The hour was five in the afternoon. The ladies sat on the veranda, at
tea, when the young men returned from the city. Miss Anney rose when
they appeared and, not wishing to be present, as a stranger, at the
family conversation, left on some pretext for her room. Pani Krzycki
greeted them with slightly affected calm, because in reality the
thought of the will did not leave her for a moment. She was not
greedier than the generality of common mortals, but she was immensely
concerned that, after her demise, at the distribution of the estate,
Ladislaus should have enough to pay off the younger members of the
family and to sustain himself at Jastrzeb. And some respectable bequest
would in a remarkable manner facilitate the making of such payments.
Besides, at the bottom of the noble soul of Pani Krzycki there lay
hidden the faith that Providence owed, to a certain extent, greater
obligations to the Krzycki family than to any ordinary family. For that
reason, even if the whole of Rzeslewo fell to the lot of that family,
she would with readiness and willingness submit to such a decree of
Providence. Finally, descending from the blood of a people who in
certain cases can sacrifice fortune, but love extraordinarily to
acquire it without any effort, she fondled all day the thought that
such an easy acquisition was about to occur.
But in the countenances of Ladislaus and Gronski she could at once
discern that they brought specific intelligence. Dolhanski, who was the
first to alight from the carriage, was the first to begin the report.
"I anticipate the question, what is the news?" he said, drawling his
expressions with cold irony, "and I answer everything is for the best,
for the Rzeslewo Mats and Jacks will have something with which they can
travel to Carlsbad."
Pani Krzycki grew somewhat pale and, turning to Gronski, asked:
"What, in truth, gentlemen, have you brought with you?"
"The will in its provisions is peculiar," answered Gronski, "but was
executed in a noble spirit. Rzeslewo is devised for a peasants'
agricultural school and the interest of the funds is to be devoted to
sending the pupils of the school, who have finished their courses, for
a year's or two years' practice in country husbandry in Bohemia."
"Or, as I stated, to Carlsbad, Marienbad, Teplitz, and other places of
the same character," explained Dolhanski.
A moment of silence followed. Marynia, who was pouring the tea, began,
with teapot in hand, to gaze with inquiring look at those present,
desiring evidently to unriddle whether they praised or condemned it and
whether it gave them pleasure or annoyance. Pani Otocka looked at
Gronski with eyes which evinced delight; while Pani Krzycki leaned with
both hands upon the cane which she used owing to rheumatism in her
limbs, and after a certain time asked in a slightly hoarse voice:
"So, it is for a public purpose?"
"Yes," answered Gronski, "the organization of the school and afterwards
the division of the funds for the stay in Bohemia is to be assumed by a
special Directory of the Trust Society of this province, and the
designated curator of the school is Laudie."
"Too bad it is not I," interposed Dolhanski. "I would arrange it very
quickly."
"There are specific bequests," continued Gronski, "and these are very
strange. He bequeaths various small sums to the household servants and
ten thousand roubles to some Skibianka, daughter of a blacksmith at the
Rzeslewo manor, who in his time emigrated to America."
"Skibianka!" repeated Pani Krzycki with astonishment.
Dolhanski bit off the ends of his mustache, smiled, and started to
grumble that the nobility was always distinguished for its love of the
common people, but Gronski looked at him severely; after which he drew
from his pocket a memorandum and said:
"That provision of the will is worded as follows: Whereas the parents
of Hanka Skiba or Skibianka emigrated during my sojourn abroad for
medical treatment, and I have not had the opportunity of ascertaining
where they can be found, therefore I obligate my relative, Ladislaus
Krzycki, to cause to be published in all the Polish newspapers printed
in the United States and in Parana, advertisements. If the said legatee
does not within two years appear to receive the bequest, the entire sum
with interest becomes the property of the said Ladislaus Krzycki."
"And I already have announced that I do not intend to accept that
specific bequest," cried the young man excitedly.
All eyes were turned toward him; he added:
"I would not think of it; I would not think of it."
"Why not?" asked his mother after a while.
