IV

Miss Anney's letter bore the impress of extraordinary simplicity. At

the beginning she said that from the moment when he proposed for her

hand she was compelled to reveal her former name; while in the

continuation it contained an equally simple account of herself and her

family from the time of their departure from Rzeslewo. This sad course

of events she related in the following words:

"My father came from Galicia and had in America relatives of whom he

heard that through labor they had amassed fortunes. Learning of this,

he decided to settle there also and seek his fortune beyond the ocean.

We left Rzeslewo at a time when you were in Warsaw. I knew how to write

as I was taught that in the manor-house, and would have informed you

about this if I had known your address. We went, not saying anything to

anybody, to Hamburg, and at that place there occurred what often

happens to peasant emigrants. The agent tricked us, defrauded us of our

money, and placed us on a vessel bound not for America but for England.

Thrown upon the pavements of London, we soon fell into dire want. For

the passage to America there now was no means. My mother died of

typhoid fever in a hospital and father, from despair and nostalgia,

declined rapidly in health. Under these circumstances we were found by

Mr. Anney, one of the best and noblest men in the world, a friend and

patron of the Poles, who gave us employment. But the succor came too

late, and my father died in the course of a year. I remained in the

factory and worked in it until the accident which changed my status

entirely. The Anney family had only one child, a daughter, whom they

loved beyond everything in the world and surrounded with a solicitude

all the greater because she was threatened by a pulmonary ailment. Once

it happened that Miss Anney, while visiting the factory, was almost

carried away by the driving-wheel of the machinery. I rushed to her

assistance, imperilling a little my own life, and from that time the

gratitude of the Anney family for me had no bounds. They took me from

the factory to themselves, and in this manner I became the companion

and afterwards the bosom friend of their daughter. A Pole, an emigrant

of the year '63, a friend of Mr. Anney and a man well educated, taught

us both, and me, separately, in Polish. I endeavored to benefit, as

much as lay in my power, from these lessons, and after two years was

able to approach a little the intellectual plane of my friend and my

environment. But Agnes--for such was the Christian name of Miss

Anney--began to fail in her health. Then Mr. Anney sold his factory and

we all, including our instructor, removed to Italy. There about three

years were passed in a search for the best climate for our dearest

patient. All efforts proved unavailing, however, as God took His angel

unto Himself. After Agnes' death, the Anneys, remembering that I loved

with my whole soul our dead one, adopted me as their own child and gave

me not only their family name, but desiring to overcome their despair,

suffering, and sorrow, even the Christian name of the deceased.

Nevertheless, the sorrow could not be overcome, and though I tried with

my whole heart to be to them some sort of comfort in life, in the

course of two years both followed their greatest love.

"And this is the end of my history. And after that came those events

which brought me nearer to you; therefore I desire to justify my

conduct in your eyes. I have a right to the name which I bear, and my

life from the time of the departure from Rzeslewo has been pure.

Conscience reproaches me with only one new error. This was that I did

not confess to the Anneys that I already was unworthy of their care.

But for such a confession I lacked strength. I loved too much my Agnes

and feared that they would separate me from her. Later I did not want

to add to their affliction. I did not have the strength. At times,

also, I think that now when they look upon me from heaven and see

everything, they forgive me for keeping that secret. Beyond this I once

more repeat and swear that my life has been pure. But in my memory I

have only coffins and coffins, and of my Rzeslewo days there remains to

me only the recollection of you. I could not forget either my sin or my

happiness. Often during the life of my adopted sister, while gazing

into her chaste eyes, I struggled with remorse, and at the same time I

wept from intense longing. After that, being left alone in the world, I

had nothing to cherish in my heart, and I began to yearn yet more.

