Marynia put her arms around his neck. “Thou, my good — With such a man one may be at rest.”
“Besides, something will be saved. If Mashko finds credit, he will pay us; he may find a purchaser, too, for Kremen. He writes me to ask Bukatski to buy Kremen, and to persuade him to do so. Bukatski is going to Rome this evening, and I have invited him to lunch. I will ask him. He has a considerable fortune, and would have something to do. I am curious to know how Mashko’s life will develop. He writes at the end of the letter:
“‘I discovered the condition of affairs to my wife; she bore herself passively, but her mother is wild with indignation.’
“Finally he adds that at last he has fallen in love with his wife, and that if they should separate, it would be the greatest unhappiness in life for him. That lyric tale gives me little concern; but I am curious as to how all this will end.”
“She will not desert him,” said Marynia.
“I do not know; I thought myself once that she would not, but I like to contradict. Wilt thou bet?”
“No; for I do not wish to win. Thou ugly man, thou hast no knowledge of women.”
“On the contrary, I know them; and I know them because all are not like this little one who is sailing now in a gondola.”
“In a gondola in Venice, with her Stas,” answered Marynia.
They were now at the church. When they went from Mass to the hotel, they found Bukatski, dressed for the road, in a cross-barred gray suit, — which, on his frail body, seemed too large, — in yellow shoes and a fantastic cravat, tied as fancifully as carelessly.
“I am going to-day,” said he, after he had greeted Marynia. “Do you command me to prepare a dwelling in Florence for you? I can engage some palace.”
“Then you will halt on the road to Rome?”
“Yes. First, to give notice in the gallery of your coming, and to put a sofa on the stairs for you; second, I halt for black coffee, which is bad throughout Italy in general, but in Florence, at Giacosa’s, Via Tornabuoni, it is exceptionally excellent. That, however, is the one thing of value in Florence.”
“What pleasure is there for you in always saying something different from what you think?”
“But I am thinking seriously of engaging nice lodgings on Lung-Arno for you.”
“We shall stop at Verona.”
“For Romeo and Juliet? Of course; of course! Go now; later you would shrug your shoulders if you thought of them. In a month it would be too late for you to go, perhaps.”
Marynia started up at him like a cat; then, turning to her husband, said, —
“Stas, don’t let this gentleman annoy me so!”
“Well,” answered Pan Stanislav, “I will cut his head off, but after lunch.”
Bukatski began to declaim: —
“It is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierc’d the fearful hollow of thine ear.”
Then, turning to Marynia, he inquired, “Has Pan Stanislav written a sonnet for you?”
“No.”
“Oh, that is a bad sign. You have a balcony on the street; has it never come once to his head to stand under your balcony with a guitar?”
“No.”
“Oh, very bad!”
“But there is no place to stand here, for there is water.”
“He might go in a gondola. With us it is different, you see; but here in Italy the air is such that if a man is in love really, he either writes sonnets, or stands under a balcony with a guitar. It is a thing perfectly certain, resulting from the geographical position, the currents of the sea, the chemical make-up of the air and the water: if a man does not write sonnets, or stand out of doors with a guitar, surely he is not in love. I can bring you very famous books on this subject.”
“It seems that I shall be driven to cut his head off before lunch,” said Pan Stanislav.
The execution, however, did not come, for the reason that it was just time for lunch. They sat down at a separate table, but in the same hall was a general one, which for Marynia, whom everything interested, was a source of pleasure, too, for she saw real English people. This made on her such an impression as if she had gone to some land of exotics; for since Kremen is Kremen, not one of its inhabitants had undertaken a similar journey. For Bukatski, and even Pan Stanislav, her delight was a source of endless jokes, but also of genuine pleasure. The first said that she reminded him of his youth; the second called his wife a “field daisy,” and said that one was not sorry to show the world to a woman like her. Bukatski noticed, however, that the “field daisy” had much feeling for art and much honesty. Many things were known to her from books or pictures; not knowing others, she acknowledged this openly, but in her expressions there was nothing artificial or affected. When a thing touched her heart, her delight had no bounds, so that her eyes became moist. At one time Bukatski jested with her unmercifully; at another he persuaded her that all the connoisseurs, so called, have a nail in the head, and that she, as a sensitive and refined nature, and so far unspoiled, was for him of the greatest importance in questions of art; she would be still more important if she were ten years of age.
