nearly fainted. The neighbours, attracted by the noise, gathered on the
spot and were witnesses of the scene. The cossack's widow, Chwedko,
Huluk, and others shed the tears of compassion which the poor have
always ready even for the griefs and miseries which they cannot
comprehend, for the tears of others always suffice to move them to
pity.
At last the father aroused from the momentary state of stupefaction
into which his wife's words had thrown him; he sighed, and going up to
his wife, spoke to her for a moment in a low voice.
"Whether you are willing or not," said he, aloud, in a stern voice,
"you will be obliged to give the child up to us; he is ours, and we
have witnesses of the fact. But you may ask anything you desire in
exchange."
Iermola trembled and rose quickly to his feet.
"The child does not know you," he cried; "you will be obliged to take
him by force. I will not give him up to you of my own free will, for he
is not your child. I will bring witnesses to contradict yours. This is
not the child of a gentleman; he is a villager, a working boy, an
orphan. Call him; you do not even know his name; and he will not listen
to you, for he does not know your voice."
"Why, the old man is insane," cried Jan Druzyna, trembling with rage.
"Very well; we shall be compelled to resort to other means,--to those
which our rights grant us. Do you, then, wish to deprive the child of
the advantages and benefits of the position to which he was destined?"
"What position? What destiny?" replied the old man, proudly. "Ask him
if he has ever been unhappy with me,--if he wants anything more, if he
needs anything. I know the sort of life which is lived in the _dwors_
where I have been. Do not destroy my peace; do not desolate my old age;
do not take away my child."
The young mother then drew near him and took him by the hand.
"My father, my brother," said she; "I understand your grief, I know
what you lose in losing this child; but I, have I not swallowed my
tears for twelve long years? Would you have the heart to refuse an
unfortunate mother her dearest joy, her only treasure? Would you be so
cruel as to force us to be ungrateful? No, you will come with us; you
will rejoice when you see the child's happiness, and you will share
ours."
These words of the mother went deeper into Iermola's heart; he became
more like himself, dried his tears, and said in a low voice,--
"Oh, the hour has come before which I would rather have died! For so
many years I have seen it in my dreams, I feared every shadow, I
dreaded each stranger, thinking he came to take away from me the child
of my old age. I trembled; I prayed God that He would let me die first,
but He has purposely prolonged my days. May He receive the present hour
as an expiation for all my sins!"
During this conversation, Radionek, agitated, troubled, and not knowing
what to do, looked first at the old man and then at his parents. His
father's eyes expressed great impatience, mingled with tenderness and a
certain irritation; his mother wore a more quiet expression, more
compassionate and gentle. Iermola felt his strength forsake him again;
he once more fell into his seat, his head bent down, his hands clasped.
The conversation, thus abruptly disturbed, was resumed, but in a more
peaceful and ordinary tone. Druzyna had evidently intended to take his
son away at once; but an hour passed, night came on, and he still did
not know what to do. Iermola, overcome, no longer offered any
resistance; he kept silence, exhausted, and only questioned the child
with his eyes.
"Come, let us go," said the young man at last, as he turned toward his
wife. "We will come back to see him to-morrow."
"But the child?"
Radionek heard the words; frightened, he threw himself into the arms of
his adoptive father, and Iermola, touched and grateful, pressed him to
his breast.
"You are a good dear child," he cried. "You will not go away from me;
you will not leave me alone; you will not forget your old father. You
know I should die without you; you can do as you like when you have
closed my eyes. And may God's eternal blessings follow you then!"
Druzyna, who was gazing in silence upon this scene, led, or rather
dragged his wife away by force, carried her to the carriage, and
ordered the coachman to return home. Chwedko set off for the village,
where he spread this important piece of news.
After Druzyna's departure, there was no visible change in the old inn,
but the peace and happiness which the day before had reigned beneath
that thatched roof had flown away. Iermola, silent and motionless,
remained seated on the door-sill; Radionek at times wept quietly, and
at others gave himself up to dreamy meditation. Then they drew near
each other and spoke a few sad, tender words in a low voice. The
morning found them still in the door-sill, half asleep, and cowering in
each other's arms as though they feared some one would come to separate
them.
