Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  But what is the use of putting all these questions or trying to solve problems? I know that every principle is open to argument, and every proof to scepticism. The good old times when people doubted everything except their intelligence to recognize the true from the false, have gone. At present there is nothing but labyrinths upon labyrinths. I had better not think of anything but the journey before me. And Kromitzki sold his wife’s ancestral home and thus inflicted on her a cruel blow! I had to write it down black on white once more, otherwise I could not believe it.

  10 April.

  I went towards evening to say good-by to Mrs. Davis, and dropped in for a regular concert. Laura seems really very fond of music. Miss Hilst was playing on the harmonium. I always like to see her, but especially when she sits down to the harmonium, and playing the prelude, keeps her eyes on the keys. There is so much earnestness and intentness in her face, combined with calmness. She reminds me of Saint Cecilia, the most sympathetic of all saints, with whom I should have fallen in love had she lived in our times. A pity Clara is so tall; but one forgets it when she is playing. From time to time she lifts her eyes, as if recalling to memory a note heard somewhere in the spheres, or seeking inspiration, and she herself looks like one inspired. She rightly bears the name of Clara, for it would be difficult to find a more transparent soul. I said I liked to see her; as to her music, it is still the same; I do not understand it, or rather I follow her meaning with the greatest difficulty. Nevertheless, in spite of my satirical remarks, I think she has a remarkable talent.

  When she had finished I approached her, and still half jestingly said the time had come and I was ready to escort her to Warsaw according to our agreement. I was surprised to see her take my proposition so seriously. She said that she had wanted to go there for some time, and was quite ready; it was all a question of informing an old relative who always went with her, and of taking a dumb piano, as she practised even on her journeys.

  The prospect began to alarm me somewhat. If she goes, I shall have to help her in getting up a concert; and I would rather go straight on to Ploszow. As a last resource I could hand her over to Sniatynski, who would be more useful to her than I. Besides, Miss Hilst is the daughter of a rich mill-owner at Frankfurt, and it is not a question of material success with her. The eagerness with which she agreed to the journey made me thoughtful. I had half a mind to tell her that I did not object to the dumb piano so much as to the elderly relative. Men are so prone to lie in wait for women that few approach a young and pretty one without an after-thought. As to myself, though wholly absorbed by something else, the idea of the old relative travelling with us was unpleasant, the more so as my person evidently plays some part in this so quickly arranged journey. Paris presents a far wider scope for her musical talent, and she does not care for gain; why should she be so anxious to go to Warsaw? Laura, as I have said, has hinted more than once that Miss Hilst has more than a liking for me. A strange woman, Laura! Clara’s innocence excites her envy, but only as it might be excited by a beautiful jewel, or by rare lace, — with her it is merely a question of adornment. Maybe for that reason she would like to push that big child into my arms. She does not care for me any longer; I am an ornament she has worn already.

  That woman, though unconsciously, has wrought me such irreparable harm that I ought to hate her, but cannot, — first, because I am conscious that, had she never crossed my path, I should have probably found some other means to wreck my happiness; secondly, as Satan is a fallen angel, so hatred is degenerated love, and I never loved Laura. There is a little contempt for her, a little dislike, and she returns the feeling undoubtedly a hundredfold.

  As to Clara’s feelings, Laura may be right. To-day I saw it clearer than ever. If that be the case, I am grateful to her. For the first time in my life I long for the pure friendship of a woman. A soul so restless as mine will find solace and comfort in such a friendship.