At lunch they did not talk of art, because Pan Stanislav remembered his news from Warsaw, and said, —
“I had a letter from Mashko.”
“And I, too,” answered Bukatski.
“And thou? They must be hurried there; Mashko must be pressed in real earnest. Is the question known to thee?”
“He persuades me, or rather, he implores me, to buy — dost thou know what?”
Bukatski avoided Kremen, knowing well what trouble it had caused, and was silent through delicacy toward Marynia.
But Pan Stanislav, understanding his intention, said, —
“Oh, my God! Once we avoided that name as a sore spot, but now, before my wife, it is something different. It is hard to be tied up a whole lifetime.”
Bukatski looked at him quickly; Marynia blushed a little, and said, —
“Stas is perfectly right. Besides, I know that it is a question of Kremen.”
“Yes, it is of Kremen.”
“Well, and what?” asked Pan Stanislav.
“I should not buy it even because of this, — that the lady might have the impression that people are tossing it about like a ball.”
“If I do not think at all of Kremen?” said Marynia, blushing still more. She looked at her husband; and he nodded in sign of praise and satisfaction.
“That is a proof,” answered he, “that thou art a child of good judgment.”
“At the same time,” continued Marynia, “if Pan Mashko does not hold out, Kremen will either be divided, or go into usurers’ hands, and that to me would be disagreeable.”
“Ah, ha!” said Bukatski, “but if you do not think at all of Kremen?”
Marynia looked again at her husband, and this time with alarm; he began to laugh, however.
“Marynia is caught,” said he.
Then he turned to Bukatski. “Evidently Mashko looks on thee as the one plank of salvation.”
“But I am not a plank; look at me! I am a straw, rather. The man who wishes to save himself by such a straw will drown. Mashko has said himself more than once to me, ‘Thou hast blunted nerves.’ Perhaps I have; but I need strong impressions for that very reason. If I were to help Mashko, he would work himself free, stand on his feet, give himself out as a lord still further; his wife would personate a great lady, they would be terribly comme il faut, and I should have the stupid comedy, which I have seen already, and which I have yawned at. If, on the other hand, I do not help him, he will be ruined, he will perish, something interesting will happen, unexpected events will come to pass, something tragic may result, which will occupy me more. Now, think, both of you, I must pay for a wretched comedy, and dearly; the tragedy I can have for nothing. How is a man to hesitate in this case?”
“Fi! how can you say such things?” exclaimed Marynia.
“Not only can I say them, but I shall write them to Mashko; besides, he has deceived me in the most unworthy manner.”
“In what?”
“In what? In this, that I thought: ‘Oh, that is a regular snob! that is material for a dark personage; that is a man really without heart or scruples!’ Meanwhile, what comes out? That at bottom of his soul he has a certain honesty; that he wants to pay his creditors; that he is sorry for that puppet with red eyes; that he loves her; that for him separation from her would be a terrible catastrophe. He writes this to me himself most shamelessly. I give my word that in our society one can count on nothing. I will settle abroad, for I cannot endure this.”
Now Marynia was angry in earnest.
“If you say such things, I shall beg to break relations with you.”
But Pan Stanislav shrugged his shoulders, and added: “In fact, thy talk is ever on some conceit to amuse thyself and others, and never wilt thou think with judgment and in human fashion. Dost understand, I do not persuade thee to buy Kremen, and all the more because I might have a certain interest to do so; but there would be some occupation for thee there, something to do.”
