Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  27 August.

  My aunt expressed a wish to depart. She is anxious to be back at Ploszow, and says that her presence here is not necessary, and that in fact we should get on better without her; that we should not be obliged to consider her and could devote all our time to the portrait. We all protested a little, and maintained that a lady of her years ought not to travel alone. Though reluctantly, I considered it my duty to offer my companionship. I confess that I awaited her reply with a certain trepidation; but the dear old lady said, with great liveliness: —

  “Don’t think of it even. Suppose Celina should fall ill again, who would look after them, or accompany Aniela to the studio? She must not go alone.” She shook her finger playfully at Aniela, and with a frown on her brow, and smiling mouth she added: “I don’t quite trust that painter, he looks at her more than his work requires; and she sees it too and is pleased with it, — I know her little ways.”

  “But aunty, he is not a young man,” said Aniela, laughingly kissing her hands.

  My aunt muttered: “Little coaxing rogue, he is not a young man, you say? but he pays you compliments all the same. Leon, you must keep your eye on them.”

  I relinquished the journey to Ploszow with delight, yielding to my aunt’s convincing reasons. Pani Celina insisted upon her taking the maid, at least, who had gone with them to Gastein. My aunt refused at first, but consented when Aniela pointed out that they would do very well without a maid in the hotel. She gave orders at once to have her things packed. She is very quick in her decisions and wants to go to-morrow by an early train. I teased her during dinner, saying that she liked her horses better than all of us together. “Foolish boy,” she said, “don’t talk nonsense;” then forgot herself, and began soliloquizing about the horses. The sitting was a very long one to-day. Aniela posed much better. The face is already laid in.

  28 August.

  My aunt left us this morning. Pani Celina, who went with us to the studio, could scarcely restrain an exclamation of horror when she saw Aniela’s face on the picture. She has no idea about painting and the different phases a picture has to go through, and fancied the face would remain thus. I had to set her mind at rest. Then Angeli, who guessed what was the matter, laughed and said that what she saw before her was only the chrysalis, from which the butterfly would come forth in time.

  “I believe it will be one of the best portraits I ever painted,” he said; “for a long time I have not worked so con amore.”

  I hope his words will prove true. After the sitting I went to get tickets for the opera. When I returned I found Aniela alone, and suddenly temptation seized me with the force of a hurricane. I thought if she would come into my arms, now was the moment; and at the very thought I felt myself growing pale, my pulses beat wildly, I trembled and caught my breath. The room was in semi-darkness, veiled by heavy curtains. I made superhuman efforts to conquer the irresistible power that pushed me towards her. It seemed as if a hot wave emanating from her enfolded me, and that she too must feel the same storm in her breast. “I must take her in my arms, kiss her eyes and lips,” a voice within me seemed to say, “though I were to perish for it afterwards.” She noticed at once my unusual state; there was a momentary terror in her eyes, but she collected herself at once and said quickly: —

  “You must be my guardian now in mamma’s absence. There was a time when I used to be afraid of you; but now I trust you and feel quite at ease with you.”

  I kissed her hands and said in a choking voice: “Oh, Aniela, if you knew what is passing within me!”

  She replied, with sadness and compassion: “I know; you are so good, and all the nobler.”

  For a moment I still fought with myself; but she disarmed me, — I did not dare. During the remainder of the day she tried to compensate me for my restraint. Never had I seen in her eyes so much affection and such tenderness. Is this not perhaps the best way, after all? Perhaps in this guise the feeling will grow stronger and conquer her at last. I do not know, I begin to lose my head. But following this road I sacrifice every day my love for love’s sake.