  We conversed together to-day, Clara and I, like old friends. Her intelligence is not large, but clear and discerning between bad and good, ugly and what she considers beautiful; consequently her judgment is not shifty, but calm and serene. She has that kind of spiritual healthiness often met with in Germans. Coming across them now and then I observe that the type I belong to is very rare among them. The Germans and the English are generally positive and know what they want. They too are sounding the fathomless depth of doubt, but they do it methodically as scientists, not as sensitive geniuses without portfolio like me; in consequence of which their recent transcendental philosophy, their present scientific pessimism, and their poetic Weltschmerz have only a theoretical meaning. Their everyday practice consists in adapting themselves to the rules of life. According to Hartmann, the more humanity gains in intensity and consciousness. The more unhappy it grows. The same Hartmann, with the calmness of a German Cultur-träger, becomes practical when he raises his voice in favor of suppressing the Polish element as detrimental to German supremacy. But, putting aside this incident, which belongs to the category of human villanies, Germans do not take theories seriously, and therefore are always calm and capable of action. This same calmness Clara possesses. Things which rend and trouble human souls must have come near her some time or other, but if so they left no trace and were not absorbed by her; thus she never lost faith in truth and in her art. If she has any deeper feeling for me than mere friendship, the feeling is unconscious and does not ask for anything in return. If it were otherwise, it would be the beginning of her tragedy, as I could not return her love and might make her unhappy. I am not so conceited as to think that no woman could resist me, but I am of the opinion that no woman can resist the man she truly loves. It is a trite saying that “a fortress besieged is a fortress surrendered,” but there is some truth in it when adapted to woman, especially when behind the entrenchment of her virtues she harbors such a traitor as her own heart. But Clara may rest tranquil. We shall travel peacefully together: she, her old relative, myself, and the dumb piano.

  16 April.

  I arrived at Warsaw three days ago, but have not been able to go to Ploszow as, shortly after my arrival, I got a cold in my teeth and my face is swollen. I do not wish to show myself to the ladies in that state.

  I have seen Sniatynski, and my aunt, who has welcomed me as the prodigal son. Aniela arrived at Ploszow a week ago. Her mother is very ill, so ill that the doctors who advised her to try Wiesbaden now declare she could not bear the journey. She will therefore remain at Ploszow until she recovers — or dies, and Aniela with her, until Kromitzki winds up his business or thinks it proper to give her a home. From what my aunt says this may take him some months. I tried to get from my aunt as much news about Aniela as I could, which is easy enough, as she speaks about her with perfect freedom. She simply cannot understand how a married woman could excite any feeling except in the way of relationship; or rather, she has never even considered the question. She spoke openly about the sale of Aniela’s home, which she considers a great shame. She got so excited over it as to break her watch-chain and let the watch roll on the floor.

  “I will tell him so to his face,” she said. “I would rather have lent him the money had I known anything about it. Only what would have been the use? His speculations are a gulf. I do not know whether any good will come out of it, but in the meanwhile everything is swallowed up in it. Let him only come, and I will tell him that he makes Aniela unhappy, kills her mother, and will end in ruining them and himself.” I asked my aunt whether she had said anything about this to Aniela.

  “To Aniela?” she replied. “I am glad you have come; it relieves my mind and makes it easier to bear. I cannot speak about it with Aniela. I tried it once when I could not contain myself any longer. I made some remark and she grew very angry, then burst out crying and said, ‘He was obliged, he was obliged, and could not help it.’ She does not allow anybody to say a word against him, and would like to cover all his short-comings before the world; but she cannot deceive an old woman like me, and I know that at
the bottom of her heart she must condemn him as I do.”

  “Do you mean she does not love him?”

  My aunt looked at me in unfeigned surprise.

  “Not love him? Of course she loves him. Whom should she love if not him? That’s just where the sting lies; she grieves because she loves him. But one may love and yet have one’s eyes open to what is wrong.”

  I had my own opinion on that point, but preferred not to express it, and allowed my aunt to proceed.

  “What I resent most in him are his lies. He assured Celina and Aniela that in a year or two he would be able to buy the estate back. Just tell me, is this possible? and those women believe he is in earnest!”

  “According to my opinion it is quite impossible. Besides, he will go on speculating.”

  “He knows it even better than we do, and yet he goes on lying to the women.”

  “Perhaps he does it to relieve their anxiety.”

  My aunt grew angrier still.

  “Relieve their anxiety! fiddlesticks! they would not have had any anxiety if he had not sold it. Do not defend him, it is of no use. Everybody blames him. Chwastowski was wild about it. He had looked into the affairs, and says that without any ready money he could have cleared the estate himself in a few years. I would have given the money and so would you, would you not? and now it is too late.”

  Presently I inquired about Aniela’s health, with a strange, troubled foreboding I might hear something which, though perfectly natural and in the order of things, would give a shock to my nerves. My aunt caught the drift of my thoughts and replied with as much acerbity as before: —

  “There is nothing whatever the matter with her. All he could do he did; that was to sell his wife’s estate. No, there is nothing expected.”

