Meanwhile the brichka rolled out of the alley to the road in the open field. Pan Stanislav, recovering somewhat, began to think of Marynia in a form of mind which was a mosaic composed of the impressions which her face and form had made on him, – of recollections of the Sunday conversation; of repulsion, of pity, of offence, animosity; and, finally, dissatisfaction with himself, which strengthened his animosity against her. Each of these feelings in turn conquered the others, and cast on them its color. At times he recalled the stately figure of Marynia, her eyes, her dark hair, her mouth, pleasing, though too large, perhaps; finally, her expression; and an outburst of sympathy for her mastered him. He thought that she was very girlish; but in her mouth, in her arms, in the lines of her whole figure, there was something womanly, something that attracted with irresistible force. He recalled her mild voice, her calm expression, and her very evident goodness. Then, at thought of how harsh he had been to her before going, – at thought of the tone with which he had spoken to her, – he began to curse himself. “If the father is an old comedian, a trickster, and a fool,” said he to himself; “and if she feels all this, she is the unhappier. But what then? Every man with a bit of heart would have understood the position, taken compassion on her, instead of attacking the poor overworked child. I attacked her. I!” Then he wanted to slap his own face; for at once he imagined what might have been, what an immeasurable approach, what an exceptional tenderness would have arisen, if, after all the quarrels with her father, he had treated her as was proper, – that is, with the utmost delicacy. She would have given him both hands when he was leaving; he would have kissed them; and he and she would have parted like two persons near to each other. “May the devils take the money!” repeated he to himself; “and may they take me!” And he felt that he had done things which could not be corrected. This feeling took away the remnant of his equilibrium, and pushed him all the more along that road, the error of which he recognized. And he began a monologue again, more or less like the following, —
“Since all is lost, let all burn. I will sell the claim to any Jew; let him collect. Let them fly out on to the pavement; let the old man find some office; let her go as a governess, or marry Gantovski.” Then he felt that he would agree to anything rather than the last thought. He would twist Gantovski’s neck. Let any one take her, only not such a wooden head, such a bear, such a dolt. Beautiful epithets began to fall on the hapless Gantovski; and all the venom passed over on to him, as if he had been really the cause of whatever had happened.
Arriving in such a man-eating temper at Chernyov, Pan Stanislav might, perhaps, like another Ugolino, have gnawed at once into Gantovski with his teeth, “where the skull meets the neck,” if he had seen him at the station. Fortunately, instead of Gantovski’s “skull,” he saw only some officials, some peasants, a number of Jews, and the sad, but intelligent face of Councillor Yamish, who recognized him, and who, when the train arrived soon, invited him – thanks to good relations with the station-master – to a separate compartment.
“I knew your father,” said he; “and I knew him in his brilliant days. I found a wife in that neighborhood. I remember he had then Zvihov, Brenchantsa, Motsare, Rozvady in Lubelsk, – a fine fortune. Your grandfather was one of the largest landowners in that region; but now the estate must have passed into other hands.”
“Not now, but long since. My father lost all his property during his life. He was sickly; he lived at Nice, did not take care of what he had, and it went. Had it not been for the inheritance which, after his death, fell to my mother, it would have been difficult.”
“But you are well able to help yourself. I know your house; I have had business in hops with you through Abdulski.”
“Then Abdulski did business with you?”
“Yes; and I must confess that I was perfectly satisfied with our relations. You have treated me well, and I see that you manage affairs properly.”
“No man can succeed otherwise. My partner, Bigiel, is an honest man, and I am not Plavitski.”
“How is that?” asked Yamish, with roused curiosity.
Pan Stanislav, with the remnant of his anger unquenched, told the whole story.
“H’m!” said Yamish; “since you speak of him without circumlocution, permit me to speak in like manner, though he is your relative.”
“He is no relative of mine: his first wife was a relative and friend of my mother, – that is all; he himself is no relative.”