The broad daylight, as it opened their eyes to the sun, which dispels
the terrors of night and revives the forces of life, brought back to
them the remembrance of the events of the day before; but it presented
them in another light, and awoke in them other sentiments, which
gathered about each event, each serious thought, like mercenary
servants grouped around a coffin. A thousand ideas, a thousand confused
impressions crowded upon their minds, each struggling with the other to
clear away the difficulty.
Neither the old man nor Radionek felt himself capable of working that
morning. The ordinary course of their life had been interrupted; they
did not know what to do with themselves. In the child's mind arose, now
a thousand images of a brilliant, an unknown future, now regret for
past days filled with so much happiness, and which would never return.
He tried to recall the features of his mother, those of his young
father whom he had seen only in the dim twilight. Sometimes his heart
leaned toward them; sometimes he trembled, agitated by a feeling of
fear. What would become of him near them? Would he be better or worse
than here? And in either case, he would be obliged to begin a new life,
to leave his peaceful corner, go to a strange house, renounce all his
old happiness, and bid adieu to what he had loved so well.
Iermola dreamed also; the new day had brought him new thoughts.
According to his custom, he went to see the widow, as he always did
when he felt in need of some one to talk to.
"Are you crazy?" cried the old woman as she saw him. "How could you
yesterday evening have been so obstinate as to keep the child, just as
if you had any sort of prospects for him? And besides, he is the son of
a lord; he has his position already given him. And could it have done
you any harm to go to the _dwor_ with Radionek and live peacefully,
enjoying his good fortune?"
"Yes, yes! but how could I be to him there what I have been to him up
to this hour? I should no longer be his father; I should become his
serving-man. They would take his heart away from me little by little;
they would spoil and ruin my child. Do I not know something about the
life of lords and rich people? Food a little more delicate, clothes a
little finer, words a little smoother; but are they happier? God knows
we cannot tell anything about it. Ask them if they do not weep in
secret, if there are no sad moments spent under their roofs, if their
happiness is as great, as pure, as it appears from a distance."
"It is doubtless your great grief which causes you to talk in this
way," cried the widow, shrugging her shoulders. "Their life is not like
ours, that is certain. If our fate is the better of the two, why is it
that all do not wish to live as we do? It is indeed a rare thing that a
great lord is willing of his own accord to live as we do; while each
one of us, on the contrary, would like to taste their bread. But the
truth must be told."
Iermola remained silent for a few moments, leaning his head on his
hand.
"Neighbour," said he, at last, "when we shall come to die, it will then
matter very little to us whether during our lives we have eaten bread
of fine wheat flour or coarse rye bread; no matter how a man has lived,
it will be all the same to him, provided he has clean hands and a pure
conscience to present before God. And as for knowing whether my child
will then have been better off as lord of his father's house or with
me, a potter in the old inn, upon my word, it is a serious question
which I cannot take upon myself to answer."
"But you will nevertheless be obliged to give him up; there is no way
of avoiding it."
"I shall not prevent him from following them if he will; but he must
choose between us, because I myself wish to die as I have lived. I
shall lay my bones in our old cemetery. I have already tasted the bread
of servitude. I will not go in my last years to hold out my hand and
bow down before young fools who would laugh at me,--not for any amount.
I will remain in Popielnia; as for Radionek, if he wishes, he can go
play the lord at Malyczki."
"And how will you be able to live without him, poor old man?"
"And you, how have you managed to live without Horpyna, without your
grandchildren? Unless, indeed, you can see them by stealth."
"Ah! that is true, that is true," sighed the widow. "With pain and
tears we rear our children, to see them, as soon as they have wings,
fly out of the nest; as for us, we are left behind with broken wings to
look at them far off."
"It is not for long, however," added Iermola, with a sad smile; "our
days are numbered. A few more will pass, and then death will come
knocking gently at our window; our eyes will close, and all will be
over. We shall then have only to render our account to the Lord God."
"Ah, you speak sad words, neighbour."
"Because, as you see, my heart is not merry."
While this conversation was taking place in the widow's house,
Radionek, who had not the heart to go to work, sat in the door-sill,
thinking and dreaming. At one time his heart inclined him toward that
unknown world; at another his tenderness for the old man called him
back and held him.
