Laskowicz's extreme fanaticism could not in reality harmonize with the
extreme cynical scepticism of Swidwicki, who in addition took advantage
of the situation not only beyond measure, but to the point of cruelty.
He himself spoke of it and boasted about it to Gronski, when he met him
in the restaurant, to which Gronski went after Krzycki's removal.
"I have enough of my revolutionary maggot," he said, "I have enough of
him, especially since I have satisfied myself that personally he is
honest and will not pilfer any money from my pocket-book. From that
time he has bored me. As for harboring such a simpleton one might go to
Siberia. I regarded it in the beginning as a species of sport. I
thought I would have a permanent sensation of a certain anxiety and, in
the meantime, I have not experienced anything of the kind. The only
satisfaction which I have is to point out to him his own stupidity and
that of his party. By that I drive him to rabidness."
"But that he cares to argue with you--"
"He does not want to but is unable to restrain himself. His temperament
and fanaticism carry him away."
"At one time I met a similar individual," answered Gronski, "and not
very long ago--out in the country, in Jastrzeb. He was a student, a
tutor of Stas, whom Krzycki later discharged because he incited the
field hands and was an agitator among peasants of the neighborhood."
"Ah," ejaculated, with a strange smile, Swidwicki, to whom it occurred
that Pauly also was at Jastrzeb.
"What? Why do you smile?" asked Gronski.
"Oh, nothing. Speak further."
"I rode with him once to the city and on the way had quite a chat with
him."
"According to your habit."
"According to my habit. Now among empty phrases, which only dull minds
would accept as genuine coin, he said some interesting things. I
learned a little about the angle from which they view the world."
"My maggot at times says interesting things. Yesterday I led him into
the admission that socialists of the pure water regard as their
greatest enemies the peasants and the radical members of the
bourgeoisie. I began to pour oil on the fire and he unbosomed himself.
An unsophisticated peasant aspires to ownership, and that aspiration
the devil cannot eradicate, and as to the bourgeoisie he spoke thus:
'What harm,' he said, 'do these few nobles and priests who infest the
world do to us? Our enemy is the bourgeois, rich or poor. Our enemy is
the radical, who thinks that as soon as he shouts that he does not
believe in God and priests that he buys us. Our enemy is that boaster,
who speaks in the name of the common people and is ready to tickle us
under the armpits, so that we should smile on him. He is the one who
fawns on us, like a dog at a roll of butter, and preserves all the
instincts of a bourgeois.' And he chattered further until I said: 'Hold
on! Why, you are with the radicals "fratres Helenae!"' And he to this:
'That is not true! The radical, wealthy bourgeois, who from fear dyes
in red and borrows the standard and methods from us, introduces
confusion in minds and drabbles in the mud our idea; and the poor one,
if he annually saves even the smallest amount, injures us for he offers
to work at a lower price than the pure proletaire, who always is as
poor as Job. We,' he said, 'will put the knife, above all things, to
the throats of the bourgeois for latent treachery lurks in him.' Thus
he chattered and I was willing to concede justice to him, if in general
I believed in justice, but I did not concede it yet for another reason,
and that is, he is too stupid to have reasoned out such things. It was
evident that he repeated what others taught him. In fact I did not
neglect to tell him so."
Further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Dolhanski who,
observing Gronski, approached him, although he disliked to meet
Swidwicki.
"How are you?" he said, "My ladies took a trip to Czestochowo; so I am
free. Will you permit me to be seated with you?"
"Certainly, certainly. Why, these are your last days."
"It would be worth while even for that reason to drink a little
bottle," observed Swidwicki, "particularly as it is, besides, my
birthday."
"If the calendar was a wine-cellar and the dates in it bottles, then
your birthday would occur every day," answered Gronski.
"I swear to you upon everything at which I jeer, that, contrary to my
habit and inclination, this time I speak the truth."
Saying this, he nodded to the waiter and ordered him to bring two
bottles, calculating that afterwards more would be forthcoming. In the
meantime Dolhanski said:
"I met Krzycki to-day. He looks poorly; somehow not himself, and he
told me that he does not live with you but in a hotel. Did you by
chance quarrel?"
"No. But he moved away from me and Pani Krzycki from Pani Otocka's."
"There is some kind of epidemic," exclaimed Swidwicki, "for my
cutthroat is leaving me."
"Perhaps something has passed between Krzycki and Miss Anney," said
Dolhanski. "I supposed that they were getting quite intimate. Did they
part--or what?"