  I turned the conversation to something else. I told my aunt I had arrived together with the celebrated pianist Miss Hilst, who, having considerable means of her own, wished to give a few concerts gratis. My aunt is a queer mixture of eccentricities. She began by abusing Miss Hilst for not coming in winter, when the time for concerts was more propitious; presently began considering that it was not too late yet, and wanted to go and call upon her at once. I could scarcely persuade her to put off her visit until I had told Miss Hilst about it. My aunt is a patroness of several charitable institutions, and it is with her a point of honor to get for them as much as she can at the expense of other institutions, consequently was afraid somebody else might forestall her with the artist.

  When leaving me she asked, “When are you coming to stay at Ploszow?”

  I replied that I was not going to stay there at all. I had thought of that during the journey and came to the conclusion that it would be better to have my headquarters at Warsaw. Ploszow is only six miles from here, and I can go there in the morning and stay as long as I like. It is indifferent to me where I live, and my living here will prevent people talking. Besides, I do not want Pani Kromitzka to think I am anxious to dwell under the same roof with her. I spoke of this to Sniatynski, and saw that he fully agreed with me; he seemed anxious to discuss Aniela with me. Sniatynski is a very intelligent man, but he does not seem to understand that changed circumstances mean changed relations, even between the best of friends. He came to me as if I were the same Leon Ploszowski who, shaking in every limb, asked for his help at Cracow; he approached me with the same abrupt sincerity, desiring to plunge his hand up to his elbow under my ribs. I pulled him up sharply, and he seemed surprised and somewhat angry. Presently he fell in with my humor, and we talked together as if the last meeting at Cracow had never taken place. I noticed, nevertheless, that he watched me furtively, and not being able to make me out tried indirect inquiry, with all the clumsiness of an author who is a deep psychologist and reader of the human mind at his desk, and as unsophisticated as any student in practical life. As Hamlet of yore, I might have handed him a pipe and said, “Do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.”

  I had been reading Hamlet the night before, as I have read it many a time, and involuntarily these words came into my mind. It seems to me surpassing strange that a man of my time, in whatever position or complicated trouble of soul, should find so much analogy to himself as I find in this drama, based upon Holinshed’s sanguinary and gross legend. Hamlet is the human soul as it was, as it is, and as it will be. In conceiving this drama, Shakspeare overstepped the limit fixed even for genius. I can understand Homer and Dante, studied by the light of their epoch. I can comprehend that they could do what they did; but how an Englishman of the seventeenth century could foreknow psychosis, a science of recent growth, will be to me, in spite of my study of Hamlet, an everlasting mystery.

  Having mentally handed over to Sniatynski Hamlet’s pipe, I recommended to his care Miss Hilst, and then began to discuss his pet theories. Upon his wanting to know what brought me back, I said it was the longing for the country, and consciousness of unfulfilled duties towards it. I said it in a careless, off-hand way, and Sniatynski looked puzzled, not knowing whether I spoke seriously or mockingly. And again the same phenomenon of which I spoke in Paris repeated itself here. The moral ascendency he had gained over me gradually disappeared. He did not know himself what to think, but he saw the old key would not serve any longer. When he said good-by I again recommended to him Miss Hilst. He looked at me keenly.

  “Do you attach much importance to her success?”

  “Yes, very much. She is a person I hold in great esteem, and have much friendship for.”

