedies against ills not in a drug-store, therefore her male and

female descendants are such as they must be--namely, criminals,

thieves, fast women, honest people, saints, politicians, good mothers,

bankers, farmers, murderers, priests, soldiers, ministers--in a word,

everything which in the sphere of the mind, in the sphere of health,

in the sphere of wealth and position, in the sphere of profession, can

be and are men as well as women in the whole world. One is stupefied

voluntarily. What then? And all that on account of grandmother's

nervousness? "Yes!" answers the author. But if Adelaïde Fouqué had not

had it, her descendants would be good or bad just the same and have

the same occupations men and women usually have in this world.

"Certainly!" Zola answers; "but Adelaïde Fouqué had nervousness." And

further discussion is impossible, because one has to do with a man who

his own voluntary fancy takes for a law of nature and his brain cannot

be opened with a key furnished by logic. He built a genealogical tree;

this tree could have been different--but if it was different, he would

sustain that it can be only such as it is--and he would prefer to be

killed rather than be convinced that his theory was worthless.

At any rate, it is such a theory that it is not worth while to

quarrel about it. A long time ago it was said that Zola had one good

thing--his talent; and one bad--his doctrine. If as a consequence of

an inherited nervousness one can become a rascal as well as a good

man, a Sister of Charity as well as Nana, a farmer boy as well as

Achilles--in that case there is an heredity which does not exist. A

man can be that which he wishes to be. The field for good will and

responsibility is open, and all those moral foundations on which human

life is based come out of the fire safely. We could say to the author

that there is too much ado about nothing, and finish with him as one

finishes with a doctrinarian and count only his talent. But he cares

for something else. No matter if his doctrine is empty, he makes from

it other deductions. The entire cycle of his books speaks precisely.

"No matter what you are, saint or criminal, you are such on the

strength of the law of heredity, you are such as you must be, and in

that case you have neither merit nor are you guilty." Here is the

question of responsibility! But we are not going to discuss it. The

philosophy has not yet found the proof of the existence of man, and

when _cogito ergo sum_ of Cartesius was not sufficient for it, the

question is still open. Even if all centuries of philosophy affirm it

or not, the man is intrinsically persuaded that he exists, and no less

persuaded that he is responsible for his whole life, which, without

any regard to his theories, is based on such persuasion. And then even

the science did not decide the question of the whole responsibility.

Against authorities one can quote other authorities, against opinions

one can bring other opinions, against deductions other deductions.

But for Zola such opinion is decided. There is only one grandmother

Adelaïde, or grandfather Jacques, on whom everything depends. From

that point begins, according to my opinion, the bad influence of the

writer, because he not only decides difficult questions to be decided

once and forever, but he popularizes them and facilitates the

corruption of society. No matter if every thief or every murderer can

appeal to a grandmother with nervousness. Courts, notwithstanding the

cycle of Rougon-Macquart, will place them behind bars. The evil is not

in single cases, but in this, that into the human soul a bad pessimism

and depression flows, that the charm of life is destroyed, the hope,

the energy, the liking for life, and therefore all effort in the

direction of good is shattered.

_A quoi bon?_ Such is the question coming by itself. A book is also an

activity, forming human souls. If at least the reader would find

in Zola's book the bad and good side of human life in an equal

proportion, or at least in such as one can find it in reality! Vain

hope! One must climb high in order to get colors from a rainbow or

sunset--but everybody has saliva in his mouth and it is easy to paint

with it. This naturalist prefers cheap effects more than others do; he

prefers mildew to perfumes, _la bête humaine_ to _l'âme humaine!_

If we could bring an inhabitant of Venus or Mars to the earth and ask

him to judge of life on the earth from Zola's novels, he would say

most assuredly: "This life is sometimes quite pure, like 'Le Rève,'

but in general it is a thing which smells bad, is slippery, moist,

dreadful." And even if the theories on which Zola has based his works

were, as they are not, acknowledged truths, what a lack of pity to

represent life in such a way to the people, who must live just the

same! Does he do it in order to ruin, to disgust, to poison every

action, to paralyze every energy, to discourage all thinking? In the

presence of that, we are even sorry that he has a talent. It would

have been better for him, for France, that he had not had it. And one

wonders that he is not frightened, that when a fear seizes even those

who did not lead to corruption, he alone with such a tranquillity

finishes his Rougon-Macquart as if he had strengthened the capacity

for life of the French people instead of having destroyed it. How is

it possible that he cannot understand that people brought up on such

corrupted bread and drinking, such bad water, not only will be unable

to resist the storm, but even they will not have an inclination to do

so! Musset has written in his time this famous verse: "We had already

your German Rhine." Zola brings up his society in such a way that, if

everything that he planted would take root, the second of Musset's

verses would be: "But to-day we will give you even the Seine." But

it is not as bad as that. "La Débâcle" is a remarkable book,

notwithstanding all its faults, but the soldiers, who will read it,

will be defeated by those who in the night sing: "Glory, Glory,

Halleluia!"

I consider Zola's talent as a national misfortune, and I am glad that

his times are passing away, that even the most zealous pupils abandon

the master who stands alone more and more.

Will humanity remember him in literature? Will his fame pass? We

cannot affirm, but we can doubt! In the cycle of Rougon-Macquart there

are powerful volumes, as "Germinal" or "La Débâcle." But in general,

that which Zola's natural talent made for his immortality was spoiled

by a liking for dirty realism and his filthy language. Literature

cannot use such expressions of which even peasants are ashamed. The

real truth, if the question is about vicious people, can be attained

by other means, by probable reproduction of the state of their souls,

thoughts, deeds, finally by the run of their conversation, but not by

verbal quotation of their swearings and most horrid words. As in the

choice of pictures, so in the choice of expression, exist certain

measures, pointed at by reason and good taste. Zola overstepped it

to such a degree ("La Terre") to which nobody yet dared to approach.

Monsters are killed because they are monsters. A book which is the

cause of disgust must be abandoned. It is the natural order of

things. From old production as of universal literature survive the

forgetfulness of the rough productions, destined to excite laughter

(Aristophanes, Rabelais, etc.), or lascivious things, but written

with an elegance (Boccaccio). Not one book written in order to excite

nausea outlived. Zola, for the sake of the renown caused by his works,

for the sake of the scandal produced by every one of his volumes,

killed his future. On account of that happened a strange thing: it

happened that he, a man writing according to a conceived plan, writing

with deliberation, cold and possessing his subjects as very few

writers are, created good things only when he had the least

opportunity to realize his plans, doctrines, means,--in a word, when

he dominated the subject the least and was dominated by the subject

most.

Such was the case in "Germinal" and "La Débâcle." The immensity of

socialism and the immensity of the war simply crushed Zola with all

his mental apparatus. His doctrines became very small in the presence

of such dimensions, and hardly any one hears of them in the noise of

the deluge, overflowing the mine and in the thundering of Prussian

cannons; only talent remained. Therefore in both those books there are

pages worthy of Dante. Quite a different thing happened with "Docteur

Pascal." Being the last volume of the cycle, it was bound to be the

last deduction, from the whole work the synthesis of the doctrine, the

belfry of the whole building. Consequently in this volume Zola speaks

more about doctrine than in any other previous volume; as the doctrine

is bad, wicked, and false, therefore "Docteur Pascal" is the worst and

most tedious book of all the cycle of Rougon-Macquart. It is a series

of empty leaves on which tediousness is hand in hand with lack of

moral sense, it is a pale picture full of falsehood--such is "Le

Docteur Pascal." Zola wishes to have him an honest man. He is the

outcast of the family Rougon-Macquart. In heredity there happens such

lucky degenerations; the doctor knows about it, he considers himself

as a happy exception, and it is for him a source of continuous inward

pleasure. In the mean while, he loves people, serves them and sells

them his medicine, which cures all possible disease. He is a sweet

sage, who studies life, therefore he gathers "human documents," builds

laboriously the genealogical tree of the family of Rougon-Macquart,

whose descendant he is himself, and on the strength of his

observations he comes to the same conclusion as Zola. To which? It is

difficult to answer the question; but here it is more or less: if any

one is not well, usually he is sick and that heredity exists, but

mothers and fathers who come from other families can bring into the

blood of children new elements; in that way heredity can be modified

to such a degree that strictly speaking it does not exist.

To all that Doctor Pascal is a positivist. He does not wish to affirm

anything, but he does affirm that actual state of science does not

permit of any further deductions than those which on the strength of

the observation of known facts can be deducted, therefore one must

hold them, and neglect the others. In that respect his prejudices do

not tell us anything more than newspaper articles, written by young

positivists. For the people, who are rushing forward, for those

spiritual needs, as strong as thirst and hunger, by which the man felt

such ideas as God, faith, immortality, the doctor has only a smile of

commiseration. And one might wonder at him a little bit. One could

understand him better if he did not acknowledge the possibility of the

disentangling of different abstract questions, but he affirms that the

necessity does not exist--by which he sins against evidence, because

such a necessity exists, not further than under his own roof, in the

person of his niece. This young person, brought up in his principles,

at once loses the ground under her feet. In her soul arose more

questions than the doctor was able to answer. And from this moment

began a drama for both of them.

"I cannot be satisfied with that," cries the niece, "I am choking; I

must know something, and if your science cannot satisfy my necessity,

I am going there where they will not only tranquillize me, not only

explain everything to me, but also will make me happy--I am going to

church."

And she went. The roads of master and pupil diverge more and more.

The pupil comes to the conclusion that the science which is only a

slipknot on the human neck is positively bad and that it would be a

great merit before God to burn those old papers in which the doctor

writes his observations. And the drama becomes stronger, because

notwithstanding the doctor being sixty years old, and Clotilde is only

twenty years old, these two people are in love, not only as relations

are in love, but as a man and woman love each other. This love adds

more bitterness to the fight and prompts the catastrophe.

On a certain night the doctor detected the niece in a criminal deed.

She opened his desk, took out his papers, and she was ready to

burn them up! They began to fight! Beautiful picture! Both are in

nightgowns--they pull each other's hair, they scratch each other. He

is stronger than she; although he has bitten her, she feels a certain

pleasure in that experiment on her maiden skin of the strength of a

man. In that is the whole of Zola. But let us listen, because the

decisive moment approaches. The doctor himself, after having rested a

while, announces it solemnly. The reader shivers. Will the doctor by

the strength of his genius tear the sky and show to her emptiness

beyond the stars? Or will he by the strength of his eloquence ruin her

church, her creed, her ecstasies, her hopes?

In the quietness the doctor's low voice is heard:

"I did not wish to show you that, but it cannot last any longer--the

time has come. Give me the genealogical tree of Rougon-Macquart."

Yes! The genealogical tree of Rougon-Macquart! The reading of it

begins: There was one Adelaïde Fouqué, who married Rougon-Macquart's

friend. Rougon had Eugene Rougon, also Pascal Rougon, also Aristides,

also Sidonie, also Martha. Aristides had Maxyme, Clotilde, Victor, and

Maxyme had Charles, and so on to the end; but Sidonie had a daughter

Angelle, and Martha, who married Mouret, who was from Macquart's

family, had three children, etc.

The night passes, pales, but the reading continues. After Rougons come

Macquarts, then the generations of both families. One name follows

another. They appear bad, good, indifferent, all classes, from

ministers, bankers, great merchants, to simple soldiers or rascals

without any professions--finally the doctor stops reading--and looking

with his eyes of savant at his niece, asks: "Well, what now?"

And beautiful Clotilde throws herself into his arms, crying:

"_Vicisti! Vicisti!_"

And her God, her church, her flight toward ideals, her spiritual needs

disappeared, turned into ashes.

Why? On the ground of what final conclusion? For what good reason?

What could there be in the tree that convinced her? How could it

produce any other impression than that of tediousness? Why did she

not ask the question, which surely must have come to the lips of the

reader: "And what then?"--it is unknown! I never noticed that any

other author could deduct from such a trifling and insignificant

cause such great and immediate consequences. It is as much of an

astonishment as if Zola should order Clotilde's faith and principles

to be turned into ashes after the doctor has read to her an almanac,

time-table, bill of fare, or catalogue of some museum. The

freedom surpasses here all possible limits and becomes absolutely

incomprehensible. The reader asks whether the author deceives himself

or if he wishes to throw some dust into the eyes of the public? And

this climax of the novel is at the same time the downfall of all

doctrine. Clotilde ought to have answered as follows:

"Your theory has no connection with my faith in God and the Church.

Your heredity is so _loose_ and on the strength of it one can be

so much, _everything_, that it becomes _nothing_--therefore the

consequences which you deduct from it also are based upon nothing.

Nana, according to you, is a street-walker, and Angelle is a saint;

the priest Mouret is an ascetic, Jacques Lantier a murderer, and all

that on account of great-grandmother Adelaïde! But I tell you with

more real probability, that the good are good because they have my

faith, because they believe in responsibility and immortality of the

soul, and the bad are bad because they do not believe in anything. How

can you prove that the cause of good and bad is in great-grandmother

Adelaïde Fouqué? Perhaps you will tell me that it is so because it

is so; but I can tell you that the faith and responsibility were for

centuries a stopper for evil, and you cannot deny it, if you wish to

be a positivist, because those are material facts. In a word, I have

objective proofs where you have your personal views, and if it is so,

then leave my faith and throw your fancy into the fire."