"A marchpane, that Englishwoman," interrupted Swidwicki; "but her maid
has more electricity in her."
Gronski hesitated for a while; after which he said:
"No, they have not parted, but something has occurred. I do not know
why I should make a secret of that which, sooner or later, you will
find out. It has developed that Miss Anney is not the born, but
adopted, child of the rich English manufacturer, lately deceased, Mr.
Anney, and of his late wife."
"Well, if the adoption gives her all the rights, and particularly the
right of inheritance, is it not all the same to Krzycki?"
"The adoption gives her all rights; nevertheless it is not entirely the
same to Krzycki, for it appears that Miss Anney is the daughter of a
blacksmith of Rzeslewo and is named Hanka Skibianka."
"Ha!" cried Swidwicki, "Perdita has been found but not the king's
daughter. What does the pretty Florizel say to this?"
But Dolhanski began to stare at Gronski as if he saw him for the first
time in his life.
"What are you saying?"
"The actual fact."
"Sapristi! But that is a nursery tale. Sapristi! You are joking."
"I give you my word it is so. She herself told that to Krzycki."
"I like that expression of astonishment on Dolhanski's face," exclaimed
Swidwicki. "Man, come to yourself."
Dolhanski restrained himself, for he always proclaimed that a true
gentleman never should be surprised.
"I remember now," he said, "that this is the Skibianka to whom Uncle
Zarnowski bequeathed a few thousand roubles."
"The same."
"Therefore his daughter."
"Fancy to yourself otherwise. Skiba came from Galicia to Rzeslewo with
a wife and a child a few years old."
"Therefore of pure peasant blood."
"A Piast's,[10] a Piast's," cried Swidwicki.
"Absolutely pure," answered Gronski.
"And what does Laudie say?"
"He swallowed the tidings and is trying to digest them," again blurted
out Swidwicki.
"That substantially is the case. He found himself in a new situation
and locked himself up. It dumfounded him a little, and he desires to
come to himself."
"He was enamoured to the point of ludicrousness but now he will
probably break off."
"I do not admit that, but I repeat, that, in view of the changed
situation, he has fallen into a certain internal strife, which he must
first quell."
"I candidly confess that I would break off all relations
unconditionally."
"But if Kaska or Hanka had a hundred thousand pounds?" asked Swidwicki.
"In such a case--I would have fallen into a strife," answered
Dolhanski, phlegmatically.
After a while he continued:
"For it seems that it is nothing, but in life it may appear to be
something. Omitting the various cousins, 'Mats' and 'Jacks,' who
undoubtedly will be found; there also will be found dissimilar
instincts, dissimilar dispositions, and dissimilar tastes. Why, the
deuce! I would not want a wife who suddenly might be ruled by an
unexpected passion for amber rosaries, for shelling peas, for swingling
flax, for picking fruit, or for gathering mushrooms, not to say berries
and nuts, and walking barefooted."
Here he turned to Gronski.
"Shrug your shoulders, but it is so."
"That would not shock me," said Swidwicki, "only, if I were to marry
Miss Anney, I would just stipulate that she at times should go about
barefooted. When I am in the country, nothing affects me so much as the
sight of the bare feet of girls. It is true that they often have
erysipelas about the ankles, which comes from the prickle of the
stubblefields. But I assume that Miss Anney has not got erysipelas."
"One cannot talk with you in a dignified manner."
"Why?" replied Swidwicki. "Let Krzycki now clip coupons from his
dignity but not we. Did you say that he belongs to the National
Democrats?"
"No, not I. But what connection has that with Miss Anney?"
"Oh,--oh, a nobleman--a National Democrat--has found out that his flame
has peasant blood in her veins and nevertheless his belly on that
account has begun to ache; nevertheless, he is stung by that deminutio
capitis."
"Who told you that? Besides, it should be permutatio, not deminutio."
"Yes! The English wares take on the appearance of a domestic product
and fall in value. Justly, justly."
"Do you know who could with perfect independence enter into a marriage
under such conditions?" asked Dolhanski. "A truly great gentlemen."
"But not Polish," exclaimed Swidwicki.
"There you are already beginning! Why not Polish?"
"Because a Polish gentleman has not sufficient faith in his own blood;
he plainly has not sufficient pride to believe that he will elevate a
woman to himself and not lower himself to her."
Gronski began to laugh:
"I did not expect that charge from your lips," he said.
