Ah, that feeling of powerless rage, that conviction that there is no help, seemed almost worse at that moment than any other. I had always been ashamed to cry even before myself. If pain pressed tears from my eyes by force, pride kept them back with force not inferior. But now at last burst forth the helpless rage which was rending my breast; and in my loneliness, in presence of that boat with the loving pair reflected in the water, in presence of that calm sky and those reeds rustling plaintively above my head, and in my sadness and misfortune, I burst into measureless sobbing, into one great wave of tears, and, lying on my back with hands clasped above my head, I almost bellowed with mighty, unspeakable sorrow.
Then I grew weak. A numbness came over me. My thinking power almost ceased to act; I felt cold at the points of my fingers and toes. I grew weaker and weaker. I used the remnant of my thought. It seemed that death and a great and icy calm were drawing near. It seemed that that gloomy queen of the grave was taking me into her possession, so I greeted her with a calm, glassy eye. “It is over,” thought I, and a great weight, as it were, fell from my breast.
But it was not over. How long I lay thus on the bottom of the boat, I could not tell. Light, downy clouds were moving along the vault of heaven. Lapwings and storks, calling sadly, flew by in succession. The sun had risen high in the heavens and was burning with heat. The breeze had gone down; the motionless reeds had ceased to rustle. I woke, as if from sleep, and looked around. The boat with Hania and Selim was no longer before me. The silence, repose, and delight which reigned in all nature were in wonderful contrast to the torpor in which I had wakened a moment before. Round about all was calm and smiling. Dark sapphire water-grasshoppers were sitting on the edges of the boat and on the leaves of water-lilies which were as flat as shields; little gray birds were swinging on the reeds, twittering sweetly; here and there buzzed an industrious bee that had wandered in over the water; sometimes from the sweet flag wild ducks were heard; teal escorted their young to the plain of water. Before my eyes, the kingdoms and commonwealths of birds drew aside the curtains concealing their daily life; but I looked at nothing. My torpor had not passed. The day was hot; I felt an unendurable headache. Bending over the boat, I seized water with my hands and drank it with parched lips. That brought back some strength to me. Taking the oar, I moved among reeds toward the landing-place. How late it was! and at home they must have inquired for me.
On the road I tried to calm myself. “If Selim and Hania have confessed that they love each other,” thought I, “it may be better that all is passed. At least, the cursed days of uncertainty are over.” Misfortune had raised its visor and stood before me with clear face. I knew it, and must struggle with it. Wonderful thing! this thought began to have for me a certain painful charm. But still I was uncertain, and resolved to examine Evunia adroitly, at least in as far as was possible.
I was at home for dinner. I greeted Selim coldly, and sat down at the table in silence. My father looked at me and asked, —
“What is the matter with thee, — art sick?”
“No; I am well, but weary. I rose at three in the morning.”
“What for?”
“I went with Vah to hunt wolves. I shot one. Later on I lay down to sleep, and my head aches somewhat.”
“But look in the glass, and see what a face thou hast.”
Hania stopped eating for a while, and looked at me carefully.
“Perhaps yesterday’s visit to Ustrytsi has acted on you, Pan Henryk,” said she.
I looked her straight in the eyes and inquired almost sharply, —
“What dost thou mean by that?”
Hania was confused and began to explain something indistinctly. Selim came to her aid, —
“But that is very natural. Whoever is in love grows thin.”
I looked now at Hania, now at Selim, and replied slowly, putting a sharp accent on each syllable, —
“I do not see that ye are growing thin, either thou or Hania.”
A scarlet flush covered the faces of both. A moment of very awkward silence followed. I myself was uncertain whether I had not gone too far, but fortunately my father had not heard what was said. The priest took it as the usual chaffing of young people.
“Oh, that is a wasp with a sting!” cried he, taking snuff. “He has given it to you. See now, don’t tackle him.”
O Lord, how little that triumph comforted me, and how gladly I would have transferred it to Selim!
