Children of the Soil

“Well, thou art a discreet man, and hast given me, besides, such proofs of friendship that there may not be secrets between us. Imagine, then, that yesterday, after thy departure, I received an anonymous letter. Here, as thou art aware, the noble custom of writing such letters prevails. In the letter were tidings that Papa Kraslavski exists, is alive, and in good health.”

“Which, again, may be gossip.”

“But also may not be. He lives, probably, in America. I received the letter while Pani Kraslavski was here. I said nothing; but after a time, when she had examined those portraits, and began to inquire of my more distant family relations, I asked her, in turn, how long she had been a widow. She answered, —

“‘My daughter and I have been alone in the world nine years; and those are sad events, of which I do not wish to speak to-day.’

“Observe that she did not say directly when her husband died.”

“And what dost thou think?”

“I think that if papa is alive, he must be that kind of figure of which people do not speak, and that in truth those may be ‘sad events.’”

“The secret would have come out long ago.”

“Those ladies lived abroad some years. Who knows? That, however, will not change my plans in any way. If Pan Kraslavski is living in America, and does not return, he must have reasons; it is as if he were not in the world, then. In fact, I am gaining the hope now that my marriage will come to pass, for I understand that when people have something to hide, they exact less.”

“Pardon my curiosity,” said Pan Stanislav, taking his hat; “but with me it is a question of my money, and now touching the Kraslavskis. Dost thou know surely that these ladies have money?”

“It seems that they have much; still, I am playing against a card somewhat hidden. It is likely that they have much ready money. The mother told me repeatedly that her daughter would not need to look to her husband’s property. I saw their safe; they keep a big house. I know nearly all the money-lenders – Jews and non-Jews – in Warsaw, and I know surely that these ladies are not in debt a copper to any one; as thou knowest thyself, they have a nice villa not far from the Bigiels. They do not live on their capital, for they are too prudent.”

“Thou hast no positive figures, however?”

“I tried to get them, but in roundabout fashion. Not being too certain of my connection with the ladies, I could not insist overmuch. It was given me to understand that there would be two hundred thousand rubles, and perhaps more.”

Pan Stanislav took leave, and on the way to the Plavitskis’ thought, “All this is a kind of mystery, a kind of darkness, a kind of risk. I prefer Marynia.”

Half an hour later he was driving with Marynia to the cemetery, to Litka. The day was warm, as in spring, but gray; the city seemed sullen and dirty. In the cemetery the melting snow had slipped in patches to the ground from the graves, and covered the yellow, half-decayed grass. From the arms of crosses and leafless tree-branches large drops were falling, which, borne from time to time by gusts of warm wind, struck the faces of Pan Stanislav and Marynia. These gusts pulled Marynia’s dress, so that she had to hold it. They stopped at last before Litka’s grave.

And here all was wet, sloppy, gloomy, half-stripped of the melting snow. The thought that that child, once so cared for, so loved, and so petted, was lying in that damp dungeon darkness, could hardly find a place in Pan Stanislav’s head.

“All this may be natural,” thought he; “but it is not possible to be reconciled with death.” And, in truth, whenever he visited Litka, he returned from the cemetery in a kind of irrepressible rebellion, with a species of passionate protest in his soul. These thoughts began to rend him in that moment also. It seemed to him simply terrible to love Litka, and to reconcile his love with the knowledge that a few steps lower down she is lying there, black and decaying. “I ought not to come,” said he to himself, “for I grow mad, lose my head here, and lose every basis of life.” But, above all, he suffered, for, if it is impossible not to think of death, it is equally impossible to explain it; hence everything touching it, which comes to the head, is, in so far as a man does not stretch forth his hand toward simple faith, at once despairing and shallow, trivial and common. “For me there is a greater question here than that of existence itself, but I am only able to answer with a commonplace. A perfectly vicious circle!”

And it was true; for if he considered, for example, that at the first thought of death everything becomes smoke, and he felt that unfortunately it does, he felt at the same time that thousands of people had come to that thought before he had, and that no one had found in it either solace or even such satisfaction as the discovery of a truth gives. Everything that he could say to himself was at once terrifying and petty. It was easy for him to understand that the whole life of man, general history, all philosophies, are at bottom merely a struggle with incessant death, – a struggle despairing, a struggle utterly senseless, and at the same time infinitely foolish and devoid of object, for it is lost in advance. But such reasoning could not bring him any comfort, since it was merely the confirmation of a new vicious circle.

For if the one object of all human efforts is life, and the only result death, the nonsense passes measure, and simply could not be accepted, were it not for that loathsome and pitiless reality, which turns beings beloved and living into rotten matter.

