Children of the Soil

But in his words emotion was evident. He walked through the room, looked at her a while, kissed her again on the forehead; at last he said, —

“Usually people wish a son first, but remember that it be a daughter. We’ll call her Litka.”

Neither of them could sleep that night for a long time, and that was why Zavilovski saw light in the windows.

CHAPTER XLIV

In a week, when probability had become certainty, Pan Stanislav gave the news to the Bigiels. Pani Bigiel flew the same day to Marynia, who fell to weeping with gladness on her honest shoulders.

“It seems to me,” said she, “that Stas will love me more now.”

“How more?”

“I wished to say still more,” answered Marynia. “Seest thou, for that matter, I have never enough.”

“He would have to settle with me if there were not enough.”

The tears dried on Marynia’s sweet face, and only a smile remained. After a time she clasped her hands, as if in prayer, and said, —

“Oh, my God, if it is only a daughter! for Stas wants a daughter.”

“And what wouldst thou like?”

“I – but don’t tell Stas – I should like a son; but let it be a daughter.”

Then she grew thoughtful, and asked, —

“But there is no help, is there?”

“There is not,” answered Pani Bigiel, laughing; “for that they have not found yet any remedy.”

Bigiel, on his part, gave the news to every one whom he met; and in the counting-house he said, in Pan Stanislav’s presence, with a certain unction in his voice, —

“Well, gentlemen, it seems that the house will be increased by one member.”

The employees turned inquiring glances on him; he added, —

“Thanks to Pan and Pani Polanyetski.”

Then all hurried to Pan Stanislav with good wishes, excepting Zavilovski, who, bending over his desk, began to look diligently at columns of figures; and only after a while, when he felt that his conduct might arrest attention, did he turn with a changed face to Pan Stanislav, and, pressing his hand, repeat, “I congratulate, I congratulate!”

It seemed to him then that he was ridiculous, that something had fallen on his head; that he felt empty, boundlessly stupid; and that the whole world was fabulously trivial. The worst, however, was the feeling of his own ridiculousness; for the affair was so natural and easily foreseen that even such a man as Kopovski might foresee it. At the same time, he, an intelligent man, writing poetry, pervaded with enthusiasm, grasping everything which happened around, slipped into such an illusion that it seemed to him then as if a thunderbolt had struck him. What overpowering ridiculousness! But he had made the acquaintance of Marynia as Pani Polanyetski, and imagined to himself unconsciously that she had always been, and would be, Pani Polanyetski in the future as she was in the present, and simply it had not occurred to him that any change might supervene. And behold, observing lily tones once on her face, he called her Lily, and wrote lily verses to her. And now that lost sense, which to vexation adds something of ridicule, whispered in his ear, “Ah, a pretty lily!” And Zavilovski felt more and more crushed, more and more ridiculous; he wrote verses, but Pan Stanislav did not write any. In that apposition there was a gnawing bitterness, and something idiotic; he took deep draughts from that cup, so as not to lose one drop in the drinking. If his feelings had been betrayed; if he had made them known to Marynia; if she had repulsed him with utter contempt, and Pan Stanislav had thrown him downstairs, – there would have been something in that like a drama. But such an ending, – “such flatness!” He had a nature feeling everything ten times more keenly than common men; hence the position seemed to him simply unendurable, and those office hours, which he had to sit out yet, a torture. His feeling for Marynia had not sunk in his heart deeply; but it occupied his imagination altogether. Reality now struck its palm on his head without mercy; the blow seemed to him not only painful and heavy, but also given sneeringly. The desperate thought came to his head to seize his cap, go out, and never come back again. Fortunately, the usual hour for ending work came at last, and all began to separate.

Zavilovski, while passing through the corridor, where, at a hat-rack, a mirror was fixed, saw his projecting chin and tall form in it, and said to himself, “Thus looks an idiot.” He did not go to dine that day with the second book-keeper, as usual; he would have been even glad to flee from his own person. Meanwhile he shut himself in at home, and with the exaggeration of a genuine artist, heightened to impossible limits his misfortune and ridiculous position. After some days he grew calm, however; he felt only a strange void in his heart, – precisely as if it were a dwelling vacated by some one. He did not show himself at Pan Stanislav’s for a fortnight; but at the end of that time he saw Marynia at the Bigiels’, and was astonished.

She seemed to him almost ugly. That was by no means his prejudice, for, though it was difficult to notice a change in her form, still she had changed greatly. Her lips were swollen; there were pimples on her forehead; and she had lost freshness of color. She was calm, however, but somewhat melancholy, as if some disappointment had met her. Zavilovski, who, in truth, had a good heart, was moved greatly by her ugliness. Before, it seemed to him that he would disregard her; now that seemed to him stupid.

But her face only had changed, not her kindness or good-will. Nay, feeling safe now from superfluous enthusiasms on his part, she showed him more cordiality than ever. She asked with great interest about Lineta; and when she found that a subject on which he, too, spoke willingly, she began to laugh with her former laughter, full of indescribable sweetness, and said almost joyously, —

“Well, well! People wonder there why you have not visited them for so long a time; and do you know what Aneta and Pani Bronich told me? They told me – ”

But here she stopped, and after a while said, —

“No; I cannot tell this aloud. Let us walk in the garden a little.”

And she rose, but not with sufficient care, so that, stumbling at the first step, she almost fell.

“Be careful!” cried Pan Stanislav, impatiently.

She looked at him with submission, almost with fear.

“Stas,” said she, blushing, “as I love thee, that was inadvertent.”