"Because I cannot. Let us suppose that the legatee appears, say for
instance, within three years instead of two, what would happen? Would I
pocket the bequest and drive her away? No! I could not do that.
Finally, there are other considerations of which I do not wish to
speak."
In fact, only by these "other considerations," could such a
considerable bequest to a simple village girl be explained; therefore
Pani Krzycki became silent. After a while she said:
"My Laudie, nobody will coerce, nor even try to persuade you to
accept."
But Dolhanski asked:
"Tell me, is this some mythical disinterestedness or is it ill humor
caused by your not receiving a greater bequest?"
"Do not judge by yourself," answered Krzycki; "but I will tell you
something which you certainly will not believe; since this estate is to
be devoted to such an object as a peasants' agricultural school, I am
highly delighted and have much greater esteem for the deceased. I give
you my word that I speak with entire sincerity."
"Bravo!" exclaimed Pani Otocka, "it is pleasant to hear that."
Pani Krzycki looked with pride first upon her son, then upon Pani
Otocka; and, though a feeling of disappointment lingered in her heart,
said:
"Well, let there be a peasants' school, if only our Jastrzeb peasants
will be permitted to send their sons to it."
"That does not admit of any doubt," explained Gronski. "There will be
as many pupils as accommodations can be provided for. They may come
from all parts, though preference is to be given to Rzeslewo peasants."
"What do they say about the bequest?"
"There were more than a dozen of them at the opening of the will, as
they expected a direct gift of all the manor lands to them. Somebody
had persuaded them that the deceased left everything to them to be
equally divided. So they left very much displeased. We heard them say
that this was not the genuine will and that they do not need any
schools."
"Most fully do I share their opinion," said Dolhanski, "and in this
instance, contrary to my nature, I will speak seriously. For at present
there is raging an epidemic of founding schools and no one asks for
whom, for what, how are they to be taught in them, and what is the end
to be attained. I belong to that species of birds who do not toil, but
look at everything, if not from the top, then from the side, and,
perhaps for that very reason, see things which others do not observe.
So, at times, I have an impression that we are like those children, for
instance, at Ostend, who build on the sea-shore forts with the sand.
Every day on the beach they erect them and every day the waves wash
them away until not a trace of them remains."
"In a way you are right," said Gronski; "but there, however, is this
difference: the children build joyfully and we do not."
Afterwards he meditated and added:
"However, the law of nature is such that children grow while the adults
rear dykes, not of sand, but of stone upon which the weaves dash to
pieces."
"Let them be dashed to pieces as quickly as possible," exclaimed
Ladislaus.
But Dolhanski would not concede defeat.
"Permit me then," he said, "since we have not yet grown up and have not
yet started to build of stone, to remain a pessimist."
Gronski gazed for a while into the depths of the garden like a man who
was pondering over something and then said:
"Pessimism--pessimism! We hear that incessantly nowadays. But in the
meanwhile if there exists anything more stupid than optimism, which
often passes for folly, it is particularly pessimism, which desires to
pose as reason."
Dolhanski smiled a trifle biliously and, turning to the ladies, said,
pointing to Gronski:
"Do not take this ill of him, ladies. It often happens for him in
moments of abstraction to utter impertinences. He is a good--even
intelligent--man, but has the unbearable habit of turning over
everything, examining it from all sides, pondering over it, and
soliloquizing."
But Marynia suddenly flushed with indignation in defence of her friend
and, shaking the teapot which at that moment she held in her hand,
began to speak with great ardor:
"That is just right, that is just sensible; that is what everybody
ought to do--"
Dolhanski pretended to be awe-stricken and, bowing his head, cried:
"I am vanquished; I retreat and surrender arms."
Gronski, laughing, kissed her hand, while she, abashed at her own
vehemence and covered with blushes, began to ask:
"Is it not the truth? Am I not right?"
But Dolhanski already recovered his presence of mind.
"That does not prove anything," he said.
"Why?"
"Because Gronski once promulgated this aphorism: It is never proper to
follow the views of a woman, especially if by accident she is right."
"I?" exclaimed Gronski. "Untangle yourself from me. I never said
anything like that. Do not believe him, ladies."
