Children of the Soil

Panna Plavitski was waiting, in fact, outside the car; and she and Pani Emilia shook hands, with faces full of smiles. Litka looked for a moment at Marynia, as if hesitating; after a while, however, she threw herself on her neck with her usual cordiality.

“Marynia, thou wilt go with us to tea,” said Pani Emilia. “It is ready, and thou art fasting, of course.”

“Thou art tired, travelling all night.”

“From the boundary we slept as if killed; and when we woke, we had time to wash and dress. In every case we must drink tea. Thou wilt go with us?”

“I will, with the greatest pleasure.”

But Litka began to pull at her mother’s dress.

“Mamma, and Pan Stas.”

“But, naturally, Pan Stas too, – he thought of everything. Thanks to him, everything is ready. He must go with us, of course.”

“He must; he must!” cried Litka, turning to Pan Stanislav, who answered, smiling, —

“Not he must; but he wants to.”

And after a moment all four took their places in the carriage. Pan Stanislav was in excellent humor. Marynia was before him, and at his side little Litka. It seemed to him that the morning brightness was entering him, and that better days were beginning. He felt that henceforth he would belong to an intimate circle of beings bound together by comradeship and friendship, and in that circle would be Marynia. Now she was sitting there before him, near his eye, and near the friendship which both felt for Pani Emilia and Litka. Meanwhile all four were talking joyously.

“What has happened, Emilka,” asked Marynia, “that thou hast come so soon?”

“Litka begged so every day to come home.”

“Dost not like to live abroad?” asked Pan Stanislav.

“No.”

“Homesick for Warsaw?”

“Yes.”

“And for me? Now tell quickly, or it will be bad.”

Litka looked at her mother, at Marynia, and then at Pan Stanislav; and at last she said, —

“And for Pan Stas too.”

“Take this for that!” said Pan Stanislav, and he seized her little hand to kiss it; but she defended herself as she could. At last she hid her hand. He, turning to Marynia, and showing his sound white teeth, said, —

“As you see, we are always quarrelling; but we love each other.”

“That is the way generally,” answered Marynia.

And he, looking her straight and honestly in the eyes, said, —

“Oh that it were the way generally!”

Marynia blushed slightly and grew more serious, but said nothing, and began to converse with Pani Emilia.

Pan Stanislav turned to Litka.

“But where is Professor Vaskovski? Has he gone to Italy?”

“No. He stopped at Chenstohova, and will come the day after to-morrow.”

“Is he well?”

“He is.”

Here the little girl looked at her friend, and said, —

“But Pan Stas has grown thin; hasn’t he, mamma?”

“Indeed he has,” answered Pani Emilia.

Pan Stanislav was changed somewhat, for he had been sleeping badly, and the cause of that sleeplessness was sitting before him in the carriage. But he laid the blame on cares and labor in his business. Meanwhile they arrived at Pani Emilia’s.

When the lady went to greet her servants, Litka ran after her. Pan Stanislav and Marynia remained alone in the dining-room.

“You have no nearer acquaintance here, I suppose, than Pani Emilia?” said Pan Stanislav.

“None nearer; none so beloved.”

“In life kindness is needed, and she is very kind and well-wishing. I, for example, who have no family, can look on this as the house of a relative. Warsaw seems different to me when they are here.” Then he added, with a voice less firm, “This time I comfort myself also with their arrival, because there will be at last something mutual and harmonious between us.”

Here he looked at her, with a prayer in his eyes, as if he wished to say, “Give me a hand in conciliation; be kind to me, too, since a pleasant day has come to us.”

But she, just because she could not be for him altogether indifferent, went always farther in the direction of dislike. The more he showed cordial kindness, the more sympathetic he was, the more his action seemed to her unheard of, and the more offended she felt at heart.

Having a delicate nature, and being, besides, rather timid, and feeling really that a reply, if too ill-natured, might spoil the day’s harmony, she preferred to be silent; but he did not need an answer in words, for he read in her eyes as follows: The less you try to improve our relations, the better they will be; and they will be best if most distant. His joy was quenched in one moment; anger took its place, and regret, still stronger than anger, – for it rose from that charm which nothing could conquer, and to which Pan Stanislav yielded himself with the conviction, too, that the gulf between him and Marynia was in reality growing deeper each day. And now, looking on her sweet and kind face, he felt that she was as dear as she was lost irrecoverably.