Here Bukatski began to laugh, and said after a while, —
“I told thee once that I like, above all, to do what pleases me, and that it pleases me most to do nothing; hence it is that doing nothing I do what pleases me most. If thou art wise, prove that I have uttered nonsense. Take the second case: Suppose me a buckwheat sower; that, however, simply passes imagination. I, for whom rain or fine weather is merely the question of choosing a cane or an umbrella, would have, in my old age, to stand on one leg, like a stork, and look to see whether it pleases the sun to shine, or the clouds to drop rain. I should have to tremble as to whether my wheat is likely to grow, or my rape-seed shed, or rot fall on the potatoes; whether I shall be able to stake my peas, or furnish his Worship of Dogweevil as many bushels as I have promised; whether my plough-horses have the glanders, and my sheep the foot-rot. I should, in my old age, come to this, — that from blunting of faculties I would interject after every three words: ‘Pan Benefactor,’ or ‘What is it that I wanted to say?’ Voyons! pas si bête! I, a free man, should become a glebæ adscriptus, a ‘Neighbor,’ a ‘Brother Lata,’ a ‘Pan Matsyei,’ a ‘Lechit.’”
Here, roused a little by the wine, he began to quote in an undertone the words of Slaz in “Lilla Weneda”: —
“Am I a Lechit? What does this mean? Are boorishness,
Drunkenness, gluttony, gazing from my eyes
With the seven deadly sins, a passion for uproar,
Pickled cucumbers, and escutcheons?”
“Argue with him,” said Pan Stanislav, “especially when at the root of the matter he is partly right.”
But Marynia, who as soon as Bukatski had begun to speak of work in the country, grew somewhat thoughtful, shook thoughtfulness now from her forehead, and said, —
“When papa was not well, — and never in Kremen has he been so well as recently, — I saved him a little in management, and later that work became for me a habit. Though God knows there was no lack of troubles, it gave me a pleasure that I cannot describe. But I did not understand the cause of this till Pan Yamish explained it. ‘That,’ said he, ’is the real work on which the world stands, and every other is either the continuation of it, or something artificial.’ Later I understood even things which he did not explain. More than once, when I went out to the fields in spring, and saw that all things were growing, I felt that my heart, too, was growing with them. And now I know why that is: In all other relations that a man holds there may be deceit, but the land is truth. It is impossible to deceive the land; it either gives, or gives not, but it does not deceive. Therefore land is loved, as truth; and because one loves it, it teaches one to love. And the dew falls not only on grain, and on meadows, but on the soul, as it were; and a man becomes better, for he has to deal with truth, and he loves, — that is, he is nearer God. Therefore I loved my Kremen so much.”
Here Marynia became frightened at her own speech, and at this, what would “Stas” think; at the same time reminiscences had roused her. All this was reflected in her eyes as the dawn, and on her young face; and she was herself like the dawn.
Bukatski looked at her as he would at some unknown newly discovered master-piece of the Venetian school; then he closed his eyes, and hid half of his small face in his enormous fantastic cravat, and whispered, —
“Délicieuse!”
Then, thrusting forth his chin from his cravat, he said, —
“You are perfectly right.”
But the logical woman would not let herself be set aside by a compliment.
“If I am right, you are not.”
“That is another matter. You are right because it becomes you; a woman in that case is always right.”
“Stas!” said Marynia, turning to her husband. But there was so much charm in the woman at that moment, that he also looked on her with delight, his eyes smiled, his nostrils moved with a quick motion; for a moment he covered her hand with his, and said, —
“Oh, child, child!”
Then he inclined to her, and whispered, —
“If we were not in this hall, I would kiss those dear eyes and that mouth.”
And, speaking thus, Pan Stanislav made a great mistake, for at that moment it was not enough to feel the physical charm of Marynia, to be roused at the color of her face, her eyes, or her mouth, but it was necessary to feel the soul in her; to what an extent he did not feel it was shown by his fondling words, “O child, child!” She was for him at that moment only a charming child-woman, and he thought of nothing else.
