"I have lost all hope."
It was not true; she still clung to the delusion that the estate might be recovered. Her eyes looked hungrily at me, waiting for the words which might confirm her secret hopes. I resolved to gratify her wish, and said, —
"It seems to have been a case of necessity, and I do not see how any one can be blamed for it. Yet there are no obstacles which cannot be overcome where there is a will and adequate means. Sometimes it has happened that a sale has been invalidated in law from some omission of formality."
By the bye, this was not strictly true; but I saw it was balm to Pani Celina's sore heart. I had also stood up for Kromitzki, without mentioning his name, which neither of the others had done in my presence.
To say the truth it was not generosity which prompted me, but rather a desire to conciliate Aniela, and show myself before her in the light of goodness and nobility.
And Aniela was grateful; for, when we had left the room, she came out to me, and, stretching out her hand, said, —
"Thank you for being so good to mamma."
For all answer I raised her hand to my lips.
My aunt too seemed touched by my goodness. I left her and, lighting a cigar, went into the park for a quiet stroll to collect my thoughts and impressions; but I met there the young doctor who was taking his morning constitutional. As I wished to conciliate every one at Ploszow, I went up to him, and asked him, with the special regard due to science and authority, what he thought about Pani Celina's chances of regaining her health. I saw that this flattered him a little, and gradually he began to lose some of his democratic stiffness, and enlarged upon the theme of Pani Celina's illness with the ready eagerness of a young scientist who has had no time yet to doubt his powers. In speaking, he used every now and then Latin expressions, as if addressing a colleague. His strong, healthy frame, a certain power of speech and eye impressed me favorably. I saw in him a type of that new generation Sniatynski at one time had spoken of to me. Walking along the avenues, we had one of the so-called intellectual conversations, which consist a great deal in quoting names of books and authors. Chwastowski is thoroughly acquainted with certain subjects; but I have read more, and this seemed to astonish him not a little. At moments he looked almost vexed, as if he considered it an encroachment upon his own territory that I, an aristocrat, should know so much about certain books and authors. But then again I won his approbation by the liberality of my opinions. My liberality consists merely in a kind of tolerance for other people's views, and looking upon them without party feeling; and that from a man of my position and wealth was sufficient to win over the young radical. At the end of our conversation we felt towards each other as men do who have understood each other, and agreed on many points.
Most likely I shall be the exception of the rule as regards Doctor Chwastowski. As in my country every nobleman has his particular Jew in whom he believes, – though he dislikes the race in general, – so every democrat has his aristocrat for whom he feels a special weakness.
When going away I asked Doctor Chwastowski about his brothers. He said that one of them had a brewery at Ploszow, which I knew already from my aunt's letter; a second had a bookshop at Warsaw; and a third, who had been at a mercantile school, had gone as assistant with Pan Kromitzki to the East.
"It is the brewer who has the best of it just now," he said; "but we all work, and in time shall win good positions. It was lucky our father lost his fortune; otherwise every one of us would sit on his bit of land 'glebae adscripti,' and in the end lose it as my father did."
In spite of the preoccupation of my mind I listened with a certain interest. "There are, then," I said to myself, "people that are neither over-civilized nor steeped in ignorance. There are those that can do something and thus form the intermediate, healthy link between decay and barbarism." It is possible that this social strata mostly exists in bigger towns, where it is continually recruited by the influx of the sons of bankrupt noblemen, who adapt themselves to burgher traditions of work, and bring to it strong nerves and muscles. I then recalled what Sniatynski once said when I left him: "From such as you nothing good can come; your fathers must first lose all they have, else even your grandsons will not work." And here are Chwastowski's sons who take to it, and push on in the world by help of their own strong shoulders. I, too, perhaps, had I no fortune, should have to do something, and should acquire that energy of decision in which I have been wanting all my life.
The doctor left me presently as he had another patient at Ploszow, a young cleric from the Warsaw seminary, the son of one of the Ploszow peasants. He is in the last stage of consumption. My aunt has given him a room in one of the out-buildings, where she and Aniela look after him. When I heard of this I went to pay him a visit, and instead of the dying man I expected to see, I found a young, rather thin-looking lad, but bright and full of life. The doctor says it is the last flicker of the lamp. The young cleric was nursed by his mother, who, upon seeing me, overwhelmed me with a shower of gratitude copious enough to drown myself in.
