Children of the Soil

“Unfortunately it is,” said Svirski. Then, turning to Marynia, he said, “Pan Stanislav must have told you of our agreement, – that when you say to me ‘marry,’ I shall marry. That was the agreement with your husband; therefore I should wish you to see Panna Ratkovski. Her name is Stefania, which means the crowned. A pretty name, is it not? She is a calm kind of person, not bold, fearing Pani Aneta and Panna Castelli, but clearly honest. I had a proof of this. Whenever a young lady is in question, I observe everything and note it down in my memory. Once a beggar came to me in Prytulov with a face like that of some Egyptian hermit from Thebes. Pani Aneta and Panna Castelli rushed out at him with their cameras and photographed him, profile and full face, as much as was possible. But the old man wanted food, I think. He had come hoping for alms, but evidently he hated to ask. Peasants have that kind of feeling. Well, none of those ladies observed this, or at least did not note it; they treated him as a thing, till Panna Ratkovski told them that they were humiliating and hurting the old man. That is a small incident, but it shows heart and delicate feelings. That handsome Kopovski dangles about her; but she is not charmed with the man, like those ladies, who are occupied with him, who paint him, invent new costumes for him, hand him around, and almost carry him in their arms, like a doll. No; she told me herself that Kopovski annoys her; and that pleases me, too, for he has as much sense as the head of a walking-stick.”

“As far as I have heard,” said Bigiel, “Pan Kopovski needs money; and Panna Ratkovski is not rich. I know that her father, when dying, was in debt to a bank for a sum which, with interest, was due on the last day of last month.”

“What is that to us?” interrupted Pani Bigiel.

“Thou art right, – that is not our affair.”

“But how does Panna Ratkovski look?” inquired Marynia.

“Panna Ratkovski? She is not beautiful, but she has a sweet face, pale complexion, and dark eyes. You will see her, for those ladies expressed a wish to come here some day. And I persuaded them to it, for I want you to see her.”

“Well,” answered Marynia, laughing, “I shall see her, and declare my sentence. But if it be favorable?”

“I will propose; I give my word. In the worst case, I’ll get a refusal. If you say ‘no,’ I’ll go after ducks. At the end of July shooting is permitted.”

“Oh, those plans are important!” said Pani Bigiel, – ”a wife or ducks! Pan Ignas would not have spoken that way.”

“Well, of what use is reason when one is in love?” said Marynia.

“You are right, and I envy him that very condition; not Panna Castelli, though I was in love with her once myself – oh, no! but just that condition in which one does not reason any longer.”

“But what have you against Panna Castelli?”

“Nothing. I owe her gratitude, for – thanks to her – I had my time of illusions; therefore I shall never say an evil word of her, though some one is pulling me by the tongue greatly. So, ladies, do not pull me.”

“On the contrary,” said Pani Bigiel, “you must tell us of both. I will ask you only on the veranda, for I have directed to bring coffee there.”

After a time they were on the veranda. The little Bigiels were running about in a many-colored crowd among the trees, circling about like bright butterflies. Bigiel placed cigars before Svirski. Marynia, taking advantage of the moment, went up to her husband, who was standing aside somewhat, and, raising her kindly eyes to him, asked:

“Why so silent, Stas?”

“I am tired. In the city there was heat, and in our house one might smother. I couldn’t sleep, for Buchynek got into my head.”

“I, too, am curious about that Buchynek, dost thou know? In truth, I am curious. Thou hast done well to see the place and hire it; very well.” And she looked at him with affection; but, seeing that he seemed really not himself, she said, —

“We will occupy Pan Svirski here, and do thou go and rest a while.”

“No; I cannot sleep.”

Meanwhile Svirski talked on. “There is no breeze,” said he; “not a twig in motion. A genuine summer day! Have you noticed that in the season of heat, and in time of such calm, the whole world seems as if sunk in meditation. I remember that Bukatski found always in this something mystical, and said that he would like to die on such a sunny day, – to sit thus in an armchair, then fall asleep, and dissipate into light.”

“Still, he did not die in summer,” remarked Bigiel.

“No, but in spring, and in good weather. Besides, taking things in general, he did not suffer, and that is beyond all.”

Here he was silent a while, and then added, —

“As to death, we may and should be reconciled to it, and death has never made me indignant; but why pain exists, that, as God lives, passes human understanding.”

No one took up the consideration, so Svirski, shaking the ashes from his cigar, said, —

“But never mind that. After dinner, and with black coffee, it is possible to find a more agreeable subject.”

“Tell us of Pan Ignas,” said Pani Bigiel.

“He pleases me. In all that he does and says the lion’s claw is evident, and, in general, his nature is uncommon, immensely vital. During those two days in Prytulov we became acquainted a little more nearly, and grew friendly. You have no idea how Osnovski has grown to like the man; and I told Osnovski openly that I feared that Pan Ignas might not be happy with those ladies.”