But Clotilde does not answer anything like this. On the contrary, she

eats at once the apple from this tree--passes soul and body into the

doctor's camp, and she does it because Zola wishes to have it that

way. There is no other reason for it and cannot be.

Had she done that on account of love for the doctor, had this reason,

which in a woman can play such an important part, acted on her,

everything would be easy to understand. But there is no such thing!

In that case what would become of all of Zola's doctrine? It acts

exclusively upon Clotilde, the author wishes to have only such a

reason. And it happens as he wishes, but at the cost of logic and

common sense. Since that time everything would be permitted: one will

be allowed to persuade the reader that the man who is not loved makes

a woman fall in love with him by means of showing her a price list

of butter or candies. To such results a great and true talent is

conducted by a doctrine.

This doctrine conducts also to perfect atrophy of moral sense. This

heredity is a wall in which one can make as many windows as one

pleases. The doctor is such a window. He considers himself as being

degenerated from the nervousness of the family; it means that he is

a normal man, and as such he would transmit his health to his

descendants. Clotilde thinks also that it would be quite a good idea,

and as they are in love, consequently they take possession of each

other, and they do it as did people in the epoch of caverns. Zola

considered it a perfectly natural thing, Doctor Pascal thinks the

same, and as Clotilde passed into his camp, she did not make any

opposition. This appears a little strange. Clotilde was religious only

a little while ago! Her youth and lack of experience do not justify

her either. Even at eight years, girls have some sentiment of modesty.

At twenty years a young girl always knows what she is doing, and she

cannot be called a sacrifice, and if she departs from the sentiment of

modesty she does it either by love, which makes noble the raptures,

or because she does it by the act of duty, but at the same time

she wishes to be herself a legitimated duty. Even if a woman is an

irreligious being and she refuses to be blessed by religion, she can

desire that her sentiment were legitimated. The priest or _monsieur le

maire_? Clotilde, who loves Doctor Pascal, does not ask for anything.

Marriage, accomplished by a _maire_, seems to her to be a secondary

thing. Here also one cannot understand her, because a true love would

wish to make the knot lasting. That which really happens is quite

different, in the novel, that first separation is the end of the

relation between them. Were they married at least by a _maire_, they

would have remained even in the separation husband and wife, they

would not cease to belong to each other; but as they were not married,

therefore at the moment of her departure he became unmarried, as

formerly, Doctor Pascal, she--seduced Clotilde. Even during their life

in common there happened a thousand disagreeable incidents for both of

them. One time, for instance, Clotilde rushes crying and red, and when

the frightened doctor asks her what is the matter, she answers:

"Ah, those women! Walking in the shade, I closed my parasol and I hurt

a child. In that moment all of the women fell on me and began to shout

such things! Ah, it was so dreadful! that I shall never have any

children, that such things are not for such a dishcloth as I! and many

other things which I cannot repeat; I do not wish to repeat them; I do

not even understand them."

Her breast was moved by sobbings; he became pale, and seizing her by

the shoulders, commenced to cover her face with kisses, saying:

"It's my fault, you suffer through me! Listen, we will go very far

from here, where no one knows us, where everybody will greet you and

you shall be happy."

Only one thing does not come to their minds: to be married. When

Pascal's mother speaks to him about it, they do not listen to it. It

is not dictated to her by woman's modesty, to him by the care for her

and the desire to shelter her from insults. Why? Because Zola likes it

that way.

But perhaps he cares to show what tragical results are produced

by illegitimate marriages? Not at all. He shares the doctor's and

Clotilde's opinion. Were they married, there would be no drama, and

the author wishes to have it. That is the reason.

Then comes the doctor's insolvency. One must separate. This separation

becomes the misfortune of their lives: the doctor will die of it. Both

feel that it will not be the end, they do not wish it--and they do not

think of any means which would forever affirm their mutual dependence

and change the departure for only a momentary separation, but not for

eternal farewells: and they do not marry.

They did not have any religion, therefore they did not wish for any

priest; it is logical, but why did they not wish for a _maire_? The

question remains without an answer.

Here, besides lack of moral sense, there is something more, the lack

of common sense. The novel is not only immoral, but at the same time

it is a bad shanty, built of rotten pieces of wood, not holding

together, unable to suffer any contact with logic and common sense. In

such mud of nonsense even the talent was drowned.

One thing remains: the poison flows as usual in the soul of the

reader, the mind became familiar with the evil and ceased to despise

it. The poison licks, spoils the simplicity of the soul, moral

impressions and that sense of conscience which distinguishes the bad

from the good.

The doctor dies from languishing after Clotilde. She comes back under

the old roof and takes care of the child. Nothing of that which the

doctor sowed in her soul had perished. On the contrary, everything

grows very well. She loved the life, she also loves it now, she is

resigned to it entirely; not through resignation but because she

acknowledges it--and the more she thinks of it, rocking in her lap

the child without a name, she acknowledges more. Such is the end of

Rougon-Macquarts.

But such an end is a new surprise. Here we have before us nineteen

volumes, and in those volumes, as Zola himself says, _tant de boue,

tant de larmes. C'était à se demander si d'un coup de foudre, il

n'aurait pas mieux valu balayer cette fourmilière gatée et miserable_.

And it is true! Any one who will read those volumes comes to the

conclusion that life is a blindly mechanical and exasperating process,

in which one must take part because one cannot avoid it. There is more

mud in it than green grass, more corruption than wholesomeness, more

odor of corpses than perfume of flowers, more illness, more madness,

and more crime than health and virtue. It is a Gehenna not only

dreadful but also abominable. The hair rises on the head, and in the

mean while the mouth is wet and the question comes, will it not be

better that a thunderbolt destroyed _cette fourmilière gatée et

miserable_?

There cannot be any other conclusion, because any other would be a

madman's mental aberration, the breaking of the rules of sense and

logic. And now do you know how the cycle of these novels really ended?

By a hymn in the worship of life.

Here one's hands drop! It will be useless work to show again that the

author comes to a conclusion which is illogical with his whole work.

God bless him! But he must not be astonished if he is abandoned by his

pupils. The people must think according to rules of logic. And as in

the mean while they must live, consequently they wish to get some

consolation in this life. Masters of Zola's kind gave them only

corruption, chaos, disgust for life, and despair. Their rationalism

cannot prove anything else, and if it did, it would be with too much

zeal, it would overstep the limits. To-day the suffocated need some

pure air, the doubting ones some hope, tormented by uneasiness, some

quietude, therefore they are doing well when they turn therefrom where

the hope and peace flow, there where they bless them and where they

say to them as to Lazarus: _Tolle grabatum tuum et ambula_.

By this one can explain to-day's evolutions, whose waves flow to all

parts of the world.

According to my opinion, poetry as well as novels must pass through

it--even more: they must quicken it and make it more powerful. One

cannot continue any longer that way! On an exhausted field, only

weeds grow. The novel must strengthen the life, not shake it; make

it nobler, not soil it; carry good "news," and not bad. It does not

matter whether this which I say here please any one or not, because I

believe that I feel the great and urgent need of the human soul, which

cries for a change.

PART THIRD

WHOSE FAULT?

_A Dramatic Picture in One Act_.

CHARACTERS:

Jadwiga Karlowiecka.

Leon--A Painter.

A Servant.

In the House of Jadwiga Karlowiecka.

SCENE I.

Servant.--The lady will be here in a minute.

Leon (alone).--I cannot overcome my emotion nor can I tranquillize the

throbbing of my heart. Three times have I touched the bell and three

times have I wished to retreat. I am troubled. Why does she wish to

see me! (Takes out a letter). "Be so kind as to come to see me on a

very important matter. In spite of all that has happened I hope

you will not refuse to grant the request of--a woman. Jadwiga

Karlowiecka." Perhaps it would have been better and more honest to

have left this letter without an answer. But I see that I have cheated

myself in thinking that nothing will happen, and that it would be

brutal of me not to come. The soul--poor moth--flies toward the light

which may burn, but can neither warm nor light it. What has attracted

me here? Is it love? Can I answer the question as to whether I still

love this woman--so unlike my pure sweetheart of former years--this

half lioness, whose reputation has been torn to shreds by human

tongues? No! It is rather some painful curiosity which has attracted

me here. It is the unmeasurable grief which in two years I have been

unable to appease, that desire for a full explanation: "Why?" has been

repeated over and over during my sleepless nights. And then let her

see this emaciated face--let her look from nearby on that broken life.

I could not resist. Such vengeance is my right. I shall be proud

enough to set my teeth to stifle all groans. What is done cannot be

undone, and I swear to myself that it shall never be done again.

SCENE II.

Jadwiga (entering).--You must excuse me for keeping you waiting.

Leon.--It is my fault. I came too early, although I tried to be exact.

Jadwiga.--No, I must be frank and tell you how it happened. In former

times we were such dear friends, and then we have not seen each other

for two years. I asked you to come, but I was not sure that you

would grant my request, therefore--when the bell rang--after two

years--(smiling) I needed a few moments to overcome the emotion. I

thought it was necessary for both of us.

Leon.--I am calm, madam, and I listen to you.

Jadwiga.--I wished also that we should greet each other like people

who have forgotten about the past, who know that it will not return,

and to be at once on the footing of good friends; I do not dare say

like brother and sisters. Therefore, Sir, here is my hand, and now be

seated and tell me if you accept my proposition.

Leon.--I leave that to you.

Jadwiga.--If that is so, then I must tell you that such an agreement,

based on mutual well-wishing, excludes excessive solemnity. We must be

natural, sincere, and frank.

Leon.--Frankly speaking, it will be a little difficult, still.

Jadwiga.--It would be difficult if there were no condition: "Not a

word about the past!" If we both keep to this, a good understanding

will return of itself and in time we may become good friends. What

have you been doing during the past two years?

Leon.--I have been pushing the wheelbarrow of life, as all mortals

do. Every Monday I have thought that in a week there would be another

Monday. I assure you that there is some distraction in seeing the

days spin out like a thread from a ball, and how everything that has

happened goes away and gradually disappears, like a migratory bird.

Jadwiga.--Such distraction is good for those to whom another bird

comes with a song of the future. But otherwise--

Leon.--Otherwise it is perhaps better to think that when all threads

will be spun out from the ball, there will remain nothing. Sometimes

the reminiscences are very painful. Happily time dulls their edge, or

they would prick like thorns.

Jadwiga.--Or would burn like fire.

Leon.--All-wise Nature gives us some remedy for it. A fire which is

not replenished must die, and the ashes do not burn.

Jadwiga.--We are unwillingly chasing a bird which has flown away.

Enough of it! Have you painted much lately?

Leon.--I do nothing else. I think and I paint. It is true that until

now my thoughts have produced nothing, and I have painted a very

little. But it was not my fault. Better be good enough to tell me what

has caused you to call me here.

Jadwiga.--It will come by itself. In the first place, I should be

justified in so doing by a desire to see a great man. You are now an

artist whose fame is world-wide.

Leon--I would appear to be guilty of conceit, but I honestly think

that I was not the last pawn on the chessboard in the drawing-room,

and that is perhaps the reason why I have been thinking during the

past two years and could not understand why I was thrown aside like a

common pawn.

Jadwiga.--And where is our agreement?

Leon.--It is a story told in a subjective way by a third person.

According to the second clause in our agreement--"sincerity"--I must

add that I am already accustomed to my wheelbarrow.

Jadwiga.--We must not speak about it.

Leon.--I warn you--it will be difficult.

Jadwiga.--It should be more easy for you. You, the elect of art and

the pride of the whole nation, and in the mean while its spoiled

child--you can live with your whole soul in the present and in the

future. From the flowers strewn under one's feet, one can always chose

the most beautiful, or not choose at all, but always tread upon them.

Leon.--If one does not stumble.

Jadwiga.--No! To advance toward immortality.

Leon.--Longing for death while on the road.

Jadwiga.--It is an excess of pessimism for a man who says that he is

accustomed to his wheelbarrow.

Leon.--I wish only to show the other side of the medal. And then you

must remember, madam, that to-day pessimism is the mode. You must not

take my words too seriously. In a drawing-room one strings the words

of a conversation like beads on a thread--it is only play.

Jadwiga.--Let us play then (after a while). Ah! How many changes! I

cannot comprehend. If two years ago some one had told me that to-day

we would sit far apart from each other, and chat as we do, and look at

each other with watchful curiosity, like two people perfectly strange

to each other, I could not have believed. Truly, it is utterly

amusing!

Leon.--It would not be proper for me to remind you of our agreement.

Jadwiga.--But nevertheless you do remind me. Thank you. My nerves are

guilty for this melancholy turn of the conversation. But I feel it is

not becoming to me. But pray be assured that I shall not again enter

that thorny path, if for no other reason than that of self-love. I,

too, amuse myself as best I can, and I return to my reminiscences only

when wearied. For several days I have been greatly wearied.