Aniela did not visit the sick man that day, but remained with her mother. I saw her only at dinner, at which also the mother was present in her invalid's chair. It is only natural that Aniela should devote her time to her mother, and yet I fancy she does it partly to avoid being alone with me. In time our mutual relations will establish themselves upon an easier footing, but I quite understand that at first it will be a little awkward. Aniela has so much intelligence of heart, so much goodness and sensibility, that she cannot look upon our present position with indifference, and has not worldly experience enough to preserve an appearance of ease. This practice comes with later years, when the live spring of feelings begins to dry up and the mind acquires a certain conventionality.
I had let Aniela see there was no resentment in my heart towards her, and I shall not allude even to the past, and for that reason did not try to see her alone. In the evening during tea we discussed general topics. My aunt questioned me about Clara, who interests her very much. I told her all I knew about her, and from that we drifted into conversation about artists generally. My aunt looks upon them as people sent into the world by kind Providence to give performances for the benefit of charitable institutions. I maintained that artists, provided their hearts were pure and not filled with vanity and love of self, might be the happiest creatures in the world, as they are always in contact with something infinite and absolutely perfect. From life comes all evil, from art only happiness. This was, indeed, my point of view, supported by observation. Aniela agreed with me, and if I took note of the conversation it is because I was struck by a remark of Aniela's, simple in itself, but to me full of meaning. When we spoke about the contentment arising from art she said: "Music is a great consoler."
I saw in this involuntary confession that she is unhappy, and is conscious of it. Besides, in regard to that, I never had any doubts. Even the face is not the face of a happy woman. If anything, it is more beautiful than before, – apparently calm, even serene; but there is none of that light which springs from inward happiness, and there is a certain preoccupation that was not there formerly. In the course of the day I noticed that her temples have a slight yellow tint like that of ivory. I looked at her with an ever renewed delight, comparing her to the Aniela of the past. I could not get enough of this exchange of memories with reality. There is something so irresistibly attractive in Aniela that had I never seen her before, if she were among thousands of beautiful women and I were told to choose, I should go straight to her and say: "This one and no other." She answers so exactly to the feminine prototype every man carries in his imagination. I fancy she must have noticed that I watched and admired her.
I left at dusk. I was so shaken by the sensations of the day, so utterly different from all my preconceived ideas, that I had lost the power of dissecting my thoughts. I expected to find Pani Kromitska, and found Aniela; I put it down once more. God only knows what will be the consequence of this for us both. When I think of it I have the sensation of a great happiness, and also a slight disappointment. And yet I was right, theoretically, in expecting those psychical changes which necessarily take place in a woman after she is married, and I might easily be led to think she would show in some way that she was glad she had not chosen me. There is not another woman who would have denied herself that satisfaction of vanity. And as I know myself, my sensitiveness and my nerves, I could take my oath on it, that if such had been the case I should have been now full of bitterness, anger, and sarcasm, – but cured. In the mean while, things have fallen out differently, – altogether differently. She is a being of such unfathomable goodness and simplicity that the measure I have for goodness is not large enough for her.
What will happen next, what will happen to me or to her, I cannot say. My life might have run on quietly towards that ocean where all life is absorbed, – now it may run like a cataract down to a precipice. Let it be so. At the worst I can only be a little more unhappy, that is all. Until now I have not been lying on a bed of roses, with that consciousness of my useless life continually before me.
I do not remember; somebody, was it my father? said that there must always be something growing within us, that such is the law of nature. It is true. Even in the desert the forces of life hidden in the depth bring forth palms in the oasis.
21 April.
I live nominally at Warsaw, but have spent four consecutive days at Ploszow. Pani Celina is better, but the cleric Latyzs died the day before yesterday. Doctor Chwastowski says it was a splendid case of pulmonary consumption, and with difficulty conceals his satisfaction that he foretold the exact course of the disease up to the last hour. We had been to see the young man twelve hours before he died. He was quite merry with us, and full of hope because the fever had left him, which was only a sign of weakness. Yesterday, when sitting with Aniela on the veranda, the cleric's mother came up to tell us about his death, in her own quaint way, in which sorrow blended with quiet submission to the inevitable. In my pity for her, there was a great deal of curiosity, for up to now I had not much occasion to see anything of the inner life of the peasants. What quaint expressions they use! I tried to remember her words in order to note them down.