“I know him from childhood. He is rather a spoiled than a bad man. He was an only son, hence, to begin with, his parents petted him; later on his two wives did the same. Both were quiet, mild women; for both he was an idol. During whole years matters so arranged themselves that he was the sun around which other planets circled; and at last he came to the conviction that everything from others was due to him, and nothing to others from him. When conditions are such that evil and good are measured by one’s own comfort solely, nothing is easier than to lose moral sense. Plavitski is a mixture of pompousness and indulgence: of pompousness, for he himself is ever celebrating his own glory; and indulgence, for he permits himself everything. This has become almost his nature. Difficult circumstances came on him. These only a man of character can meet; character he never had. He began to evade, and in the end grew accustomed to evasion. Land ennobles, but land also spoils us. An acquaintance of mine, a bankrupt, said once to me, ‘It is not I who evade, but my property, and I am only talking for it.’ And this is somewhat true, – truer in our position than in any other.”
“Imagine to yourself,” answered Pan Stanislav, “that I, who am a descendant of the country, have no inclination for agriculture. I know that agriculture will exist always, for it must; but in the form in which it exists to-day I see no future for it. You must perish, all of you.”
“I do not look at it in rose-colors either. I do not mention that the general condition of agriculture throughout Europe is bad, for that is known. Just consider. A noble has four sons; hence each of these will inherit only one-fourth of his father’s land. Meanwhile, what happens? Each, accustomed to his father’s mode of living, wishes to live like the father; the end is foreseen easily. Another case: A noble has four sons; the more capable choose various careers; you may wager that the least capable remains on the land. A third case: what a whole series of generations have acquired, have toiled for, one light head ruins. Fourth, we are not bad agriculturists, but bad administrators. Good administration means more than good cultivation of land; what is the inference, then? The land will remain; but we, who represent it at present under the form of large ownership, must leave it most likely. Then, do you see, when we have gone, we may return in time.”
“How is that?”
“To begin with, you say that nothing attracts you to land; that is a deception. Land attracts, and attracts with such force that each man, after he has come to certain years, to a certain well-being, is unable to resist the desire of possessing even a small piece of land. That will come to you too, and it is natural. Finally, every kind of wealth may be considered as fictitious, except land. Everything comes out of land; everything exists for it. As a banknote is a receipt for metallic money in the State Bank, so industry and commerce and whatever else you please is land turned into another form; and as to you personally, who have come from it, you must return to it.”
“I at least do not think so.”
“How do you know? To-day you are making property; but how will you succeed? And that, too, is a question of the future. The Polanyetskis were agriculturists; now one of them has chosen another career. The majority of sons of agriculturists must choose other careers also, even because they cannot do otherwise. Some of them will fail; some will succeed and return – but return, not only with capital, but with new energy, and with that knowledge of exact administration which is developed by special careers. They will return because of the attraction which land exercises, and finally through a feeling of duty, which I need not explain to you.”
“What you say has this good side, that then my such-an-uncle-not-an-uncle Plavitski will belong to a type that has perished.”
Pan Yamish thought a while and said, —
“A thread stretches and stretches till it breaks, but at last it must break. To my thinking, they cannot hold out in Kremen, even though they parcel Magyerovka. But do you see whom I pity? – Marynia. She is an uncommonly honest girl. For you do not know that the old man wanted to sell Kremen two years ago; and that that did not take place partly through the prayers of Marynia. Whether this was done out of regard to the memory of her mother, who lies buried there, or because so much is said and written about the duty of holding to the soil, it is sufficient that the girl did what she could to prevent the sale. She imagined, poor thing, that if she would betake herself with all power to work, she could do everything. She abandoned the whole world for Kremen. For her it will be a blow when the thread breaks at last, and break it must. A pity for the years of the girl!”
“You are a kind person, councillor!” cried Pan Stanislav, with his accustomed vivacity.
The old man smiled. “I love that girl: besides, she is my pupil in agriculture; of a truth it will be sad when she is gone from us.”
Pan Stanislav fell to biting his mustaches, and said at last, “Let her marry some man in the neighborhood, and remain.”
