Iermola. Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

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       Józef Ignacy Kraszewski

      Iermola

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066206277

Table of Contents

       I E R M O L A.

       I.

       THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

       II.

       THE BACKGROUND OF THE PICTURE

       III.

       WHAT THERE WAS AT THE FOOT OF THE OAKS

       IV.

       FIRST CARES AND FIRST HAPPINESS

       V.

       SET A CHEAT TO CATCH A CHEAT

       VI.

       WHEN ONE LOVES

       VII.

       A NEW LIFE

       VIII.

       HAPPY DAYS

       IX.

       A VISIT TO THE DWOR

       X.

       WHAT A STRONG WILL CAN ACCOMPLISH

       XI.

       A POTTERY AT POPIELNIA

       XII.

       PATERNAL HAPPINESS

       XIII.

       THE GRAY MARE

       XIV.

       IMPROVEMENT AND DECEPTION

       XV.

       THE OTHER FATHER.

       XVI.

       ALONE!

       XVII.

       IN BONDAGE

       XVIII.

       THE LAST JOURNEY

       XIX.

       THE DRAMA IN THE FOREST

       THE END.

I E R M O L A.

       Table of Contents

I.

       Table of Contents

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE.

       Table of Contents

      Amor omnia vincit.

      The events which are here related took place in Wolhynian Poland, in that little corner of the earth, happily overlooked, where up to the present time neither great highways nor roads frequented by carriages are to be seen,--a land remote, almost lost, where the antique modesty, simplicity, innocence, and poverty of past ages are still preserved. I do not mean by this to say that all human vices with burdens of sins upon their backs are always to be seen following in the footsteps of civilization along the great highways; but unfortunately there is always, between one social condition just ended and another which is beginning, a period of transition during which the old life is extinguished, and the new does not yet exist; and the result is indecision and sad confusion. That hour, which has already chimed for other nations and other provinces, has not yet sounded for this little nook of our land. Here people live, particularly in the dwors^[1] of the lesser nobles, according to the traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which have left upon the people the impress of their thought, their faith, and their manners.

      It is true that in those yellow-painted dwors belonging to the richer nobles certain reforms have been adopted and a few new customs are in use; but the mass of the lesser nobility are astonished and scandalized at these innovations. Can it be otherwise in this honest little corner of the earth,