Leon.--Is that the reason why you asked me to come here? I am afraid

that I will not be an abundant source of distraction. My disposition

is not very gay, and I am too proud, too honest, and--too costly to

become a plaything. Permit me to leave you.

Jadwiga.--You must forgive me. I did not mean to offend you. Without

going back to the past, I can tell you that pride is your greatest

fault, and if it were not for that pride, many sad things would not

have happened.

Leon.--Without going back to the past, I must answer you that it is

the only sail which remained on my boat. The others are torn by the

wind of life. If it were not for this last sail, I should have sunk

long ago.

Jadwiga.--And I think that it was a rock on which has been wrecked

not only your boat--but no matter! So much the worse for those who

believed in fair weather and a smooth sea. We must at least prevent

ourselves from now being carried where we do not wish to sail.

Leon.--And where the sandy banks are sure--

Jadwiga.--What strange conversation! It seems to me that it is a net,

in which the truth lies at the bottom, struggling in vain to break the

meshes. But perhaps it is better so.

Leon.--Much better. Madam, you have written me that you wished to see

me on an important matter. I am listening.

Jadwiga.--Yes (smiling). It is permitted a society woman to have her

fancies and desires--sometimes inexplicable fancies, and it is not

permitted a gentleman to refuse them. Well, then, I wished to see my

portrait, painted by the great painter Leon. Would you be willing to

paint it?

Leon.--Madam--

Jadwiga.--Ah! the lion's forehead frowns, as if my wish were an

insult.

Leon.--I think that the fancies of a society woman are indeed

inexplicable, and do not look like jokes at all.

Jadwiga.--This question has two sides! The first is the formal side

and it shows itself thus: Mme. Jadwiga Karlowiecka most earnestly asks

the great painter Leon to make her portrait. That is all! The painter

Leon, who, it is known, paints lots of portraits, has no good reason

for refusing. The painter cannot refuse to make a portrait any more

than a physician can refuse his assistance. There remains the other

side--the past. But we agreed that it is a forbidden subject.

Leon.--Permit me, madam--

Jadwiga (interrupting).--Pray, not a word about the past. (She

laughs.) Ah, my woman's diplomacy knows how to tie a knot and draw

tight the ends of it. How your embarrassment pleases me. But there is

something quite different. Let us suppose that I am a vain person,

full of womanly self-love; full of petty jealousy and envy. Well, you

have painted the portrait of Mme. Zofia and of Helena. I wish to have

mine also. One does not refuse the women such things. Reports of your

fame come to me from all sides. I hear all around me the words: "Our

great painter--our master!" Society lionizes you. God knows how many

breasts sigh for you. Every one can have your works, every one can

approach you, see you, be proud of you. I alone, your playmate, your

old friend, I alone am as though excommunicated.

Leon.--But Mme. Jadwiga--

Jadwiga.--Ah, you have called me by my name. I thank you and beg your

pardon. It is the self-love of a woman, nothing more. It is my nerves.

Do not be frightened. You see how dangerous it is to irritate me.

After one of my moods I am unbearable. I will give you three days to

think the matter over. If you do not wish to come, write me then (she

laughs sadly). Only I warn you, that if you will neither come nor

write me, I will tell every one that you are afraid of me, and so

I will satisfy my self-love. In the mean time, for the sake of my

nerves, you must not tell, me that you refuse my request. I am a

little bit ill--consequently capricious.

Leon.--In three days you shall have my answer (rising), and now I will

say good-bye.

Jadwiga.--Wait a moment. This is not so easy as you think. Truly, I

would think you are afraid of me. It is true that they say I am a

coquette, a flirt. I know they talk very badly about me. Besides we

are good acquaintances, who have not seen each other for two years.

Let us then talk a little. Let me take your hat. Yes, that is it!

Now let us talk. I am sure we may become friends again. As for me at

least--what do you intend to do in the future besides painting my

portrait?

Leon.--The conversation about me would not last long. Let us

take another more interesting subject. You had better talk about

yourself--about your life, your family.

Jadwiga.--As for my husband, he is, as usual, in Chantilly. My mother

is dead! Poor mama! She was so fond of you--she loved you very much

(after a pause). In fact, as you see, I have grown old and changed

greatly.

Leon.--At your age the words "I have grown old" are only a daring

challenge thrown by a woman who is not afraid that she would be

believed.

Jadwiga.--I am twenty-three years old, so I am not talking about age

in years, but age in morals. I feel that to-day I am not like that

Jadwiga of Kalinowice whom you used to know so well. Good gracious!

when I think to-day of that confidence and faith in life--those

girlish illusions--the illusions of a young person who wished to be

happy and make others happy, that enthusiasm for everything good and

noble! where has all that gone--where has it disappeared? And to think

that I was--well, an honest wild-flower--and to-day--

Leon.--And to-day a society woman.

Jadwiga.--To-day, when I see such a sceptical smile as I saw a few

moments ago on your lips, it seems to me that I am ridiculous--very

often so--even always when I sit at some ideal embroidery and when

I begin to work at some withered flowers on the forgotten, despised

canvas of the past. It is a curious and old fashion from times when

faithfulness was not looked seriously on, and people sang of Filon.

Leon.--At that moment you were speaking according to the latest mode.

Jadwiga.--Shall I weep, or try to tie the broken thread? Well, the

times change. I can assure you that I have some better moments, during

which I laugh heartily at everything (handing him a cigarette). Do you

smoke?

Leon.--No, madam.

Jadwiga.--I do. It is also a distraction. Sometimes I hunt _par force_

with my husband, I read Zola's novels, I make calls and receive

visits, and every morning I ponder as to the best way to kill time.

Sometimes I succeed--sometimes not. Apropos, you know my husband, do

you not?

Leon.--I used to know him.

Jadwiga.--He is very fond of hunting, but only _par force_. We never

hunt otherwise.

Leon.--Let us be frank. You had better drop that false tone.

Jadwiga.--On the contrary. In our days we need impressions which

stir our nerves. The latest music, like life itself, is full of

dissonances. I do not wish to say that I am unhappy with my husband.

It is true that he is always in Chantilly, and I see him only once in

three months, but it proves, on the other hand, that he has confidence

in me. Is it not true?

Leon.--I do not know, and I do not wish to decide about it. But before

all, I should not know anything about it.

Jadwiga.--It seemed to me that you ought to know. Pray believe that I

would not be as frank with any one else as I am with you. And then, I

do not complain. I try to surround myself with youths who pretend they

are in love with me. There is not a penny-worth of truth in all of

it--they all lie, but the form of the lie is beautiful because they

are all well-bred people. The Count Skorzewski visits me also--you

must have heard of him, I am sure. I recommend him to you as a

model for Adonis. Ha! ha! You do not recognize the wild-flower of

Kalinowice?

Leon.--No, I do not recognize it.

Jadwiga.--No! But the life flower.

Leon.--As a joke--

Jadwiga.--At which one cannot laugh always. If our century was not

sceptical I should think myself wild, romantic, trying to drown

despair. But the romantic times have passed away, therefore, frankly

speaking, I only try to fill up a great nothing. I also spin out my

ball, although not always with pleasure. Sometimes I seem to myself so

miserable and my life so empty that I rush to my prayer-desk, left by

my mother. I weep, I pray--and then I laugh again at my prayers and

tears. And so it goes on--round and round. Do you know that they

gossip about me?

Leon.--I do not listen to the gossip.

Jadwiga.--How good you are! I will tell you then why they gossip. A

missionary asked a negro what, according to his ideas, constituted

evil? The negro thought a while, and then said: "Evil is if some one

were to steal my wife." "And what is good?" asked the missionary.

"Good is when I steal from some one else." My husband's friends are of

the negro's opinion. Every one of them would like to do a good deed

and steal some one's wife.

Leon.--It depends on the wife.

Jadwiga.--Yes, but every word and every look is a bait. If the fish

passes the bait, the fisherman's self-love is wounded. That is why

they slander me (after a while). You great people--you are filled with

simplicity. Then you think it depends on the wife?

Leon.--Yes, it does.

Jadwiga.--_Morbleu!_ as my husband says, and if the wife is weary?

Leon.--I bid you good-bye.

Jadwiga.--Why? Does what I say offend you?

Leon.--It does more than offend me. It hurts me. Maybe it will

seem strange to you, but here in my breast I am carrying some

flowers--although they are withered--dead for a long time. But they

are dear to me and just now you are trampling on them.

Jadwiga (with an outburst).--Oh, if those flowers had not died!

Leon.--They are in my heart--and there is a tomb. Let us leave the

past alone.

Jadwiga.--Yes, you are right. Leave it alone. What is dead cannot

be resuscitated. I wish to speak calmly. Look at my situation. What

defends me--what helps me--what protects me? I am a young woman, and

it seems not ugly, and therefore no one approaches me with an honest,

simple heart, but with a trap in eyes and mouth. What opposition have

I to make? Weariness? Grief? Emptiness? In life even a man must lean

on something, and I, a feeble woman, I am like a boat without a helm,

without oar and without light toward which to sail. And the heart

longs for happiness. You must understand that a woman must be loved

and must love some one in the world, and if she lacks true love she

seizes the first pretext of it--the first shadow.

Leon (with animation).--Poor thing.

Jadwiga.--Do not smile in that ironical way. Be better, be less severe

with me. I do not even have any one to complain, and that is why I do

not drive away Count Skorzewski. I detest his beauty, I despise his

perverse mind, but I do not drive him away because he is a skilful

actor, and because when I see his acting it awakens in me the echo of

former days. (After a while.) How shall I fill my life? Study? Art?

Even if I loved them, they would not love me for they are not

living things. No, truly now! They showed me no duties, no aims, no

foundations. Everything on which other women live--everything which

constitutes their happiness, sincere sorrow, strength, tears, and

smiles, is barred from me. Morally I have nothing to live on--like a

beggar. I have no one to live for--like an orphan. I am not permitted

to yearn for a noble and quiet life; I may only nurture myself with

grief and defend myself with faded, dead flowers, and remembrances

of former pure, honest, and loving Jadwinia. Ah! again I break my

promise, our agreement. I must beg your pardon.

Leon.--Mme. Jadwiga, both our lives are tangled. When I was most

unhappy, when everything abandoned me, there remained with me the love

of an idea--love of the country.

Jadwiga (thoughtfully).--The love of an idea--country. There is

something great in that. You, by each of your pictures, increase the

glory of the country and make famous its name, but I--what can I do?

Leon.--The one who lives simply, suffers and quietly fulfils his

duties--he also serves his country.

Jadwiga.--What duties? Give them to me. For every-day life one great,

ideal love is not enough for me. I am a woman! I must cling to

something--twine about something like the ivy--otherwise truly, sir, I

should fall to the ground and be trampled upon (with an outburst). If

I could only respect him!

Leon.--But, madam, you should remember to whom you are speaking of

such matters. I have no right to know of your family affairs.

Jadwiga.--No. You have not the right, nor are you obliged nor willing.

Only friendly hearts know affliction--only those who suffer can

sympathize. You--looking into the stars--you pass human misery and do

not turn your head even when that misery shouts to you. It is your

fault.

Leon.--My fault!

Jadwiga.--Do not frown, and do not close your mouth (beseechingly). I

do not reproach you for anything. I have forgiven you long ago,

and now I, the giddy woman whom the world always sees merry and

laughing--I am really so miserable that I have even no strength left

for hatred.

Leon.--Madam! Enough! I have listened to your story--do not make me

tell you mine. If you should hear it a still heavier burden would fall

on your shoulders.

Jadwiga.--No, no. We could be happy and we are not. It is the fault

of both. How dreadful to think that we separated on account of almost

nothing--on account of one thoughtless word--and we separated forever

(she covers her face with her hands), without hope.

Leon.--That word was nothing for you, but I remember it still with

brain and heart. I was not then what I am to-day. I was poor, unknown,

and you were my whole future, my aim, my riches.

Jadwiga.--Oh, Mr. Leon, Mr. Leon, what a golden dream it was!

Leon.--But I was proud because I knew that there was in me the divine

spark. I loved you dearly, I trusted you--and nothing disturbed the

security around me. Suddenly one evening Mr. Karlowiecki appeared, and

already the second evening you told me that you gave more than you

received.

Jadwiga.--Mr. Leon!

Leon.--What was your reason for giving that wound to my proud misery?

You could not already have loved that man, but as soon as he appeared

you humiliated me. There are wrongs which a man cannot bear with

dignity--so those words were the last I heard from you.

Jadwiga.--Truly. When I listen to you I must keep a strong hand on

my senses. As soon as the other appeared you gave vent to a jealous

outburst. I said that I gave more than I took, and you thought I spoke

of money and not sentiment? Then you could suspect that I was capable

of throwing my riches in your face--you thought I was capable of that?

That is why he could not forgive! That is why he went away! That is

why he has made his life and mine miserable!