“But why?” asked Marynia.

“That is difficult to say, since one has no facts; but it is felt. Why? Because his nature is utterly different from theirs. You see, that all the loftier aspirations, which for Pan Ignas are the soul of his life, are for those ladies merely an ornament, – something like lace on a dress worn for guests, while on common days the person who owns it goes about in a dressing-gown; and that is a great difference. I fear lest they, instead of soaring with his flight, try to make him jog along by their side, at their own little goose-trot, and convert that which is in him into small change for their every-day social out-go. And there is something in him! I do not presuppose that catastrophes of any kind are to come, for I have not the right to refuse them ordinary petty honesty, but there may be non-happiness. I say only this much: you all know Pan Ignas, and you know that he is wonderfully simple; but still, according to me, his love for Castelka is too difficult and exclusive. He puts into it all his soul; and she is ready to give a little bit – so! The rest she would like to keep for social relations, for comforts, for toilets, for visits, for luxuries, for five o’clocks, for lawn-tennis with Kopovski, – in a word, for that mill in which life is ground into bran.”

“This may not fit Panna Castelli, and if it does not, so much the better for Pan Ignas,” said Bigiel; “but in general it is pointed.”

“No,” said Pani Bigiel, “that first of all is wicked; in truth, you hate women.”

“I hate women!” exclaimed Svirski, raising his hands toward heaven.

“Do you not see that you are making Panna Castelli a common little goose?”

“I gave her lessons in painting, but I have never been occupied in her education.”

Marynia, hearing all this, said, threatening Svirski, —

“It is wonderful that such a kind man should have such a wicked tongue.”

“There is a certain justice in that,” answered Svirski; “and more than once have I asked, am I really a kind man? But I think that I am. For there are people who calumniate their neighbors through a love for digging in the mud, and that is vile; there are others who do this through jealousy, and that is equally vile. Such a man as Bukatski talks even for a conceit; but I, first of all, am talkative; second, a human being, and especially a woman, interests me more than aught else in existence; and finally, the shabbiness and flatness and petty vanities of human nature pain me terribly. And, as God lives, it is because I could wish that all women had wings; but since I see that many of them have only tails, I begin, from amazement alone, to shout in a heaven-piercing voice – ”

“But why do you not shout in the same way against men?” inquired Pani Bigiel.

“Oh, let the men go! What do I care for them? Though, to speak seriously, we deserve perhaps to be shouted at more than the ladies.”

Here Pani Bigiel and Marynia attacked the unfortunate artist; but he defended himself, and continued, —

“Well, ladies, take such a man as Pan Ignas, and such a woman as Panna Castelli: he has worked hard since his childhood; he has struggled with difficulties, thought hard, given something to the world already, – but what is she? A real canary in a cage. They give the bird water, sugar, and seed; it has only to clean its yellow plumage with its little bill, and twitter. Or is this not true? We work immensely, ladies. Civilization, science, art, bread, and all on which the world stands is absolutely our work. And that is a marvellous work. Oh, it is easy to talk of it, but difficult to do it. Is it right, or is it natural, that men push you aside from this work? I do not know, and at this moment it is not for me a question; but taking the world in general, only one thing has remained to you, – loving; therefore you should know, at least, how to love.”

Here his dark face took on an expression of great mildness, and also, as it were, melancholy.

“Take me, for example; I am working apparently for this art of ours. Twenty-five years have I been daubing and daubing with a brush on paper or on canvas; and God alone knows how I slaved, how I toiled before I worked anything out of myself. Now I feel as much alone in the world as a finger. But what do I want? This, that the Lord God, for all this toil, might vouchsafe me some honest little woman, who would love me a little and be grateful for my affection.”

“And why do you not marry?”

“Why?” answered Svirski, with a certain outburst. “Because I am afraid; because of you, one in ten knows how to love, though you have nothing else to do.”

Further discourse was interrupted by the coming of Pan Plavitski and Pani Mashko; she, in a dark blue foulard dress with white spots, looked from afar like a butterfly. Pan Plavitski looked like a butterfly also; and, approaching the veranda, he began to cry out, —

“I seized Pani Mashko, and brought her. Good-evening to the company; good-evening, Marynia! I was coming here to you on a droshky till I saw this lady standing out on the balcony; then I seized her, and we came on foot. I dismissed the droshky, thinking that you would send me home.”

Those present began to greet Pani Mashko; and she, ruddy from the walk, fell to explaining joyously, while removing her hat from her ash-colored hair, that really Pan Plavitski had brought her away almost by force; for, awaiting the return of her husband, she did not like to leave home. Pan Plavitski pacified her by saying that her husband, not finding her at home, would guess where she was, and for the flight and the lonely walk he would not be angry, for that was not the city, where people raise scandal for any cause (here he smoothed his white shirt-front with the mien of a man who would not be at all astonished if scandal were roused touching him); “but the country has its own rights, and permits us to disregard etiquette.”