When, after the death of the Anneys, I became acquainted and grew

intimate with Zosia Otocka in Brussels, I accidentally learned from a

conversation that she was your relative. Then I related to her my

entire life, not concealing anything, and she not only did not spurn

me, but loved me yet more. Emboldened by her goodness, I confessed to

her my longing for the old days and Rzeslewo. Perhaps it may be a new

fault on my part that I confided to Zosia my insurmountable desire of

seeing yet once more in my life, Jastrzeb, Rzeslewo, and--why should I

not state the whole truth?--and you. Then Zosia said to me: 'I

understand you; ride with me to Jastrzeb as Miss Anney, as you cannot

do otherwise. Nobody will recognize you and you will take a reckoning

with your own heart. Perhaps reality may extinguish the rainbow of

recollections. If they are assuaged forever, so much the better for

you; if he should fall in love with you, so much the worse for him; if

your former echoes reawaken, then we will assume that this was

predestination.' Such was Zosia's advice, and for that reason, when

your mother invited her and Marynia, I also accompanied them to

Jastrzeb. But I do not wish to pass for any better than I am. I confess

that on the road I always had in mind Zosia's words: 'If he falls in

love with you, so much the worse for him,' and I wished that to happen.

I was certain that you had entirely forgotten me, and I thought that if

now you fell in love with me without any requital, that it would be a

sort of condign punishment for your forgetfulness and a kind of triumph

for myself and--if not such a womanly revenge as books tell of,--at

least a great solace to my self-love. But it happened otherwise, for I

forgot to take into account that I had a heart, not of foreign books,

but of a Polish village--simple and faithful. When I saw Rzeslewo,

Jastrzeb, and you, I wanted only to weep and weep, as I wept at Pan

Zarnowski's funeral, and I discovered within me that Hanka, who years

before loved you with her first childish love and afterwards with such

affection, did not love any one else. You know, sir, what happened

further. If you do not return, I will not bear any resentment towards

you, but do not harbor any ill-will against me. I, too, merely skirted

along the rim of happiness."

The signature was "Hanka." Ladislaus' chin quivered from time to time

while he was reading the letter and his eyes grew dim. He began to

repeat the signature "Hanka, Hanka." He rose abruptly and paced over

the room with big steps. His thoughts rolled into a ball in his head

like clouds in the heavens; they collected and scattered in all

directions like a startled stud of horses on the wild steppes of the

Ukraine. He read the letter a second and third time, and under its

influence there began to glide before his eyes pictures of the past as

distinct as if all that which occurred some time ago had happened but

yesterday. He recalled those bright moonlight nights when he stole away

to the mill, and that village girl, fragrant with the hay, who, to the

question of whether she loved him, whispered in reply, "Of course," and

threw her yet half-childish arms around his neck and hugged him to her

breast with such strength that no other love could make a sincerer

avowal. He recollected that he nevertheless loved her at that time, and

when he missed her, longed for her, and even inquired of the people

about the blacksmith's family--but with reserve and faint-heartedly, as

fear closed his lips.

Subsequently that girl was erased from his memory so completely that

even the light pangs of conscience which he felt on her account

vanished; nothing remained. It was well with him in the world and he

sought new sensations, while she was seized by the whirlwind of life

and was hurled like a wretched leaf upon a foreign land, where she

suffered from sheer starvation. Nevertheless, neither at that time, nor

later, when good people took care of her, did she forget him nor did

she cease to long for him. Ladislaus was not a deep connoisseur of the

human soul; he felt, nevertheless, that what for him was simply a love

adventure, a shallow enjoyment of the senses, a transient impression

which disperses to the winds like the fragrance of flowers, for her

became a new life; a surrender of her whole being and whole soul, too

pure and too noble for her to seek a new happiness upon new paths. And

now he understood why that coveted Miss Anney of to-day, charming as a

dream, brilliant, surrounded by affluence and arousing admiration,

wrote to him that she had a heart not of foreign books but of a Polish

village--simple and faithful. He understood also why the letter was

signed "Hanka." Suddenly and irrevocably were banished all his

suspicions, and her words, "my life from the moment of the departure

from Rzeslewo has been pure," touched him to the extent that he began

to upbraid himself that he should for a moment have thought that it

could have been otherwise. At once he seemed to himself to be little,

mean, and unworthy of that noble and exalted soul. But through his

heart and head there coursed during the last moments so many thoughts,

impressions, and feelings that he was uncertain whether the final

sensibility of his own shortcomings and wretchedness would be lasting.