Leon.--It is too late to talk about that. Too late! You knew then

and you know to-day that I could not have understood your words

differently. The other man was of your own world--the world of which

you were so fond that sometimes it seemed to me that you cherished it

more than our love. At times when I so doubted you did not calm me.

You were amused by the thought that you were stretching out to me a

hand of courtly condescension, and I, in an excess of humiliation, I

cast aside that hand. You knew it then, and you know it to-day!

Jadwiga.--I know it to-day, but I did not know then. I swear it by my

mother's memory. But suppose it was even as you say. Why could you not

forgive me? Oh God! truly one might go mad. And there was neither time

nor opportunity to explain. He went away and never returned. What

could I do? When you became angry, when you shut yourself up within

yourself, grief pressed my heart. I am ashamed even to-day to say

this. I looked into your eyes like a dog which wishes to disarm the

anger of his master by humility. In vain! Then I thought, when taking

leave, I will shake hands with him so honestly and cordially that he

will finally understand and will forgive me. While parting my hand

dropped, for you only saluted me from afar. I swallowed my tears and

humiliation. I thought still he will return to-morrow. A day passed,

two days, a week, a month.

Leon.--Then you married.

Jadwiga (passionately).--Yes. Useless tears and time made me think it

was forever--therefore anger grew in my heart--anger and a desire

for vengeance on you and myself. I wished to be lost, for I said to

myself, "That man does not love me, has never loved me." I married

in the same spirit that I should have thrown myself through a

window--from despair--because, as I still believe, you never loved me.

Leon.--Madam, do not blaspheme. Do not provoke me. I never loved you!

Look at the precipice which you have opened before me--count the

sleepless nights during which I tore my breast with grief--count the

days on which I called to you as from a cross--look at this thin face,

at these trembling hands, and repeat once more that I never loved you!

What has become of me? What is life for me without you? To-day my

head is crowned with laurels and here in my breast is emptiness

and exhaustless sorrow, and tears not wept--and in my eyes eternal

darkness. Oh, by the living God, I loved you with every drop of my

blood, with my every thought--and I was not able to love differently.

Having lost you, I lost everything--my star, my strength, faith,

hope, desire for life, and not only happiness, but the capacity for

happiness. Woman, do you understand the dreadful meaning of those

words? I have lost the capacity for happiness. I have not loved you!

Oh, despair! God alone knows for how many nights I have cried to Him:

"Lord, take my talent, take my fame, take my life, but return to me

for only one moment my Jadwiga as she was of old!"

Jadwiga.--Enough! Lord, what is the matter with me? Leon, I love you!

Leon.--Oh, my dearest! (He presses her to his breast. A moment of

silence.)

Jadwiga.--I have found you. I loved you always. Ah! how miserable

I was without you! With love for you I defended myself from all

temptations. You do not know it, but I used to see you. It caused me

grief and joy. I could not live any longer without you, and I asked

you to come--I did it purposely. If you had not come, something

dreadful would have happened. Now we shall never separate. We shall

never be angry--is it not so? (A moment of silence.)

Leon (as though awakening from slumber).--Madam, you must pardon me--I

mistook the present for the past, and permitted myself to be carried

away by an illusion. Pardon me!

Jadwiga.--Leon, what do you mean?

Leon (earnestly).--I forgot for a moment that you are the wife of

another.

Jadwiga.--Oh, you are always honest and loyal. No, there shall be no

guilty love between us. I know you, my great, my noble Leon. The hand

which I stretch out to you is pure--I swear it to you. You must also

forgive me a moment of forgetfulness. Here I stand before you, and

say to you: I will not be yours until I am free. But I know that my

husband will consent to a divorce. I will leave him all my fortune,

and because I formerly offended your pride--it was my fault--yes, my

own fault--you shall take me poor, in this dress only--will it suit

you? Then I will become your lawful wife. Oh, my God! and I shall be

honest, loving, and loved. I have longed for it with my whole soul.

I cannot think of our future without tears. God is so good! When you

return from your studio at night, you will come neither to an empty

room nor to grief. I will share your every joy, your every sorrow--I

will divide with you the last piece of bread. Truly, I cannot speak

for tears. Look, I am not so bad, but I have been so miserable. I

loved you always. Ah, you bad boy, if it were not for your pride we

should have been happy long ago. Tell me once more that you love

me--that you consent to take me when I shall be free--is it not so,

Leon?

Leon.--No, madam!

Jadwiga.--Leon, my dearest, wait! Perhaps I have not heard well. For I

cannot comprehend that when I am hanging over a precipice of despair,

when I seize the edge with my hands, you, instead of helping me--you

place your feet on my fingers! No! it is impossible. You are too good

for that! Do not thrust me away. My life now would be still worse. I

have nothing in the world but you, and with you I lost happiness--not

alone happiness but everything in me which is good--which cries for a

quiet and saintly life. For now it would be forever. But you do not

know how happy you yourself will be when you will have forgiven me

and rescued me. You have loved me, have you not? You have said it

yourself. I have heard it. Now I stretch out my hands to you like a

drowning person--rescue me!

Leon.--We must finish this mutual torture. Madam, I am a weak man. I

would give way if--but I wish to spare you--if not for the fact that

my sore and dead heart cannot give you anything but tears and pity.

Jadwiga.--You do not love me!

Leon.--I have no strength for happiness. I did love you. My heart

throbbed for a moment with a recollection as of a dead person. But the

other one is dead. I tell you this, madam, in tears and torture. I do

not love you.

Jadwiga.--Leon!

Leon.--Have pity on me and forgive me.

Jadwiga.--You do not love me!

Leon.--What is dead cannot be resuscitated. Farewell.

Jadwiga (after a while).--Very well. If you think you have humiliated

me enough, trampled on me, and are sufficiently avenged, leave me then

(to Leon, who wishes to withdraw). No! no! Remain. Have pity on me.

Leon.--May God have pity on us both. (He goes away.)

Jadwiga.--It is done!

A Servant (entering).--Count Skorzewski!

Jadwiga.--Ha! Show him in! Show him in! Ha! ha! ha!

PART FOURTH

THE VERDICT

Apollo and Hermes once met toward evening on the rocks of Pnyx and

were looking on Athens.

The evening was charming; the sun was already rolled from the

Archipelago toward the Ionian Sea and had begun to slowly sink its

radiant head in the water which shone turquoise-like. But the summits

of Hymettus and Pentelicus were yet beaming as if melted gold had been

poured over them, and the evening twilight was in the sky. In its

light the whole Acropolis was drowned. The white walls of Propyleos,

Parthenon, and Erechtheum seemed pink and as light as though the

marble had lost all its weight, or as if they were apparitions of a

dream. The point of the spear of the gigantic Athena Promathos shone

in the twilight like a lighted torch over Attica.

In the space hawks were flying toward their nests in the rocks, to

pass the night.

The people returned in crowds from work in the fields. On the road

to Piraeus, mules and donkeys carried baskets full of olives and

wine-grapes; behind them, in the red cloud of dust, marched herds of

nannygoats, before each herd there was a white-bearded buck; on the

sides, watchdogs; in the rear, shepherds, playing flutes of thin

oat-stems.

Among the herds chariots slowly passed, carrying holly barlet, pulled

by slow, heavy oxen; here and there passed a detachment of Hoplites or

heavy armed troops, corseleted in copper, going to guard Piraeus and

Athens during the night.

Beneath, the city was full of animation. Around the big fountain at

Poikile, young girls in white dresses drew water, singing, laughing,

or defending themselves from the boys, who threw over them fetters

made of ivy and wild vine. The others, having already drawn the water,

with the amphorae poised on their shoulders, were turned homeward,

light and graceful as immortal nymphs.

A light breeze blowing from the Attic valley carried to the ears of

the two gods the sounds of laughter, singing, kissing. Apollo, in

whose eyes nothing under the sun was fairer than a woman, turned to

Hermes and said:

"O Maya's son, how beautiful are the Athenian women!"

"And virtuous too, my Radiant," answered Hermes; "they are under

Pallas' tutelage."

The Silver-arrowed god became silent, and listening looked into space.

In the mean while the twilight was slowly quenched, movement gradually

stopped. Scythian slaves shut the gates, and finally all became quiet.

The Ambrosian night threw on the Acropolis, city, and environs, a dark

veil embroidered with stars.

But the dusk did not last long. Soon from the Archipelago appeared the

pale Selene, and began to sail like a silvery boat in the heavenly

space. And then the walls of the Acropolis lighted again, only they

beamed now with a pale-green light, and looked even more like a vision

in a dream.

"One must agree," said Apollo, "that Athena has chosen for herself a

charming home."

"Oh, she is very clever! Who could choose better?" answered Hermes.

"Then Zeus has a fancy for her. If she wishes for anything she has

only to caress his beard and immediately he calls her Tritogenia, dear

daughter; he promises her everything and permits everything."

"Tritogenia bores me sometimes," grumbled Latona's son.

"Yes, I have noticed that she becomes very tedious," answered Hermes.

"Like an old peripatetic; and then she is virtuous to the ridiculous,

like my sister Artemis."

"Or as her servants, the Athenian women."

The Radiant turned to the Argo-robber Mercury: "It is the second time

you mention, as though purposely, the virtue of the Athenian women.

Are they really so virtuous?"

"Fabulously so, O son of Latona!"

"Is it possible!" said Apollo. "Do you think that there is in town one

woman who could resist me?"

"I do think so."

"Me, Apollo?"

"You, my Radiant."

"I, who should bewitch her with poetry and charm her with song and

music!"

"You, my Radiant."

"If you were an honest god I would be willing to make a wager with

you. But you, Argo-robber, if you should lose, you would disappear

immediately with your sandals and caduceus."

"No, I will put one hand on the earth and another on the sea and swear

by Hades. Such an oath is kept not only by me, but even by the members

of the City Council in Athens."

"Oh, you exaggerate a little. Very well then! If you lose you must

supply me in Trinachija with a herd of long-horned oxen, which you may

steal where you please, as you did when you were only a boy, stealing

my herds in Perea."

"Understood! And what shall I get if I win?"

"You may choose what you please."

"Listen, my Far-aiming archer," said Hermes. "I will be frank with

you, which occurs with me very seldom. Once, being sent on an errand

by Zeus--I don't remember what errand--I was playing just over your

Trinachija, and I perceived Lampecja, who, together with Featusa,

watches your herds there. Since that time I have no peace. The thought

about her is never absent from my mind. I love her and I sigh for her

day and night. If I win, if in Athens there can be found a virtuous

woman, strong enough to resist you, you shall give me Lampecja--I wish

for nothing more."

The Silver-arrowed god began to shake his head.

"It's astonishing that love can nestle in the heart of a

merchants-patron. I am willing to give you Lampecja--the more

so because she is now quarrelling with Featusa. Speaking _intra

parentheses_, both are in love with me--that is why they are

quarrelling."

Great joy lighted up the Argo-robber's eyes.

"Then we lay the bet," said he. "One thing more, I shall choose the

woman for you on whom you are to try your godly strength."

"Provided she is beautiful."

"She will be worthy of you."

"I am sure you know some one already."

"Yes, I do."

"A young girl, married, widow, or divorced?"

"Married, of course. Girl, widow, or divorcée, you could capture by

promise of marriage."

"What is her name?"

"Eryfile. She is a baker's wife."

"A baker's wife!" answered the Radiant, making a grimace, "I don't

like that."

"I can't help it. It's the kind of people I know best. Eryfile's

husband is not at home at present; he went to Megara. His wife is the

prettiest woman who ever walked on Mother-Earth."

"I am very anxious to see her."

"One condition more, my Silver-arrowed, you must promise that you will

use only means worthy of you, and that you will not act as would

act such a ruffian as Ares, for instance, or even, speaking between

ourselves, as acts our common father, the Cloud-gathering Zeus."

"For whom do you take me?" asked Apollo.

"Then all conditions are understood, and I can show you Eryfile."

Both gods were immediately carried through the air from Pnyx, and in

a few moments they were over a house situated not far from Stoa. The

Argo-robber raised the whole roof with his powerful hand as easily as

a woman cooking a dinner raises a cover from a saucepan, and pointing

to a woman sitting in a store, closed from the street by a copper

gate, said:

"Look!"

Apollo looked and was astonished.

Never Attica--never the whole of Greece, produced a lovelier flower

than was this woman. She sat by a table on which was a lighted

lamp, and was writing something on marble tables. Her long drooping

eyelashes threw a shadow on her cheeks, but from time to time she

raised her head and her eyes, as though she were trying to remember

what she had to write, and then one could see her beautiful eyes, so

blue that compared with them the turquoise depths of the Archipelago

would look pale and faded. Her face was white as the sea-foam, pink as

the dawn, with purplish Syrian lips and waves of golden hair. She was

beautiful, the most beautiful being on earth--beautiful as the dawn,

as a flower, as light, as song! This was Eryfile.

