Children of the Soil. Henryk Sienkiewicz

he could love such a one, that she is the type of his chosen woman, and all the more her coldness became unendurable. He would give now, God knows what, to find again in those features the expression which he saw in Kremen, the interest in his words, and the attention, the transparency in those eyes full of smiles and roused curiosity. He would give, God knows what, to have all this return, and he knew not by what method to make it return, by a slow or a quick one; for this cause he hesitated. He chose at last that which agreed best with his nature.

      “I knew,” said he, suddenly, “how you loved Kremen, and in spite of that, perhaps, it is I who caused its sale. If that be the case, I tell you openly that I regret the act acutely, and shall never cease to regret it. In my defence I cannot even say that I did it while excited, and without intent. Nay, I had an intent; only it was malicious and irrational. All the greater is my fault, and all the more do I entreat your forgiveness.”

      When he had said this, he rose. His cheeks were flushed, and from his eyes shone truth and sincerity; but his words remained without effect. Pan Stanislav went by a false road. He knew women in general too slightly to render account to himself of how far their judgments, especially their judgments touching men, are dependent on their feelings, both transient and permanent. In virtue of these feelings, anything may be taken as good or bad money; anything interpreted for evil or good, recognized as true or false; stupidity may be counted reason, reason stupidity, egotism devotion, devotion egotism, rudeness sincerity, sincerity lack of delicacy. The man who in a given moment rouses dislike, cannot be right with a woman, cannot be sincere, cannot be just, cannot be well-bred. So Marynia, feeling deep aversion and resentment toward Pan Stanislav from the time of Mashko’s coming to Kremen, took sincerity simply ill of him. Her first thought was: “What kind of man is this who recognizes as unreasonable and bad that which a few days ago he did with calculation?” Then Kremen, the sale of the place, Mashko’s visit and the meaning of that visit, which she divined, were for her like a wound festering more and more. And now it seemed to her that Pan Stanislav was opening that wound with all the unsparingness of a man of rough nature and rude nerves.

      He rose, and with eyes fixed on her face, waited to see if a friendly and forgiving hand would not be extended to him, with a clear feeling that one such stretching forth of a hand might decide his fate; but her eyes grew dark for a moment, as if from pain and anger, and her face became still colder.

      “Let not that annoy you,” said she, with icy politeness. “On the contrary, papa is very much satisfied with the bargain and with the whole arrangement with Pan Mashko.”

      She rose then, as if understanding that Pan Stanislav wished to take leave. He stood a moment stricken, disappointed, full of resentment and suppressed anger, full of that feeling of mortification which a man has when he is rejected.

      “If that is true, I desire nothing more.”

      “It is, it is! I did a good business,” concluded Plavitski.

      Pan Stanislav went out, and, descending a number of steps at a time with hat pressed down on his head, he repeated mentally,—

      “A foot of mine will not be in your house again.”

      He felt, however, that, if he were to go home, anger would stifle him; he walked on, therefore, not thinking whither his feet were bearing him. It seemed to him at that moment that he did not love Marynia, that he even hated her; but still he thought about her, and if he had thought more calmly he would have told himself that the mere sight of her had affected him deeply. He had seen her now a second time, had looked on her, had compared that image of her which he had borne in his memory with the reality; the image became thereby still more definite, more really attractive, and acted the more powerfully on him. And, in spite of the anger, in the depth of his soul an immense liking for her raised its head, and a delight in the woman. There existed, as it were, for him two Marynias,—one the mild, friendly Marynia of Kremen, listening and ready to love; the other that icy young lady of Warsaw, who had rejected him. A woman often becomes dual in this way in the heart of a man, which is then most frequently ready to forgive this unfriendly one for the sake of that loved one. Pan Stanislav did not even admit that Marynia could be such as she had shown herself that day; hence there was in his anger a certain surprise. Knowing his own undeniable worth, and being conceited enough, he carried within him a conviction, which he would not acknowledge to himself, that it was enough for him to extend his hand to have it seized. This time it turned out differently. That mild Marynia appeared suddenly, not only in the rôle of a judge, who utters sentences and condemns, but also in the rôle, as it were, of a queen, with whom it is possible to be in favor or disfavor. Pan Stanislav could not accustom himself to this thought, and he struggled with it; but such is human nature that, when he learned that for that lady he was not so much desired as he had thought, that she not only did not over-value him, but esteemed him lower than herself, in spite of his displeasure, offence, and anger, her value increased in his eyes. His self-love was wounded; but, on the other hand, his will, in reality strong, was ready to rush to the struggle with difficulties, and crush them. All these thoughts were circling chaotically in his head, or, instead of thoughts, they were rather feelings torn and tearing themselves. He repeated a hundred times to himself that he would drop the whole matter, that he must and wished to do so; and at the same time he was so weak and small that somewhere in the most secret corner of his soul he was counting that very moment on the arrival of Pani Emilia, and on the aid which her arrival would bring him. Sunk in this mental struggle, he did not recollect himself till he was halfway on the Zyazd, when he asked, “Why the misery have I gone to Praga?” He halted. The day was fine and was inclining toward evening. Lower down, the Vistula was flowing in the gleam of the sun; and beyond it and beyond the nearer clumps of green, a broad country was visible, covered on the horizon with a rosy and blue haze. Far away, beyond that haze, was Kremen, which Marynia had loved and which she had lost. Pan Stanislav, fixing his eyes on the haze, said to himself,—

      “I am curious to know what she would have done had I given Kremen to her.”

      He could not imagine that to himself definitely; but he thought that the loss of that land was for her a great bitterness really, and he regretted it. In this sorrow his anger began to scatter and vanish as mist. His conscience whispered that he had received what he earned. Returning, he said to himself, “But I am thinking of all this continually.”

      And really he was. Never had he experienced, in the most important money questions, even half the disquiet, never had he been absorbed so deeply. And again he remembered what Vaskovski had said of himself, that his nature, like Pan Stanislav’s, could not fix its whole power on the acquisition of money. Never had he felt with such clearness that there might be questions more important than those of wealth, and simply more positive. For the second time a certain astonishment seized him.

      It was nearly nine when he went to Bigiel’s. Bigiel was sitting in a spacious, empty house with doors opening on the garden veranda; he was playing on a violoncello in such fashion that everything through the house was quivering. When he saw Pan Stanislav he broke off a certain tremolo and inquired,—

      “Hast thou been at the Plavitskis’ to-day?”

      “Yes.”

      “How was the young lady?”

      “Like a decanter of chilled water. On such a hot day that is agreeable. They are polite people, however.”

      “I foresaw this.”

      “Play on.”

      Bigiel began to play “Träumerei,” and while playing closed his eyes, or turned them to the moon. In the stillness the music seemed to fill with sweetness the house, the garden, and the night itself. When he had finished, he was silent for a time, and then said,—

      “Knowest what? When Pani Emilia comes, my wife will ask her to the country, and with her Marynia. Maybe those ices will thaw then between you.”

      “Play the ‘Träumerei’ once more.”

      The sounds were given out a second time, with calmness and imagination. Pan Stanislav was too young not to be somewhat of a dreamer; hence he imagined that Marynia was listening with him to the “Träumerei,”