  In this way I centred all his attention on Miss Hilst. Most likely he thought I had fallen in love with her. He went away angry, and could not disguise his feelings. He shut the door sharply; and when I accompanied him as far as the staircase, and turned back to the anteroom, I heard him descending the staircase, taking four steps at once, and whistling, — which he always does when angry. Besides, it was quite true, what I said about Miss Hilst. I wrote to-day to Clara, explaining why I had not been to see her, and received a reply at once. She is delighted with Warsaw, and especially its inhabitants. All the musical world has called upon her, and they are vying with each other in politeness and offers of help. Whether they would be quite as enthusiastic had she come to settle here, is another question; but Clara has the gift to win friends wherever she goes. She has already seen something of the town, and was much charmed with the Sazienki Park and Palace. I am glad she likes it, — the more so as the country, soon after crossing the frontier, seemed to her rather depressing. Truly, only those born on the soil can find any charm in the vast solitary plains, where the eye finds very little to rest upon. Clara, looking through the carriage window, said more than once: “Ah! I can understand Chopin now!” She is utterly mistaken, — she does not understand Chopin and his feelings, any more than she is in touch with his native land. I, though a cosmopolitan by education, by atavism understand our nature, and am surprised myself at the spell a Polish spring casts upon me, and it seems as if I could never feel tired of it. Properly speaking, what does the view consist of? Sometimes, on purpose, I put myself into a stranger’s place, — a painter’s, having no preconceived ideas about it, and look at it with his eyes. The landscape then makes upon me the impression as if a child had drawn it, or a savage, who had no notion about drawing. Flat fallow-land, wet meadows, huts with their rectangular outline, the straight poplars around country-seats on the distant horizon, a broad, flat plain, finished off with a belt of woods, — that “ten miles of nothing,” as the Germans call it; all this reminds me of a first attempt at drawing landscape. There is scarcely enough for a background. From the moment I cease looking upon it with a stranger’s eyes, I begin to feel the simplicity of the view, incorporate myself with that immense breadth, where every outlined object melts into the far distance, as a soul in Nirvana; it has not only the artistic charm of primitiveness, but it acts soothingly upon me. I admire the Apennines; but my spirit is not in touch with them, a
nd sooner or later they become wearisome. The human being finds a resting-place only where he is in harmony with his surroundings; and is reminded that his soul and the soul of nature are of the same organization. Homesickness springs from the isolation of the soul from its surroundings. It appears to me that the principle of psychical relationship could be applied in a still wider sense. It may seem strange that I, brought up in foreign lands, permeated by their culture, should harbor such views; but I go farther still, and say a foreign woman, even the most beautiful, appears to me more as a species of the female kind than a soul.

  I remember what I wrote at one time concerning Polish women, but one statement does not contradict the other; I may perceive their faults, and yet feel myself nearer to them than to strangers. Besides, my old opinions — at least, the greater part of them — are now in tatters, like a worn-out garment.

  But enough of this! I notice with a certain shame and surprise that all I have been writing has been done in order to distract my thoughts. Yes, that is true. I speak about landscapes, homesickness, and so forth, while all my thoughts are at Ploszow. I did not want to acknowledge it, even to myself. I feel restless, and something seems to weigh me down. It is very probable that my going there and the getting over the first meeting will be easier and far simpler than I imagine. Expectancy of anything is always oppressive. When a young lad, I had a duel; and on the eve of the day I felt troubled. Then, too, I tried to think of something else, and could not manage it. My thoughts are not at all tender, not even friendly, towards Pani Kromitzka; but they swarm around me like angry bees, and I cannot drive them away.

  17 April.

  I have been to Ploszow, and found things very different indeed from what I had pictured to myself. I left Warsaw at seven in the morning in a cab, counting I should be in Ploszow by eight. The oppressive feeling still remained with me. I had said to myself that I would not make any plans about that first meeting, or my future bearing towards her. Let chance be my guide. But I could not help speculating how it would be, — how she would greet me, what she would try to make me understand, and what our future relation to each other would be. Not having formed any plans of my own, I fancied, I do not know why that she would want to act according to a well-defined system. Trying to fathom this, I felt almost inimical towards her. Then again, at the thought that the meeting might cause her pain, I felt something akin to pity, and seemed to see her before me as she used to be. I saw distinctly the low brow with the wealth of auburn hair, the long eyelashes, and the small, delicate face. I tried to guess how she would be dressed. Memories came back of words she had said, expressions of the face, graceful motions, dresses. With strange pertinacity, the one memory remained with me, — her coming into the room after she had tried to disguise her emotion by applying powder to her face. At last these memories became so vivid as to equal a second-sight. “There she is again,” I said to myself; and in order to pull myself together, I began talking to the driver, and asked him whether he were married; whereupon he replied that without the old woman at home, there would be no go, then said something I did not hear, as I had caught sight of the Ploszow poplars in the distance. I had not paid any heed to the time we had been on the road.