When she dropped her eyes she appeared quiet and sweet; when she

lifted them, inspired. The Radiant's divine knees began to tremble;

suddenly he leaned his head on Hermes' shoulder, and whispered:

"Hermes, I love her! This one or none!"

Hermes smiled ironically, and would have rubbed his hands for joy

under cover of his robe if he had not held in his right hand the

caduceus.

In the mean while the golden-haired woman took a new tablet and

began to write on it. Her divine lips were disclosed and her voice

whispered; it was like the sound of Apollo's lyre.

"The member of the Areopagus Melanocles for the bread for two months,

forty drachmas and four obols; let us write in round numbers forty-six

drachmas. By Athena! let us write fifty; my husband will be satisfied!

Ah, that Melanocles! If you were not in a position to bother us about

false weight, I never would give you credit. But we must keep peace

with that locust."

Apollo did not listen to the words. He was intoxicated with the

woman's voice, the charm of her figure, and whispered:

"This one or none!"

The golden-haired woman spoke again, writing further:

"Alcibiades, for cakes on honey from Hymettus for Hetera Chrysalis,

three minae. He never verifies bills, and then he once gave me in Stoa

a slap on the shoulder--we will write four minae. He is stupid; let

him pay for it. And then that Chrysalis! She must feed with cakes her

carp in the pond, or perhaps Alcibiades makes her fat purposely, in

order to sell her afterwards to a Phoenician merchant for an ivory

ring for his harness."

Again Apollo paid no attention to the words--he was enchanted with the

voice alone and whispered to Hermes:

"This one or none!"

But Maya's son suddenly covered the house, the apparition disappeared,

and it seemed to the Radiant Apollo that with it disappeared the

stars, that the moon became black, and the whole world was covered

with the darkness of Chimera.

"When shall we decide the wager?" asked Hermes.

"Immediately. To-day!"

"During her husband's absence she sleeps in the store. You can stand

in the street before the door. If she raises the curtain and opens the

gate, I have lost my wager."

"You have lost it already!" exclaimed the Far-darting Apollo.

The summer lightning does not pass from the East to the West as

quickly as he rushed over the salt waves of the Archipelago. There he

asked Amphitrite for an empty turtle-shell, put around it the rays of

the sun, and returned to Athens with a ready formiga.

In the city everything was already quiet. The lights were out, and

only the houses and temples shone white in the light of the moon,

which had risen high in the sky.

The store was dark, and in it, behind a gate and a curtain, the

beautiful Eryfile was asleep. Apollo the Radiant began to touch the

strings of his lyre. Wishing to awake softly his beloved, he played at

first as gently as swarms of mosquitoes singing on a summer evening

on Illis. But the song became gradually stronger like a brook in the

mountain after a rain; then more powerful, sweeter, more intoxicating,

and it filled the air voluptuously.

The secret Athena's bird flew softly from the Acropolis and sat

motionless on the nearest column.

Suddenly a bare arm, worthy of Phidias or Praxiteles, whiter than

Pantelican marble, drew aside the curtain. The Radiant's heart stopped

beating with emotion. And then Eryfile's voice resounded:

"Ha! You booby, why do you wander about and make a noise during the

night? I have been working all day, and now they won't let me sleep!"

"Eryfile! Eryfile!" exclaimed Silver-arrowed. And he began to sing:

"From lofty peaks of Parnas--where there ring

In all the glory of light's brilliant rays

The grand sweet songs which inspired muses sing

To me, by turns, in rapture and praise--

I, worshiped god--I fly, fly to thee,

Eryfile! And on thy bosom white

I shall rest, and the Eternity will be

A moment to me--the God of Light!"

"By the holy flour for sacrifices," exclaimed the baker's wife,

"that street boy sings and makes love to me. Will you go home, you

impudent!"

The Radiant, wishing to pursuade her that he was not a common mortal,

threw so much light from his person, that all the earth was lighted.

But Eryfile, seeing this, exclaimed:

"That scurrilous fellow has hidden a lantern under his robe, and he

tries to make me believe that he is a god. O daughter of mighty Dios!

they press us with taxes, but there is no Scythian guard to protect us

from such stupid fellows!"

Apollo, who did not wish yet to acknowledge defeat, sang further:

"Ah, open thine arms--rounded, gleaming, white--

To thee eternal glory I will give.

Over goddess of earth, fair and bright,

Thy name above immortal shall live.

I kiss the dainty bloom of thy cheek,

To thy lustrous eyes the love-light I bring,

From the masses of thy silken hair I speak,

To thy beauty, peerless one, I sing.

White pearls are thy ruby lips between--

With might of godly words I thee endow;

An eloquence for which a Grecian queen

Would gladly give the crown from her brow.

Ah! Open, open thine arms!

"The azure from the sea I will take,

Twilight its wealth of purple shall give too;

Twinkling stars shall add the sparks which they make,

And flowers shall yield their perfume and dew.

By fairy touch, light as a caress,

Made from all this material so bright,

My beloved rainbow, in Chipryd's rich dress

Thou shalt be clothed by the God of Light."

And the voice of the God of Light was so beautiful that it performed a

miracle, for, behold! in the ambrosian night the gold spear standing

on the Acropolis of Athens trembled, and the marble head of the

gigantic statue turned toward the Acropolis in order to hear better.

Heaven and Earth listened to it; the sea stopped roaring and lay

peacefully near the shore; even the pale Selene stopped her night

wandering in the sky and stood motionless over Athens.

And when Apollo had finished, a light wind arose and carried the song

throughout the whole of Greece, and wherever a child in the cradle

heard only a tone of it, that child became a poet.

But before Latona's son had finished his divine singing, the angry

Eryfile began to scream:

"What an ass! He tries to bribe me with flowers and dew; do you think

that you are privileged because my husband is not at home? What a pity

that our servants are not at hand; I would give you a good lesson! But

wait; I will teach you to wander during the night with songs!"

So saying she seized a pot of dough, and, throwing it through the

gate, splashed it over the face, neck, robe, and lyre of the Radiant.

Apollo groaned, and, covering his inspired head with a corner of his

wet robe, he departed in shame and wrath.

Hermes, waiting for him, laughed, turned somersaults, and twirled his

caduceus. But when the sorrowful son of Latona approached him, the

foxy patron of merchants simulated compassion and said:

"I am sorry you have lost, O puissant archer!"

"Go away, you rascal!" answered the angry Apollo.

"I shall go when you give me Lampecja."

"May Cerberus bite your calves. I shall not give you Lampecja, and I

tell you to go away, or I will twist your neck."

The Argo-robber knew that he must not joke when Apollo was angry, so

he stood aside cautiously and said:

"If you wish to cheat me, then in the future be Hermes and I will be

Apollo. I know that you are above me in power, and that you can harm

me, but happily there is some one who is stronger than you and he will

judge us. Radiant, I call you to the judgment of Chronid! Come with

me."

Apollo feared the name of Chronid. He did not care to refuse, and they

departed.

In the mean time day began to break. The Attic came out from

the shadows. Pink-fingered dawn had arisen in the sky from the

Archipelago. Zeus passed the night on the summit of Ida, whether

he slept or not, and what he did there no one knew, because,

Fog-carrying, he wrapped himself in such a thick cloud that even Hera

could not see through it. Hermes trembled a little on approaching the

god of gods and of people.

"I am right," he was thinking, "but if Zeus is aroused in a bad humor,

and if, before hearing us, he should take us each by a leg and throw

us some three hundred Athenian stadia, it would be very bad. He has

some consideration for Apollo, but he would treat me without ceremony,

although I am his son too."

But Maya's son feared in vain. Chronid waited joyfully on the earth,

for he had passed a pleasant night, and was gladsomely gazing on the

earthly circle. The Earth, happy beneath the weight of the gods' and

people's father, put forth beneath his feet green grass and young

hyacinths, and he, leaning on it, caressed the curling flowers with

his hand, and was happy in his proud heart.

Seeing this, Maya's son grew quiet, and having saluted the generator,

boldly accused the Radiant.

When he had finished, Zeus was silent a while, and then said:

"Radiant, is it true?"

"It is true, father Chronid," answered Apollo, "but if after the shame

you will order me to pay the bet, I shall descend to Hades and light

the shades."

Zeus became silent and thoughtful.

"Then this woman," said he finally, "remained deaf to your music, to

your songs, and she repudiated you with disdain?"

"She poured on my head a pot of dough, O Thunderer!"

Zeus frowned, and at his frown Ida trembled, pieces of rock began to

roll with a great noise toward the sea, and the trees bent like ears

of wheat.

Both gods awaited with beating hearts his decision.

"Hermes," said Zeus, "you may cheat the people as much as you

like--the people like to be cheated. But leave the gods alone, for if

I become angry I will throw you into the ether, then you will sink so

deep into the depths of the ocean that even my brother Poseidon will

not be able to dig you out with his trident."

Divine fear seized Hermes by his smooth knees; Zeus spoke further,

with stronger voice:

"A virtuous woman, especially if she loves another man, can resist

Apollo. But surely and always a stupid woman will resist him.

"Eryfile is stupid, not virtuous; that's the reason she resisted.

Therefore you cheated the Radiant, and you shall not have Lampecja.

Now go in peace."

The gods departed.

Zeus remained in his joyful glory. For a while he looked after Apollo,

muttering:

"Oh, yes! A stupid woman is able to resist him."

After that, as he had not slept well the previous night, he called

Sleep, who, sitting on a tree in the form of a hawk, was awaiting the

orders of the Father of gods and people.

PART FIFTH

WIN OR LOSE.

_A Drama in Five Acts_.

CHARACTERS:

Prince Starogrodzki.

Stella, his daughter.

George Pretwic, Stella's fiancé.

Karol Count Drahomir, Pretwic's friend.

Countess Miliszewska.

Jan Count Miliszewski.

Anton Zuk, secretary of the county.

Dr. Jozwowicz.

Mrs. Czeska.

Mr. Podczaski.

Servants.

ACT I.

The stage represents a drawing-room with the principal door leading to

the garden. There are also side doors to the other rooms.

SCENE I.

Princess Stella. Mrs. Czeska.

Czeska.--Why do you tell me this only now? Really, my dear Stella, I

should be angry with you. I live only a mile from here; I was your

teacher before you were put into the hands of English and French

governesses. I see you almost every day. I love my darling with all my

soul, and still you did not tell me that for several weeks you have

been engaged. At least do not torture me any longer, but tell me, who

is he?

Stella.--You must guess, my dear mother.

Czeska.--As long as you call me mother, you must not make me wait.

Stella.--But I wish you to guess and tell me. Naturally it is he and

not another. Believe me, it will flatter and please me.

Czeska.--Count Drahomir, then.

Stella.--Ah!

Czeska.--You are blushing. It is true. He has not been here for a long

time, but how sympathetic, how gay he is. Well, my old eyes would be

gladdened by seeing you both together. I should at once think what a

splendid couple. Perhaps there will be something in it.

Stella.--There will be nothing in it, because Count Drahomir, although

very sympathetic, is not my fiancé. I am betrothed to Mr. Pretwic.

Czeska.--Mr. George Pretwic?

Stella.--Yes. Are you surprised?

Czeska.--No, my dear child. May God bless you. Why should I be

surprised? But I am so fond of Count Drahomir, so I thought it was he.

Mr. George Pretwic!--Oh, I am not surprised at all that he should

love you. But it came a little too soon. How long have you known each

other? Living at my Berwinek I do not know anything that goes on in

the neighborhood.

Stella.--Since three months. My fiancé has inherited an estate in this

neighborhood from the Jazlowieckis, and came, as you know, from far

off. He was a near relation of the Jazlowieckis, and he himself comes

of a very good family. Dear madam, have you not heard of the Pretwics?

Czeska.--Nothing at all, my dear Stella. What do I care for heraldry!

Stella.--In former times, centuries ago, the Pretwics were related to

our family. It is a very good family. Otherwise papa would not have

consented. Well then, Mr. Pretwic came here, took possession of the

Jazlowieckis estate, became acquainted with us, and--

Czeska.--And fell in love with you. I should have done the same if I

were in his place. It gives him more value in my eyes.

Stella.--Has he needed it?

Czeska.--No, my little kitten--rest easy. You know I am laughed at for

seeing everything in a rosy hue. He belongs to a good family, he is

young, rich, good-looking, well-bred, but--

Stella.--But what?

Czeska.--A bird must have sung it, because I cannot remember who told

me that he is a little bit like a storm.

Stella.--Yes, his life has been stormy, but he was not broken by it.

Czeska.--So much the better. Listen! Such people are the best--they

are true men. The more I think of it, the more sincerely I

congratulate you.

Stella.--Thank you. I am glad I spoke to you frankly. The fact is that

I am very lonesome here: papa is always ailing and our doctor has been

away for three months.

Czeska.--Let that doctor of yours alone.

Stella.--You never liked him.

Czeska.--You know that I am not easily prejudiced against any one, but

I do not like him.

Stella.--And do you know that he has been offered a professorship

at the university, and that he is anxious to be elected a member of

parliament? Mother, you are really unjust. You know that he sacrificed

himself for us.

