Nothing could be more irritating than the relations of these students.
They lived together.
At last Gustav on returning one day from Pani Helena's found Yosef's
effects packed. Yosef himself was occupied in arranging his books and
linen.
Both were silent till all was ready; then Yosef said,--
"Gustav, farewell! I am moving out."
Gustav reached him his hand without saying a word. They parted coldly.
On the road Vasilkevich met Yosef.
"Ho! What is this?" inquired he. "Art thou moving?"
"Thou knowest my relations with Gustav, judge thyself if I can live with
him longer."
"But this is clear, it was not well for thee to leave him in his present
condition of health."
"I understand, but I assure thee that I can only irritate him. Thou
knowest what I have done for Gustav; he has no real reason to dislike
me; but still--"
Vasilkevich pressed his hand.
Yosef's new lodgings were in a house of several stories. They consisted
of two large and good-looking rooms. Besides the money which he had
brought from home, Yosef immediately after his arrival found means which
permitted him to save his capital to the utmost. He began to think then
of a more comfortable mode of life, and at last arranged things far
better really than at the beginning. From the first glance one might
note ease and plenty in the new dwelling. The bed was made in good order
every day, the floor swept, and in the small porcelain stove a cheerful
fire burned daily, toward evening--it was so comfortable there that the
soul rejoiced!
For that matter, the whole house was far better arranged than the
other, it was even elegant. On the first story lived some general with
his wife and two daughters, as ugly as two winter nights; on the second
story lived Yosef, and a French engineer from whom the rooms were hired;
and on the third some reduced count, a man immensely rich on a time,
perhaps, but at that moment bankrupt; he lived in three or four rooms
with his grown-up daughter and two or three servant-maids from the
Ukraine. Such were Yosef's neighbors.
Soon they gave evidence of themselves, for all day in the engineer's
rooms groaned a piano at which children were learning to play all the
contra-dances ever danced up to that time in any land; at the general's
were continual amusements, dances, and evening parties. Whole nights
through there was stamping there, as in a mill, servants moving about on
the stairway; there was no lack of noise and rattle.
The count alone lived quietly. There is nothing wonderful in this, that
he and his daughter sat there meditating sadly over their own ruin like
Jews over the ruins of Jerusalem. Yosef of course did not know them yet,
but at times about dusk, by the clatter on the stairs and the heavy
tread, he divined that the old count was taking his daughter to walk;
but not being fond of titles or coronets, he had in truth no curiosity
to look at them.
Once, however, he saw something which interested him more. A certain
day, while going to his room, he saw between the first story and the
second a certain bust bent over the banisters with a head altogether
shapely, blue eyes, and dark hair. Those eyes, shaded by a hand, were
looking carefully for something in the half light of the passage. Seeing
Yosef, the head pushed forward, and with it the body, and when the
student hurried on, wishing to see the young lady more nearly, he saw
only two small feet in black boots and white stockings. The feet were
fleeing upstairs with all speed.
"Ah, that is the countess then!" thought he.
The countess roused his curiosity. He did not know himself why in the
dusk sitting in front of the fire he saw definitely before him that pair
of eyes covered with the hand, the white forehead surrounded with curls
of dark hair, and the feet in black boots.
A couple of evenings later when at an advanced hour he had put out the
light and lain down in bed, he heard some voice singing a melancholy
song in Italian. The passage and Yosef's room also were filled with
those tones, youthful, resonant, sympathetic; the fond and passionate
adjurations and reproaches were given out with a marvellous charm; in
the stillness of night the words came forth clearly.
"Ah! the countess is singing!" murmured Yosef.
Next morning early, he knew not why, while dressing and rubbing his
hands with soap stubbornly, he sang with much pathos as if to lend
himself energy.
But soon he ceased; the widow came to his mind instead of the countess.
"That woman either loves me already, or she would love me very soon,"
thought he. He wished the return of those moments during which he had
looked into her eyes. "What a strange woman!" thought he. "How that
Potkanski must have loved her--ha! and Gustav!" He frowned. "If I go
there, will he not grieve to death, will he not poison himself? That
love will ruin him--h'm! Each answers for himself. But I am curious to
know what she says since I do not visit her."
Thenceforth that moment recurred to his mind frequently when she, so
pale and with outstretched arms, exclaimed, "I have found thee, my
Kazimir!"
If only he wished, he could go to her, love her, and be loved by her.
This plan of probable love did not let him sleep. Like every young man,
he felt the need of love; his heart beat violently, as if it wanted to
burst, broken by its own strength. And so far he knew no woman except
the widow. The black boots and white stockings of the countess passed
before his eyes, but that slight imagining vanished into nothingness.
He remembered meanwhile how on a certain time during conversation he had
held the widow's hand; he remembered what a wish he had had to kiss it,
but he remembered also how ominously Gustav's eyes were glittering at
that moment. Jealousy seized him. Occasionally a scarcely visible cloud,
regret for a premature promise, sped past in his soul and hid somewhere
in its darkest caves. Then he repeated in a very tragic tone, "I have
promised, I will not go."