Parents! a mother!--these are sweet words, which bring sweet thoughts
and have great power over an orphan's heart; for no one can take the
place of a father, no one can take the place of a mother.
The idea of living at the _dwor_, of being rich, of being a master,
seemed very pleasant to the boy; but as he knew nothing of any other
life than the one he had lived until that moment, he did not know what
awaited him in that higher position. His ardent childish curiosity
alone painted the unknown future for him. Then he said to himself that
it would be very sad for the old man to be separated from him; he
recalled all that he had done for him, how much he had loved him.
He did not know whether even maternal tenderness, so powerful and
God-inspired, could equal that love.
While he was thus reflecting, the carriage he had seen the day before
drew near, arrived, and stopped. Radionek might have run away and
hidden himself, but he had not the strength; his mother saw him from a
distance, waved her hand to him, and he remained motionless. His
parents hastened to him, embraced him, and wept.
"It is true,--it is true, is it not, that you are coming with us?"
cried Marie Druzyna, gazing in agitation upon the handsome young
fellow, whom it distressed her to see dressed in peasant's clothes and
a coarse cloak. "You will see," said she, "how happy you will be with
us; you have suffered, but all that will soon be forgotten."
"But I have not suffered," cried Radionek, who began to grow bold, "and
I shall never forget my old father. I shall be very, very much grieved
to leave him."
"I am your father," said Jan Druzyna, in a grieved and irritated tone;
"call the old man what you will, but do not give him the name which
belongs to me."
"Oh, he has been a father to me for a long time, and will be as long as
he lives. He has loved me so dearly."
"And we? Shall not we love you also? Do you not know that you have cost
us many tears?"
"I did not see you shed them; but I know that the old man has wept over
me, and more than once I have seen his tears fall."
"We will take him away with us."
"He would not want to go," murmured Radionek.
At that moment, as though moved by some sad presentiment, Iermola
arrived, having seen the carriage, and run till he was almost out of
breath, trembling, half suffocated, fearing lest he should not find the
child.
The husband and wife greeted him kindly, but with coldness and reserve;
he returned them a glance of indifference.
"To-day," said Jan Druzyna, "you must make up your mind to give the
child up to us. We cannot do without him; and he must be present at his
grandfather's funeral."
"He can do as he pleases," answered the old man; "if he wishes to go
with you, I shall not prevent him."
"You will come,--you will come!" cried the mother, rushing up to
Radionek.
The child hesitated, turned pale, and burst into tears.
"No, no, I cannot," he murmured; "I cannot leave you, my father."
"You may come to see him as often as you wish," said Jan, restraining
himself and speaking gently.
There was a moment's silence; the child, beside himself, turned first
toward the thoughtful, sad old man, then toward his mother, who seemed
to implore him with her eyes not to send her away.
"Do with me what you choose," said Radionek, at last. "I do not know
what to do, I can't think; I am weak and sad. I do not want to leave
you two; but at the same time I wish to stay here always. Why will you
not live here with us?"
Thus pleadings, prayers, and promises continued to be exchanged till
half the day had passed; and at last when the carriage drove away from
the old inn, it bore in it poor Radionek, who was weeping and holding
out his hands to Iermola and promising him to come back the next day
and kiss him.
XVI.
ALONE!
He who rests and builds on the human heart should first look well into
it and lay his foundations deep, lest the edifice of his hopes should
tumble and fall for want of solid support. The human heart in its
depths is only mire and mud; at moments this bottom thickens up and is
condensed, but soon it becomes damp and dissolves under the flow of a
thousand hidden brooks.
There are, however, some rare hearts formed of more lasting material,
in which a furrow once ploughed is never effaced. Old Iermola, who had
loved only once in his life, having found only one being upon whom he
could lavish all the strength of his love, and to whom he had attached
all the fibres of his soul, felt that nothing could replace to him this
child whom he had loved, and whose loss he could not endure.