He is famous, rich, and a great student, but notwithstanding all that

he remains with us when the whole world is open to him. I would surely

have asked his advice.

Czeska.--Love is not an illness--but no matter about him. May God help

him! You had better tell me, dear kitten--are you very much in love?

Stella.--Do you not see how quickly everything has been done? It is

true that Countess Miliszewska came here with her son. I know it was

a question about me, and I feared, although in vain, that papa might

have the same idea.

Czeska.--You have not answered my question.

Stella.--Because it is a hard matter to speak about. Mother, Mr.

Pretwic's life is full of heroic deeds, sacrifices, and dangers. Once

he was in great peril, and he owes his life to Count Drahomir. But how

dearly he loves him for it. Well, my fiancé bears the marks of distant

deserts, long solitudes, and deep sufferings. But when he begins to

tell me of his life, it seems that I truly love that stalwart man. If

you only knew how timidly, and at the same time how earnestly he told

me of his love, and then he added that he knows his hands are too

rough--

Czeska.--Not too rough--for they are honest. After what you have told

me, I am in his favor with all my soul.

Stella.--But in spite of all that, sometimes I feel very unhappy.

Czeska.--What is the matter? Why?

Stella.--Because sometimes we cannot understand each other. There are

two kinds of love--one is strong as the rocks, and the other is like a

brook in which one can see one's self. When I look at George's love,

I see its might, but my soul is not reflected in it like a face in a

limpid brook. I love him, it is true, but sometimes it seems to me

that I could love still more--that all my heart is not in that love,

and then I am unhappy.

Czeska.--But I cannot understand that. I take life simply. I love, or

I do not love. Well Stella, the world is so cleverly constructed, and

God is so good that there is nothing more easy than to be happy. But

one must not make a tangle of God's affairs. Be calm. You are very

much in love indeed. No matter!

Stella.--That confidence in the future is exactly what I need--some of

your optimism. I knew that you would frown and say: No matter! I am

now more happy. Only I am afraid of our doctor. Well (looking through

the window), our gentlemen are coming. Mr. Pretwic and Count Drahomir.

Czeska (looking through the window.)--Your future husband is looking

very well, but so is Count Drahomir. Since when is he with Mr.

Pretwic?

Stella (looking through the window).--For the past two weeks. Mr.

Pretwic has invited him. They are coming.

Czeska.--And your little heart is throbbing--

Stella.--Do not tease me again.

SCENE II.

Mrs. Czeska. Stella. George Pretwic. Count Drahomir.--The count has

his left arm in a sling.--A servant.

Servant (opening the door).--The princess is in the drawing-room.

Stella.--How late you are to-day!

George.--It is true. The sun is already setting. But we could not come

earlier. Do you not know that there has been a fire in the neighboring

village? We went there.

Czeska.--We have heard of it. It seems that several houses were

burned.

George.--The fire began in the morning, and it was extinguished only

now. Some twenty families are without a roof and bread. We are also

late because Karol had an accident.

Stella (with animation).--It is true. Your arm is in a sling!

Drahomir.--Oh, it is a mere trifle. If there were no more serious

wounds in the world, courage would be sold in all the markets. Only a

slight scratch--

Stella.--Mr. Pretwic, how did it happen?

George.--When it happened I was at the other end of the village, and I

could not see anything on account of the smoke. I was only told that

Karol had jumped into a burning house.

Stella.--Oh, Lord!

Drahomir (laughing).--I see that my deed gains with distance.

Czeska.--You must tell us about it yourself.

Drahomir.--They told me that there was a woman in a house of which

the roof had begun to burn. Thinking that this salamander who was not

afraid of fire was some enchanted beauty, I entered the house out of

pure curiosity. It was quite dark owing to the smoke. I looked and

saw that I had no luck, because the salamander was only an old Jewish

woman packing some feathers in a bag. Amidst the cloud of down she

looked like anything you please but an enchantress. I shouted that

there was a fire, and she shouted too, evidently taking me for a

thief--so we both screamed. Finally I seized hold of my salamander,

fainting with fear, and carried her out, not even through a window,

but through the door.

George.--But you omitted to say that the roof fell in and that a spar

struck your hand.

Drahomir.--True--and I destroyed the dam of my modesty, and will add

that one of the selectmen of the village made a speech in my honor. It

seems to me that he made some mention of a monument which they would

erect for me. But pray believe that the fire was quenched by George

and his people. I think they ought to erect two monuments.

Czeska.--I know that you are worthy of each other.

Stella.--Thank God that you have not met with some more serious

accident.

Drahomir.--I have met with something very pleasant--your sympathy.

Czeska--You have mine also--as for Mr. Pretwic, I have a bone to pick

with him.

George--Why, dear madam?

Czeska.--Because you are a bad boy. (To Stella and Drahomir.) You had

better go to the Prince, and let us talk for a while.

Stella.--Mother, I see you wish to flirt with Mr. Pretwic.

Czeska.--Be quiet, you giddy thing. May I not compete with you? But

you must remember, you Mayflower, that before every autumn there is a

spring. Well, be off!

Stella (to Drahomir).--Let us go; Papa is in the garden and I am

afraid that he is feeling worse. What a pity it is that the doctor is

not here.

SCENE III.

Mrs. Czeska, George, then Stella.

Czeska.--I should scold you, as I have my dear girl, for keeping the

secret. But she has already told me everything, so I only say, may God

bless you both.

George (kissing her hand).--Thank you, madam.

Czeska.--I have reared that child. I was ten years with her, so I know

what a treasure you take, sir. You have said that your hands are too

rough. I have answered her--not too rough, for they are honest. But

Stella is a very delicate flower. She must be loved much, and have

good care taken of her. But you will be able to do it--will you not?

George.--What can I tell you? As far as it is in human power to make

happy that dearest to me girl, so far I wish to assure her happiness

with me.

Czeska.--With all my soul, I say: God bless you!

George.--The Princess Stella loves you like her own mother, so I will

be as frank with you as with a mother. My life has been a very

hard one. There was a moment when my life was suspended by one

thread--Karol rescued me then, and for that I love him as a brother;

and then--

Czeska.--Stella told me. You lived far from here?

George.--I was in the empty steppe, half wild myself, among strangers,

therefore very sad and longing for the country. Sometimes there was

not a living soul around me.

Czeska.--God was over the stars.

George.--That is quite different. But a heart thrown on earth must

love some one. Therefore, with all this capacity for love, I prayed to

God that he permit me to love some one. He has granted my prayer, and

has given her to me. Do you understand me now?

Czeska.--Yes, I do understand you!

George.--How quickly everything has changed. I inherited here an

estate and am able to settle--then I met the princess, and now I love

her--she is everything in this world to me.

Czeska.--My dear Mr. Pretwic, you are worthy of Stella and she will be

happy with you. My dear Stelunia--

Stella (appearing in the doorway leading to the garden. She claps her

hands).--What good news! The doctor is coming. He is already in the

village. Papa will at once be more quiet and is in better humor.

Czeska.--You must not rush. She is already tired. Where is the prince?

Stella.--In the garden. He wishes you to come here.

George.--We will go.

Stella (steps forward--then stops).--But you must not tell the doctor

anything of our affair. I wish to tell him first. I have asked papa

also to keep the secret. (They go out.)

SCENE IV.

Jozwowicz (enters through the principal door).--Jan, carry my trunk

up-stairs and have the package I left in the antechamber sent at once

to Mr. Anton Zuk, the secretary of the county.

Servant (bows).--Very well, doctor.

Jozwowicz (advances).--At last (servant goes out). After three months

of absence, how quiet this house is always! In a moment I will greet

them as a future member of the parliament. I have thrown six years of

hard work, sleepless nights, fame, and learning into the chasm which

separates us--and now we shall see! (He goes toward the door leading

to the garden.) They are coming--she has not changed at all.

SCENE V.

(Through the door enter Stella, Mrs. Czeska, George, followed by

Drahomir, arm and arm with the Prince Starogrodzki.)

Stella.--Here is our doctor! Our dear doctor! How do you do? We were

looking for you!

Czeska (bows ceremoniously).--Especially the prince.

Jozwowicz (kissing Stella's hand).--Good evening, princess. I have

also been anxious to return. I have come to stay for a longer time--to

rest. Ah, the prince! How is Your Highness's health?

Prince (shaking hands).--Dear boy. I am not well. You did well to

come. You must see at once what is the matter with me.

Jozwowicz.--But now Your Highness will introduce me to these

gentlemen.

Prince.--It is true. Doctor Jozwowicz, the minister of my interior

affairs--I said it well, did I not? For you do look after my health.

Count Karol Drahomir.

Drahomir.--Your name is familiar to me, therefore, strictly speaking,

I alone ought to introduce myself.

Doctor.--Sir.

Prince (introducing).--Mr. George Pretwic, our neighbor, and--(Stella

makes a sign) and--I wish to say--

George.--If I am not mistaken, your schoolmate.

Doctor.--I did not wish to be the first to recollect.

George.--I am glad to see you. It is quite a long time since then, but

we were good comrades. Truly, I am very glad, especially after what I

have heard here about you.

Drahomir.--You are the good spirit of this house.

Stella.--Oh, yes!

Prince.--Let me tell you my opinion of him.

George.--How often the best student, Jozwowicz, helped Pretwic with

his exercises.

Doctor.--You have a good memory, sir.

George.--Very good, indeed, for then we did not call each other "sir."

Once more, Stanislaw, I welcome you.

Doctor.--And I return the welcome.

George--But do I not remember that after you went through college you

studied law?

Doctor.--And afterward I became a doctor of medicine.

Prince.--Be seated. Jan, bring the lights.

Stella.--How charming that you are acquainted!

Doctor.--The school-bench, like misery, unites people. But then,

social standing separates them. George's future was assured. I was

obliged to search for mine.

Prince.--He has searched also, and found adventures.

Drahomir.--In two parts of the world.

Czeska.--That is splendid.

Doctor.--Well, he followed his instinct. Even in school he broke the

horses, went shooting and fenced.

George.--Better than I studied.

Doctor (laughing).--Yes--we used to call him the general, because he

commanded us in our student fights.

Drahomir.--George, I recognized you there.

Czeska.--But now, I think, he will stop fighting.

Stella.--Who knows?

George.--I am sure of it.

Doctor.--As for me, I was his worst soldier. I never was fond of

playing that way.

Prince.--Because those are the distractions of the nobility and not of

a doctor.

Doctor.--We begin to quarrel already. You are all proud of the fact

that your ancestors, the knights, killed so many people. But if the

prince knew how many people I have killed with my prescriptions! I can

guarantee you that none of Your Highness's ancestors can be proud of

such great number.

Drahomir.--Bravo. Very good!

Prince.--And he is my doctor!

Stella.--Papa! The doctor is joking.

Prince.--Thanks for such jokes. But it is sure that the world is now

upside-down.

Doctor.--Your Highness, we will live a hundred years more. (To

George.) Come, tell me, what became of you? (They go out.)

Prince.--You would not believe how unhappy I am because I cannot get

along with that man. He is the son of a blacksmith from Stanislawow.

I sent him to school because I wished to make an overseer of him. But

afterwards he went to study at the University.

Drahomir.--He is twice a doctor--he is an intelligent man. One can see

that by merely looking at him.

Stella.--Very much so.

Czeska.--So intelligent that I am afraid of him.

Drahomir.--But the prince must be satisfied.

Prince.--Satisfied, satisfied! He has lost his common sense. He became

a democrat--a _sans culotte_. But he is a good doctor, and I am sick.

I have some stomach trouble. (To Drahomir.) Have you heard of it?

Drahomir.--The prince complained already some time ago.

Czeska.--For twenty years.

Prince.--Sorrow and public service have ruined my health.

Czeska.--But Your Highness is healthy.

Prince (angrily).--I tell you that I am sick. Stella, I am sick--am I

not?

Stella.--But now you will feel better.

Prince.--Because he alone keeps me alive. Stella would have died also

with heart trouble if it had not been for him.

Drahomir.--If that is so, he is a very precious man.

Stella.--We owe him eternal gratitude.

Prince (looking at George).--He will also be necessary to Pretwic.

What, Stella, will he not?

Stella (laughing).--Papa, how can I know that?

Drahomir.--Truly, I sometimes envy those stalwart men. During the

battle they strengthen in themselves the force which lessens and

disappears in us, because nothing nourishes it. Perhaps we are also

made of noble metal, but we are eaten up with rust while they are

hardened in the battle of life. It is a sad necessity.

Czeska.--How about Mr. Pretwic?

Drahomir.--George endured much, it is true, and one feels this

although it is difficult to describe it. Look at those two men. When

the wind blows George resists like a century-old tree, and men like

the doctor subdue it and order it to propel his boat. There is in that

some greater capacity for life, therefore the result is more easy to

be foreseen. The tree is older, and although still strong, the more it

is bitten by the storms, the sooner it will die.

Prince.--I have said many times that we die like old trees. Some other

thicket grows, but it is composed only of bushes.

