Children of the Soil

“Oh, it is well to know that; I shall not go there now for anything in the world.”

“You will make their acquaintance first at our house,” said Marynia.

“I shall escape from the entrance,” said he, clasping his hands.

“Why?” asked Pan Stanislav. “It is needful to have the courage not only of one’s convictions, but of one’s verses.”

“Evidently,” said Pani Bigiel. “What is there to be ashamed of? I should look people in the eyes boldly and say: I write; yes, I write.”

“I write; yes, I write,” repeated Zavilovski, raising his head and laughing.

But Marynia continued: “You will make their acquaintance at our house; then you will leave your card with them, and after that we will visit them some evening.”

“I cannot hide my head in snow,” said he, “because there is none; but I’ll find some place of hiding.”

“But if I entreat you greatly?”

“Then I will go,” answered Zavilovski, after a while, blushing slightly; and he looked at her.

Her face, somewhat pale after protracted lying in bed, had become more delicate, and looked like the face of a maiden of sixteen. She seemed so wonderful to the young man that he could refuse her nothing.

In the evening, Pan Stanislav was to take him back to the city; but before that Marynia said to him, —

“Now you must be constrained, for you have not seen Panna Lineta Castelli; but as soon as you have seen her, you will fall in love.”

“I, Pani?” cried Zavilovski, putting his hand on his breast; “I, with Panna Castelli?”

And there was so much sincerity in his question that he was confused again; but this time Marynia herself was confused somewhat.

Meantime Pan Stanislav has finished his conversation with Bigiel about the dangers of investing capital in land, and they drive away. Marynia remembers how once she returned with her father, Pani Emilia, Litka, and Pan Stanislav from the Bigiels, in a moonlight night such as this; how “Pan Stanislav” was in love with her then; how unhappy he was; how severe she was with him; and her heart begins to beat with pity for that “Pan Stanislav,” who suffered so much on a time. She wants to nestle up to him and implore pardon for those evil moments of the past; and but for the presence of Zavilovski, she would do so.

But that old-time Pan Stanislav is sitting there calm and self-confident at her side, and smoking his cigar. Moreover, she is his; he has taken her and has her; all is over.

“Of what art thou thinking, Stas?” inquired she.

“Of the business of which I was talking with Bigiel.”

And, shaking the ashes from his cigar, he replaced it in his mouth, and drew so vigorously that a ruddy gleam lighted his mustache and a part of his face.

Zavilovski, looking at Marynia’s face, thought in his young soul that if she were his wife he would not smoke a cigar, nor think of business of which he had been talking with Bigiel, but might kneel before her and adore her on his knees.

And gradually, under the influence of the night and that sweet womanly face, which he glorified, exaltation possessed him. After a time he began to declaim, at first in silence, as if to himself, then more audibly, his verses entitled, “Snows on the Mountains.” There was in that poem, as it were, an immense yearning for something unapproachable and immaculate. Zavilovski himself did not know when they arrived in the city, and when lamps began to gleam on both sides of the street. At Pan Stanislav’s house Marynia said, —

“To-morrow, then, to a five o’clock.”

“Yes,” answered he, kissing her hand.

Marynia was sunk somewhat in revery under the influence of the ride, the night, and maybe the verses. But from the time of their stay in Rome, she and her husband had repeated the rosary together. And after these prayers a great tenderness possessed her suddenly, – as it were, an influx of feeling, hidden for a time by other impressions. Approaching him, she put her arms around his neck, and whispered, —

“My Stas, but we feel so pleasant together, do we not?”

He drew her toward him, and answered with a certain careless boastfulness, —

“But do I complain?”

And it did not occur to him that there was in her question something like a shade of doubt and sorrow, which she did not like to admit to her soul, and desired him to calm and convince her.

Next morning in the office Zavilovski gave Pan Stanislav a cutting from some paper of “Snows on the Mountains;” he read it during dinner, but with the sound of forks the verses seemed less beautiful than amid the night stillness and in moonlight.