“Marry, marry! As if that were easy for a girl without property. Who is there among us? Gantovski. He would take her. He is a good man, and not at all so limited as they say. But she has no feeling for him, and she will not marry without feeling. Yalbrykov is a small estate. Besides, it seems to the old man that the Gantovskis are something inferior to the Plavitskis, and Gantovski too believes this. With us, as you know, that man passes for a person of great family who is pleased to boast himself such. Though people laugh at Plavitski, they have grown used to his claim. Moreover, one man raises his nose because he is making property, another because he is losing it, and nothing else remains to him. But let that pass. I know one thing, whoever gets Marynia will get a pearl.“
Pan Stanislav had in his mind at that moment the same conviction and feeling. Sinking, therefore, into meditation, he began again to muse about Marynia, or, rather, to call her to mind and depict her to himself. All at once it even seemed to him that he would be sad without her; but he remembered that similar things had seemed so to him more than once, and that time had swept away the illusion. Still he thought of her, even when they were approaching the city; and when he got out at Warsaw, he muttered through his teeth, —
“How stupidly it happened! how stupidly!”
CHAPTER IV
On his return to Warsaw, Pan Stanislav passed the first evening at the house of his partner, Bigiel, with whom, as a former schoolmate, he was connected by personal intimacy.
Bigiel, a Cheh by descent, but of a family settled in the country for a number of generations, had managed a small commercial bank before his partnership with Pan Stanislav, and had won the reputation of a man not over-enterprising, it is true, but honorable and uncommonly reliable in business. When Pan Stanislav entered into company with him, the house extended its activity, and became an important firm. The partners complemented each other perfectly. Pan Stanislav was incomparably more clever and enterprising; he had more ideas and took in a whole affair with greater ease; but Bigiel watched its execution more carefully. When there was need of energy, or of pushing any one to the wall, Pan Stanislav was the man; but when it was a question of careful thought, of examining interests from ten sides, and of patience, Bigiel’s rôle began. Their temperaments were directly opposite; and for that reason, perhaps, they had sincere friendship for each other. Preponderance was relatively on the side of Pan Stanislav. Bigiel believed in his partner’s uncommon capacity; and a number of ideas really happy for the house, which Pan Stanislav had given, confirmed this belief. The dream of both was to acquire in time capital sufficient to build cotton-mills, which Bigiel would manage, and Pan Stanislav direct. But, though both might count themselves among men almost wealthy, the mills were in a remote future. Less patient, and having many relatives, Pan Stanislav tried, it is true, immediately after his return from abroad, to direct to this object local, so-called “our own,” capital; he was met, however, with a general want of confidence. He noticed at the same time a wonderful thing: his name opened all doors to him, but rather injured than helped him in business. It might be that those people who invited him to their houses could not get it into their heads that one of themselves, hence a man of good family and with a name ending in ski, could conduct any business successfully. This angered Polanyetski to such a degree that the clever Bigiel had to quench his outburst by stating that such want of confidence was in fact caused by years of experience. Knowing well the history of different industrial undertakings, he cited to Pan Stanislav a whole series of cases, beginning with Tyzenhaus, the treasurer, and ending with various provincial and land banks, which had nothing of the country about them except their names, – in other words, they were devoid of every home basis.
“The time has not come yet,” said Bigiel; “but it will come, or, rather, it is in sight. Hitherto there have been only amateurs and dilettanti; now for the first time are appearing here and there trained specialists.”
Pan Stanislav who, in spite of his temperament, had powers of observation rather well developed, began to make strange discoveries in those spheres to which his relatives gave him access. He was met by a general recognition for having done something. This recognition was offered with emphasis even; but in it there was something like condescension. Each man let it be known too readily that he approved Polanyetski’s activity, that he considered it necessary; but no one bore himself as if he considered the fact that Polanyetski was working at some occupation as a thing perfectly common and natural. “They all protect me,” said he; and that was true. He came also to the conclusion that if, for example, he aspired to the hand of any of the young ladies of so-called “society,” his commercial house and his title of “affairist” would, notwithstanding the above recognition, have injured more than helped him. They would rather give him any of those maidens if, instead of a lucrative business, he had some encumbered estate, or if, while living as a great lord, he was merely spending the interest of his capital, or even the capital itself.
