Whirlpools

"Well, if the adoption gives her all the rights, and particularly the right of inheritance, is it not all the same to Krzycki?"

"The adoption gives her all rights; nevertheless it is not entirely the same to Krzycki, for it appears that Miss Anney is the daughter of a blacksmith of Rzeslewo and is named Hanka Skibianka."

"Ha!" cried Swidwicki, "Perdita has been found but not the king's daughter. What does the pretty Florizel say to this?"

But Dolhanski began to stare at Gronski as if he saw him for the first time in his life.

"What are you saying?"

"The actual fact."

"Sapristi! But that is a nursery tale. Sapristi! You are joking."

"I give you my word it is so. She herself told that to Krzycki."

"I like that expression of astonishment on Dolhanski's face," exclaimed Swidwicki. "Man, come to yourself."

Dolhanski restrained himself, for he always proclaimed that a true gentleman never should be surprised.

"I remember now," he said, "that this is the Skibianka to whom Uncle Zarnowski bequeathed a few thousand roubles."

"The same."

"Therefore his daughter."

"Fancy to yourself otherwise. Skiba came from Galicia to Rzeslewo with a wife and a child a few years old."

"Therefore of pure peasant blood."

"A Piast's,[10 - Piast; the name of the first King of Poland, who was a peasant.] a Piast's," cried Swidwicki.

"Absolutely pure," answered Gronski.

"And what does Laudie say?"

"He swallowed the tidings and is trying to digest them," again blurted out Swidwicki.

"That substantially is the case. He found himself in a new situation and locked himself up. It dumfounded him a little, and he desires to come to himself."

"He was enamoured to the point of ludicrousness but now he will probably break off."

"I do not admit that, but I repeat, that, in view of the changed situation, he has fallen into a certain internal strife, which he must first quell."

"I candidly confess that I would break off all relations unconditionally."

"But if Kaska or Hanka had a hundred thousand pounds?" asked Swidwicki.

"In such a case-I would have fallen into a strife," answered Dolhanski, phlegmatically.

After a while he continued:

"For it seems that it is nothing, but in life it may appear to be something. Omitting the various cousins, 'Mats' and 'Jacks,' who undoubtedly will be found; there also will be found dissimilar instincts, dissimilar dispositions, and dissimilar tastes. Why, the deuce! I would not want a wife who suddenly might be ruled by an unexpected passion for amber rosaries, for shelling peas, for swingling flax, for picking fruit, or for gathering mushrooms, not to say berries and nuts, and walking barefooted."

Here he turned to Gronski.

"Shrug your shoulders, but it is so."

"That would not shock me," said Swidwicki, "only, if I were to marry Miss Anney, I would just stipulate that she at times should go about barefooted. When I am in the country, nothing affects me so much as the sight of the bare feet of girls. It is true that they often have erysipelas about the ankles, which comes from the prickle of the stubblefields. But I assume that Miss Anney has not got erysipelas."

"One cannot talk with you in a dignified manner."

"Why?" replied Swidwicki. "Let Krzycki now clip coupons from his dignity but not we. Did you say that he belongs to the National Democrats?"

"No, not I. But what connection has that with Miss Anney?"

"Oh, – oh, a nobleman-a National Democrat-has found out that his flame has peasant blood in her veins and nevertheless his belly on that account has begun to ache; nevertheless, he is stung by that deminutio capitis."

"Who told you that? Besides, it should be permutatio, not deminutio."

"Yes! The English wares take on the appearance of a domestic product and fall in value. Justly, justly."

"Do you know who could with perfect independence enter into a marriage under such conditions?" asked Dolhanski. "A truly great gentlemen."

"But not Polish," exclaimed Swidwicki.

"There you are already beginning! Why not Polish?"

"Because a Polish gentleman has not sufficient faith in his own blood; he plainly has not sufficient pride to believe that he will elevate a woman to himself and not lower himself to her."

Gronski began to laugh:

"I did not expect that charge from your lips," he said.

"Why? I am an individualist, and in so far as I do not regard myself as a specimen of the basest race, so far do I regard myself as a specimen of the best. According to me one belongs to the aristocracy only through lucky chance; that is, when one brings into the world a suitable profile and corresponding brain. But Dolhanski, for instance, in so far as he has not purchased portraits of ancestors at an auction-and our other gentlemen-judge that blood constitutes that appurtenance. Now granting these premises, I contend that our tories do not know how to be proud of their blood."

"At home," said Gronski, "you vent your spleen upon the socialists, and here you wish to vent it upon the aristocracy."

"That does not diminish my merits. I have a few pretty remarks for the National Democracy."

"I know, I know. But how will you prove that which you said about the Polish tories?"

"How will I prove it? By the Socratic method-with the aid of questions. Did you ever observe when a Polish gentleman abroad becomes acquainted with a Frenchman or Englishman? I, while I had money, passed winters in Nice or in Cairo and saw a number of them. Now, every time I propounded to myself the question which now I put to you: why the devil it is not the Frenchman or Englishman who tries to please the Pole, but the Pole them? Why is it that only the Pole fawns, only the Pole coquets? Because he is almost ashamed of his descent; and if by chance a Frenchman tells him that from his accent he took him for a Frenchman, or an Englishman takes him for an Englishman, then he melts with joy, like butter in a frying-pan! Ah, I have seen such coquettes by the score-and it is an old story. Such coquetry, for instance, Stanislaus Augustus[11 - Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski, the last king of Poland.] possessed. At home, the Polish gentleman at times knows how to hold his nose high. Before a foreigner he is on both paws. Is not that a lack of pride in his own race, in his own blood, in his own traditions? If you have the slightest grain of a sense of justice, even though no larger than the grain of caviar, you must admit the justice of my remarks. As to myself, I have been ashamed sometimes that I am a Pole."

"That means that you committed the same sin with which you charge others," replied Gronski. "If the tips of the wings of our eagle reached both seas, as at one time they did, perhaps Poles might be different. But at present-tell me-of what are they to be proud?"

"You are twisting things. I am speaking of racial pride only, not political," answered Swidwicki. "After all, may the devils take them. I prefer to drink."

"Say what you will," asserted Dolhanski, "but I will merely tell you this: if internal affairs were exclusively in their hands, some fooleries might take place, but we would not be fried in the sauce in which we are fried to-day."