"I believe only you, sir," answered Marynia.
But further conversation was interrupted by Pani Krzycki, who observed
that it was time for the May mass. In the Jastrzeb manor-house, there
was a room especially assigned for that purpose and known as the
chapel. At the main wall, opposite the windows, stood an altar with a
painting of the Divine Mother of Czestochowo. The walls, altar,
painting, and even the candles were decorated with green garlands. On
the side tables stood bouquets of elders and jasmines whose fragrance
filled the entire room. Sometimes, when the rector of Rzeslewo arrived,
he conducted the services; in his absence the lady of the house. All
the inmates of the house, with the exception of Laskowicz, during the
entire month of May met every evening in the chapel. At present the
gentlemen followed the ladies. On the way Ladislaus asked Gronski:
"Is Miss Anney a Catholic?"
"To tell you the truth, I do not know," answered Gronski, "but it
seems--but look, she is entering also. So she must be a Catholic.
Perhaps her name is Irish."
In the chapel the candles were already lit, though the sun had not
entirely set and stood in the windows, low, golden, and ruddy, casting
a lustre on the white cloth which covered the altar and on the heads of
the women. At the very altar the lady of the house knelt, behind her
the lady visitors; after them the female servants and the old asthmatic
lackey, while the gentlemen stood at the wall between the windows. The
customary songs, prayers, and litanies began. Their sweetness struck
Gronski. There was in them something of spring and at the same time of
the evening. The impression of the spring was created by the flowers,
and of the evening by ruddy lustre entering through the windows, and
the soft voices of the women who, repeating the choral words of the
litanies, reminded one of the last chirp of birds, subsiding before the
setting of the sun. "Healer of the sick. Refuge of sinners, Comforter
of the afflicted," repeated Pani Krzycki; and those soft, subdued
voices responded, "Pray for us,"--and thus did that country home pray
on that May evening. Gronski, who was a sceptic, but not an atheist,
like a man of high culture, at first felt the aesthetic side of this
childlike "good-night" borne by these women to a benign deity.
Afterwards, as if desiring to corroborate the truth of Dolhanski's
assertion that he was wont to turn over every subject on every side and
to ponder over every phenomenon, he began to meditate upon religious
manifestations. It occurred to him that this homage rendered to a deity
was an element purely ideal, possessed solely by humanity. He recalled
that as often as he happened to be in church and saw people praying, so
often was he struck by the unfathomable chasm which separates the world
of man from the animal world. As a matter of fact, religious
conceptions can only be formed by higher and more perfect organisms;
therefore he drew the conclusion that if there existed beings ten times
more intelligent than mankind, they would, in their own way, be ten
times more religious. "Yes, but in their own way," Gronski repeated,
"which perhaps might be very different." His spiritual drama (and he
often thought that there were many people like him) was this: that the
Absolute appeared to him as an abyss, as some synthetic law of all the
laws of existence. Thus he presumed that according to a degree of
mental development it was impossible to imagine that law in the form of
the kindly old man or in the eye on the radiant triangle, unless one
takes matters symbolically and assumes that the old man and the eye
express the all-basis of existence, as the horizontally drawn eight
denotes infinity. But in such case what will this all-basis be for him?
Always night, always an abyss, always something inscrutable; barely to
be felt by some dull sensation and not by any clear perception, from
whose power can be understood the phenomenon of existence and an answer
be made to the various whys and wherefores. "Mankind," mused Gronski,
"possesses at the same time too much and too little intelligence. For,
after all, to simply believe one must unreservedly shut the blinds of
his intellectual windows and not permit himself to peer through them;
and when he does open them he discovers only a starless night." For
this reason he envied those middle-aged persons, whose intelligence
reared mentally edifices upon unshaken dogmas, just as lighthouses are
built upon rocks in the sea. Dante could master the whole field of
knowledge of his time and yet, notwithstanding this, could traverse
hell, purgatory, and paradise. The modern man of learning could not
travel thus, for if he wished to pass in thought beyond the world of
material phenomenon, he would see that which we behold in Wuertz's
well-known painting, a decapitated head; that is, some element so
undefined that it is equivalent to nothing.