“Zavilovski told me,” said Pan Stanislav, “that a volume would be issued soon; but he has promised to collect first everything printed in various journals, and bring it to thee.”

“No,” said Marynia; “he should keep them for Lineta.”

“Ah, they are to meet to-morrow for the first time. Ye wish absolutely to make an epoch in Zavilovski’s life?”

“We do,” answered Marynia, with decisiveness. “Aneta astonished me at first; but why not?”

Indeed, the meeting took place. The Osnovskis, Pani Bronich, and Panna Castelli came very punctually at five; Zavilovski had come still earlier, to avoid entering a room in presence of a whole society. But as it was he was not only frightened, but more awkward than usual, and never had his legs seemed so long to him. There was, however, a certain distinction even in his awkwardness; and Pani Aneta was able to see that. The first scenes of the human comedy began, in which those ladies, as well-bred persons, guarding against every rudeness and staring at Zavilovski, did not, however, do anything else; he, feigning not to see this, was not thinking of anything else than how they were looking at him and judging him. This caused him great constraint, which he strove to hide by artificial freedom; he had so much self-love, however, that he was interested in having the judgment favorable. But the ladies were so attuned previously that the decision could not be unfavorable; and even had Zavilovski turned out flat and dull it would have been taken for wisdom and poetic originality: More indifferent was the bearing of Lineta, who was somewhat astonished that for the moment, not she was the sun, and Zavilovski the moon, but the contrary. The first impression which he made on her was: “What comparison with that stupid Kopovski!”

And the incomparable, wonderful face of that “stupid” stood before her eyes as if living; therefore her lids became dreamier still, and the expression of her face called to mind a sphinx in porcelain more than ever. She is irritated, however, that Zavilovski turns almost no attention to her form of a Juno, nor to that something “mysterious and poetic,” which, as Pani Bronich insists, fetters one from the first glance. She begins to observe him gradually; and, having, besides her poetic inclination, the sense of social observation developed powerfully, she sees that he has much expression indeed, but that his coat fits badly, that he dresses, of course, at a poor tailor’s, and that the pin in his cravat is mauvais genre simply. Meanwhile he casts occasional glances at Marynia, as the one near and friendly soul, and converses with Pani Aneta, who considers it as the highest tact not to mention poetry on first acquaintance, and, knowing that Zavilovski had passed the early years of his childhood in the country, begins to chatter about her inclinations for rural life. Her husband prefers the city always, having his friends and pleasures in the city, but as to her! – “Oh, I am sincere, and I confess at once that I cannot endure land management and accounts; for this I have been scolded more than once. Besides, I am a trifle lazy; therefore I should like work in which I could be lazy. What should I like, then?”

Here she spreads out her extended fingers so as to count more easily the occupations which would suit her taste:

“First, I should like to herd geese!”

Zavilovski laughs; she seems to him natural, and, besides, the picture of Pani Osnovski herding geese amuses him.

Her violet eyes begin to laugh also; and she falls into the tone of a free and joyous maiden, who talks of everything which runs through her head.

“And you would like that?” inquires she of Zavilovski.

“Passionately.”

“Ah, you see! What else? I should like to be a fisherman. The morning dawn must be reflected beautifully in the water. Then the damp nets before the cottage, with films of water between the meshes of the net. If not a fisherman, I should like to be at least a heron, and meditate in the water on one leg, or a lapwing in the fields. But no! the lapwing is a sad kind of bird, as if in mourning.”

Here she turned to Panna Castelli, —

“Lineta, what wouldst thou like to be in the country?”

Panna Lineta raised her lids, and answered after a while, —

“A spider-web.”

The imagination of Zavilovski as a poet was touched by this answer. Suddenly a great yellow sweep of stubble stood before his eyes, with silver threads floating in the calm blue and in the sun.

“Ah, what a pretty picture!” said he.

He looked more carefully at Lineta; and she smiled, as if in thankfulness that he had felt the beauty of the image.