Children of the Soil. Henryk Sienkiewicz

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СКАЧАТЬ they drove in, and after walking around the church, entered the sacristy at the side; not wishing to push through the crowd, they sat on side seats near the altar. Plavitski occupied the collator’s place, in which were also the Yamishes. Yamish was a man very old in appearance, with an intelligent face, but weighed down; she was a woman well toward sixty, dressed almost like Panna Marynia,—that is, in a muslin robe and a straw hat. The bows, full of politeness, which Pan Plavitski made to her, and the kind smiles with which she returned them, showed that between those two reigned intimate relations founded on mutual adoration. After a while the lady, raising her glasses to her eyes, began to observe Pan Stanislav, not understanding apparently who could have come with Pan Plavitski. In the seat behind them one of the neighbors, taking advantage of the fact that Mass had not begun yet, was finishing some narrative about hunting, and repeated a number of times to another neighbor, “My dogs, well—” then both stopped their conversation, and began to speak to Plavitski and Pani Yamish so audibly that every word reached the ears of Pan Stanislav. The priest came out to the altar then.

      At sight of the Mass and that little church, Pan Stanislav’s memory went back to the years of his childhood, when he was there with his mother. Wonder rose in him involuntarily when he thought how little anything changes in the country, except people. Some are placed away in consecrated earth; others are born. But the new life puts itself into the old forms; and to him who comes from afar, after a long absence, all that he saw long ago seems of yesterday. The church was the same; the nave was filled, as of old, with flaxen-colored heads of peasants, gray coats, red and yellow kerchiefs with flowers on the heads of the maidens; it had precisely the same kind of odor of incense, of sweet flag, and the exhalations of people. Outside one of the windows grew the same birch-tree, whose slender branches, thrown against the panes by the wind as it rose, cast shade which gave a green tinge to light in the church. But the people were not the same: some of the former ones were crumbling quietly into dust, or had made their way from beneath the earth in the form of grass; those who were left yet were somehow bent, as if going under ground gradually. Pan Stanislav, who plumed himself on avoiding all generalizing theories, but who in reality had a Slav head, which, as it were, had not emerged yet from universal existence, occupied himself with them involuntarily; and all the time he was thinking that there is still a terrible precipice between that passion for life innate in people and the absoluteness of death. He thought, also, that perhaps for this reason all systems of philosophy vanish, like shadows; but Mass is celebrated, as of old, because it alone promises further and unbroken continuity.

      Reared abroad, he did not believe in it greatly; at least, he was not certain of it. He felt in himself, as do all people of to-day, the very newest people, an irrestrainable repugnance to materialism; but from it he had not found an escape yet, and, what is more, it seemed to him that he was not seeking it. He was an unconscious pessimist, like those who are looking for something which they cannot find. He stunned himself with occupations to which he was habituated; and only in moments of great excess in that pessimism did he ask himself, What is this all for? Of what use is it to gain property, labor, marry, beget children, if everything ends in an abyss? But that was at times, and did not become a fixed principle. Youth saved him from this, not the first youth, but also not a youth nearing its end, a certain mental and physical strength, the instinct of self-preservation, the habit of work, vivacity of character, and finally that elemental force, which pushes a man into the arms of a woman. And now from the recollections of childhood, from thoughts of death, from doubts as to the fitness of marriage, he came to this special thought, that he had no one to whom he could give what was best in him; and then he came to Panna Marynia Plavitski, whose muslin robe, covering a young and shapely body, did not leave his eyes. He remembered that when he was leaving Warsaw, Pani Emilia, a great friend of his and of Panna Marynia’s, had said laughingly,—

      “If you, after being in Kremen, do not fall in love with Marynia, I shall close my doors against you.” He answered her with great courage that he was going only to squeeze out money, not to fall in love, but that was not true. If Panna Plavitski had not been in Kremen, he would surely have throttled Plavitski by letter, or by legal methods. On the way he had been thinking of Panna Marynia and of how she would look, and he was angry because he was going for money, too. Having talked into himself great decision in such matters, he determined above all to obtain what belonged to him, and was ready rather to go beyond the mark than not to reach it. He promised this to himself, especially the first evening, when Marynia, though she had pleased him well enough, had not produced such a great impression as he had expected, or rather had produced a different one; but that morning she had taken his eye greatly. “She is like the morning herself,” thought he; “she is nice and knows that she is nice,—women always know that.”

      This last discovery made him somewhat impatient, for he wished to return as soon as possible to Kremen, to observe the young woman further. In fact, Mass was over soon. Plavitski went out immediately after the blessing, for he had two duties before him,—the first, to pray on the graves of his two wives who were lying under the church; the second, to conduct Pani Yamish to her carriage. Since he wished to neglect neither of these, he had to count with time. Pan Stanislav went with him; and soon they found themselves before the stone slabs, erected side by side in the church wall. Plavitski kneeled and prayed awhile with attention; then he rose, and wiping away a tear, which was hanging really on his lids, took Pan Stanislav by the arm, and said, “Yes, I lost both; still I must live.”

      Meanwhile Pani Yamish appeared before the church door in the company of her husband, of those two neighbors who had spoken to her before Mass, and of young Gantovski. At sight of her Pan Plavitski bent to Pan Stanislav’s ear and said,—

      “When she enters the carriage, take notice what a foot she has yet.”

      After a while both joined the company; bows and greetings began. Pan Plavitski presented Pan Polanyetski; then, turning to Pani Yamish, he added, with the smile of a man convinced that he says something which no common person could have hit upon,—

      “My relative, who has come to embrace his uncle, and squeeze him.”

      “We will permit only the first; otherwise he will have an affair with us,” said the lady.

      “But Kremen[2] is hard,” continued Plavitski; “he will break his teeth on it, though he is young.”

      Pani Yamish half closed her eyes. “That ease,” said she, “with which you scatter sparks, c’est inoui! How is your health to-day?”

      “At this moment I feel healthy and young.”

      “And Marynia?”

      “She was at early Mass. We wait for you both at five. My little housekeeper is breaking her head over supper. A beautiful day.”

      “We shall come if neuralgia lets me, and my lord husband is willing.”

      “How is it, neighbor?” asked Plavitski.

      “I am always glad to go,” answered the neighbor, with the voice of a crushed man.

      “Then, au revoir.”

      “Au revoir,” answered the lady; and turning to Pan Stanislav, she reached her hand to him. “It was a pleasure for me to make your acquaintance.”

      Plavitski gave his arm to the lady, and conducted her to the carriage. The two neighbors went away also. Pan Stanislav remained a while with Gantovski, who looked at him without much good-will. Pan Stanislav remembered him as an awkward boy; from the “Little Bear,” he had grown to be a stalwart man, somewhat heavy perhaps in his movements, but rather presentable, with a very shapely, light-colored mustache. Pan Stanislav did not begin conversation, waiting till the other should speak first; but he thrust his hands into his pockets, and СКАЧАТЬ