She embraced my knees, then Aniela's, after which she put the outside of her hands over her eyes, and began to wail: "O little Jesus, dear – O Maria, holiest of Virgins! He is dead, my poor lamb, dead! He was eager to see the Lord face to face; more eager than to stop with his little father and mother! Nothing could hold him back, not even the ladies' cares! Wine he had in plenty, and good food, and that could not save him; O little Jesus, dear! O holiest of Virgins! O Jesus mine!"
In her voice there was certainly a mother's sorrow! but what struck me most was the modulation of the voice, as if set to some local music. I never heard before the peasants lament their dead, but I am quite sure they all do it in more or less the same way, as if according to certain rules.
Tears were trembling on Aniela's eyelashes, and with that peculiar goodness only women are capable of, she began to inquire into the details of his death, guessing that it would soothe the poor woman to speak about it.
And in fact she began at once most eagerly: —
"When the priest had left him I said thus: 'Whether you die or not is in God's hands! You are nicely prepared now, so lay ye down and go to sleep.' Says he: 'Very well, little mother,' and fell in a doze, and I too; as, not reproaching the Lord with it, I had not had a proper sleep for three nights. At the first crow my old man comes in and wakes me; thus we were both sitting there, and he still asleep. I says to the old man: 'Is he gone?' and he says, 'Happen and he is gone.' I pulled him by the hand; he opened his eyes and said: 'I feel better now.' Then he remained quite still for about five paters and aves, and smiled toward the ceiling. This made me angry, and I says: 'Oh, you good-for-nothing, how can you laugh at my misery? But he only smiled at death, not at my misery, for he began breathing very hard, and that was all he did until the sun rose."
She began moaning again, and then invited us to come and see the body, as he was dressed already, and looked as beautiful as a picture. Aniela wanted to go at once, but I held her back; besides, the woman had already forgotten all about it, and began now lamenting her poverty. Her husband, it seems, had been a well-to-do peasant proprietor, but they had spent every bit of money upon their son's education. Acre after acre had been bought by the neighbors, and at present they had nothing but the hut, – no land whatever. One thousand two hundred roubles he had cost them. They had hoped to find a shelter for their old age with him at a parsonage, and now God had taken him. The old woman declared, with all the stoicism of the peasant, that they had already made their plans, and would go a begging. She seemed not afraid of it, and spoke of it with a kind of half-concealed satisfaction. She was only afraid the community might raise difficulties about the certificate, which, for some reason unknown to me, seemed to be necessary for the new profession. Hundreds of realistic details mingled with the calling upon the Lord Jesus, the Holy Virgin, and laments over the dead son. Aniela went into the house, and returned presently with some money for the woman. I arrested her hand; another idea, I thought good at the time, had crossed my mind.
"So you spent a thousand two hundred roubles on your son?" I said to the woman.
"That's so, please the gracious Pan. We thought when he got his church we would go and live with him. The Almighty willed it otherwise; no church for us now, but the church door" (place where beggars sit).
"I will give you the thousand two hundred roubles; you can buy some land if you like, and start fresh again."
I should have given it at once, but had not enough money by me; I intended to take it from my aunt, and told the woman to come back for it in an hour. She stared at me with wide-open eyes, without saying a word, and then with a cry fell down at my feet. But I got rid of her and her gratitude very soon, as she was in a hurry to be off to tell her husband the good news.
I remained alone with Aniela, who seemed moved deeply, and who repeated: —
"How good you are! how good you are!"
"There is not much goodness in it," I said in a careless manner. "I did not do it for these people I have seen for the first time in my life. I did it because you care for them, – to please you." It was true; they did not interest me more than any other people would in the same position, but I would have given ten times as much to please Aniela. I said it on purpose, as words like these said to a woman carry a deep meaning. It is almost the same as if I told her, "I would do anything for you, because you are everything to me." And, moreover, no woman can defend herself against a tacit confession such as this, or has any right to be offended. I had disguised the meaning, treating it as the most natural thing in the world; but Aniela perceived the drift, and lowering her eyes in evident confusion, said: "I must go back now to mamma," and left me alone.