But the tragedy, according to Gronski, lay not only in the
inscrutability of the Absolute, in the impossibility of understanding
His laws, but also in the impossibility of agreeing on them and
acknowledging them from the view point of human life. There exist, of
course, evil and woe. The Old Testament explains them easily by the
state of almost continual rage of its Jah. "Domine ne in furore tuo
arguas me, neque in ira tua corripias me," and afterwards "saggittae
tuae infixae sunt mihi et confirmasti super me manuo tuum." And once
having accepted this blind fury and this "strengthening of the right
hand," it is easy to explain to one's self in a simple manner
misfortune. But already in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes doubts
whether everything in the world is in order. The New Testament sees
evil in matter in contraposition to the soul; and that is clear.
However, viewing the matter, in the abstract, as everything is a close
chain of cause and effect, therefore everything is logical, and being
logical it cannot per se be either evil or good, but may appear
propitious or unfavorable in its relation to man. Besides, that which
we call evil or misfortune may, according to the absolute laws of
existence, and in its profundity, be wise and essential principles of
development, which are beyond human comprehension, and therefore
something which in itself is an advantageous phenomenon.
Yes, but in such case, whence does man derive the power to oppose his
individual thoughts and his concrete conceptions to this universal
logic? If everything is a delusion, why is the human mind a force,
existing, as it were, outside of the general laws of existence? There
is this something, unprecedented and at the same time tragical, that
man must be subjected to these laws and can protest against them. On
earth spiritual peace was enjoyed only by the gods, and is now only by
animals. Man is eternally struggling and crying veto, and such a veto
is every human tear.
And here Gronski's thoughts assumed a more personal aspect. He began to
look at the praying Marynia and at first experienced relief. There came
to his mind the purely aesthetic observation that Carpaccio might have
placed such a maiden beside his guitar-player and Boticelli should have
foreseen her. But immediately afterwards he thought that even such a
flower must wither, and nothing withers or dies without pain. Suddenly
he was seized with a fear of the future, which in her traveling-pouch
carries concealed evil and woe. He recalled, indeed, the aphorism which
he had uttered, a short time before, about pessimism; but that gave him
no comfort, because he understood that the pessimism which flowed from
the exertions of the intellect is different from the worldling's
pessimism which Dolhanski, by shrugging his shoulders at everything,
permitted himself to indulge in when free from card-playing. He
moreover propounded to himself the question whether that debilitating
pessimism could in any manner be well founded, and here unexpectedly
there stood before his eyes another friend, entirely different from
Dolhanski, though also a sceptic and hedonist,--Doctor Parebski. He was
a college-mate of Gronski and in later years had treated him for a
nervous ailment; therefore he knew him perfectly. Once, after listening
to his various reflections and complaints about the impossibility of
finding a solution of the paramount questions of life, Doctor Parebski
said to him: "That is a pastime for which time and means are necessary.
If you had to work for your bread as I have, you would not upset your
own mind and the minds of others. All that reminds me of a dog chasing
his own tail. And I tell you, look at that which environs you and not
at your own navel; and if you want to be well, then--carpe diem!"
Gronski at that time deemed these words somewhat brutal and more in the
nature of medical than philosophical advice, but now when he recalled
them he said to himself: "In truth the road on which, as if from bad
habit, I am continually entering leads to nowhere; and who knows
whether these women praying this moment with such faith are not,
without question, more sensible than I am, not to say more at ease and
happier?"
In the meantime Pani Kryzcki began to speak: "Under Thy protection we
flee. Holy Mother of God," and the women's voices immediately
responded: "Our entreaties deign not to spurn and from all evil deign
to preserve us forever." Gronski was swept by an intense longing for
such a sweet, tutelary divinity who does not deign to scorn entreaties
and who delivers us from evil. How well it would be with him if he
could enjoy such peace of mind, and how simple the thought!
Unfortunately he already had strayed too far away. He could, like
women, yearn, but, unlike them, he could not believe.