Stella.--The one who is good has the right to live--we must not doubt

about ourselves.

Drahomir.--I do not doubt, even for the reason that the poet says:

"Saintly is the one who knows how to be a friend" (bows to Stella)

"with saints."

Stella.--If he has not secured their friendship by flattery.

Drahomir.--But I must be permitted not to envy the doctor anything.

Stella.--The friendship is not exclusive, although I look upon the

doctor as a brother.

Prince.--Stella, what are you talking about? He is your brother as I

am a republican. I cannot suffer him, but I cannot get along without

him.

Czeska.--Prince, you are joking--

Drahomir (smiling).--Why should you hate him?

Prince.--Why? Have I not told you? He does with us what he pleases. He

does as he likes in the house, he does not believe anything, and he is

ambitious as the deuce. He is already a professor in the University,

and now he wishes to be a member of parliament. Do you hear?--he will

be a member of parliament! But I would not be a Starogrodzki if I had

permitted it. (Aloud.) Jozwowicz!

Doctor (he is near a window).--Your Highness, what do you order?

Prince.--Is it true that you are trying to become a member of

parliament.

Doctor.--At your service, Your Highness?

Prince.--Mrs. Czeska. Have you heard--the world is upside down,

Jozwowicz!

Doctor.--What is it, Your Highness?

Prince.--And perhaps you will also become a minister.

Doctor.--It may be.

Prince.--Did you hear? And do you think that I will call you "Your

Excellency"?

Doctor.--It would be proper.

Prince.--Jozwowicz, do you wish to give me a stroke of apoplexy?

Doctor.--Be calm, Your Highness. My Excellency will always take care

of your Grace's bile.

Prince.--It is true. The irritation hurts me. What, Jozwowicz--does it

hurt me?

Doctor.--Yes, it excites the bile, but it gives you an appetite. (He

approaches with George.)

Stella.--What were you talking about?

Doctor.--I have been listening to George. Horrible! Dreadful! George

made a mistake by coming into the world two hundred years too late.

Bayards are not appreciated nowadays.

Czeska.--Providence is above all.

Drahomir.--I believe it also.

Doctor.--Were I a mathematician, without contradicting you I would say

that, as in many cases we do not know what X equals, we must take care

of ourselves.

Prince.--What are you saying?

Stella.--Doctor, pray do not talk so sceptically, or there will be a

war--not with papa, but with me.

Doctor.--My scepticism is ended where your words begin, therefore I

surrender.

Stella.--How gallant--the member of parliament.

SCENE VI.

The same Servant.

Servant.--Tea is served.

George.--I must bid you good-bye.

Stella.--Why, why are you going so early to-night?

Doctor (aside).--My old schoolmate is at home here.

George.--You must excuse me. I am very happy with you, but to-night I

must be going home. I will leave Drahomir--he will replace me.

Stella.--To be angry with you would be to make you conceited. But you

must tell me why you are going.

George.--The people who have lost their homes by fire are in my house.

I must give some orders and provide for their necessities.

Czeska (aside).--He is sacrificing pleasure to duty. (Aloud.) Stella!

Stella.--What is it?

Czeska.--To-morrow we must make some collections for them, and provide

them with clothing.

Doctor.--I will go with you, ladies. It will be the first case in

which misery did not search for the doctor, but the doctor searched

for misery.

Czeska.--Very clever.

Prince (rapping with the stick).--Pretwic!

George.--Your Highness, what do you order?

Prince.--You say that this rabble is very poor?

George.--Very poor, indeed.

Prince.--You say that they have nothing to eat?

George.--Almost nothing, my prince.

Prince.--God punishes them for voting for such a man (he points to

Jozwowicz) as that one.

Doctor (bows).--They have not elected me yet.

Stella.--Papa.

Prince.--What did I want to say? Aha! Pretwic!

George.--I listen to you, my prince.

Prince.--You said that they were starving?

George.--I said--almost.

Prince.--Very well, then. Go to my cashier, Horkiewicz, and tell him

to give that rabble a thousand florins. (He raps with the stick.) They

must know that I will not permit any one to be hungry.

Stella--Dear father!

Drahomir.--I knew it would end that way.

Prince.--Yes, Mr. Jozwowicz! _Noblesse oblige!_ Do you understand,

your Excellency, Mr. Jozwowicz?

Doctor.--I understand, Your Highness.

Prince (giving his arm to Mrs. Czeska).--And now let us take some tea.

(George takes leave and goes out.)

Doctor.--I must also be going. I am tired and I have some letters to

write.

Prince.--Upon my honor, one might think that he was already a

minister. But come to see us--I cannot sleep without you.

Doctor.--I will be at the service of Your Highness.

Prince (muttering).--As soon as this Robespièrre arrived, I

immediately felt better.

Stella.--Doctor, wait a moment. I do not take any tea. I will only put

papa in his place, and then I will be back immediately. I must have a

talk with you.

SCENE VII.

Jozwowicz alone--then Stella.

Doctor.--What are these people doing here, and what does she wish to

tell me? Is it possible--But no, it is impossible. I am uneasy, but in

a moment everything will be cleared up. What an ass I am! She simply

wishes to talk to me about the prince's health. It is this moonlight

that makes me so dreamy--I ought to have a guitar.

Stella (entering).--Mr. Jozwowicz?

Doctor.--I am here, princess.

Stella.--I did my best not to make you wait too long. Let us be seated

and have a talk, as formerly, when I was small and not well and you

took care of my health. I remember sometimes I used to fall asleep,

and you carried me in your arms to my room.

Doctor.--The darling of every one in the house was very weak then.

Stella.--And to-day, if she is well, it is thanks to you. If she has

any knowledge, it is also thanks to you. I am a plant of which you

have taken good care.

Doctor.--And my greatest pride. There were few calm, genial moments in

my life--and peace I found only in that house.

Stella.--You were always good, and for that reason I look upon you as

an older brother.

Doctor.--Your words form the only smile in my life. I not only respect

you, but I also love you dearly--like a sister, like my own child.

Stella.--Thank you. I have not the same confidence in any one else's

judgment and honesty as I have in yours, so I wished to speak to you

about an important matter. I hope even that what I am going to tell

you will please you as much as it pleases me. Is it true that you are

going to become a member of parliament?

Doctor (with uneasiness).--No, it is only probable. But speak of what

concerns you.

Stella.--Well, then--ah, Lord! But you will not leave papa, will you?

Doctor (breathing heavily).--Oh, you wish to speak of the prince's

health?

Stella.--No, I know that papa is getting better. I did not expect that

it would be difficult--I am afraid of the severe opinion that you have

of people.

Doctor (with simulated ease).--Pray, do not torture my curiosity.

Stella.--Then I will close my eyes and tell you, although it is not

easy for any young girl. You know Mr. George Pretwic well, do you not?

Doctor (uneasily).--I know him.

Stella.--How do you like him? He is my fiancé.

Doctor (rising).--Your fiancé?

Stella.--Good gracious!--then you do not approve of my choice? (A

moment of silence.)

Doctor.--Only one moment. Your choice, princess, if it is of your

heart and will, must be good--only--it was unexpected news to me;

therefore, perhaps, I received it a little too seriously. But I could

not hear it with indifference owing to the affection I have for--your

family. And then, my opinion does not amount to anything in such a

matter. Princess, I congratulate you and wish you all happiness.

Stella.--Thank you. Now I shall be more easy.

Doctor.--You must return to your father. Your news has been so sudden

that it has shocked me a little. I must collect my wits--I must

familiarize myself with the thought. But in any event, I congratulate

you.

Stella.--Good night. (She stops in the door, looks at the Doctor and

goes in.)

SCENE VIII.

Jozwowicz (alone).--Too late!

END OF ACT I.

* * * * *

ACT II.

The stage represents the same drawing-room.

SCENE I.

Jozwowicz. Anton.

Doctor.--Anton, come here. We can talk quietly, for they are preparing

my room. What news from the city?

Anton.--Good news. In an hour or so a delegation of the voters will be

here. You must say something to them--you understand? Something about

education--public roads, heavy taxes. You know what to say better than

I do.

Doctor.--I know, I know; and how do they like my platform?

Anton.--You have made a great hit. I congratulate you. It is written

with scientific accuracy. The papers of the Conservative party have

gone mad with wrath.

Doctor.--Very good. What more?

Anton.--Three days ago your election was doubtful in the suburbs. I

learned about it, however--gathered the electors and made a speech.

"Citizens," I said, in the end, "I know only one remedy for all your

misery--it is called Jozwowicz. Long live Progress!" I also attacked

the Conservative party.

Doctor.--Anton, you are a great boy. Then there is a hope of victory?

Anton.--Almost a surety. And then, even if we do not win now, the

future is open to us. And do you know why? Because--leaving out the

details of the election, you and I, while talking of our business

affairs, need not laugh at each other, like Roman augurs. Progress and

truth are on our side, and every day makes a new breach in the old

wall. We are only aiding the centuries and we must conquer. I am

talking calmly: Our people, our electors are merely sheep, but we wish

to make men of them, and therein lies our strength. As for me, if I

were not persuaded that in my principles lie truth and progress, I

would spit on everything and become a monk.

Doctor.--But it would be a dreadful thing if we do not win this time.

Anton.--I am sure we will win. You are a fearful candidate for

our adversaries. You have only one antagonist who is at all

dangerous--Husarski, a rich and popular nobleman.

Doctor.--Once I am in parliament, I will try to accomplish something.

Anton.--I believe in you, and for that reason I am working for you.

Ha! ha! "They have already taken from us everything," said Count

Hornicki at the club yesterday, "importance, money--even good

manners." Well, at least I have not taken their good manners from

them. To the devil with them!

Doctor.--No, you have truly not taken their good manners from them.

Anton.--But it is said in the city that your prince has given a

thousand florins to those whose houses were burned. This may be bad

for us. You must do something also.

Doctor.--I did what I could.

Anton.--I must also tell you that yesterday--What is the matter with

you? I am talking to you and you are thinking about something else.

Doctor.--Excuse me. I am in great trouble. I cannot think as calmly as

usual.

Anton.--The idea!

Doctor.--You could not understand it.

Anton.--I am the coachman of the carriage in which you are riding--I

must know everything.

Doctor.--No. It does not concern you.

Anton.--It does concern me, because you are losing your energy. We

have no need of any Hamlets.

Doctor (gloomily).--You are mistaken. I have not given up.

Anton.--I see. You close your mouth on this subject. It is not in your

character to give up.

Doctor.--No. You must work to have me elected. I would lose doubly if

we were bitten.

Anton.--They must have burned you like the deuce, for you hiss

dreadfully.

Doctor.--An old story. A peasant did not sleep for six years, did not

eat, bent his neck, wounded his hands, and carried logs for a hut.

After six years a lord came along, kicked the hut and said: "My castle

shall stand here." We are sceptical enough to laugh at such things.

Anton.--He was a real lord!

Doctor.--A lord for generations. He carried his head so high that he

did not notice what cracked beneath his feet.

Anton.--I like the story. And what about the peasant?

Doctor.--According to the peasant tradition, he is thinking of a flint

and tinder.

Anton.--Glorious idea! Truly we despise tradition too much. There are

good things in it.

Doctor.--Enough. Let us talk of something else.

Anton (looking around).--An old and rich house. It would make a

splendid cabin.

Doctor.--What do you say?

Anton.--Nothing. Has the old prince a daughter?

Doctor.--Yes. Why?

Anton (laughing).--Ha, ha! Your trouble has the scent of a perfume

used by a lady. I smell here the petticoat of the princess. Behind the

member of parliament is Jozwowicz, just as behind the evening dress

there is the morning gown. What a strong perfume!

Doctor.--You may sell your perspicacity at another market. It is my

personal affair.

Anton.--Not at all, for it means that you put only half your soul into

public affairs. To the deuce with such business! Look at me. They howl

at me in the newspapers, they laugh at me--but I do not care. I will

tell you more! I feel that I shall never rise, although I am not

lacking in strength nor intelligence. I could try to get the first

place in camp to command, but I do not do it. Why? Because I know

myself very well. Because I know that I am lacking in order,

authority, tact. I have been and I am a tool, used by such as you, and

which to-morrow may be kicked aside when it is no more needed. But

my self-love does not blind me. I do not care most for myself--I am

working for my convictions--that is all. Any day I may be ousted from

my position. There is often misery in my house, and although I love my

wife and children--no matter. When it is a question of my convictions,

I will work, act, agitate. I put my whole soul in it. And for you, the

petticoat of a princess bars your way. I did not expect this from you.

Tfu! spit on everything and come with us.

Doctor.--You are mistaken. I have no desire for martyrdom, but for

victory. And the more personal ties there are between me and public

affairs, the more I will serve them with my mind, heart, and

deeds--with all that constitutes a man. Do you understand?

Anton.--Amen. His eyes shine like the eyes of a wolf--now I recognize

you.

Doctor.--What more do you wish?

Anton.--Nothing more. I will only tell you that our motto should be:

Attack the principles, and not the people.

