Whirlpools

"A dog, which as often as it pleases me, I stroke over the hair, as for instance now, when I received that revolutionary booby. But that is yet nothing! See under what terror people live: the executioner's axe, the gallows, the bullet, cancer, consumption, typhoid fever, tabes-suffering, pain, whole months and years of torture-and why? Before the fear of death. And I jeer at that. Me, hangman will not execute, cancer will not gnaw, consumption will not consume, pain will not break, torture will not debase, for I shout, in a given moment, at this divinity before which all tremble, as at a spaniel: 'Lie down!'"

After which he laughed and said:

"And that mad booby of mine, however, hid himself as if before death. Tell me what would happen if people actually did not fear?"

"They would not be themselves," answered Gronski. "They desire life, not death."

XI

Swidwicki did not lie when he said that he did not know the name of the revolutionist to whom he promised an asylum, for in reality Pauly had made a secret of it. She so arranged it with Laskowicz on the way. The young student, learning that Swidwicki, to whom the girl was conducting him, was an acquaintance of Gronski and Pani Otocka, in the first moments became frightened inordinately. He recollected the letters which he had written to Panna Marynia, and his odious relations with Krzycki upon whom his party a short time previously perpetrated an attack. Personally he did not participate in it and the suggestion did not emanate from him, but on the other hand he did not have the slightest doubt that the committee issued the death sentence as a result of his reports designating Krzycki as the chief obstacle to their propaganda, and he remembered that he did nothing to prevent the attempt, and was even pleased in his soul that a man, hateful to him and at the same time a putative rival, would be removed from his path.

For a time he even felt, owing to this "washing of hands," a certain internal disgust; at the intelligence, however, that the attack was unsuccessful he experienced, as it were, a feeling of disappointment. And now he was going to seek shelter with a man who was a relative of Pani Otocka and who might have heard of the letters to Marynia and his relations with Krzycki. This was a turn of affairs, clearly fatal, which might frustrate the best intentions of Panna Pauly.

Considering all this he began to beg the girl not to mention his name, giving as a reason that in case the police should find him, Swidwicki would be less culpable.

Pauly admitted the full justness of this; after a while, however, she observed that if Pan Gronski should ever visit Swidwicki then everything would be disclosed.

"Yes," answered the student, "but I need that refuge for only a few days; after which I will look for another, or else my chiefs may dispatch me abroad."

"What chiefs?" asked Pauly.

"Those who desire liberty and bread for all, and who will not tolerate that some one should be raised above you, little lady, either in rank or money."

"I do not understand. How is that? I would not be a servant and would not have a mistress?"

"Yes."

Pauly was struck by the thought that in that case she would be nearer to her "young lord," but not having time to discuss this any longer, she repeated:

"I do not understand. Later, I will question you about it, but now let us proceed."

And they walked hurriedly ahead, in silence, until they reached Swidwicki's door. On the ringing of the bell, he opened it himself. With surprise but also with a smile he saw Pauly in the dark hallway and afterwards catching sight of Laskowicz, he asked:

"What is he here for? Who is he?"

"May we enter and may I speak with you in private?" asked the girl.

"If you please. The more private, the more agreeable it will be to me."

And they entered. The student remained in the first room. The master of the house conducted Pauly to another and closed the door after him.

Laskowicz began to examine the large room, full of disorder, with books, and engravings, and an abundance of bottles with white and blue labels. On the round table, near the window, piled with daily newspapers, stood a bottle with the legend: "Vin de Coca; Mariani," and a few ash trays with charred lighters for cigars and cigarettes. The furniture in the room was heavy and evidently when new was costly but it was now dirty. Hanging on the wall were pictures, among them a portrait of Pani Otocka, while yet a young unmarried lady. In one corner protruded the well known statue of the Neapolitan Psyche with mutilated skull.