“But do not frighten her so,“ said Pani Bigiel, quickly.

It was so evident that Pan Stanislav cared more at that moment for the coming child than Marynia, that even Zavilovski understood it.

As to Marynia, this was known to her long before that day; she had passed through a whole mental battle with herself just because of it. Of that battle she had not spoken to any one; and it was the more difficult, the more the state of her health advised against excitement, unquiet, and an inclination to gloomy brooding. She had passed through grievous hours before she said to herself, “It must be as it is.”

Pan Stanislav would have been simply astonished had any one told him that he did not love, and especially that he did not value, his wife as duty demanded. He loved her in his own way, and judged at once that, if ever, it was then that the child should be for both a question beyond every other. Vivacious and impulsive by nature, he pushed this care at moments too far, but he did not account this to himself as a fault; he did not even stop to think of what might take place in the soul of Marynia. It seemed to him that among other duties of hers one of the first was the duty of giving him children; that it was a simple thing, therefore, that she should accomplish this. Hence he was thankful to her, and imagined that, being careful of a child, he was by that very act careful of her, and careful in a degree that few husbands are. If he had considered it proper to call himself to account touching his treatment of her, he would have considered it a thing perfectly natural also that her charm, purely feminine, attracted him now less than it had hitherto. With each day she became uglier, and offended his æsthetic sense sometimes; he fancied that, concealing this from her, and trying to show her sympathy, he was as delicate as a man could well be to a woman.

She, on her part, had the impression that the hope on which she had counted most had deceived her; she felt that she had descended to the second place, that she would descend more and more. And in spite of all her affection for her husband, in spite of the treasures of tenderness which were collecting in her for the future child, rebellion and regret seized her soul at the first moment. But this did not last long; she battled with these feelings also, and conquered. She said to herself that here it was no one’s fault; life is such that this issues from the natural condition of things, which, again, is a result of God’s will. Then she began to accuse herself of selfishness, and crush herself with the weight of this thought: Has she a right to think of herself, not of “Stas,” and not of her future child? What can she bring against “Stas”? What is there wonderful in this, that he, who had loved even a strange child so much, has his soul occupied now, above all, with his own; that his heart beats first for it? Is there not an offence against God in this, – that she permits herself to bring forward first of all rights of her own, happiness of her own, she, who has offended so much? Who is she, and what right has she to an exceptional fate? And she was ready to beat her breast. The rebellion passed; there remained only somewhere in the very depths of her heart a little regret that life is so strange, and that every new feeling, instead of strengthening a previous one, pushes it into the depths. But when that sorrow went from her heart to her eyes, under the form of tears, or began to quiver on her lips, she did not let it have such an escape.

“I shall be calm in a moment,” thought she, in her soul. “Such it is, such it will be, and such is right; for such is life, and such is God’s will, with which we must be reconciled.” And at last she was reconciled.

By degrees she found repose even, not giving an account to herself that the basis of this was resignation and sadness. It was sadness, however, which smiled. Being young, it was almost bitter at times to her, when all at once, in the eyes of her husband, or of even some stranger, she read clearly, “Oh, how ugly thou hast grown!” But because Pani Bigiel had said that “afterward” she would be more beautiful than ever, she said in her soul to them, “Wait!” – and that was her solace.

She answered also something similar to Zavilovski. She was at once glad, and not glad, of the impression she had made on him; for if on the one hand her self-love had suffered a little, on the other she felt perfectly safe, and could speak with him freely. She wished to speak, and speak with full seriousness, for a few days before, Pani Aneta had told her directly that “The Column” was in love to the ears, and that Zavilovski had every chance with her.

This forging the iron while hot disquieted her somewhat; she could not understand why it was so, even taking into consideration the innate impetuosity of Pani Aneta. For Zavilovski, who had become somehow the Benjamin of both houses, she, as well as the Bigiels and Pan Stanislav, had great friendship; and, besides, she was grateful to him, for, be things as they might, he had appreciated her. He had known her truly, hence she would help him with gladness in that which seemed to her a great opportunity; but she thought also, “Suppose it should be bad for him.” She feared responsibility a little, and her own previous diplomacy. Now, therefore, she wishes to learn first what he thinks really, and then give him to understand how things are, and finally advise him to examine and weigh with due care in the given case.

“They are wondering there, because you have not called for a long time,” said she, when they had gone to the garden.

“What did Pani Osnovski say?” inquired Zavilovski.

“I will tell you only one thing, though I am not sure that I ought to repeat it. Pani Aneta told me – that – but no! First, I must learn why you have not called there this long time.”

“I was not well, and I had a disappointment. I made no visits; I could not! You have stopped talking.”

“Yes, for I wished to know if you were not angry at those ladies for some cause. Pani Aneta told me that Lineta supposed you were, and that she saw tears in her eyes a number of times, for that reason.”

Zavilovski blushed; on his young and impressionable face real tenderness was reflected.

“Ah, my God!” answered he; “I angry, and at a lady like Panna Lineta? Could she offend any one?”

“I repeat what was said to me, though Pani Aneta is so impulsive that I dare not guarantee all she says to be accurate. I know that she is not lying; but, as you understand, very impulsive people see things sometimes as if through a magnifying-glass. Satisfy yourself. Lineta seems to me agreeable, very uncommon, and very kind – but judge for yourself; you have such power of observation.”

“That she is kind and uncommon is undoubted. You remember how I said that they produced the impression of foreign women; that is not true altogether. Pani Osnovski may, but not Panna Lineta.”