Gronski mentally reviewed the whole array of his acquaintances and
noted that those who fervently believed, in the depths of their souls,
were very few in number. Some there were who did not believe at all;
others who wanted to believe and could not; some acknowledged from
social considerations the necessity of faith, and finally there were
those who were simply occupied with something else. To this latter
category belonged men who, for instance, observed the custom of
attending mass as they did the habit of eating breakfast every morning,
or of donning a dress-coat each evening or wearing gloves. Through
habit it entered into the texture of their lives. Here Gronski
unwillingly glanced at Ladislaus, for it seemed to him that the young
man was a bird from that grove.
Such, in fact, was the case. Krzycki, however, was neither a dull nor
thoughtless person. At the university he, like others, philosophized a
little, but afterwards the current of his life carried him in another
direction. There existed, indeed, beside Jastrzeb and the daily affairs
connected therewith, other matters which deeply interested him. He was
sincerely concerned about his native land, her future, the events which
might affect her destiny, and finally--women and love. But upon faith
he reflected as much as he did upon death, upon which he did not
reflect at all, as if he was of the opinion that it was improper to
think of them, since they in the proper time will not forget anybody.
At present, moreover, owing to the guests, he was more than a hundred
miles from thinking of such questions. At one time, while yet a
student, when during vacation time he drove over with his mother to
Rzeslewo to attend high mass, he cherished in the depths of his soul
the poetical hope that some Sunday the rattle of a carriage would
resound without the church doors and a young and charming princess,
journeying from somewhere beyond the Baltic to Kiev, would enter the
church; that he would invite her to Jastrzeb and later fall in love
with her and marry her. And now here unexpectedly those youthful dreams
were in some measure realized, for to Jastrzeb there came not one but
three princesses of whom he could dream as much as he pleased, for
behold, they were now kneeling before the family altar, absorbed in
prayer. He began to gaze--now at Pani Otocka and then at the form of
Marynia, which resembled a Tanagra figurine, and repeated to himself:
"Mother desires to give one of them to me as a wife." And he had
nothing against the idea, but thought of Pani Otocka, "That is a book
which somebody has already read, while the other is a fledgeling who
can play a violin." Ladislaus was of the age which does not take into
calculation any woman under twenty years. After a while, as if
unwillingly, he directed his eyes towards Miss Anney,--unwillingly
because she formed the most luminous object in the room, for the
setting sun, falling upon her light hair, saturated it with such lustre
that the whole head appeared aflame. Miss Anney from time to time
raised her hand and shaded her head with it as if she desired to
extinguish the lustre, but as the rays each moment became less warm,
she finally discontinued the action. At times she was hidden from view
by the figure of some dark-haired girl, whom Ladislaus did not know,
but who, he surmised, must be a servant of one of these ladies. Towards
the close of the services the girl bowed so low that she no longer
obscured the view of the light hair or the young and powerful
shoulders.
"That," he said to himself, "would be the greatest temptation, but
mother would be opposed, as she is a foreigner."
But suddenly, as if to rebuke his conscience, there came to his memory
the pensive eyes and slender shoulders of Panna Stabrowska. Ah! if only
Rzeslewo and the funds had fallen to his lot! But uncle bequeathed
Rzeslewo for educational purposes and the funds for trips to Carlsbad
by the Mats, as Dolhanski had said, and a few thousand for Hanka
Skibianka. At this recollection his brow clouded and he drew his hand
across his forehead.
"I unnecessarily became excited before mother and the ladies," he said
to himself, "but I must explain this matter to Gronski."
Accordingly, at the close of the mass, he turned to him:
"I want to speak with you about various matters, but only in four eyes.
Is that satisfactory?"
"All right," answered Gronski, "when?"
"Not to-day, for I must first go to Rzeslewo to question the men, look
over the estate, and then attend to the guests. It will be best
to-morrow evening or the day after. We will take our rifles with us and
go to the woods. Now there is a flight of woodcocks. Dolhanski does not
hunt, so we will leave him with the ladies."
"All right," repeated Gronski.