  29 August.

  Something very strange and terrifying has happened. During the sitting, while posing quietly, Aniela suddenly shuddered, her face grew very red and then turned as white as snow. Both Angeli and I were terribly frightened. He interrupted his work at once and asked Aniela to rest; I brought her a glass of water. After a few moments she grew better and wanted to resume the pose; but I saw that it cost her some effort and that she still seemed dazed. Perhaps she was tired. The weather is very hot to-day and the streets are like a baker’s oven. We went back much sooner than the day before, and I noticed that she had not recovered her usual spirits. During dinner she grew suddenly very red. Pani Celina asked whether she felt indisposed. She assured us that nothing was the matter with her. To my offer to go and bring a doctor, she replied with unusual vivacity, and with a touch of irritation, that there was no need for it, that she was not ill. During the remainder of the day she was pale, the black eyebrows contracted every now and then, and there was an expression of sternness in her face. She was more indifferent to me than yesterday, and I fancied she avoided my eyes. I cannot make out what it means. I am very restless, and shall not be able to sleep; or if I go to sleep I shall have dreams such as I had before.

  30 August.

  There is something mysterious going on around me. Towards noon I knocked at the room of the ladies, to let Aniela know it was time to go to the studio; but they were not there. The hotel servant told me they had ordered a carriage two hours before and driven into town. A little surprised at that, I resolved to wait for their return. Half an hour later they came in, but Aniela gave me her hand silently and passed at once into her room. A quick glance at her face told me it was troubled. I thought she had only gone to change her dress, when Pani Celina said: —

  “My dear Leon, please go to Angeli and apologize for Aniela; her nerves are so shaken that she cannot possibly sit for him.”

  “What is the matter with her?” I asked, anxiously.

  Pani Celina seemed at a loss what to say, and at last replied: “I do

  not know; I took her to the doctor, but we did not find him at home. I

  left my card and asked him to call on us at the hotel; that is all I

  can tell you.”

  I could not get anything more out of her. I took a cab and drove at once to Angeli’s studio. When I told him that Aniela could not come it seemed to me as if he looked suspicious. Perhaps the troubled expression of my face had something to do with it. It crossed my mind, “Suppose he suspects us to have changed our minds, and that we do not want the portrait any longer?” He does not know us; he might even think that some money difficulties are the cause of my anxiety. To guard against such suspicions, I made up my mind to pay him in advance. When he heard of this, he protested vehemently and said he never accepted payment until the picture was finished; but I replied that I was only the depositary of the sum, and as I might be called away at any moment, I would rather get rid of the trouble. After some more discussion, which bored me, it was settled according to my wish. We agreed that the sitting should take place at the same hour the day following, and in case Pani Kromitzka was still unable to attend I would let him know before ten. When back at the hotel, I went at once to the ladies. Aniela was in her room. Pani Celina said the doctor had just gone away, but did not say anything conclusive; only advised her to keep quiet and avoid emotion. I do not know why, but I fancied I saw again in her face the same hesitation. Possibly it comes only from her anxiety about Aniela, which I can well understand, as I feel the same.

  When in my own room I reproached myself bitterly for having been, at least partly, the cause of this; as all this struggle between her love and her duty could not but act perniciously upon her health. Thinking of all this, I had a sensation which might be summed up in a few words: “Better I should perish than that she should suffer.” I thought with terror that she would not come down to d
inner, as if something serious, God knows what, had depended upon it. Fortunately she did come down; but she still avoided my eyes, and there was the same mysterious something in the air. First she grew confused at seeing me, and then made an effort to be her usual self, but failed. She made upon me the impression of a person that tries to conceal a trouble. She must have been paler too than usual, for though she cannot be called dark she almost looked like a brunette.

  I racked my brain to guess what could have happened. Was it anything connected with Kromitzki; and if so, what could it be? Perhaps my money is in danger. The deuce take the money! All I possess may perish, rather than that Aniela should have a moment of anxiety. I must get at the bottom of the mystery to-morrow. I am quite sure it has to do with Kromitzki; but what can he have done? He has not sold another Gluchow, for the simple reason that there is not another to sell.

  Berlin, 5 September.