The student placed the flower-pot with the Italian lilies on the table and began to eavesdrop. His life was involved, for if shelter was denied to him he undoubtedly would be arrested that day. Through the closed door came to him from time to time Swidwicki's outbursts of laughter, and the conversing voices, in which the voice of the girl sounded at times as if entreating, and at other moments angry and indignant. This lasted a long time. Finally the doors opened and the first to enter was Pauly, evidently angry, and with burning cheeks; after her came Swidwicki, who said:

"Very well. Since the beautiful Pauly so wishes it, I will not tell any one who brought to me this Sir Ananias, and will keep him under cover, but on condition that Pauly will prove a little grateful to me."

"I am grateful," answered the girl with irritation.

"These are the proofs," said Swidwicki, displaying marks on the back of his hands. "A cat could not scratch any better. But to only look at little Pauly, I will agree even to that. The next time we will have some candy."

"Good-by till we meet again."

"Till we meet. May it be as frequent as possible."

The girl took the pot with the flowers and left. Then Swidwicki thrust his hands into his pockets and began to stare at Laskowicz as if he had before him, not a human being, but some singular animal. Laskowicz looked at him in the same way, and during that short interval they acquired for each other a mutual dislike.

Finally Swidwicki asked:

"Ah, esteemed Sir Benefactor, of what party? Socialist, anarchist, or bandit? I beg of you! without ceremony! I do not ask your name, but it is necessary to be acquainted somehow."

"I belong to the Polish Socialist Party," answered the student with a certain pride.

"Aha! Then to the most stupid one. Excellent. That is as if some one said: To the atheistic-Catholic or to the national-cosmopolitan? I am truly delighted to bid you welcome."

Laskowicz was not in the least meek by nature, and besides he understood in a moment that he had before him a man with whom he would gain nothing by meekness; so, gazing straight into Swidwicki's eyes, he replied almost contemptuously:

"If you, sir, can be a Catholic and Pole, I can be a socialist and Pole."

But Swidwicki laughed.

"No, Sir Chieftain," he said, "Catholicism is a smell. One can be a cat and have a fainter or stronger odor, but one cannot be a cat and dog in one and the same person."

"I am no chieftain; only a third-class agent," retorted Laskowicz. "You, sir, have given me a refuge and yourself the right to mock me."

"Exactly, exactly! But for that I shall not require any gratitude. We can, after all, change the subject. Sit down, Sir Third-class Agent. What is new? How is His Majesty, the king."

"What king?"

"Why the one you serve and who to-day has the most courtiers; the one who, most of all, cannot endure the truth and most easily gulps adulation; the one, who in winter smells of whiskey and in summer of sour sweat, – that mangy, lousy, scabby, stinking, gracious, or rather, ungracious ruler of the day. King Rabble."

If Laskowicz had heard the most monstrous blasphemies against a holy object, which heretofore mankind venerated, he would not have been more horrified than at the words which passed Swidwicki's lips. For him it was as if he were struck on the head with a club, for it never crossed his mind that any one would have dared to utter anything like that. His eyes became dim, his jaws tightened convulsively, his hands began to tremble. In the first moments he was possessed by an irrepressible desire to shoot Swidwicki in the head with the revolver he carried with him and afterwards slam the door and go wherever his eyes would take him, or else to place the barrel to his ear and shatter his own head, but he lacked the strength. All night long he had toiled in the printing plant; after which he had fled over the roofs and through the streets like a wild animal. He was fatigued, hungry, and exhausted with the frightful experiences of that morning. So he suddenly staggered on his feet, became as pale as a corpse, and would have tumbled upon the ground if a chair had not stood close by, into which he sank heavily, as if dead.

"What is this? What in the devil ails you?" asked Swidwicki.

And he began to assist him. He poured out of a bottle the remainder of the cognac and forced him to drink it; afterwards he lifted him from the chair and led him to another room and almost forcibly put him in his own bed.

"What the devil!" he repeated; "how do you feel?"

"Better," answered Laskowicz.

Swidwicki glanced at his watch.

"In about ten minutes, the old woman who serves here ought to come. I will order her to bring something to eat. In the meanwhile lie quietly."

Laskowicz obeyed this advice, as he could not do otherwise. Lying there, however, he for a time knit his brow, and evidently his mind was laboring. Then he said:

"That king-about whom you inquired-is-starving-"