HOW IVAN MOURNED
They were both gone, the high-born lady and the peasant girl--gone
where there is no sorrow and no more sin. One had lost her life by
charcoal, the other by fire--two vengeful spirits.
Ivan thought of both with bitter regret. He felt now that he was alone
in the world. He would have given all the fame he had acquired, the
money he had earned, the good he had done, to have been able to save
even one of these women. He mourned for them not in black, not with
crape on his hat. What good are these signs of grief?
The European mourns in black, the Chinese in yellow, the Mussulman in
green; in the classical age they mourned in white; the former
generation of Hungarians in violet; the Jews in rags; the philosopher
in his heart. The wise man never shares his grief, but he does his
joys.
Meantime, in the Bondavara Valley there reigned peace and plenty;
where there had been a half-savage race there was a happy people. The
worst characters had settled down, morality had grown popular.
Ivan sent the young men at his own expense to factories abroad, where
they learned the arts of civilization. He brought wood-carvers from
Switzerland and lace-workers from Holstein to teach their trades to
the women and children, so that they might unite artistic labor with
increase of wages. For a population where every one, big and little,
works either from necessity or for amusement--a people who look upon
work as pleasure and who feel it no privation to be employed--such a
people are ennobled by their toil.
Ivan looked after the schools. He emancipated the national teachers
from the misery of their national tyrants; he rewarded the student
with scholarships, the school-boy with useful prizes; in every parish
he established a library and reading-room. He accustomed the people to
put by the pence they could spare; he taught them how to help one
another; he established in Bondavara a savings-bank and a hospital.
His own colliery was a model. The miners and himself were the joint
owners, and shared the profit. Whoever was taken on in this colliery
should pass an examination and work one year on trial. This rule
applied to women and men alike. This trial year was not easy,
particularly for the girls.
Nowhere was a girl so looked after; not in her mother's house or in a
convent or state institution was there more particularity as to
manners and morals than in Ivan Behrend's colliery. Every word, every
act was watched. If any one failed to be up to the mark during his
year of probation, no one taunted him, nor was he despised. He was
simply told to go and work in the company's colliery, where there was
better pay; and the workman or workwoman imagined this was an advance,
not a degradation. In the company's colliery there was certainly more
freedom, the rules being less strict.
If, however, at the end of the trial year the applicant had fulfilled
all requirements, he or she was received into the colony and became a
shareholder, so far as the profit was in question. Besides this, a
prize for virtue was given once a year, on the anniversary of the
great pit-burning, to the most modest, well-conducted girl in the
colony.
Ivan spent on this prize fifty ducats, and the miners on their side
promised the winner a handsome wedding present.
It was, of course, an understood thing that no one went in for the
prize. No one knew who was likely to get it. The elders took notes; it
was their secret.
The giving of this prize was not to be attended with any ceremonial.
It would take place on an ordinary working day, when all the miners
would have picks and shovels in their hands, so that every one could
see that the reward was not for a pretty face, but for a good heart
and industrious fingers. It was to be a day of general rejoicing.
This was how Ivan mourned.