Nevertheless, he was seized with an ever-increasing tenderness, and

more and more became obliterated that difference between Hanka and Miss

Anney which was so irritating to him in the first moments. Now, on the

contrary, the recollection that this simple girl of old and that

fascinating lady of to-day were one and the same woman penetrated him

with a kind of thrill, resembling a thrill of joy. The memory that at

one time he possessed the other began to waken in him, as it were, a

hunger and a new passion for the present one, and the thought of her

charms intensified the play of his young blood. But he strove to stifle

within him those impressions with the consciousness of the

responsibilities which were imposed upon him. Above all things he

propounded to himself the question. What should a man of honor do who

had betrayed and therefore wronged a girl, almost a child, who was in

love with him, and later, after a few years, met her under a changed

name and fell in love with her? There was only one answer; even if he

did not fall in love, if her love continued, he ought to assume all the

consequences of his acts. If she remained a simple-minded rustic who

never could understand him, or if she had deviated from the path of

rectitude, even in such a case, it would not, for his vexed soul, be

sufficient reason for washing his hands and withdrawing from the

affair; and so much the more, since the girl had bridged the

intellectual and social chasm which separated them, and in addition

ennobled her own soul and had not ceased to love. "Yes it is so. I

would spit in my own eyes," said Ladislaus (not thinking at that moment

that in practice an act like that would be a trifle difficult to

perform), "if I hesitated any longer. There is only one thing to do and

I will do that at once." Having formed this resolution, he took a deep

breath like a man, from whose heart a heavy load has fallen--and as

much as he at first became little in his own eyes, so now he began to

gain in stature. He did not, however, propound the question, what would

happen if Miss Anney did not have such wondrous eyes, gazing with a

heavenly streak, nor such a countenance, whose color reminded him of

the petals of a white rose, nor those other charms which attracted his

eyes. He said to himself that many of his acquaintances could not

afford to form a similar resolution; he was pleased with himself; and

that it was easier for him to do so because he was impelled thereto by

his heart and senses, he deemed not as lessening the worthiness of the

act itself, but as his own good fortune. He foresaw, however, that he

would yet have to do with his mother as well as with the so called

opinion of society, which is not concerned about principles but only

about gossip, and which seeks, above all things, food for its own

stupid malice. But he expected to reconcile his mother, and as to the

malicious, smiling ironically upon the slightest provocation, his

nostrils, distended at the very thought, and his clenched teeth boded

them no good. But this anticipated knightly action was a matter of the

future; in the meantime his impetuous nature urged him to immediate

action. He determined to go to his mother at once and definitely come

to an understanding with her. Glancing, however, at his watch, he

became aware of the fact that it was almost three o'clock in the

morning. In view of this, that was impossible. Not feeling, however,

the least need of sleep, and desiring absolutely to do something, he

sat down to write letters. First, he inclosed Miss Anney's letter in an

envelope, because he wanted to send it to his mother before the

decisive interview took place; after which he started to write to Miss

Anney, but soon stopped, as it occurred to him that since he gave his

word that he would remain silent for a week, he did not have the right

to do it. Instead, after a brief deliberation, he wrote a few words to

Pani Otocka, praying that she would permit him to visit her that day.

Finally, when the dawn began to peer into the room and mingle with the

light of the lamps, he thought of repose, but though he felt great

weariness, he could not fall asleep, and mentally he conversed with his

mother and Miss Anney until sunrise. He fell into a sound slumber only

when the morning bustle in the hotel began and did not awake until

late. Dressing himself, he rang for the servant and ordered him to

deliver Miss Anney's letter to his mother, but at the last minute he

made up his mind to take it to her himself. But in the rooms engaged by

his mother he found only the younger members of the family and the

French governess, who informed him that "madame" went to church early

in the morning.