Just then coffee was brought. To end the conversation, Pan Stanislav said, —
“So Mashko has come out a lover, and that after marriage.”
Bukatski swallowed a cup of boiling coffee, and answered, “In this is the stupidity, that Mashko is the man, not in this, — that the love was after marriage. I have not said anything sensible. If I have, I beg pardon most earnestly, and promise not to do so a second time. I have burned my tongue evidently with the hot coffee! I drink it so hot because they tell me that it is good for headache; and my head aches, aches.”
Here Bukatski placed his palm on his neck and the back of his head, and blinked, remaining motionless for a few seconds.
“I am talking and talking,” said he, then, “but my head aches. I should have gone to my lodgings, but Svirski, the artist, is to come to me here. We are going to Florence together; he is a famous painter in water-colors, really famous. No one has brought greater force out of water-colors. But see, he is just coming!”
In fact, Svirski, as if summoned by a spell, appeared in the hall, and began to look around for Bukatski. Espying him at last, he approached the table.
He was a robust, short man, with hair as black as if he were an Italian. He had an ordinary face, but a wise, deep glance, and also mild. While walking, he swayed a little because of his wide hips.
Bukatski presented him to Marynia in the following words, —
“I present to you Pan Svirski, a painter, of the genus genius, who not only received his talent, but had the most happy idea of not burying it, which he might have done as well, and with equal benefit to mankind, as any other man. But he preferred to fill the world with water-colors and with fame.”
Svirski smiled, showing two rows of teeth, wonderfully small, but white as ivory, and said, —
“I wish that were true.”
“And I will tell you why he did not bury his talent,” continued Bukatski; “his reasons were so parochial that it would be a shame for any decent artist to avow them. He loves Pognembin, which is somewhere in Poznan, or thereabouts, and he loves it because he was born there. If he had been born in Guadeloupe he would have loved Guadeloupe, and love for Guadeloupe would have saved him in life also. This man makes me indignant; and will the lady tell me if I am not right?”
To this Marynia answered, raising her blue eyes to
Svirski, “Pan Bukatski is not so bad as he seems, for he has said everything that is good of you.”
“I shall die with my qualities known,” whispered Bukatski.
Svirski was looking meanwhile at Marynia, as only an artist can permit himself to look at a woman, and not offend. Interest was evident in his eyes, and at last he muttered, —
“To see such a head all at once, here in Venice, is a genuine surprise.”
“What?” asked Bukatski.
“I say, that the lady is of a wonderfully well-defined type. Oh, this, for example” (here he drew a line with his thumb along his nose, mouth, and chin). “And also what purity of outline!”
“Well, isn’t it true?” asked Pan Stanislav, with excitement. “I have always thought the same.”
“I will lay a wager that thou hast never thought of it,” retorted Bukatski.
But Pan Stanislav was glad and proud of that interest which Marynia roused in the famous artist; hence he said, —
“If it would give you any pleasure to paint her portrait, it would give me much more to have it.”
“From the soul of my heart,” answered Svirski, with simplicity; “but I am going to Rome to-day. There I have begun the portrait of Pani Osnovski.”
“And we shall be in Rome no later than ten days from now.”
“Then we are agreed.”
Marynia returned thanks, blushing to her ears. But Bukatski began to take farewell, and drew Svirski after him. When they had gone out, he said, —
“We have time yet. Come to Floriani’s for a glass of cognac.”
Bukatski did not know how to drink, and didn’t like spirits; but since he had begun to take morphine, he drank more than he could endure, because some one had told him that one neutralized the other.
“What a delightful couple those Polanyetskis are!” said Svirski.
“They are not long married.”
“It is evident that he loves her immensely. When I praised her, his eyes were smiling, and he rose as if on yeast.”
“She loves him a hundred times more.”
“What knowledge hast thou in such matters?”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 379