I am quite aware that in acting thus I introduce a disturbing element into Aniela's soul. I perceive, too, with surprise, that if, on the one hand, my conscience cries out against this wilful destroying of the peace of the one being for whom I would give my life, on the other hand, it causes me a savage delight, as if thereby I satisfied man's innate instinct of destruction. I have also the conviction that no consciousness of evil, or sting of conscience, will stop me. I am too headstrong to let anything stand in my way, especially in presence of that powerful, inexpressible spell she has cast upon me. I am now as that Indian who threw away his oar, and gave himself up to fate. I do not reflect now that it was my fault, that all might have been so different, and that I had only to stretch out my hand to secure the happiness I am now yearning for in vain. But it could not be otherwise. I have come to the conclusion that generations which had lost all vital power, have made me what I am; that nothing remains but to cast away the oars and let myself drift with the current.
This morning we three – my aunt, Aniela, and I – went to the funeral of the young cleric.
It was a strange sight, this village procession headed by the priest, the coffin on a cart, followed by a crowd of peasants, men and women who were singing a tune sad and weird as if set to some Chaldean music. At the furthest end, the men and women were talking to each other in a drawling, half-sleepy way. Going along, among the rowan trees, the procession came now and then into the glare of the sun, and then the kerchiefs flashed into flames of blue, and red, and yellow, which but for the coffin and the incense of juniper berries, made the procession rather look like a wedding than a funeral. Death does not seem to make much impression upon the rustic mind; perhaps they regard it in the light of an everlasting holiday. As we stood by the open grave, I noticed their faces following the ceremony with concentrated attention and curiosity; but I saw no trace of thoughtfulness or reflection at the inexorable end, after which begins the great, terrible Unknown.
I looked at Aniela as she stooped for a handful of soil to throw upon the lowered coffin. She was paler than usual, and with the sun shining upon her I could read the transparent features as an open book. I was certain she was thinking of her own death. To me it seemed simply monstrous, a horrible improbability, that this face so full of expression, so full of life and charming individuality, should at some time be stony white and remain in eternal darkness.
And as if a sudden frost had nipped all my thoughts, I grew suddenly conscious that the first ceremony I assisted at with Aniela was a funeral. As a person in long sickness, having lost faith in medicine, turns to quack doctors and wise women, so the sick soul, doubting everything, still clings to certain superstitions.
Probably no one is so near the gulf of mysticism as the absolute sceptic. Those who have lost faith in religious and sociological ideals, those whose belief in the power of science and the human intellect is shaken, that whole mass of highly cultured people, uncertain of their way, deprived of all dogmas, hopelessly struggling in the dark, drift more and more towards mysticism. It seems to spring up everywhere, – the usual reaction of a society whose life is based upon positivism, the overthrow of ideals, empty pleasures, and soulless striving after gain. The human spirit begins to burst its shell, which is too narrow, too much like a stock exchange. One epoch draws to an end, and then appears a simultaneous evolution in all directions. It has struck me often with amazement that, for instance, the more recent great writers seem not to know how very close upon mysticism they are. Some of them are conscious of it, and confess so openly. In every book I opened lately, I found, not the human soul, will, and personal passions, but merely fatal forces with all the characteristics of terrible beings, independent of personal manifestations, living alone within themselves, like Goethe's "Mother."
As regards myself, I too come near the brink. I see it and am not afraid. The abyss attracts; personally it attracts me so much that if I could I would go to the very bottom, and will some time when I am able.
28 April.
I intoxicate myself with the life at Ploszow, the daily sight of Aniela, and forget that she belongs to somebody else. Kromitzki, who is somewhere at Baku, or further still, appears to me as something unreal, a being deprived of real existence, something bad that might come down upon us, as for instance, death, but of which one does not think continually. But yesterday something happened to bring him before my mind. It was a small and apparently most natural incident. Aniela received at breakfast two letters. My aunt asked whether they were from her husband, and she replied, "Yes." Hearing that, I felt the sensation a condemned man may feel when they rouse him from a sweet dream in order to tell him to have his hair cut for the guillotine. I saw my whole misfortune more distinctly than ever before, and the sensation remained with me the whole day, especially as my aunt, quite unconsciously, of course, was bent upon torturing me further. Aniela wanted to put off the reading of the letters, but my aunt insisted upon her opening them, and presently inquired how Kromitzki was.
"Thank you, aunty, he is very well."