Doctor.--Your virginal virtue may rest assured. I shall not poison any

one.

Anton.--I believe you, but I must tell you that I know you well. I

appreciate your energy, your learning, your common sense, but I should

not like to cross you in anything.

Doctor.--So much the better for me.

Anton.--But if it is a question of the nobility, notwithstanding our

programme I make you a present of them. You shall not cut their heads

off.

Doctor.--To be sure. And now go and get to work for me--or rather, for

us.

Anton.--For us, Jozwowicz. Do not forget that.

Doctor.--I will not swear it to you, but I promise you that I will not

forget.

Anton.--But how will you manage that nobleman?

Doctor.--Do you require that I make you my confidant?

Anton.--In the first place, I do not need your confidence, because in

our camp we have sufficient perspicacity. There is the matter of the

prince's daughter--that is all. But I am always afraid that for her

sake you will abandon public affairs. As I am working for you, I am

responsible for you, therefore we must be frank.

Doctor.--Let us be frank.

Anton.--Therefore you have said to yourself: I shall get rid of that

nobleman. Do it then. It is your business--but I ask you once more: Do

you wish to become a member of parliament for us, or for the princess?

That is my business.

Doctor.--I throw my cards on the table. I, you, we are all new people,

and all of us have this quality--we are not dolls, painted with the

same color. There is room in us for convictions, love, hatred--in a

word, as I told you, for everything of which a man of complex nature

is composed. Nature has given me a heart and the right to live,

therefore I desire for happiness; it gave me a mind, therefore I serve

my chosen idea. One does not exclude the other. Why should you mix the

princess with our public affairs--you, an intelligent man? Why do you

wish to replace life by a phrase? I have the right to be happy, and I

shall achieve it. And I shall know how to harmonize the idea with the

life, like a sail with a boat. I shall sail more surely then. You must

understand me; in that is our strength--that we know how to harmonize.

In that lies our superiority over others, for they do not know how to

live. What I will amount to with that woman, I do not know. You call

me a Hamlet--perhaps I may become a Hamlet, but you have no need of

it.

Anton.--It seems to me that you are again right. But thus you will

fight two battles, and your forces will have to be divided.

Doctor.--No! I am strong enough.

Anton.--Say frankly--she is betrothed.

Doctor.--Yes.

Anton.--And she loves her fiancé.

Doctor.--Or she deceives herself.

Anton.--At any rate, she does not love you.

Doctor.--In the first place, I must get rid of him. In the mean while,

go and work.

Anton (consulting watch).--In a few moments the committee will be here

to see you.

Doctor.--Very well. The prince is coming with the Countess Miliszewska

and her son, my opponent. Let us be going.

SCENE II.

Prince, Stella, Mrs. Czeska, Countess Miliszewska, Jan Miliszewski,

Podczaski.

Countess.--It is impossible to understand. The world grows wild

nowadays.

Prince.--I say the same. Stella, do I not say so?

Stella.--Very often.

Countess (low to her son).--Sit near the princess and entertain her.

Go ahead!

Jan.--I am going, mamma.

Countess.--There is too much of that audacity. I have sent

Mr. Podczaski to the electors, and they say: "We do not need

representatives without heads." I am only surprised that the prince is

not more indignant. I rush here and there, I pray and work, and they

dare to oppose to my son Mr. Jozwowicz.

Prince.--But madam, what can I do?

Countess.--And who is Mr. Jozwowicz--a physician? What does a

doctor amount to? Jan has influence, importance, social position,

relatives--and what has the doctor? From whence did he come here? Who

ever heard of him? Really, I cannot speak calmly, and I think it must

be the end of the world. Is it not, Mr. Podczaski?

Podczaski (saluting).--Yes, countess, God's wrath. There were never

such loud thunders.

Prince.--Thunders? Mrs. Czeska, what? Have your heard thunder?

Czeska.--It is a very usual thing at the end of spring. Do not mind

it.

Countess (in a low voice).--Jan, go ahead.

Jan.--Yes, mamma, I am going.

Countess.--Prince, you will see that Jan will not be elected purely on

account of the hatred against us. They say that he does not know the

country, and does not understand its needs. But before all we must not

allow such people as Jozwowicz to become important in the country.

Prince, is it not so?

Prince.--He will not ask your permission.

Countess.--That is exactly why the world must be coming to an

end--that such people can do as they please! They dare to say that Jan

will not be able to make a good representative, and that Mr. Jozwowicz

will. Jan was always an excellent student in Metz. Jan, were you not a

good student?

Jan.--Yes, mamma.

Podczaski.--Countess, you are perfectly right. It is the end of the

world.

Stella.--What did you study especially?

Jan.--I, madam? I studied the history of heresy.

Princess.--Mrs. Czeska--what? Have studied what?

Countess.--They reproach us with not having talent, but for diplomacy

one must have talent.

Podczaski.--The count does even look like a diplomat.

Prince (aside).--Well, not very much.

Czeska.--The count does not have much to say.

Jan.--No, madam, but sometimes I speak quite enough.

Countess.--For my part, I declare that if Jan is not elected, we will

leave the country.

Podczaski.--They will be guilty of it.

Countess.--It will be the fault of the prince.

Prince.--Mine?

Countess.--How can you permit such as Jozwowicz to compete with

society people? Why do you retain him?

Prince.--Frankly speaking, it is not I who keep him--it is he who

keeps me. If it were not for him, I should long since be (he makes a

gesture).

Countess (angrily).--By keeping him, you serve the democracy.

Prince.--I--I serve the democracy? Stella, do you hear? (He raps with

his stick.)

Countess.--Every one will say so. Mr. Jozwowicz is the democratic

candidate.

Prince.--But I am not, and if it is so I will not allow him to be. I

have enough of Mr. Jozwowicz's democracy. They shall not say that I am

the tool of democracy. (He rings the bell. A servant enters.) Ask the

doctor to come here.

Countess.--Now the prince is a true prince.

Prince.--I serve democracy, indeed!

Stella.--Papa, dear.

Countess.--We must bid the prince good-bye. Jan, get ready. Good-bye,

dear Stella. Good-bye, my child. (To her son.) Kiss the princess's

hand.

SCENE III.

The same.

Jozwowicz.--Your Highness must excuse me if I am too late, but I was

obliged to receive the delegates.

Countess.--What delegates are here? Jan, go ahead.

Doctor (saluting).--Count, you must hasten, they are leaving.

Podczaski.--I am Your Highness's servant. (Countess, Jan, Podczaski go

out. Stella and Mrs. Czeska follow them.)

SCENE IV.

Jozwowicz. Prince. (A moment of silence.)

Prince (rapping with his stick).--I forbid you to become a member of

parliament.

Doctor.--I shall not obey.

Prince.--You make me angry.

Doctor.--Your Highness closes to me the future.

Prince (angrily).--I have brought you up.

Doctor.--I preserve Your Highness's life.

Prince.--I have been a second father to you.

Doctor.--Your Highness, let us speak calmly. If you have been to me a

father, I have until now been to you a son. But the father must not

bar to his son the road to distinction.

Prince.--Public distinction is not for such people as you, sir.

Doctor (laughing).--A moment ago Your Highness called me a son.

Prince.--What son?

Doctor.--Your Highness, were I your son I would be rich and have a

title--in a word everything Your Highness possesses. But being a poor

man, I must make my way, and no one has the right to bar it to me,

especially if my road is straight and honest. (Laughing.) Unless Your

Highness would like to adopt me in order to preserve the family.

Prince.--What nonsense you are talking.

Doctor.--I am only joking. Well, Your Highness, let us cease this

irritation.

Prince.--It is true, it hurts me. Why will you not give up the idea of

becoming a member of parliament?

Doctor.--It is my future.

Prince.--And in the mean time I am vexed by every one on that account.

When I was young I was in many battles and I did not fear. I can show

my decorations. I was not afraid of death on the battlefield, but

those Latin illnesses of yours--Why do you look at me in that way?

Doctor.--I am looking as usual. As for your illness, I will say that

it is more the imagination of Your Highness than anything else. The

constitution is strong, and with my assistance Your Highness will live

to the age of Methusaleh.

Prince.--Are you sure of it?

Doctor.--Positive.

Prince.--Good boy! And you will not leave me?

Doctor.--Your Highness may be assured of that.

Prince.--Then you may become a member of parliament or whatever you

please. Stella! Oh, she is not here! Upon my honor, that Miliszewski

is an ass. Don't you think so?

Doctor.--I cannot contradict Your Highness.

SCENE V.

The same. Stella and Mrs. Czeska.

Stella.--I came because I was afraid you would quarrel. Well, what is

the end of the discussion?

Prince.--Well, that good-for-nothing man will do what he pleases.

Doctor.--The fact is that the prince has approved of my plans and has

granted me permission to try my luck at the election.

Mrs. Czeska.--We had better all go to the garden. Mr. Pretwic and

Count Drahomir are waiting--we are going for a sail on the lake.

Prince.--Then let us be going (they go out). You see, madam, that

Miliszewska!

SCENE VI.

Jozwowicz, Stella. Then Drahomir.

Stella.--How is my father's health?

Doctor.--All that can be expected. But you are pale, princess.

Stella.--Oh, I am well.

Doctor.--It is the consequence of the betrothal.

Stella.--It must be.

Doctor.--But health requires one to be merry--to enjoy life.

Stella.--I do not wish for any other distraction.

Doctor.--If not distraction, at least enjoyment. We here are too grave

for you. Perhaps we cannot understand you.

Stella.--You are all too good.

Doctor.--At least solicitous. If you have a moment to spare let us be

seated and have a talk. My solicitude must explain my boldness. With

the dignity of a fiancé, serenity and happiness generally go hand in

hand. When the heart is given willingly, all longing ceases and the

future is viewed with serenity.

Stella.--My future contains something which might cause even the most

valiant to fear.

Doctor.--Of what are you talking? You have called me a sceptic, but it

is I who says: who loves, believes.

Stella.--What then?

Doctor.--Who doubts?

Stella.--Doctor.

Doctor.--Princess, I do not inquire. There are moments when the

serenity visibly departs from your face, therefore I question you,

which is my duty as a physician and a friend. Be calm. Pray, remember

that this is asked by a man whom a while ago you called "brother," and

who knows how dear to him is the happiness of such a sister! I have no

one in this world--all my love of family is centred in your house. My

heart has also its sorrows. Pray, quiet my apprehensions--that is all

I ask you.

Stella.--What apprehensions?

Doctor.--Apprehensions of which I dare not speak. Since my return I

have watched you constantly, and the more I watch you the more do I

fear. You fear the future--you do not look into it with confidence and

hope.

Stella.--Permit me to go.

Doctor.--No, madam. I have the right to ask, and if you fear to look

into the bottom of your heart, then I have the right to say that you

lack courage, and for such sinful weakness one pays later with his own

happiness and the happiness of others. I suffer also--but I must--I

must. Madam, listen to me. If in your heart there is even the shadow

of a doubt, you have mistaken your sentiments.

Stella.--Is it possible to make such a mistake?

Doctor.--Yes. Sometimes--often one mistakes sympathy, pity,

commiseration for love.

Stella.--What a dreadful mistake!

Doctor.--Which one recognizes as soon as the heart flies in another

direction. The dignity of a fiancé is a hidden pain. If I am mistaken,

pray forgive me.

Stella.--Doctor, I do not wish to think of such things.

Doctor.--Then I am not mistaken. Do not look on me with fear. I wish

to save you, my dear child. Where is your heart? The moment that you

recognize you do not love Mr. Pretwic, that moment will tell you whom

you do love. No, I shall not withdraw my question. Where is your

heart? By God, if he is not equal to you, he shall rise to your

height! But no, I have become a madman.

Stella.--I must be going.

Doctor (barring the way).--No, you shall not go until you have given

me an answer. Whom do you love?

Stella.--Doctor, spare me--otherwise I shall doubt everything. Have

pity on me.

Doctor (brutally)--Whom do you love?

SCENE VII.

The same. Drahomir

Drahomir.--Princess.

Stella.--Ah!

Drahomir.--What! Have I frightened you? I came to tell you that the

boats are waiting. What is the matter with you?

Stella.--Nothing. Let us be going.

(Drahomir offers his arm--they go out.)

SCENE VIII.

Doctor (alone--looking after them).--Oh! I--under--stand!

END OF ACT II.

* * * * *

ACT III.

The same Drawing-room.

SCENE I.

(Mr. Podczaski enters, followed by a servant.)

Podczaski.--Tell the Doctor that Mr. Podczaski wishes to see him on an

important matter.

Servant.--The Doctor is very busy. The princess is ill. But I will

tell him (goes out).

Podczaski (alone).--I have enough of this work for nothing. The

countess sends me about to agitate for her, but when I ask her for

some money, she answers: We shall see about it after the election. She

is an aristocrat and she refuses a hundred florins to a nobleman. To

the deuce with such business. I had better try elsewhere, to serve the

Doctor. He pays because he has common sense. And as he will bite them,

then I will rise in consideration.