Children of the Soil

Lineta, who during this time had returned and sat down not far away, stopped her conversation with Kopovski, and, hearing Pan Ignas’s question, replied, —

“We have no plan yet.”

“We were going to Scheveningen,” said Pani Bronich, “but it is difficult with Lineta.” And after a while she added in a lower voice: “She is always so surrounded by people; she has such success in society that you would not believe it. Though why should you not? It is enough to look at her. My late husband foretold this when she was twelve years of age. ‘Look,’ said he, ‘what trouble there will be when she grows up.’ And there is trouble, there is! My husband foresaw many things. But have I told you that he was the last of the Rur – Ah, yes! I have told you. We had no children of our own, for the first one didn’t come to birth, and my husband was fourteen years older than I; later on he was to me more, – a father.”

“How can that concern me?” thought Pan Ignas. But Pani Bronich continued, —

“My late husband always grieved over this, that he had no son. That is, there was a son, but he came halfway too early” (here tears quivered in the voice of Pani Bronich). “We kept him some time in spirits. And, if you will believe it, when there was fair weather he rose, and when there was rain he sank down. Ah, what a gloomy remembrance! How much my husband suffered because he was to die, – the last of the Rur – . But a truce to this; ’t is enough that at last he was as attached to Lineta as to a relative, – and surely she was his nearest relative, – and what remains after us will be hers. Maybe for that reason people surround her so. Though – no! I do not wonder at them. If you knew what a torment that is to her, and to me. Two years ago, in Nice, a Portuguese, Count Jao Colimaçao, a relative of the Alcantaras, so lost his head as to rouse people’s laughter. Or that Greek of last year, in Ostend! – the son of a banker, from Marseilles, a millionnaire. What was his name? Lineta, what was the name of that Greek millionnaire, that one who, thou knowest?”

“Aunt!” said Lineta, with evident displeasure.

But the aunt was in full career already, like a train with full steam.

“Ah, ha! I recollect,” said she, – “Kanafaropulos, Secretary of the French Embassy in Brussels.”

Lineta rose and went to Pani Aneta, who was talking at the principal table with Plavitski. The aunt, following her with her eyes, said, —

“The child is angry. She hates tremendously to have any one speak of her successes; but I cannot resist. Do you understand me? See how tall she is! How splendidly she has grown! Anetka calls her sometimes the column, and sometimes the poplar; and really, she is a poplar. What wonder that people’s eyes gaze at her! I haven’t mentioned yet Pan Ufinski. That’s our great friend. My late husband loved him immensely. But you must have heard of Pan Ufinski? That man who cuts silhouettes out of paper. The whole world knows him. I don’t know at how many courts he has cut silhouettes; the last time he cut out the Prince of Wales. There was also a Hungarian.”

Osnovski, who sat near by amusing himself with a pencil at his watch-chain, now drawing it out, now pushing it back, grew impatient at last, and said, —

“A couple of more such, dear aunt, and there would be a masquerade ball.”

“Precisely, precisely!” answered Pani Bronich. “If I mention them, it is because Lineta doesn’t wish to hear of any one. She is such a chauviniste! You have no idea what a chauviniste that child is.”

“God give her health!” said Pan Ignas.

Then he rose to take farewell. At parting, he held for some time the hand of Lineta, who answered also with an equally prolonged pressure.

“Till to-morrow,” said he, looking into her eyes.

“Till to-morrow – after Pan Kopovski. And do not forget ‘Spider-web.’”

“No, I will not forget – ever,” answered Zavilovski, with a voice somewhat moved.

He went out with Plavitski; but they had scarcely found themselves on the street, when the old man, tapped him lightly on the arm, and stopping, said, —

“Young man, do you know that I shall soon be a grandfather?”

“I know.”

“Yes, yes!” repeated Plavitski with a smile of delight, “and in addition to that, I will tell you only this much: there is nothing to surpass young married women!”

And, laughing, he began to clap Pan Ignas time after time on the shoulder; then he put the ends of his fingers to his lips, took farewell, and walked off.

But his voice, slightly quivering, came to Pan Ignas from a distance, —

“There is nothing to surpass young married women.” Noise on the street drowned the rest.

CHAPTER XLV

From that time Pan Ignas went every day to Aunt Bronich’s. He found Kopovski there frequently, for toward the end something had been spoiled in the portrait of “Antinoüs.” Lineta said that she had not been able to bring everything out of that face yet; that the expression in the picture was not perhaps what it should be, – in a word, she needed time for reflection. With Pan Ignas her work went more easily.