  I am at Berlin, because escaping from Vienna I had to go somewhere. I could not go to Ploszow, because she will be there. I was so convinced that no human power could tear me from her that the very idea of separation seemed to me a wild impossibility. But no! It is always the unexpected that happens, for I have gone away, and everything is at an end. I am at Berlin. I feel as if I had an engine in my head, the wheels of which keep whirring incessantly. This hurts me; but I am not mad. I know everything and remember everything. My physician was right; it is only weak heads that come to grief. Besides, it could not happen to me, because insanity sometimes means happiness.

  6 September.

  Yet at times I fancy that my brain is bursting bounds. What is there more natural than that a married woman should have children? But to me that natural order seems so monstrous that it well-nigh maddens me. Yet a thing cannot be at the same time in the order of nature and a monstrosity. No brain can withstand that. What does it mean? I understand that those whom fate means to crush are crushed by some great, overwhelming calamity. With me it is different. I am rent asunder by an ordinary, natural event, — and the more natural, the more terrible it is. One contradicts the other. She is not responsible, — I understand that because I am not mad. She is still virtuous, and yet I could have sooner forgiven her any other crime. And I cannot, God knows I cannot forgive you, because I loved you so much. And believe me, there is not another woman in the whole world I scorn so much as I scorn you. For, after all, it comes to this: you had two lovers, one for Platonic love and the other for matrimonial love. There is in me a wild desire to laugh, and at the same time to dash my head against the wall. I had not foreseen that a way could be found to tear me from you; and yet there is one, and it has proved effective.

  8 September

  When I come to think that all is at an end between us, and that I have left her forever, I can scarcely believe it. There is no Aniela for me any more. Then what is there? Nothing. Then why do I live? I do not know. It is not out of curiosity to know whether a son or a daughter will be born to Pan Kromitzki. I always think of it as the most natural thing in the world, and my head seems nigh to bursting. It is very strange! I ought to have been prepared for that, and yet the thought never entered my head. I should have sooner expected a stroke of lightning to fell me down. Yet Kromitzki was with her at Ploszow; they were together in Vienna, and afterward in Gastein.

  And I put it all down to her nerves, to her deep feelings! What egregious foolishness! Since I could bear to see the two together, I ought to be able to put up with the consequences. Alas, it is not my reason that revolts, it is my nerves that quiver under these consequences. There are people in whom these two forces dwell in harmony; within me they worry each other like dogs. That is another of my misfortunes. How is it I never thought of it? It ought to have struck me that if there were any terrible coincidence, any blow more painful than another, it would be reserved for me.

  Sometimes it seems to me as if I were hunted by a Providence that, not satisfied by the logic of facts that contain in themselves a Nemesis, took a special delight in fastening personally upon me. There are many others who love their neighbors’ wives, and they do not suffer, because they love less honestly, more thoughtlessly. Is there any justice in that? No, it is not that. There is no self-conscious thought in the ordering of these things; they happen by chance and by virtue of necessity.

  10 September.

  The thought still pursues me that as a rule human tragedy is the outcome of exceptional events and calamities, and mine comes from a natural event. Really I do not know which is worst. The natural order of things seems to me past bearing.

  11 September.

  I have heard that a man struck by lightning stiffens, but does not fall down at once. I too keep up, sustained by that thunderbolt that struck me, but I feel myself falling. As soon as it grows dark in the evening something strange takes place within me. I feel so oppressed that it costs me an effort even to sigh; it seems as if the air could not get to my lungs, and that I breathe with only a part of them. During the night, and also in the day, a sudden nameless terror seizes me, — terror of nothing in particular. I feel as if something horrible was going to happen, something worse than death. Yesterday I put the question to myself: “What would become of me if, in this foreign town, I suddenly forgot my name and where I lived, and wandered on and on in darkness without knowing where I was going?”

