“You knew the late Pan Bronich, then? Be not astonished that I ask, for with me it is a question of our Pan Ignas.”
“Whom have I not known? I knew also Pani Bronich’s sister, — Pani Castelli. For that matter I have been twenty-four years in Italy, and am about forty, — that is said for roundness. In fact, I am forty-five. I knew Pan Castelli, too, who was a good enough man; I knew all. What shall I say to you? Pani Castelli was an enthusiast, and distinguished by wearing short hair; she was always unwashed, and had neuralgia in the face. As to Pani Bronich, you know her.”
“But who was Pan Bronich?”
“‘Teodor’? Pan Bronich was a double fool, — first, because he was a fool; and second, because he didn’t know himself as one. But I am silent, for ‘de mortuis nil nisi bonum.’ He was as fat as she is thin; he weighed more than a hundred and fifty kilograms, perhaps, and had fish eyes. In general, they were people vain beyond everything. But why expatiate? When a man lives a while in the world, and sees many people, and talks with them, as I do while painting, he convinces himself that there is really a high society, which rests on tradition, and besides that a canaille, which, having a little money, apes great society. The late Bronich and his present widow always seemed to me of that race; therefore I chose to keep them at a distance. If Bukatski were alive, he would let out his tongue now at their expense. He knew that I was in love with Panna Castelli; and how he ridiculed me, may the Lord not remember it against him! And who knows whether he did not speak justly? for what Panna Lineta is will be shown later.”
“It concerns me most of all to learn something of her.”
“They are good, all good; but I am afraid of them and their goodness, — unless your wife would go security for some of them.”
At this point the conversation stopped, and they began to talk of Bukatski, or rather, of his burial of the day following, for which Pan Stanislav had made previously all preparations.
On the way from Svirski’s he spoke to the priest again, and then informed acquaintances of the hour on the morrow.
The church ceremony of burial had taken place at Rome in its own time, so Pan Stanislav, as a man of religious feeling, invited a few priests to join their prayers to the prayers of laymen; he did this also through attachment and gratitude to Bukatski, who had left him a considerable part of his property.
Besides the Polanyetskis came the Mashkos, the Osnovskis, the Bigiels, Svirski, Pan Plavitski, and Pani Emilia, who wished at the same time to visit Litka. The day was a genuine summer one, sunny and warm; the cemetery had a different seeming altogether from what it had during Pan Stanislav’s former visits. The great healthy trees formed a kind of thick, dense curtain composed of dark and bright leaves, covering with a deep green shade the white and gray monuments. In places the cemetery seemed simply a forest full of gloom and coolness. On certain graves was quivering a shining network of sunbeams, which had filtered in through the leaves of acacias, poplars, hornbeams, birch, and lindens; some crosses, nestling in a thick growth, seemed as if dreaming in cool air above the graves. In the branches and among the leaves were swarms of small birds, calling out from every side with an unceasing twitter, which was mild, and, as it were, low purposely, so as not to rouse the sleepers.
Svirski, Mashko, Polanyetski, and Osnovski took on their shoulders the narrow coffin containing the remains of Bukatski, and bore it to the tomb. The priests, in white surplices now gleaming in the sun, now in the shade, walked in front of the coffin; behind it the young women, dressed in black; and all the company went slowly through the shady alleys, silently, calmly, without sobs or tears, which usually accompany a coffin. They moved only with dignity and sadness, which were on their faces as the shadow of the trees on the graves. There was, however, in all this a certain poetry filled with melancholy; and the impressionable soul of Bukatski would have felt the charm of that mourning picture.
In this way they arrived at the tomb, which had the form of a sarcophagus, and was entirely above ground, for Bukatski during life told Svirski that he did not wish to lie in a cellar. The coffin was pushed in easily through the iron door; the women raised their eyes then; their lips muttered prayers; and after a time Bukatski was left to the solitude of the cemetery, the rustling trees, the twitter of birds, and the mercy of God.
Pani Emilia and Pan Stanislav went then to Litka; while the rest of the company waited in the carriages before the church, for thus Pani Aneta had wished.