V

Pani Krzycki had indeed gone to church and confession, for in the grief

which befell her, she needed consolation and advice. And her grief was

real and profound. She lived in times in which various ancient

prejudices and prepossessions clashed, and were becoming more and more

obliterated, yielding place to new democratic ideas. As she often heard

that the wave of these new ideas might bring benefit and salvation to

the country, she, notwithstanding that her habits and former

conceptions conflicted with them, not only did not struggle against

them, but quietly acquiesced in them in a passive manner. This was

easier for her as it never occurred to her that personally she would

ever have anything to do with them. For her it was the same as if

somebody had installed modern furniture in a few rooms in Jastrzeb,

which were not continually occupied. Let them stay there since fashion

requires it and since in the other rooms there are old armchairs,

heirlooms, in which one can rest comfortably. And now, suddenly she was

ordered to move to that new part of the house; suddenly she was

confronted by the fact that her son was in love with a peasant woman

from Rzeslewo and was about to marry her. Then in the first moments

everything within her was stirred up; the old instincts and customs

began to cry out. That silent and passive acquiescence in the new ideas

crumbled like a building of sand, and the whole course of events

appeared to the indignant citizeness-noblewoman as an unworthy intrigue

in which the victim to be sported with was her son and with him, the

entire Krzycki family. Amazement that the chief partner and almost

author of this intrigue could be a being whom she regarded as the

incarnation of all feminine virtues, and whom she desired her son

should marry, only aggravated her anger. In vain did Zosia explain to

her that her son was the betrayer of an innocent child and Miss Anney

was an angel, and that in bringing her to Jastrzeb, she did not have

any sinister designs and did only that which every other woman in her

place, sympathizing with a wronged and longing woman, would have done.

"If the most fervent wish of Miss Anney was to behold once more in her

life the place in which her life was undone, and the man whom she could

not forget and who was the author of her undoing, then it was due to

her; and everybody who has the slightest heart ought to understand

this. And let Aunt say," she continued, "whether I could betray her

secret and whether an impossible situation would not have been created

for her." The usually quiet and gentle Zosia became so wrought up in

defence of her friend that she plainly told Pani Krzycki that even if

Laudie fell in love with Miss Anney without any requital that it would

be only what he deserved and, besides, since "Aninka" did not accept

his proposal and gave him a week's time for consideration, he could

withdraw it; in such case, however, "Aninka" would not be the only one

whose respect he forfeited. But all this was pouring oil upon fire and

only increased the ire of Pani Krzycki who declared that, at any rate,

she and her son were victims of a plot. After which she moved to a

hotel, announcing at the time of her departure that her feet would

never again cross the threshold of that house.

Nevertheless, the bitterness and anger which accumulated in her heart

were not directed against Pani Otocka alone. Her son also had wounded

her heart deeply and awakened a whole series of painful recollections,

connected with the memory of her husband. For her husband, a man

worshipped by her during the first years of their marital life for his

manifold good qualities and extraordinary beauty, had caused her not a

little mortification through his immoral life in relation to women in

general and the female residents of Jastrzeb and its vicinity in

particular. To Pani Krzycki it was no secret, that, in the course of

long years, cows were led continually from the manor cow-houses as

gifts or rather as rewards to various Kates and Marys and that

in Jastrzeb could be found quite a number of step-brothers and

step-sisters of her children. So she shed copious tears over this state

of affairs until almost the last year of her husband's life. In her

time she suffered in her own self-love and her womanly dignity as a

wife and mother. Afterwards she forgave everything, but after the death

of her husband, as a woman deeply religious, she lived in continual

fear at the thought of the Divine Tribunal, before which the deceased

appeared. For whole years she tried to supplicate for him forgiveness

through tears, fasts, alms, and prayers. Above all she determined to

bring up her son in such a manner that he would never fall into the

errors of his father. She watched him in his boyhood days, like the eye

in her head; she shielded him from all evil influences. After sending

him to school she confided the care of him to her relative, a priest,

and to Gronski, in whose morality she justly believed. And when the son

grew up, when after finishing school, he attended the university, and

afterwards assumed the management of the Jastrzeb estate, she had that

bottomless, naive faith, usual with women, upright and pious but

unacquainted with the depravity of the world, that up to that time

"Laudie" was as pure as a lily. And now unexpectedly the film over her

eyes dropped. The son was following in the footsteps of his father. At

this thought she was beset by despair. In her soul a protest truly

vehement poured forth against the alliance of her son with a peasant

woman, but having a very sensitive conscience she felt, after her

conversation with Zosia, that Miss Anney had some claim on Ladislaus.