  These are sick fancies. Besides, in such a case that would happen to my body which has already happened to my soul; for in a moral sense I do not know where I dwell, — I walk in darkness, aimlessly, in a kind of madness. I am afraid of everything, except of death. Strictly speaking, I have a strange sensation as if it were not that I am afraid, but as if fear dwelt in me, as a separate being, — and I tremble; I cannot bear darkness now. In the evening I go out and walk in the streets, lighted by electric lamps, until I am thoroughly tired. If I met anybody I knew, I should escape, if to the other end of the world; but crowds have become a necessity to me. When the streets are getting empty I feel terrified. The thought of night fills me with nameless fear. And how long they seem, these nights!

  I have continually a metallic taste in my mouth. I felt it for the first time that night when I came home and found Kromitzki waiting for me; the second time I felt it when Pani Celina told me the “great news.” What a day! I had gone to ask how Aniela was, when the doctor had seen her for the second time. There was not the slightest suspicion in my mind; I did not understand anything even when Pani Celina said: “The doctor says that those are purely nervous symptoms, and have nothing to do with her state.”

  Seeing that I did not understand, she said, with a certain uneasiness: —

  “I must tell you the great news.”

  And she told me the “great news.” When I heard it I felt the metallic taste in my mouth, and a cold sensation in my brain, exactly as I had felt that evening I met Kromitzki unexpectedly. I went into my room. I remember among other things that I felt an immense desire to laugh. That ideal being, for whom even Platonic love seemed to be impermissible, and who instead of “love” used the word “friendship!” I felt a desire to laugh, and at the same time to dash my head against the wall.

  I preserved nevertheless a mechanical self-possession. It came from the consciousness that everything was over and done with; that I must go — that there was nothing for it but to go. That consciousness transformed me into an automaton, doing by routine everything that was necessary for my departure. I was even conscious of keeping up appearances. Why? I do not know, as this did not matter now to me any longer. Most likely it was an instinctive action of the brain, which for months had been trained in concealing the truth and keeping up appearances. I told Pani Celina that I had seen a doctor, and that he said there was something amiss with my heart, and ordered me to go to Berlin without delay, — and she believed it.

  Not so Aniela. I saw her eyes dilated with terror, and in her face the expression of a degraded martyr; and there were two persons within me: one who said, “Is it her fault?” and another who despis
ed her. Oh, why did I love her so much?

  12 September.

  It is almost two weeks since I left. They must be at Ploszow by this time. I wrote to-day a letter to my aunt, because I was afraid she might be uneasy about me and come here to look after me. I am sometimes astonished to find there is still somebody that cares what becomes of me.

  13 September.

  There are men who lead astray other men’s wives, deceive them, and afterwards throw them aside and quietly resume their every-day life. I have never done any such thing, and if Aniela had been my victim I should have wiped the dust from off her path; no human power could have torn me from her. There are greater crimes than mine, but upon me has fallen such a burden that it gives me the impression of an exceptional punishment; and I cannot help thinking that my love must have been a terrible crime.

  This is a kind of instinctive fear, against which scepticism is no safeguard. And yet by all moral laws it must be admitted that it would be a greater offence to lead a woman to ruin without love, and do from calculation what I did from a deep love. Surely the responsibility cannot be greater for an immense, overpowering feeling than for a mean little weakness.

  No! therefore my love is, above all, an awful calamity. A man free from prejudices can imagine how he would feel if he were swayed by prejudice; so, too, a man who doubts may imagine how he could pray if he had the faith. I not only have the feeling, but it breaks forth into a complaint, almost like a sincere prayer, and I say: “If I am guilty, O God! I have been punished severely, and a little mercy might be shown to me.” But I cannot even imagine in what shape that mercy could come to me now! It is impossible!

  14 September.

  They must have gone back to Ploszow by this time. I still think of Aniela very often, for we cannot wipe out the past; especially when we have nothing to look for in the future; and I have nothing, nothing at all. If I had faith I might become a priest; if I were a man who denies the existence of God I might become a convert. But within me the organs with which we believe are withered, as sometimes a limb withers. I do not know anything except that in my sorrows I do not find comfort in religion.