When he had made dozens of observations of this kind, Pan Stanislav began to neglect his relatives, and at last abandoned them altogether. He restricted himself to the houses of Bigiel and Pani Emilia Hvastovski, and to those male acquaintances who were a necessity of his single life. He took his meals at Francois’s with Bukatski, old Vaskovski, and the advocate Mashko, with whom he discussed and argued various questions; he was often at the theatre and at public amusements of all kinds. For the rest, he led rather a secluded life; hence he was unmarried yet, though he had great and fixed willingness to marry, and, besides, sufficient property.
Having gone after his return from Kremen almost directly to Bigiel’s, he poured out all his gall on “uncle” Plavitski, thinking that he would find a ready and sympathetic listener; but Bigiel was moved little by his narrative, and said, —
“I know such types. But, in truth, where is Plavitski to find money, since he has none? If a man holds mortgages, he should have a saint’s patience. Landed property swallows money easily, but returns it with the greatest difficulty.”
“Listen, to me, Bigiel,” said Pan Stanislav; “since thou hast begun to grow fat and sleep after dinner, one must have a saint’s patience with thee.”
“But is it true,” asked the unmoved Bigiel, “that thou art in absolute need of this money? Hast thou not at thy disposal the money that each of us is bound to furnish?”
“I am curious to know what that is to thee, or Plavitski. I have money with him; I must get it, and that is the end of the matter.”
The entrance of Pani Bigiel, with a whole flock of children, put a curb on the quarrel. She was young yet, dark-haired, blue-eyed, very kind, and greatly taken up with her children, six in number, – children liked by Pan Stanislav uncommonly; she was for this reason his sincere friend, and also Pani Emilia’s. Both these ladies, knowing and loving Marynia Plavitski, had made up their minds to marry her to Pan Stanislav; both had urged him very earnestly to go to Kremen for the money. Hence Pani Bigiel was burning with curiosity to know what impression the visit had made on him. But as the children were present, it was impossible to speak. Yas, the youngest, who was walking on his own feet already, embraced Pan Stanislav’s leg and began to pull it, calling “Pan, Pan!” which in his speech sounded, “Pam, Pam!” two little girls, Evka and Yoasia, climbed up without ceremony on the knees of the young man; but Edzio and Yozio explained to him their business. They were reading the “Conquest of Mexico,” and were playing at this “Conquest.” Edzio, raising his brows and stretching his hands upwards, spoke excitedly, —
“I will be Cortez, and Yozio a knight on horseback; but as neither Evka nor Yoasia wants to be Montezuma, what can we do? We can’t play that way, can we? Somebody must be Montezuma; if not, who will lead the Mexicans?”
“But where are the Mexicans?” asked Pan Stanislav.
“Oh,” said Yozio, “the chairs are the Mexicans, and the Spaniards too.”
“Then wait, I’ll be Montezuma; now take Mexico!”
An indescribable uproar began. Pan Stanislav’s vivacity permitted him to become a child sometimes. He offered such a stubborn resistance to Cortez that Cortez fell to denying him the right to such resistance, exclaiming, not without historic justice, that since Montezuma was beaten, he must let himself be beaten. To which Montezuma answered that he cared little for that; and he fought on. In this way the amusement continued a good while. And Pani Bigiel, unable to wait for the end, asked her husband at last, —
“How was the visit to Kremen?”
“He did what he is doing now,” answered Bigiel, phlegmatically: “he overturned all the chairs, and went away.”
“Did he tell thee that?”
“I had no time to ask him about the young lady; but he parted with Plavitski in a way that could not be worse. He wants to sell his claim; this will cause evidently a complete severance of relations.”
“That is a pity,” answered Pani Bigiel.
At tea, when the children had gone to bed, she questioned Pan Stanislav plainly concerning Marynia.
“I do not know,” said he; “perhaps she is pretty, perhaps she is not. I did not linger long over the question.”
“That is not true,” said Pani Bigiel.
“Then it is not true; and she is lovable and pretty, and whatever you like. It is possible to fall in love with her, and to marry her; but a foot of mine will never be in their house again. I know perfectly why you sent me there; but it would have been better to tell me what sort of a man her father is, for she must be like him in character, and if that be true, then thanks for the humiliation.”
“But think over what you say: ‘She is pretty, she is lovable, it is possible to marry her,’ and then again: ‘She must be like her father.’ These statements do not hold together.”