The grief he felt as he saw the carriage which contained Radionek drive
away, it is impossible to describe. It was not a violent and passionate
despair, nor a tempest of regrets, desires, and bitterness; but it was
a feeling vast, deep, bitter, deadly as poison, slow and cold as the
mountain ices. His weeping eyes dried suddenly, and became haggard,
strange, constantly fixed in the same direction. He heard nothing,
thought nothing. An indescribable confusion filled his brain, which
seemed enveloped in the mazes of a black and tangled thread. He had
lost all consciousness of self, all strength and will to act; he stood
there petrified, half frozen, on the threshold, his hand extended, his
lips parted, and remained there thus a long, very long time, without
taking any account of the moments or the hours, letting the time go by
without feeling it.
Huluk, who was a good boy, finding that he could not rouse Iermola from
this stunned condition either by taking hold of his hand or calling him
in a loud voice,--for the old man did not hear, and would not have
understood him if he had heard,--ran to the widow's house for help.
The good woman came immediately, somewhat agitated, and severely
blaming the old man for what she called his want of sense.
"You act like a child," she said. "How can you be so silly at your age?
You ought to rejoice at Radionek's good fortune."
She began to lecture him in this way from a distance as soon as she
could see him; but as she drew nearer, she perceived with fright that
he could not hear her; he did not move his head, and gave no sign of
life.
His eyes were turned toward the oak-trees, his mouth hanging open, his
head bent down, his hands extended, stiff, and already almost benumbed.
The cossack's widow ran to him, began to rub him hard, and at the same
time to talk to him, sparing him neither hard words nor reproaches, for
she did not know what else to do.
"Have you really gone crazy, old idiot? Do you think they have taken
him away to butcher him? For shame! for shame! Ask God's pardon; it is
a real sin."
But she was obliged to scold and shake him a long time before she saw
life or consciousness return. At last he burst into tears, began to
sob, to murmur indistinct words, and finally his reason revived.
"It is all over," he said; "all my happiness is over. I no longer have
my darling, my treasure, my Radionek. He is now a rich and powerful
lord at Malyczki; but at my house there is no child, and there will
never again be one there."
Then he began to break up his pitchers and porringers and his working
implements, and threw them out of the door.
"What good will all this be to me? I want to return to my former life,
to forget that the child was mine, that I had a son. I know what they
will do with him; they will spoil him and turn his head. Radionek will
be lost to me. The sweet child will never more speak to me and give me
loving smiles as he used to do; he will always sigh for their handsome
house, their plastered house. He will be cold in my hut; the fresh
water and hard bread will not seem good to him; Iermola will be to him
only a garrulous, insupportable old grumbler. Oh, I have been weak and
mean-spirited! I have been crazy. I should have run away,--run far away
with him to some place where they would not have been able to find us,
and where they could not have taken him from me."
The cossack's widow listened and shrugged her shoulders; from time to
time she tried to say a kind word to him, but she knew that it is
necessary always to allow a great grief to vent and exhaust itself, so
she let Iermola cry and groan. At every step the old man came upon
something to remind him of the child, in the room which was still so
full of mementos of him. Here was his drugget cloak; there a little
painted pitcher which he had made himself, the first vase, glazed and
ornamented with flowers, which he had so lovingly made, his square cap
with a red border, of the Polesian fashion, and in a corner, the little
bench upon which he loved to sit, the porringer from which he ate his
meals, the goat he played with, and which was bleating because it did
not see him.
"Oh, I must end it all by bursting my head against the wall!" cried
Iermola. "How can I live without him? I feel as if my child were dead."
The widow, who now began to be frightened because she thought that
Iermola's grief was not of the kind which would soon subside, sent
Huluk to beg Chwedko to come immediately to the old inn. Chwedko, being
warned of what was going on, and considering brandy as the greatest
possible comforter, took care to take with him a bottle full of it. He
began by talking pleasantly and even congratulating his old friend,
then he compared in a melancholy way the old man's attachment for
Radionek to that he bore his gray mare; then having exhausted all his
eloquence, and not knowing what else to do, he drew the bottle from his
pouch and set it on the table.