Once or twice, this manner of extricating themselves from an onerous

situation suggested itself to her mind; that Ladislaus in pursuance of

a prearranged compact should propose to Miss Anney and she should

refuse him. "But do I know," she said to herself, "how many similar

Hankas may already be found in Jastrzeb?" And a horror penetrated to

the marrow of her bones at the thought that among those Hankas might be

Ladislaus' step-sisters, for it seemed to her that the crimes of the

father fatally dragged after them the yet greater crimes of the son and

with them must follow damnation. "Ah, Laudie! ah, Laudie!" she repeated

despondently, and she felt besides fear, such pain, such disappointment

of heart and such profound resentment, that however much she understood

that it was necessary to summon Ladislaus as soon as possible and

ascertain how he had received the news that Miss Anney is Hanka and

what he intended to do, nevertheless she could not persuade herself to

see him at once. After removing from Pani Otocka's, the information

that he was not at the hotel afforded her true relief. She immediately

locked herself up in her room and determined, if he called, not to

admit him.

The following morning she went to church and to confession and after

confession she begged her relative, the prelate, the same who in his

time had charge of Ladislaus, for advice. Already she was calmer. The

aged prelate received her and began with extraordinary particularity to

question her about Miss Anney, her stay at Jastrzeb, about the course

of events after the attempt on Ladislaus' life, and about the details

in Hanka's life, of which Pani Krzycki had learned from Zosia:

afterwards about the fears of Pani Krzycki herself, and finally after a

long silence he said:

"As to the sins, which Ladislaus, after this, the first sin of his

youth, might have committed, that is only a conjecture, and a fear, and

as we have no irrefutable proofs of them, we should not take them into

account at all. There only remains the former Hanka and the Miss Anney

of to-day. It is only with this one case that we have to do. So I

desire to know how you, as a mother, regard her."

Pani Krzycki replied that she knew perfectly well that all people in

the sight of God were equal, but she was concerned about the happiness

of her son. Similar marriages were not usually happy. It may be that

the reason for this is the malice of the world: it may be that the wife

met with humiliation on the part of vain and malicious persons, but the

husband must feel that also, in consequence of which irritation ensues

and the relations grow from bad to worse even without any ill-will on

either side. As to her son he is ambitious and sensitive as but few

are, and even if he loved his wife most strongly, he would suffer if

any one evinced towards her even a shade of disdain. Whoever lives in

the world must reckon with everything, even with stupidity, even with

malice, not to say with other considerations upon which marital

happiness often depends.

The aged prelate listened, folding and unfolding according to his habit

a silk handkerchief, and finally said:

"Reckoning with stupidity and malice may only mean guarding against

them, not making any concessions to them."

After which he began to look at Pani Krzycki with a penetrating gaze

and asked:

"Permit me to put one question to you: Why should your son necessarily

be happy?"

She looked at him with surprise.

"Why, I am his mother."

"Yes, but there are things more important than happiness, particularly

temporal,--is it not true?"

"True," she answered quietly.

"That which you said in respect to temporal matters may be more or less

just and may actually be the reasons which make such marriages less

happy than others, but it is necessary above all things to propound to

one's self the question. What in life is greater and what is less, what

is more important and what is less important, and to act according to

the dictates of conscience."

"Well, how am I to act?" asked Pani Krzycki.

The aged prelate looked at the crucifix hanging on the wall and

quietly, but with emphasis, answered:

"As a Christian."

A momentary silence followed.

"I am satisfied with the advice," said Pani Krzycki, "and I thank you."