"Why? I am an individualist, and in so far as I do not regard myself as
a specimen of the basest race, so far do I regard myself as a specimen
of the best. According to me one belongs to the aristocracy only
through lucky chance; that is, when one brings into the world a
suitable profile and corresponding brain. But Dolhanski, for instance,
in so far as he has not purchased portraits of ancestors at an
auction--and our other gentlemen--judge that blood constitutes that
appurtenance. Now granting these premises, I contend that our tories do
not know how to be proud of their blood."
"At home," said Gronski, "you vent your spleen upon the socialists, and
here you wish to vent it upon the aristocracy."
"That does not diminish my merits. I have a few pretty remarks for the
National Democracy."
"I know, I know. But how will you prove that which you said about the
Polish tories?"
"How will I prove it? By the Socratic method--with the aid of
questions. Did you ever observe when a Polish gentleman abroad becomes
acquainted with a Frenchman or Englishman? I, while I had money, passed
winters in Nice or in Cairo and saw a number of them. Now, every time I
propounded to myself the question which now I put to you: why the devil
it is not the Frenchman or Englishman who tries to please the Pole, but
the Pole them? Why is it that only the Pole fawns, only the Pole
coquets? Because he is almost ashamed of his descent; and if by chance
a Frenchman tells him that from his accent he took him for a Frenchman,
or an Englishman takes him for an Englishman, then he melts with joy,
like butter in a frying-pan! Ah, I have seen such coquettes by the
score--and it is an old story. Such coquetry, for instance, Stanislaus
Augustus[11] possessed. At home, the Polish gentleman at times knows
how to hold his nose high. Before a foreigner he is on both paws. Is
not that a lack of pride in his own race, in his own blood, in his own
traditions? If you have the slightest grain of a sense of justice, even
though no larger than the grain of caviar, you must admit the justice
of my remarks. As to myself, I have been ashamed sometimes that I am a
Pole."
"That means that you committed the same sin with which you charge
others," replied Gronski. "If the tips of the wings of our eagle
reached both seas, as at one time they did, perhaps Poles might be
different. But at present--tell me--of what are they to be proud?"
"You are twisting things. I am speaking of racial pride only, not
political," answered Swidwicki. "After all, may the devils take them. I
prefer to drink."
"Say what you will," asserted Dolhanski, "but I will merely tell you
this: if internal affairs were exclusively in their hands, some
fooleries might take place, but we would not be fried in the sauce in
which we are fried to-day."
Swidwicki turned to him with eyes glistening already a little
abnormally.
"My dear sir," he said, "in order to govern a country it is necessary
to have one of three things: either the greatest number, which
the canaille has behind it--I beg pardon, I should have said the
Democracy--or the greatest sound sense, which nobody amongst us
possesses, or the most money, which the Jews have. And as I have
demonstrated that our great gentlemen do not even have any sentiment of
traditions, therefore what have they?"
"At least good manners, which you lack," retorted Dolhanski with
aversion.
"No. I will tell you what they have--if not all of them, then the
second or third one: but I will tell it to you in a whisper, so as not
to shock Gronski's virgin ears."
And leaning over to Dolhanski, he whispered a word to him, after which
he snorted, maliciously:
"I do not say that that is nothing, but it is not sufficient to govern
the country with."
But Dolhanski frowned and said:
"If that is so, then you surely belong to the highest aristocracy."
"Of course! certainly! I have a diploma certified a few years ago in
Aix-la-chapelle, the place of the coronation!"
Saying this, he again quaffed his wine and continued with a kind of
feverish gayety:
"Ah, permit me to rail, permit me to scoff at men and things! I always
do that internally but at times I must expectorate the gall. Permit me!
For after all, I am a Pole, and for a Pole there perhaps cannot be a
greater pleasure than defacing, belittling, pecking at, calumniating,
spitting on, and pulling down statues from the pedestals. Republican
tradition, is it not? In addition Providence so happily arranged it
that a Pole loves that the most, and when he himself is concerned, he
feels it most acutely. A delightful society!"
"You are mistaken," replied Gronski, "for in that respect we have
changed prodigiously and in proof of it, I will cite one instance: When
the painter Limiatycki received for his 'Golgotha' a grand medal in
Paris, all the local little brushes at once fumed at him. So meeting
him, I asked him whether he intended to retaliate, and he replied to me
with the greatest serenity: 'I am serving my fatherland and art, but
only stupidity cannot understand that, while only turpitude will not
understand it.' And he was right, for whoever has any kind of wings at
his shoulders and can raise himself a little in the air, need not pay
attention to the mud of the streets."