Pan Stanislav had a chance to convince himself, at Litka’s grave, how in his soul that child once so beloved had gone into the blue distance and become a shade. Formerly when he visited her grave he rebelled against death, and with all the passion of fresh sorrow was unreconciled to it. To-day it seemed to him well-nigh natural that she was lying in the shadow of those trees, in that cemetery; he had the feeling almost that it must end thus. She had ceased all but completely to be for him a real being, and had become merely a sweet inhabitant of his memory, a sigh, a ray, simply one of that kind of reminiscences which is left by music.
And he would have grown indignant at himself, perhaps, were it not that he saw Pani Emilia rise after her finished prayer with a serene face, with an expression of great tenderness in her eyes, but without tears. He noticed, however, that she looked as sick people look, that she rose from her knees with difficulty, and that in walking she leaned on a stick. In fact, she was at the beginning of a sore disease of the loins, which later on confined her for years to the bed, and only left her at the coffin.
Before the cemetery gate the Osnovskis were waiting for them; Pani Aneta invited them to a betrothal party on the morrow, and then those “who were kind” to Prytulov.
Svirski sat with Pani Emilia in Pan Stanislav’s carriage, and for some time was collecting his impressions in silence; but at last he said, —
“How wonderful this is! To-day at a funeral, to-morrow at a betrothal; what death reaps, love sows, — and that is life!”
CHAPTER XLIX.
Pan Ignas wished the betrothal to be not in the evening before people, but earlier; and his wish was gratified all the more, since Lineta, who wished to show herself to people as already betrothed, supported him before Aunt Bronich. They felt freer thus; and when people began to assemble they appeared as a young couple. The light of happiness shone from Lineta. She found a charm in that rôle of betrothed; and the rôle added charm to her. In her slender form there was something winged. Her eyelids did not fall to-day sleepily over her eyes; those eyes were full of light, her lips of smiles, her face was in blushes. She was so beautiful that Svirski, seeing her, could not refrain from quiet sighs for the lost paradise, and found calmness for his soul only when he remembered his favorite song, —
“I am singing and not sobbing,
For I have ceased to love thee too!
Hu-ha-hu!”
For that matter her beauty struck every one that day. Old Zavilovski, who had himself brought in his chair to the drawing-room, held her hands and gazed at her for a time; then, looking around at his daughter, he said, —
“Well, such a Venetian half-devil can turn the head, she can, and especially the head of a poet, for in the heads of those gentlemen is fiu, fiu! as people say.”
Then he turned to the young man and asked, —
“Well, wilt thou break my neck to-day because I said Venetian half-devil to thee?”
Pan Ignas laughed, and, bending his head, kissed the old man’s shoulder. “No; I could not break any one’s neck to-day.”
“Well,” said the old man, evidently rejoiced at those marks of honor, “may God and the Most Holy Lady bless you both! I say the Most Holy Lady, for her protection is the basis.”
When he had said this, he began to search behind in the chair, and, drawing forth a large jewel-case, said to Lineta, —
“This is from the family of the Zavilovskis; God grant thee to wear it long!”
Lineta, taking the box, bent her charming figure to kiss him on the shoulder; he embrac
ed her neck, and said to the bridegroom, —
“But thou might come.”
And he kissed both on the forehead, and said, with greater emotion than he wished to show, —
“Now love and revere each other, like honest people.”
Lineta opened the case, in which on a sapphire-colored satin cushion gleamed a splendid rivière of diamonds. The old man said once more with emphasis, “From the family of the Zavilovskis,” wishing evidently to show that the young lady who married a Zavilovski, even without property, was not doing badly. But no one heard him, for the heads of the ladies — of Lineta, Pani Aneta, Pani Mashko, Pani Bronich and even Marynia — bent over the flashing stones; and breath was stopped in their mouths for a time, till at last a murmur of admiration and praise broke the silence.
“It is not a question of diamonds!” cried Pani Bronich, casting herself almost into the arms of old Zavilovski, “but as the gift, so the heart.”