"And how are his affairs going on?"
"Thank God! he writes that everything prospers beyond expectation."
"When does he think of coming back?"
"He says as soon as he can possibly manage."
And I, with my sensitiveness, had to listen to these questions and answers. If my aunt and Aniela had started unexpectedly a quite improbable cynical conversation it could not have shocked me more. The first time since my arrival at Ploszow I felt something like resentment towards Aniela. "Have a little mercy at least, and do not speak of that man in my presence; do not return thanks for being asked after him, and say 'Thank God!' because he is prosperous," I thought. In the mean time she had opened the second letter, and looking at the date, said: "It has been written at an earlier date;" then began to read. I looked at the bowed head, the parting of the hair, the drooping lashes – and it seemed to me that the reading lasted very long. I thought what a world of mutual interests and aims bound these two together, and that for some indispensable reason they must feel that they belonged to each other. I felt that I had no part in it, and that by force of circumstances I should always be outside her life even if I won her love. Up to now I had felt the depth of my misery as one sees the depth of a precipice veiled by clouds. Now the mist lifted, I looked down and comprehended its whole extent.
My nature is so constituted that under great pressure it resists. Up to the present my love had not dared to ask for anything, but at this moment hatred began to clamor loudly for the abolition of merciless laws, those ties and bondages. Aniela did not read many minutes, but during that time I ran through a whole gamut of tortures, because other thoughts relating to my self-analysis and criticism were haunting me. I said to myself that the agitation, the very bitterness I felt, were nothing but the ridiculous characteristics of female ill-humor. How is it possible to live with nerves such as mine? If such a simple thing as a letter from the husband to his wife makes you lose your balance, what will happen when he himself comes to claim her?
I said to myself: "I will kill him!" and at the same time I felt the ridiculousness and folly of the answer.
Aniela having finished her letters noticed at once that something was amiss, and looked at me with troubled eyes. Hers is one of those sweet dispositions that cannot bear to see unfriendly faces, or live in an atmosphere of cold displeasure. This springs from a great tenderness of heart. I remember how uneasy she used to be when first she witnessed the disputes between my aunt and Chwastowzki. Now she was evidently ill at ease. She began to speak about the concert and Clara, but her eyes seemed to say: "What have I done, what is the matter with you?" I merely replied by a cold glance, not being able to forgive her either the letters or her conversation with my aunt. After breakfast I rose at once and said I was obliged to go back to Warsaw.
My aunt wanted me to stop to dinner; after which, according to our agreement, we were to start together for the concert. But I pleaded some business; the truth was I wanted to be alone. I gave orders for the carriage to be ready, and then my aunt remarked: —
"I should like to show some gratitude to Miss Hilst, and thought of inviting her to Ploszow for the day."
Evidently my aunt considers an invitation to Ploszow such a great reward that she doubted whether it would not be out of all proportion.
After a moment's pause she began again: —
"If I were quite sure that she is of a proper standing."
"Miss Hilst is a personal friend of the queen of Roumania," I replied, a little impatiently; "and if there be any honor, it will be altogether on our side."
"Well, well," muttered my aunt.
"You will come with us to the concert?" I said, turning to Aniela.
"I am afraid not. I shall have to remain with mamma; and besides, I have some letters to write."
"Oh! if it is a question of wifely tenderness I will not insist."
This ironical remark gave me a momentary relief. "Let her be aware that I am jealous," I thought; "she herself, her mother, and my aunt belong to those women of the angelic kind, who do not believe there can be any evil in the world. Let her understand that I love her, become familiar with the thought, troubled by it, and fight it. To bring into her soul a strange, decomposing element, a ferment like this, is half the battle. We shall see what will happen afterwards."