"Tut, tut; mud is a purely native product, the same as other symptoms
of your national culture, namely: filth, scandals, envy, folly,
indolence, big words and little deeds, cheap politics, brawling, a
relish for mass-meetings, banditism, revolvers, and bombs; if I wanted
to mention everything I would not finish until late at night."
"Then I will throw in for you a few more things," said Gronski;
"drunkenness, cynicism, a stupid pose of despair, thoughtless
hypercriticism, scoffing at misfortune, fouling one's own nest,
spitting at blood and suffering, undermining faith in the future, and
blasphemy against the nation. Have you yet enough?"
"I have not enough of wine. Order some more, order some more!"
"I will not order any more wine, but I will tell yet more, that you err
in claiming that these are native products. They are brought by a
certain wind which evidently has fanned you."
But Swidwicki, who this time had no desire to quarrel but did have a
desire to drink, evidently wishing to change the subject of the
conversation, unexpectedly exclaimed:
"Apropos of winds, what a pity that such sensible people as the
Prussians commit one gross blunder."
Gronski, who had already risen to bid him farewell, was overcome
temporarily by curiosity.
"What blunder?" he asked.
"That they assume super-villeiny to be superhumanity."
"In this you are right."
"I feel a contempt for myself as often as I am right."
"Then we will leave you with your wine and your contempt."
Saying this, Gronski nodded to Dolhanski and they departed. Swidwicki's
last words, however, caused him to reflect; so after a while he said:
"Now people's minds are haunted by the Prussians and they are reminded
of them by the slightest cause. After all, Swidwicki's description of
them was apposite."
"If you knew how little I am interested in Swidwicki's descriptions."
"Nevertheless, you vie with him and talk in a similar strain," answered
Gronski.
After which, pursuing further the train of his thoughts, he said:
"Nietzsche also did not perceive that the susceptibility and
appreciation of other people's woes becomes manifest only upon the
culmination of the creative ..."
"Good, good, but at this moment I am more interested in what Krzycki is
going to do about Miss Anney."
Dolhanski, who could not endure Swidwicki, would have been sorely
afflicted, if he had suspected that the same question occurred to the
latter's mind.
Remaining alone, Swidwicki recalled Gronski's recital and began to
laugh, as the thought of such unusual complications amused him
immensely. He imagined to himself what excitement must have prevailed
at Krzycki's and at Pani Otocka's, and how far the affair would agitate
the circles of their relatives and acquaintances. And suddenly he began
to soliloquize in the following manner:
"And if I paid Miss Anney a visit? It even behooves me to leave her a
card. That would be eminently proper. I may not find her in--that does
not matter much, but if I should find her in, I will try to see whether
her legs are not too bulky at the ankles. For culture, education, even
polish may be acquired, but delicate ligaments of the legs and hands it
is necessary to inherit through a whole series of generations. That
furious Pauly, nevertheless, has a sufficiently thin ligature. The
devil, however, knows who her father was, I will go. If I do not find
one, I shall find the other."
And he went. He was admitted not by the man-servant but by Pauly; so he
smiled at her in his most ingratiating manner and said:
"Good-day, pretty fennel-flower! Is Panna Hanka Skibianka at home?"
"What Hanka Skibianka?" she asked in surprise.
"Then, the little lady does not know the great tidings?"
"What great tidings? I do not know any."
"That the mistress of the little lady is not named Miss Anney?"
"Do not upset our heads."
"I give the little lady my word of honor. Ask Pan Gronski, or Pan
Krzycki, who is chewing off his fingers from mortification. I give you
my word of honor. I also could tell you more, but if the little lady is
not curious I will go. Here is my card for Panna Ski-bian-ka."
The eyes of the girl sparkled with curiosity. She took the card
mechanically.
"I do not say that you should go, but I do not believe," she said
hurriedly.
"And I know yet more."
"What is it?"
"I will whisper it in your ear."
It did not occur to Pauly that there was no necessity for Swidwicki
speaking in a whisper. She leaned towards him with a palpitating heart
and, though he flooded her with his breath, saturated with the odor of
wine, she did not withdraw her head.
"What is it?" she repeated.
"That Panna Skibianka is a peasant woman from Zarnow!"
"That is untrue!"
"As I love God."
And, saying this, he suddenly smacked her ear with a broad kiss.