“Do not mention it Pani; do not mention it!” said the old man, warding her off.
Now the society broke into pairs or small groups; the betrothed were so occupied with each other that the whole world vanished from before them. Osnovski and Svirski went up to Marynia and Pani Bigiel. Kopovski undertook to entertain the lady of the house; Pan Stanislav was occupied with Pani Mashko. As to Mashko himself, he was anxious evidently to make a nearer acquaintance with the Crœsus, for he so fenced him off with his armchair that no one could approach him, and began then to talk of remote times and the present, which, as he divined easily, had become a favorite theme for the old man.
But he was too keen-witted to be of Zavilovski’s opinion in all things. Moreover, the old man did not attack recent times always; nay, he admired them in part. He acknowledged that in many regards they were moving toward the better; still he could not take them in. But Mashko explained to him that everything must change on earth; hence nobles, as well as other strata of society.
“I, respected sir,” said he, “hold to the land through a certain inherited instinct, — through that something which attracts to land the man who came from it; but, while managing my own property, I am an advocate, and I am one on principle. We should have our own people in that department; if we do not, we shall be at the mercy of men coming from other spheres, and often directly opposed to us. And I must render our landholders this justice, that for the greater part they understand this well, and choose to confide their business to me rather than to others. Some think it even a duty.”
“The bar has been filled from our ranks at all times,” answered Pan Zavilovski; “but will the noble succeed in other branches? As God lives, I cannot tell. I hear, and hear that we ought to undertake everything; but people forget that to undertake and to succeed are quite different. Show me the man who has succeeded.”
“Here he is, respected sir, Pan Polanyetski: he in a commission house has made quite a large property; and what he has is in ready cash, so that he could put it all on the table to-morrow. He will not deny that my counsels have been of profit to him frequently; but what he has made, he has made through commerce, mainly in grain.”
“Indeed, indeed!” said the old noble, gazing at Pan Stanislav, and staring from wonder, “has he really made property? Is it possible? Is he of the real Polanyetskis? That’s a good family.”
“And that stalwart man with brown hair?”
“Is Svirski the artist.”
“I know him, for I saw him abroad; and the Svirskis did not make fires as an occupation.”
“But he can only paint money, for he hasn’t made any.”
“He hasn’t!” said Mashko, in a confidential tone. “Not one big estate in Podolia will give as much income as aquarelles give him.”
“What is that?”
“Pictures in water-colors.”
“Is it possible? not even oil paintings! And he too — ? Ha! then, perhaps, my relative will make something at verses. Let him write; let him write. I will not take it ill of him. Pan Zygmund was a noble, and he wrote, and not for display. Pan Adam was a noble also; but he is famous, — more famous than that brawler who has worked with democracy — What’s his name? Never mind! You say that times are changing. Hm, are they? Let them change for themselves, if only with God’s help, for the better.”
“The main thing,” said Mashko, “is not to shut up a man’s power in his head, nor capital in chests; whoever does that, simply sins against society.”
“Well, but with permission! How do you understand this, — Am I not free to close with a key what belongs to me; must I leave my chests open to a robber?”
Mashko smiled with a shade of loftiness, and, putting his hand on the arm of the chair, said, —
“That is not the question, respected sir.” And then he began to explain the principles of political economy to Pan Zavilovski; the old noble listened, nodding his head, and repeating from time to time, —
“Indeed! that is something new! but I managed without it.”
Pani Bronich followed the betrothed with eyes full of emotion, and at the same time told Plavitski (who on his part was following Pani Aneta with eyes not less full of emotion) about the years of her youth, her life with Teodor, and the misfortune which met them because of the untimely arrival in the world of their only descendant, and Plavitski listened with distraction; but, moved at last by her own narrative, she said with a somewhat quivering voice, —
“So all my love, hope, and faith are in Lineta. You will understand this, for you too have a daughter. And as to Lolo, just think what a blessing that child would have been had he lived, since even dead he rendered us so much service—”
“Immensely touching, immensely touching!” interrupted Plavitski.
