Ladislaus, however, did not go to the city on the day following his
conversation with Gronski, for he was notified that the meeting of the
executors of Zarnowski's will was postponed for one week. The reason
for this was that in two days a convention of the citizens of the
vicinity was to commence in reference to providing insurance for the
superannuated rural officials and manor-servants, and also in regard to
the more burning question of introducing the Polish language into the
communes,--a question in which the communal justices as well as the
villagers were interested. Ladislaus determined, by all means, to
participate in these debates, but as they were to take place in the
forenoons, he formulated a plan of going to them every morning and
returning home in the afternoon. In view of the proximity of Jastrzeb
to the city, this plan was quite feasible.
However, he was disappointed in the hope that he could devote those two
days exclusively to the guests, or rather to the most precious of
guests in Jastrzeb, as the disorders in Rzeslewo broke out with renewed
virulence and they required almost all his time. The strike of the
manor help, indeed, ceased so completely that the intervention, which
Dolhanski advised, became superfluous and it was necessary to restrain
it. But in the meantime individual tenants and some of the husbandmen
began to commit depredations in the forest. Ladislaus, at the head of
the local and Jastrzeb foresters, sought these disorderly persons, who,
indeed, hid at the sight of him: nevertheless they assumed a very
threatening attitude towards the servants, promising to all swift
vengeance. The foresters received bulky letters, assuring them "that
they would get a bullet in the head, and the heir also would." But the
heir, who was not wanting in youthful energy and was not averse to
adventure, did not at all neglect the defence of the Rzeslewo forests,
and, what was more, he personally rushed over to Rzeslewo and summoning
the malefactors, declared that he would invoke courts and punishment.
And afterwards, he repaired at the designated time to the conference.
It was to be the last day of the sojourn in Jastrzeb of Pani Otocka,
Marynia, and Gronski, who decided to leave on the following day for
Warsaw. Miss Anney, at Pani Krzycki's solicitation, agreed to remain
for a few days, and leave with her. Ladislaus announced that he would
return as soon as possible in order to spend the evening with all of
them and to listen for the last time to Marynia's bewitching violin. He
also said that he would induce the notary and the doctor to come with
him.
As a result, they waited dinner for them. In the meantime, about four
o'clock, Gronski sat in his room writing a letter to Dolhanski,
Marynia, upstairs, played her daily exercises, Pani Otocka sat with the
patient, and Miss Anney went out on the balcony, ostensibly to
photograph the old and lofty trees which enclosed the courtyard on two
sides, but in reality to see whether he, whom they expected at home,
was returning. So instead of photographing, she began to lose her sight
and soul in the shady depths of the old linden roadway. Hope that soon
she would behold in that depth a cloud of dust, horses, and carriages,
and that afterwards the lively form of a youth would leap out, filled
her with a quiet joy. Lo, after a while she would see before her that
countenance, stately, sympathetic, and sincere; those eyes, whose every
glance spoke to her a hundred times more than the lips, and would hear
that voice which penetrated to her heart and thrilled it like music. At
this thought, Miss Anney was encompassed with such sweet, calm feeling,
as if she were a child and as if some loved hand were lightly rocking
her to sleep; as if she were resting in a boat, which the gentle waves
bore somewhere into a distance, unknown, but radiant. To permit herself
to be rocked, to allow herself to be borne, to confide in the waves, to
not think, for the time being, of where the boat will stop,--this was
all that the heart of the maiden, at such moments, desired. But at
other moments, when she propounded to herself the question, "What will
happen further?" she looked with faith into the future. Sometimes when
sleep refused to close her eyes, there flitted through her mind, like
dark butterflies, uncertainties and fears, but even then she said to
herself that the heaven may become cloudy in the future, but at present
she was enjoying charming, fair weather, and every day was like a
flower, and she plucked those flowers, one after another and laid them
upon her bosom. So she thought that for this it was worth while to live
and even to die.
And at that moment, though her soul was dissolving in the sun, in the
serene atmosphere, in the rustle of leaves and in the great pastoral
calm, flooded with light, she had no desire to die, for it seemed to
her that, with the air, she inhaled joyful appeasement. Everything
about her began to lose the mark of reality and change into an azure
vision of happiness, half dreamy, half wakeful. From this revery she
was aroused by the sight, awaiting which she had sat for almost an hour
on the balcony. Lo, at the uttermost end of the roadway her eagerly
desired cloud of dust appeared and it approached with unusual rapidity.
Miss Anney recollected herself. In the first moments she wanted to
retire. "It is necessary, it is necessary," she said to herself,
"otherwise he will be apt to think that I was waiting for him." And she
would have been sincerely indignant had any one suggested to her that
such was the case. But suddenly her knees became so weak that she sat
again, clutching the camera in order that it might appear that when
found on the balcony she was taking photographs. In the meantime the
cloud drew nearer the gates of entry, continuing with the same speed.
Soon in harmony with the picture which the maiden had previously
formed, the gray heads of the fore horses emerged from the dust. Like
lightning, an impression of joy shook Miss Anney. "How he is flying and
how anxious he is!" But immediately afterwards, as she began to wonder
at the amazing speed, she thought that the horses were frightened.
They were already so close to the gates that she could perceive the
wind-tossed manes, the distended bloody nostrils and the frantic
motions of the horses' feet. Suddenly she rose and her eyes reflected
horror, for she observed that the coachman sat, bent so that only the
top of his head could be seen--without a cap. In the meantime the
intractable horses dashed through the gate; at the winding, the
coachman fell off and the carriage with slightly diminished speed swung
in a semi-circle along the border of the flower-bed. In the carriage,
on the rear seat, Ladislaus sat alone, with his head tilted upwards and
propped upon a carriage cushion. A cry of terror escaped from Miss
Anney's breast. The horses, in the twinkle of an eye, reached the
balcony and being accustomed to stop before it, implanted their hoofs
in the ground. Ladislaus moved and, pale as a corpse, with blood
streaming over his collar and coat sleeves, staggered from the
carriage; when the maiden hurried towards him, he cried, grasping the
air with his mouth:
"Nothing!... I am wounded, but it is nothing!"
And he toppled to the ground at her feet.
And she, in a moment raised him with a strength, amazing in a woman,
and supporting him with her arms and breast, began to shriek:
"Save him! Help! Help!"