It was a momentary but great relief, and very much like a wicked delight. But presently, when alone in the carriage, I felt angry with myself and disgusted, – disgusted because I became conscious of the littleness of all I had thought and felt, based as it was upon overstrung and fanciful nerves worthy an hysterical woman, not a man. It was a heavy journey, far heavier than the one when after my return from abroad I went the first time to Ploszow. I was reflecting upon that terrible incapacity for life which casts its shadow upon my existence and the existence of those like me, and came to the conclusion that its main source is the feminine element which predominates in our character. I do not mean by this that we are physically effeminate or wanting in manly courage. No! it is something quite different. Courage and daring we are not deficient in; but as regards psychical elements, every one of us is a she, not a he. There is in, us a lack of the synthetic faculty which distinguishes things that are important from those that are not. The least matter discourages, hurts, and repulses us; in consequence of which we sacrifice very great things for small ones. My past is a proof thereof. I sacrificed inexpressible happiness, my future and the future of the beloved woman, because I had read in my aunt's letter that Kromitzki wished to marry her. My nerves took the bit between their teeth, and carried me where I did not wish to go. This was nothing but a disease of the will. But it is a feminine disease, not a masculine one. Is it to be wondered at that I act as an hysterical woman? It is a misfortune I brought with me into the world, to which whole generations have contributed their share, as also the conditions of life in which we exist.
The shaking myself thus free from all responsibility did not give me any relief. When I arrived at Warsaw I intended to call upon Clara, but was prevented by a severe headache; which got better towards evening before my aunt came up.
She found me already dressed, and we drove together to the concert, which was a great success. Clara's fame had attracted the whole musical and intelligent world, and the charitable purpose the aristocratic circles. I saw many people there I knew, among them Sniatynski and his wife. The concert room was crowded. But I was out of humor, and everything irritated me. I do not know why, but I felt afraid Clara's performance would be a failure. When she appeared on the platform a programme clung to the folds of her dress; I thought it would make her appear ridiculous. She herself in full evening dress seemed to me more like a stranger than a friend. I involuntarily asked myself whether it was the same Clara I was so intimate with. When the hearty applause had ceased she sat down to the piano, and I acknowledged to myself that she had a noble and artistic presence, full of simplicity and quite free of any affectation. On all faces there was the concentrated attention of people who have no understanding of art, but like to pass for connoisseurs and judges. She played Mendelssohn's concerto, which I know by heart, – but whether it was the thought that much was expected from her, or that the unusually enthusiastic reception had moved her, she played worse than I had ever heard her. I was sorry for it and looked at her with astonishment; our eyes met for a moment. The expression of my face put the final touch to her confusion, and I heard a few dim notes without force or expression. I was quite sure now she would fail. Never had the piano, with its lack of continuity, its sound smothered by the acoustic properties of the room, seemed to me a more miserable instrument. At times it seemed as if I heard the sharp, staccato sounds of a harp. Presently Clara recovered her self-possession, but upon the whole I thought she had played but indifferently. I was very much surprised indeed when after she had finished there rose such a storm of applause as I had not heard even in Paris, where Clara was received with exceptional enthusiasm. During the short pause, amateurs and professionals began discussing the music, and in their animated faces I read perfect satisfaction. The cheering lasted until Clara reappeared on the platform. She stepped forth with downcast eyes, and I who could read her face saw what she wanted to express: "You are very kind, and I thank you for it; but it was not good and I feel inclined to cry." I too had applauded with the rest, for which I received a passing glance full of reproach. Clara loves her art too much to be gratified by undeserved applause. I felt sorry for her, and should have liked to say a few encouraging words, but the continued cheering did not permit her to leave the platform. She sat down again and played Beethoven's Sonata in cis-moll, which was not on the programme. There is, I believe, no composition in the whole world that shows with the same distinctness the soul torn by tragic conflict; especially in the third part of the Sonata, the Presto-agitato. The music evidently responded to the tune of Clara's soul, and certainly harmonized with my own disposition, for never had I heard Beethoven interpreted and understood like this before. I am not a musician, but I suppose even musicians do not know how much there is in that Sonata. I cannot find another word than "oppressiveness" to describe the sensation wrought upon the audience. One had a feeling as if mystical rites were being performed; there rose before me a vast desert, not of this world, weird and unutterably sad, without shape, half lit up by a ghostly moon, in the midst of which hopeless despair waited and sobbed and tore its hair. It was terrible and impressive because so unearthly; and yet irresistibly attractive, – never had my spirit come in such close proximity to the infinite. It was almost an hallucination. I imagined that in the shapeless desert, in the dusk of a world of shadows, I was searching for somebody dearer to me than the whole world, one without whom I could not and would not live, and I searched with the conviction that I should have to search forever and never find what I was looking for. My heart was so oppressed that at times I could scarcely breathe. I paid no attention to the mechanical part of the execution, which no doubt was as perfect as the expression.