“Oh, it is true,” continued Pani Bronich. “How often in harvest time did my husband run with the cry, ‘Lolo monte!’ and send out all his laboring men to the field. With others, wheat sprouted in the shocks, with us, never. Oh, true! And the loss was the greater in this, that that was our last hope. My husband was a man in years, and I can say that for me he was the best of protectors; but after this misfortune, only a protector.”
“Here I cease to understand him,” said Plavitski. “Ha, ha! I fail altogether to understand him.”
And, opening his mouth, he looked roguishly at Pani Bronich; she slapped him lightly with her fan, and said, —
“These men are detestable; for them there is nothing sacred.”
“Who is that, a real Perugino, — that pale lady, with whom your husband is talking?” asked Svirski now of Marynia.
“An acquaintance of ours, Pani Mashko. Have you not been presented to her?”
“Yes; I became acquainted with her yesterday at the funeral, but forget her name. I know that she is the wife of that gentleman who is talking with old Pan Zavilovski. A pure Vannuci! The same quietism, and a little yellowish; but she has very beautiful lines in her form.”
And looking a little longer he added, —
“A quenched face, but uncommon lines in the whole figure. As it were slender; look at the outline of her arms and shoulders.”
But Marynia was not looking at the outlines of the arms and shoulders of Pani Mashko, but at her husband; and on her face alarm was reflected on a sudden. Pan Stanislav was just inclining toward Pani Mashko and telling her something which Marynia could not hear, for they were sitting at a distance; but it seemed to her that at times he gazed into that quenched face and those pale eyes with the same kind of look with which during their journey after marriage he had gazed at her sometimes. Ah, she knew that look! And her heart began now to beat, as if feeling some great danger. But immediately she said to herself, “That cannot be! That would be unworthy of Stas.” Still she could not refrain from looking at them. Pan Stanislav was telling something very vivaciously, which Pani Mashko listened to with her usual indifference. Marynia thought again: “Something only seemed to me! He is speaking vivaciously as usual, but nothing more.” The remnant of her doubt was destroyed by Svirski, who
, either because he noticed her alarm and inquiring glance, or because he did not notice the expression on Pan Stanislav’s face, said, —
“With all this she says nothing. Your husband must keep up the conversation, and he looks at once weary and angry.”
Marynia’s face grew radiant in one instant. “Oh, you are right! Stas is annoyed a little, surely; and the moment he is annoyed he is angry.”
And she fell into perfect good-humor. She would have been glad to give a rivière of diamonds, like that which Pan Zavilovski had brought to Lineta, to make “Stas” approach at that moment, to say something herself to him, and hear a kind word from him. In fact, a few minutes later her wish was accomplished, for Osnovski approached Pani Mashko; Pan Stanislav rose, and, saying a word or two on the way to Pani Aneta, who was talking to Kopovski, sat down at last by his wife.
“Dost wish to tell me something?” he inquired.
“How wonderful it is, Stas, for I called to thee that moment, but only in mind; still thou hast felt and art here with me.”
“See what a husband I am,” answered he, with a smile. “But the reason is really very simple: I noticed thee looking at me; I was afraid that something might have happened, and I came.”
“I was looking, for I wanted something.”
“And I came, for I wanted something. How dost thou feel? Tell the truth! Perhaps thou hast a wish to go home?”
“No, Stas, as I love thee, I am perfectly comfortable. I was talking with Pan Svirski of Pani Mashko, and was entertained well.”
“I guessed that you were gossiping about her. This artist says himself that he has an evil tongue.”
“On the contrary,” answered Svirski, “I was only admiring her form. The turn for my tongue may come later.”
“Oh, that is true,” said Pan Stanislav; “Pani Osnovski says that she has indeed a bad figure, and that is proof that she has a good one. But, Marynia, I will tell thee something of Pani Osnovski.” Here he bent toward his wife, and whispered, “Knowest what I heard from Kopovski’s lips when I was coming to thee?”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 397