“With such a head as Pan Kopovski’s,” said she once, “it is enough to change the least line, it is enough to have the light wrong, to ruin everything. While with Pan Zavilovski one must seize first of all the character.”

On hearing this, both were satisfied. Kopovski declared even that it was not his fault; that God had created him so. Pani Bronich said later on that Lineta had said apropos of that: “God created him; the Son of God redeemed him; but the Holy Ghost forgot to illuminate him.” That witticism on poor Kopovski was repeated throughout Warsaw.

Pan Ignas liked him well enough. After a few meetings he seemed to him so unfathomably stupid that it did not occur to him that any one could be jealous of the man. On the contrary, it was always pleasant to look at him. Those ladies too liked him, though they permitted themselves to jest with him; and sometimes he served them simply as a ball, which they tossed from hand to hand. Kopovski’s stupidity was not gloomy, however, nor suspicious. He possessed a uniform temper and a smile really wonderful; of this last he was aware, perhaps, hence he preferred to smile rather than frown. He was well-bred, accustomed to society, and dressed excellently; in this regard he might have served as a model to Pan Ignas.

From time to time he put astonishing questions, which filled the young ladies with merriment. Once, hearing Pani Bronich talk of poetic inspirations, he asked Pan Ignas, “If anything was taken for it or not,” and at the first moment confused him, for Pan Ignas did not know what to answer.

Another time Pani Aneta said to him, —

“Have you ever written poetry? Make some rhyme, then.”

Kopovski asked time till next day; but next day he had forgotten the request, or could not make the verses. The ladies were too well-bred to remind him of his promise. It was always so agreeable to look at him that they did not wish to cause him unpleasantness.

Meanwhile spring ended, and the races began. Pan Ignas was invited for the whole time of their continuance to the carriage of the Osnovskis. They gave him a place opposite Lineta; and he admired her with all his soul. In bright dresses, in bright hats, with laughter in her dreamy eyes, with her calm face flushing somewhat under the breath of fresh breezes, she seemed to him spring and paradise. Returning home, he had his eyes full of her, his mind and his heart full. In that world in which they lived, in the society of those young men, who came up to the carriage to entertain the ladies, he was not at home, but the sight of Lineta recompensed him for everything. Under the influence of sunny days, fair weather, broad summer breezes, and that youthful maiden, who began to be dear to him, he lived, as it were, in a continuous intoxication; he felt youth and power in himself. In his face there was at times something truly eagle-like. At moments it seemed to him that he was a ringing bell, sounding and sounding, heralding the delight of life, the delight of love, the delight of happiness, – a great jubilee of loving.

He wrote much, and more easily than ever before; there was besides in his verses that which recalled the fresh odor of newly ploughed fields, the vigor of young leaves, the sound of wings of birds flying on to fallow land to the immense breadth of plains and meadows. He felt his own power, and ceased to be timid about poetry even before strangers, for he understood that there was something about him, something within him, and that he had something to lay at the feet of a loved one.

Pan Stanislav, who, in spite of his mercantile life, had an irrestrainable passion for horses, and never neglected the races, saw Pan Ignas every day with the Osnovskis and Panna Castelli, and gazing at the latter as at a rainbow; when he teased him in the counting-house for being in love, the young poet answered, —

“It is not I, but my eyes. The Osnovskis will go soon, those ladies too; and all will disappear like a dream.”

But he did not speak truth, for he did not believe that all could disappear like a dream. On the contrary, he felt that for him a new life had begun, which with the departure of Panna Lineta might be broken.

“And where are Pani Bronich and Panna Castelli going?” continued Pan Stanislav.

“For the rest of June and during July they will remain with the Osnovskis, and then go, as they say, to Scheveningen; but this is not certain yet.”

“Osnovski’s Prytulov is fifteen miles from Warsaw,” said Pan Stanislav.

For some days Pan Ignas had been asking himself, with heart beating, whether they would invite him or not; but when they invited him, and besides very cordially, he did not promise to go, and with all his expressions of gratitude held back, excusing himself with the plea of occupation and lack of time. Lineta, who was sitting apart, heard him, and raised her golden brows. When he was going, she approached him and asked, —

“Why will you not come to Prytulov?”

He, seeing that no one could hear them, said, looking into her eyes, —

“I am afraid.”

She began to laugh, and inquired, repeating Kopovski’s words, —

“Is it necessary to take anything for that?”

“It is,” answered he, with a voice somewhat trembling; “I need to take the word, come, from you!”

She hesitated a moment; perhaps she did not dare to tell him directly in that form which he required, but she blushed suddenly and whispered; —