At the sight of it Iermola's eyes sparkled; he seized the bottle and
emptied it at one draught. But man has moments of internal upheaval, so
deep and so intense that the effect of things with which he comes in
contact is no longer manifested according to the general laws of
nature. The human being who has reached such a state of excessive
excitement and agony no longer feels either hunger or cold, and will
even be proof against poison; as, for instance, in the heat of battle,
a soldier will take, without becoming intoxicated, an enormous quantity
of liquor, which ordinarily would certainly have laid him on the
ground. Just so it was with Iermola, who wished to get drunk and could
not succeed, for he felt no inconvenience or stupefaction, in spite of
the large quantity of brandy he had swallowed.
"What a head he must have to stand a pint of strong gin!" murmured
Chwedko, with a sort of respect.
"It is not his head which is strong; it is his grief," said the widow,
in a low voice. "Give him a bucketful of it now, and you would not make
him tipsy; grief keeps him awake."
As the evening came on, they made every effort to induce him to spend
the night at the widow's cottage, but they could not persuade him to do
so. The old man seated himself again on the door-sill, and began to
muse and sigh with his eyes fixed on the oaks. The two neighbours were
compelled by urgent business to return home, Chwedko remembering that
it was time to water his mare, and the widow having to prepare her
supper and milk her cow. They were both obliged to leave him; and
Huluk, the poor orphan, was left alone with him, weeping.
The evening advanced; night came on, and still Iermola did not move
from the spot. He slept there a few moments, for sorrow had overcome
him. Then he wakened suddenly and remained so, still motionless. Huluk,
suffering for the want of sleep, watched over him and kept up a low
wailing.
It was about the first cock-crowing when a shadow of some one moving
fell suddenly upon the threshold of the cabin. Huluk, who had the eyes
of a lynx, immediately recognized Radionek, who was running along the
road leading from Malyczki. The old man had not seen him, but he had
felt his coming; he trembled, looked around, and cried, "Radionek!"
"Yes, it is I, my father."
"It is you, my good child; ah, the Lord be praised! I was dying without
you, do you see, and you have come to bring me back to life. But how
did you come? On foot?"
"On foot, father. Did I not know the road? And why should I be afraid
to walk at night?"
"Did you come alone?"
"With my stick."
"And did they give you permission to come?"
"Bah! I did not ask it. They put me to bed, but I was so troubled I
could not close my eyes. I cannot tell you how anxious I was; I felt
obliged to come back to you. And when the morning comes and they do not
find me, they will know well enough where to look for me."
Iermola, as he embraced him, felt his strength and presence of mind
return, and he quickly revived.
"Huluk," he cried in a glad, strong voice, "the poor child is doubtless
cold; he is hungry too. Surely they could not have given him anything
to eat. Light the fire. Is there anything to eat? I also feel as if my
stomach was empty."
"How astonishing!" murmured the boy; "yesterday neither of them ate one
mouthful."
"Ah, that is true, upon my word."
"I will light the fire myself, father, and get your breakfast ready,"
said Radionek. "Let me wait upon you as I used to do."
"Ah, no, no, my child! sit down beside me; tomorrow they will take you
away again. Do not leave me, I beg you. But you are cold out here; the
dew is falling. Come inside, my child."
When the fire kindled by Huluk began to light up the room with its
bright red flames, the old man, as he looked at Radionek, perceived
that his parents, although they had not had time to change his dress
entirely, had nevertheless considerably altered his costume. His mother
had found for him in her closet a fine white shirt, had tied a pretty
cravat around his neck, had washed, combed, and curled his beautiful
golden hair, had fastened a girdle round his waist, put one of his
father's caps on his head, and poured over his clothing a perfumed
essence. These changes in the child's dress seemed to Iermola so many
signs of abjuration, of bondage, so many new fetters belonging to his
new position; he sighed as he examined them, though the child was
charming to look at in this half-altered costume. They were silent for
a moment, for the old man had grown sad again; he gazed at the child,
and was troubled as he thought of the future.
"To-morrow," said he to himself, "they will come for him, and take him
away again; the poor child will not be able to come back to me any
more,--they will keep a strict watch over him. Who knows, perhaps they
may punish him for having returned to comfort his old father.--Are you
happier with them?" he asked after a moment. "Give me at least the
comfort of knowing that you are happy."