Pan Stanislav, during every visit to the cemetery, poisoned himself with such thoughts. To-day, while going, he thought that the presence of Marynia would liberate him from them; meanwhile, rather the opposite happened. Litka’s death, which had broken in him trust in the sense and moral object of life, undermined in him also that first, former love for Marynia, which was so naïve and free of doubt; now, when with Marynia, he was standing at Litka’s grave, when that death, which had begun to be only a memory, had become again a thing almost tangible, its poisoning effect was increasing anew. Again it seemed to him that all life, consequently love, too, is merely an error, and the processes of life utterly useless and vain. If above life there is neither reason nor mercy, why toil, why love and marry? Is it to have children, become attached to them with every drop of one’s blood, and then look on helplessly, while that blind, stupid, insulting, brutal force chokes them, as a wolf chokes a lamb, and come to their graves, and think that they are mouldering in damp and darkness? See, Litka is down there.

A day wonderfully gloomy only strengthened the bitterness of these feelings. At times, during his previous visits, the cemetery had seemed to Pan Stanislav a kind of great void in which life was dissolving, but in which every misfortune, too, was dissolving, – something enormously dreamy, soothing. To-day there was no rest in it. Pieces of snow fell from the trees and gravestones; ravens pushed about among the wet trees with their croaking. Sudden and strong blasts of wind hurled drops of moisture from the branches, and, driving them about, produced a certain desperate struggle around the stone crosses, which stood firm and indifferent.

Just then Marynia ceased praying, and said, with that slightly suppressed voice with which people speak in cemeteries, —

“Now her soul must be near us.”

Pan Stanislav made no answer; but he thought first that he and Marynia were beings as if from two distinct worlds, and then that if there were even a particle of truth in what she said, all his mental struggles would be less important than that melting snow. “In such case,” said he to himself, “there is dying and there are cemeteries, but there is simply no death.”

Marynia began to place on the grave immortelles, which she had bought at the gate, and he to think hurriedly, rather by the aid of his impressions than his ideas, “In my world there is no answer to anything; there are only vicious circles, which lead to the precipice.”

And this struck him, – that if such ideas of death as Marynia had, did not come from faith, or if they had been unknown altogether, and if all at once some philosopher had formulated them as a hypothesis, the hypothesis would be recognized as the most genial of the genial, because it explains everything, gives an answer to questions, gives light, not only to life, but to death, which is darkness. Mankind would kneel with admiration before such a philosopher and such a scientific theory.

On the other hand, he felt that still something of Litka was there with them. She herself was falling into dust, but something had survived her; there remained, as it were, currents of her thought, of her will, of her feeling. This, – that she had brought him to Marynia; that they were betrothed; that they were then standing at her grave; that they were to be united; that their lives would go on together; that they would have children, who in their turn would live and love and increase, – what was that, if not such a current, which, coming forth from that child, might go on and on through eternity, renewing itself in an endless chain of phenomena? How then understand that from a mortal being should issue an immortal and ceaseless energy? Marynia, in the simplicity of her faith, had found an answer; Pan Stanislav had not.

And still Marynia was right. Litka was with them. Through Pan Stanislav’s head there flew at that moment a certain hypothesis, dim, and not fixed in close thought yet, – a hypothesis, that, perhaps, all which man thinks during life, all that he wishes, all that he loves, is a hundred times more intangible, a hundred times more subtile, than ether, from which rises an astral existence, conscious of itself, either eternal or successively born into beings more and more perfect, more subtile, on to infinity. And it seemed to him that atoms of thought and feeling might collect into a separate individuality, specially because they came forth from one brain or one heart; that they are related, – hence tend to one another with the same mysterious principle by which physical elements combine to form physical individualities.

At present he had not time to meditate over this, but it seemed to him that he had caught something, that in the veil before his eyes, he saw, as it were, an opening that might turn out to be a deception; but at the moment, when he felt that still Litka was with them, he thought that her presence could be understood only in that manner.

Just then some funeral came, for, in the tower, which stood in the middle of the cemetery, the bell began to sound. Pan Stanislav gave Marynia his arm, and they went towards the gate. On the way Marynia, thinking evidently more about Litka, said, —

“Now I am certain that we shall be happy.”

And she leaned more on Pan Stanislav’s arm, for the gusts of wind had become so violent that it was difficult for her to resist them. One of these carried her veil around his neck. Reality began to call to him. He pressed the arm of the living woman to his side, and felt that loving, if it cannot ward away death, can at least harmonize life.

When they were seated in the carriage, he took Marynia’s hand, and did not let it go during the whole way. At moments solace returned to him almost perfectly, for he thought that that maiden, true and kind to the core of her nature, would be able to make good what was lacking in his feeling, and revivify in him that which was palsied. “My wife! my wife!” repeated he, in mind, looking at her; and her honest, clear eyes answered, “Thine.”

When they arrived at the house, Plavitski had not returned from his walk before dinner; they were all by themselves then. Pan Stanislav sat down by her side, and under the influence of those thoughts which had passed through his head on the way, he said, —

“You declared that Litka was with us; that is true. I have always returned from the cemetery as if cut down; but it is well that we were there.”

“It is; for we went as if for a blessing,” said Marynia.

“I have that same impression; and, besides, it seems to me as if we were united already, or, at least, were nearer than before.”