“Maybe not; it is all one to me! I have no luck, and that is enough.”
“But I will tell you two things: first, you have come back deeply impressed by Marynia; second, that she is one of the best young ladies whom I have seen in life, and he will be happy who gets her.”
“Why has not some one taken her before now?”
“She is twenty-one years old, and entered society not long since. Besides, don’t think that she has no suitors.”
“Let some other man take her.”
But Pan Stanislav said this insincerely, for the thought that some other man might take her was tremendously bitter for him. In his soul, too, he felt grateful to Pani Bigiel for her praises of Marynia.
“Let that rest,” said he; “but you are a good friend.”
“Not only to Marynia, but to you. I only ask for a sincere, a really sincere, answer. Are you impressed or not?”
“I impressed? to tell the truth, – immensely.”
“Well, do you see?” said Pani Bigiel, whose face was radiant with pleasure.
“See what? I see nothing. She pleased me immensely, – true! You have no idea what a sympathetic and attractive person she is; and she must be good. But what of that? I cannot go a second time to Kremen, I came away in such anger. I said such bitter things, not only to Plavitski, but to her, that it is impossible.”
“Have you complicated matters much?”
“Rather too much than too little.”
“Then a letter might soften them.”
“I write a letter to Plavitski, and beg his pardon! For nothing on earth! Moreover, he has cursed me.”
“How, cursed?”
“As patriarch of the family; in his own name and the names of all ancestors. I feel toward him such a repulsion that I could not write down two words. He is an old pathetic comedian. I would sooner beg her pardon; but what would that effect? She must take her father’s part; even I understand that. In the most favorable event, she would answer that my letter is very agreeable to her; and with that relations would cease.”
“When Emilia returns from Reichenhall we will bring Marynia here under the first plausible pretext, and then it will be your work to let misunderstandings vanish.”
“Too late, too late!” repeated Pan Stanislav; “I have promised myself to sell the claim, and I will sell it.”
“That is just what may be for the best.”
“No, that would be for the worst,” put in Bigiel; “but I will persuade him not to sell. I hope, too, that a purchaser will not be found.”
“Meanwhile Emilia will finish Litka’s cure.” Here Pani Bigiel turned to Pan Stanislav: “You will learn now how other young ladies will seem to you after Marynia. I am not so intimate with her as Emilia is, but I will try to find the first convenient pretext to write to her and find out what she thinks of you.”
The conversation ended here. On the way home, Pan Stanislav saw that Marynia had taken by no means the last place in his soul. To tell the truth, he could hardly think of aught else. But he had at the same time the feeling that this acquaintance had begun under unfavorable conditions, and that it would be better to drive the maiden from his mind while there was time yet. As a man rather strong than weak mentally, and not accustomed to yield himself to dreams simply because they were pleasant, he resolved to estimate the position soberly, and weigh it on all sides. The young lady possessed, it is true, almost every quality which he demanded in his future wife, and also she was near his heart personally. But at the same time she had a father whom he could not endure; and, besides the father, a real burden in the form of Kremen and its connections.
“With that pompous old monkey I should never live in peace; I could not,” thought Pan Stanislav. “For relations with him are possible only in two ways: it is necessary either to yield to him (to do this I am absolutely unable), or to shake him up every day, as I did in Kremen. In the first case, I, an independent man, would enter into unendurable slavery to an old egotist; in the second, the position of my wife would be difficult, and our peace might be ruined.”
“I hope that this is sober, logical reasoning. It would be faulty only if I were in love with the maiden already. But I judge that this is not the case. I am occupied with her, not in love with her. These two are different. Ergo, it is necessary to stop thinking of Marynia, and let some other man take her.”
At this last idea, a feeling of bitterness burned him vividly, but he thought, “I am so occupied with her that this is natural. Finally, I have chewed more than one bitter thing in life; I will chew this one as well. I suppose also that it will be less bitter each day.”