One thing more angered him,--to people respected and more advanced in
life this would seem a paradox,--the quiet of life angered him. Science
came to him easily, he did not expend all his powers, and this roused
distaste in him. Fresh, active natures, like young soldiers, feel a need
of bathing in the fire of battle. This desire of his to fight which at a
more advanced age seems to us improbable, becomes in certain years, and
quite seriously, one of the needs of the spirit. Let us remember Yosef's
monologue in Gustav's room, the first day of his coming to Kieff. He
wanted then to throw down the gauntlet in the name of science or the
name of feeling, before the whole world. Young eagles try to fly with a
cloud above them and an abyss underneath. Even the most common man,
before learning that he is a turtle, has moments in which he thinks
himself an eagle.
In such a condition was Yosef, and in this case there was simply no one
with whom to be at sword's-points.
In the University he had a greater or less number of adherents, a field
in the wide world might open, but Yosef did not know this wide world
yet.
Suddenly something happened which snatched him from his lethargy.
Augustinovich had acted in a way that offended the honor of students.
They determined to expel him.
That was not his first offence, but the students had always passed
those matters over among themselves, not wishing to be compromised in
public opinion; now the measure had been exceeded. We will not acquaint
the reader with the offence; what concern have we with foulness? It is
enough that a court composed of students had decided to expel the
offender. From such decisions there was no appeal, for the University
authorities always confirmed them; an appeal would only make it more
widely known.
Indignation among students was great; no one took the part of
Augustinovich except Yosef, who rousing half the University exerted his
power to save the man.
"You wish to expel him," said he, at a very stormy meeting. "You wish to
expel him? But do you think that after he has left the University he
will not bring shame to you? What will he do with himself? Where will he
go? How will he find means of living? How will he maintain himself? And
do you know why he fell? No!--Ask him when he has eaten a dinner. We are
among ourselves. Raise either of his feet, the right or the left, all
the same! If under his boots you find one sound sole, expel him. As to
me I declare, and may the thunderbolts split any one who will say
otherwise, that we ought to save, not to ruin him. Give him salvation,
give him bread--take him on your own responsibility!"
"Who will answer for him?" asked one of Augustinovich's opponents.
"I!" shouted Yosef in a thundering voice; and he threw his cap on the
floor.
There was uproar and confusion in the room. Vasilkevich supported Yosef
with all his influence, others insisted on his expulsion, there was no
"small uproar." Yosef sprang onto a bench, and turning to Augustinovich
shouted,--
"They forgive thee! Come with me."
He left the room, rubbing his hands with internal delight, and cried,--
"It would be a pity to lose such a head! Besides, let them eat the devil
if they act without me now!"
"Why didst thou save me?" inquired Augustinovich.
Yosef turned a severe face toward him and said,--
"To-day thou wilt move into my lodgings."
Meanwhile another drama was played in Pani Helena's lodgings. She was a
most peculiar person; she could not exist, she knew not how to exist,
without attaching her life to some feeling. Her first chance had been
fortunate; she proved a model wife and mother. It had seemed to her that
she found salvation in Yosef, and now months had passed since she had
seen him; and she desired him the more, the more persistently Gustav
resisted.
The last struggle of these directly opposing forces had to come.
"If thou wilt not return him to me," said the widow in tears, one
evening, "I will go myself to find him. I am ready to kneel down before
thee and beg on my knees for him, Gustav! Thou sayest that Kazimir
begged thee to have care over me; so I implore thee in his name. O God,
O God! Thou dost not understand that it is possible to suffer; thou hast
never loved, of course."
"I, Pani! have never loved?" repeated Gustav, in a very low voice; and
in his eyes real pain was evident. "Perhaps thou art speaking the truth.
Then thou hast observed nothing, hast seen nothing? I know not myself
that I have loved any one except--O God, what do I utter!--except thee
alone."
He threw himself at Helena's feet.
Great silence followed. One might have said that the two persons had
become stone,--she bent backward, with her hands over her face, he at
her feet. They continued in this posture, both oblivious of everything
around them. But a moment comes when the greatest pain is conquered.
He rose soon, a new man; he was very calm. He roused her, and spoke in a
low voice, interrupted through a lack of breath.
"Pardon me, Helena! I should not have done this, but thou seest I have
been suffering so long. This is the third year since I saw thee the
first time--I saw thee in a church; the priest was just elevating the
chalice, and thou wert inclining--I visited that church afterward, I saw
thee more frequently, and, pardon me! I myself cannot tell how it
happened. Afterward thou didst become his wife--I said nothing. And this
time I did not wish to offend or annoy thee, but thou sayest that I have
never loved. Thou seest that that is not true. How hard it is to
renounce the last hope! Pardon me! Pan Yosef will come to-day to
thee--he is a man of noble nature, love him, be happy--and farewell."
He bent toward her, and raising the hem of her garment, with gleaming
upturned eyes, he kissed the cloth as though it were sacred.
After a while the widow was alone.
"What did he say?" whispered she, in a low voice. "What did Gustav say?
He said, I remember it, that _he_ would come again to me. Am I dreaming?
But no, _he_ will come."