“True; and this will be both a sad and a pleasant remembrance.”

He took her hand again, and said, —

“If you believe that we shall be happy, why defer happiness? My kind, my best, I, too, trust that it will be well with us; let us not defer the day. We have to begin a new life; let us begin it promptly.”

“Make the decision. I am yours with all my soul.”

Then he drew her toward him, as he had the day before, and began to seek her lips with his lips; and she, whether under the influence of the thought that his rights were greater on that day, or under the influence of awakening thoughts, did not turn her head away any more, but, half closing her eyes, she herself gave him her lips, as if they had been thirsty a long time.

CHAPTER XXVII

For Pan Stanislav began now the period of ante-nuptial cares and preparations. He had, it is true, a dwelling furnished for more than a year, – that is, from a period before he knew Marynia. At that time he made no denial when Bukatski laughed at the lodgings, seeing in them a proof of how anxious his friend was to marry. “Yes,” said he; “I have property enough to permit this. I think, too, that I am doing something toward it, and that my plans are growing real.”

Bukatski said this was prevision worthy of praise, and wondered that a man of such foresight did not engage also a nurse and a midwife. At times conversation of this kind ended in a quarrel, for Pan Stanislav could not let any one deny him sound judgment in worldly matters. Bukatski affirmed that it was bird romance, worthy of a bunting, to start with building a poetic nest. One friend contended that there could be no wiser method than to build a cage, if you want a bird; the other retorted that if the bird were not found yet, and the chase was uncertain, the cage was a joke on one’s appetite. It ended with allusions to the slim legs of Bukatski, which, for him, made the chase after birds of all kinds impossible, even though they were wingless. Bukatski, on such occasions, fell into excellent humor.

Now, however, when the cage was ready, and the bird not only caught, but willing, there remained so much to be done that Pan Stanislav was seized more than once by surprise that an act so simple by nature as marriage, should be so complex in civilized societies. It seemed to him that if no one has the right to look into the moral side of the connection, since it is the outcome of genuine free-will, the formal side should be looked at still less.

But he thought so because he was not a law-giver, and was an impulsive man made impatient by the need of getting “papers.” Once he had resolved on marriage, he ceased to think or to analyze, and hastened, as a man of action, to execute.

He was even filled more than once with pride, on comparing himself with such a man, for instance, as Ploshovski, whose history had been circling from mouth to mouth in society, before people had begun to learn it from his diary. “But I am of different metal,” thought Pan Stanislav, with a certain satisfaction. At moments, again, when he recalled Ploshovski’s figure, his noble, delicate, and also firmly defined profile, his refinement, subtlety, and mental suppleness, his rare gift of winning people, especially women, it occurred to him that he, Polanyetski, is a less refined type, less noble, and, in general, a man cut from ruder materials. But to this he answered that evidently, in the face of conditions in life and the resistance required by it, too much refinement is simply fatal to mind as well as body. In himself he saw also far more ability for living. “Finally,” said he, “I can be of some service, while he would have been good only on social shelves with curiosities. I am able to win bread; he was able only to make pellets out of bread when baked. I know how, and I know well how, to color cotton; he only knew how to color women’s cheeks. But what a difference between us with reference to women! That man over-analyzed his life and the life of the woman whom he loved; he destroyed her and himself by not being able to escape from the doubt whether he loved her sufficiently. I, too, have doubts whether my love is perfect; but I take my little woman, and should be an imbecile, not a man, to fear the future, and fail to squeeze from it in simple fashion what good and happiness it will let me squeeze.”

Here Pan Stanislav, though he had forsworn analysis, began to analyze, not himself, it is true, but Marynia. He permitted this, however, only because he foresaw certainly favorable conclusions; he understood that, in calculating the future of two people, good-will on one side is not sufficient, and becomes nothing, if good-will fails on the other. But he was convinced that in taking Marynia he was not taking a dead heart. Marynia had brought to the world not only an honest nature, but from years of childhood she had been in contact with work and with conditions in which she was forced to forget herself, so as to think of others. Besides, there was above her the memory of a mother, a kind of endless blessing from beyond the grave, – a mother whose calmness, candor, and uprightness, whose life, full of trials, were remembered to the present with the utmost respect, throughout the whole region of Kremen. Pan Stanislav knew this, and was persuaded that, building on the heart and character of Marynia, he was building on a foundation well-nigh immovable. More than once he recalled the words of a woman, an acquaintance and friend of his mother’s, who, when some one asked her whether she was more anxious about the future of her sons than her daughters, answered, “I think only of my sons; for my daughters, in the worst case, can be only unhappy.”

So it is! School and the world rear sons, and both may make them scoundrels; daughters, in whom the home ingrafts honorableness, can, in the worst case, be only unhappy. Pan Stanislav understood that this was true with regard to Marynia. So that if he analyzed her, his analysis was rather the examination of a jeweller and his admiration for his gems, than a scientific method intended to reach results unknown and unexpected.