The arrival of Litka put an end to that interval, grievous to him beyond description. The little girl ran in with great delight, her hair in disorder, a smile on her lips; but seeing them, she stopped suddenly, and looked now at one, now at the other, with her dark eyes. At last she sat down quietly at a table with tea. Her joyousness had vanished too, though Pan Stanislav, confining the pain in his heart, strove to talk and be gladsome.

But he turned scarcely any attention to Marynia; he occupied himself only with Pani Emilia and Litka; and, wonderful thing! Marynia felt that as an additional bitterness. To the series of offences still another was added.

On the following day Pani Emilia and Litka were invited to tea in the evening at the Plavitskis’. Plavitski invited Pan Stanislav too, but he did not go. And such is human nature that this again touched Marynia. Dislike, as well as love, demands an object. Involuntarily Marynia looked toward the door all the evening, till the hour struck in which it was certain that Pan Stanislav would not come; then she began to coquet so with Mashko that she transfixed Pani Emilia with amazement.

CHAPTER XII

Mashko was a very clever man, but full of self-love; he had no reason, however, not to take the kindness which Marynia showed him in good earnest. The unequal degree of it he attributed a little to coquetting, a little to the changing disposition of the young lady; and though the latter filled him with a certain alarm, this alarm was not great enough to restrain him from taking a decisive step.

Bigiel divined the true state of affairs when he declared that Mashko was in love. Such was the case really. At first Panna Plavitski pleased him in a high degree; afterward, when he had thought the pros and cons over, he came to the conviction that the pros had prevailed. The young advocate valued property, it is true; but, gifted with great sobriety of mind, and understanding perfectly the conditions in which he found himself, he concluded that a very wealthy lady he could not find and would not get. Richly dowered young ladies were found either among the aristocracy of descent, – and for him their thresholds were too lofty, – or among the world of financiers, who sought connections with families bearing names more or less famous. Mashko knew perfectly that his painted bishops and armored men, whom Bukatski ridiculed, would not open bankers’ safes to him. He understood that even if they had been less fantastic, his profession of advocate would itself be a certain diminutio capitis in the eyes of great financial whales. On the other hand, he had, in truth, a certain racial repugnance to that kind of connection; while maidens of good descent had the uncommon attraction which they have for parvenus generally.

Panna Plavitski had no dower, or at least a very insignificant one. In taking her, however, he would free himself from all obligations to the Plavitskis created by the purchase of Kremen. Secondly, by connecting himself with a good family, he would endeavor to bring in a whole group of noble clients, and this might be a very real profit; finally, through the family relations of Marynia, he might in time manage the business of a number, or a number of tens, of really wealthy families, – a thing which had long been the object of his efforts.

The Plavitskis, like all who are a little above middling country families, had indeed relatives whom they did not greatly recognize; they had also others who did not greatly recognize them. This, however, was done not so much from reasons of pride as involuntarily, by virtue of a certain social selection, through which people seek in society persons who are more or less in the same conditions of life as they themselves are. Great family festivals united such separated relatives temporarily; and Mashko not only found it agreeable to think that at his wedding there would be perfectly well-sounding names, but he foresaw various possible profits. The question would be merely one of cleverness to give people of this kind an idea that it would be well on their part, good and safe, to intrust their business to a man noted for energy, and, more than all, one of their own class, since he is a relative. That would be something like a dower given to a poor cousin. Mashko, taking note of his own qualities, hoped to force himself on them, and in time tower above them. He knew that this man or that would come at first to him for such counsel as he might find in conversation with an acquaintance, or a distant relative, who happened to understand various questions; later on, as the counsels proved good, he would come oftener, and at last put everything into the hands of the counsellor. Helping others in this fashion, he could himself sail out into broad waters, clear Kremen in time, advance to considerable property, throw aside at last legal pursuits, which he did not like, and which he considered only as a means of reaching his object, and fix himself finally in lofty spheres of society as an independent man, and at the same time a representative of superior landed property resting on a firm basis. He had foreseen all this, calculated and counted, before he determined to try for the hand of Panna Plavitski.