But soon he discovered that besides bitterness there remained in him also a feeling of sorrow because the prospects had vanished which had been opening before him. It seemed to him that a curtain of the future had been raised, and something had shown him what might be; then the curtain had fallen on a sudden, and his life had returned to its former career, which led finally to nothing, or rather led to a desert. Pan Stanislav felt in every ease that the old philosopher Vaskovski was right, and that the making of money is only a means. Beyond that, we must solve life’s riddle in some fashion. There must be an object, an important task, which, accomplished in a manner straightforward and honorable, leads to mental peace. That peace is the soul of life; without it life has, speaking briefly, no meaning.
Pan Stanislav was in some sense a child of the age; that is, he bore in himself a part of that immense unrest which in the present declining epoch is the nightmare of mankind. In him, too, the bases on which life had rested hitherto were crumbling. He too doubted whether rationalism, stumbling against every stone at the wayside, could take the place of faith; and faith he had not found yet. He differed, however, from contemporary “decadents” in this, – that he had not become disenchanted with himself, his nerves, his doubts, his mental drama, and had not given himself a dispensation to be an imbecile and an idler. On the contrary, he had the feeling, more or less conscious, that life as it is, mysterious or not mysterious, must be accomplished through a series of toils and exploits. He judged that if it is impossible to answer the various “whys,” still it behooves a man to do something because action itself may, to a certain degree, be an answer. It may be inconclusive, it is true; but the man who answers in that way casts from himself at least responsibility. What remains then? The founding of a family and social ties. These must, to a certain degree, be a right of human nature and its predestination, for otherwise people would neither marry nor associate in societies. A philosophy of this kind, resting on Pan Stanislav’s logical male instinct, indicated marriage to him as one of the main objects of life. His will had for along time been turned and directed to this object. A while before, Panna Marynia seemed to him the pier “for which his ship was making in that gloomy night.” But when he understood that the lamp on that pier had not been lighted for him, that he must sail farther, begin a new voyage over unknown seas, a feeling of weariness and regret seized him. But his reasoning seemed to him logical, and he went home with an almost settled conviction that “it was not yet that one,” and “not yet this time.”
Next day, when he went to dine, he found Vaskovski and Bukatski at the restaurant. After a while Mashko also came in, with his arrogant, freckled face and long side whiskers, a monocle on his eye, and wearing a white waistcoat. After the greeting, all began to inquire of Pan Stanislav touching his journey, for they knew partly why the ladies had insisted on his personal visit, and, besides, they knew Marynia through Pani Emilia.
After they had heard the narrative, Bukatski, transparent as Sevres porcelain, said with that phlegm special to him, —
“It is war, then? That is a young lady who acts on the nerves, and now would be the time to strike for her. A woman will accept more readily the arm offered on a stony path than on a smooth road.”
“Then offer an arm to her,” said Pan Stanislav, with a certain impatience.
“See thou, my beloved, there are three hindrances. First, Pani Emilia acts on my nerves still more; second, I have a pain in my neck every morning, and in the back of my head, which indicates brain disease; third, I am naked.”
“Thou naked?”
“At least now. I have bought a number of Falks, all avant la lettre. I have plucked myself for a month, and if I receive from Italy a certain Massaccio, for which I have been bargaining, I shall ruin myself for a year.”
Vaskovski, who from his features, or rather from the freckles on his face, was somewhat like Mashko, though much older, and with a face full of sweetness, fixed his blue eyes on Bukatski, and said, —
“And that too is a disease of the age, – collecting and collecting on all sides!”
“Oh, ho! there will be a dispute,” remarked Mashko.
“We have nothing better to do,” said Pan Stanislav.
And Bukatski took up the gauntlet.
“What have you against collecting?”
“Nothing,” answered Vaskovski. “It is a kind of old-womanish method of loving art, worthy of our age. Do you not think there is something decrepit about it? To my thinking, it is very characteristic. Once people bore within them enthusiasm for high art: they loved it where it was, in museums, in churches; to-day they take it to their own private cabinets. Long ago people ended with collecting; to-day they begin with it, and begin at oddities: I am not talking at Bukatski; but to-day the youngest boy, if he has a little money, will begin to collect – and what? Not objects of art, but its oddities, or in every case its trifles. You see, my dear friend, it has seemed to me always that love and amateurism are two different things; and I insist that a great amateur of women, for example, is not a man capable of lofty feeling.”