After dinner, in passing through the drawing-room, I looked in the glass. Really, I looked like Piotrovin. 3 It was blue under my eyes; my face was sunk. It seemed to me that I had grown wonderfully ugly, but that was all one to me then. I went to find Evunia. Both my little sisters had dined earlier than we, and were in the garden, where a gymnasium for children had been fixed. Evunia was sitting carelessly on a wooden platform hung by four cords to the crossbeam of a swing. While sitting there, she was talking to herself, shaking the locks of her golden head from time to time and swinging her feet. When she saw me she laughed and stretched forth her little hands. I took her in my arms and went down the alley with her. Then I sat on a bench, and, putting Evunia before me, asked, —
“What has Evunia been doing to-day?”
“Evunia went to walk with her husband and Hania,” answered the little girl, boastingly.
Evunia called Selim her husband.
“And was Evunia polite?”
“She was.”
“Ah, that is well, for polite children always listen to what older people say, and remember that they have something to learn. But does Evunia remember what Selim said to Hania?”
“I have forgotten.”
“Ei, maybe Evunia remembers a little?”
“I have forgotten.”
“Thou art not polite! Let Evunia remember right off, or I shall not love Evunia.”
The little girl began to rub one eye with her fist; and with the other, which was full of tears, she looked at me from under her brow, and frowning, as if to cry, her lips already quivering and in the form of a horseshoe, she said, —
“I have forgotten.”
What could the poor little thing answer? Indeed, I seemed to myself idiotic, and immediately was ashamed of having spoken with deceitful tongue to that innocent little angel, — to ask one thing, wishing to learn another. Besides Evunia was the pet of the whole house, and my pet, so I did not wish to torment her any further. I kissed her, stroked her hair, and let her go. The little girl ran at once to the swing, and I walked off as wise as before, but still with the conviction in my heart that a confession had passed between Selim and Hania.
Toward evening Selim said to me, —
“I shall not see thee for a week; I am going on a journey.”
“Where?” asked I, with indifference.
“My father commands me to visit his brother in Shumna. I must stay there about a week.”
I looked at Hania. That information called out no impression on her face. Evidently Selim had told her of the visit already.
She smiled, raised her eyes from her work, looked at Selim somewhat cunningly, somewhat perversely, and asked, —
“But are you glad to go there?”
“As glad as a mastiff to go to a chain,” answered he, quickly; but he restrained himself in time, and seeing that Pani d’Yves, who could not endure anything trivial, was making a wry face, he added, —
“I beg pardon for the expression. I love my uncle; but you see it is pleasanter here for me, near Pani d’Yves.” And speaking thus, he cast a sentimental glance at Pani d’Yves, which roused laughter in all, not excluding Pani d’Yves herself, who, though she was easily offended, had a special weakness for Selim. She took him gently by the ear and said with a kindly smile, —
“Young man, I might be thy mother.”
Selim kissed her hand, and there was concord; but I thought to myself, what a difference between me and that Selim! If I had Hania’s affection, I should merely dream and look toward the sky. Wha
t place should I have for jokes! but he laughs, jokes, is joyous as never before. Even when radiant with happiness, he was always joyful. Just before going he said to me, —
“Dost know what I will say? Come with me.”
“I will not; I have not the least intention.”
The cold tone of the answer struck Selim somewhat.
“Thou hast become strange,” said he. “I do not know thee for some time — but—”
“Finish.”
“But everything is forgiven those who are in love.”
“Unless those who cross our path,” answered I, with the voice of the stone Comandore.
Selim struck me with a glance as sharp as lightning, and went to the bottom of my soul.
“What dost thou say?”
“I say that I will not go, and, secondly, that one does not forgive everything!”
Had it not been that all were present at this conversation, Selim certainly would have made the whole question clear at once. But I did not wish to make it clear till I had more positive proof. I saw, however, that my last words had disquieted Selim and alarmed Hania. He loitered yet awhile, putting off his departure under trifling pretexts, and then, choosing the moment, said to me in a low voice, —
“Take a horse and conduct me. I wish to speak to thee.”
“Another time,” answered I, aloud. “To-day I feel somewhat weak.”
CHAPTER IX.
SELIM went really to his uncle and stayed there, not a week, but ten days. For us those days passed in gloom. Hania seemed to avoid me and look on me with concealed fear. I had no intention indeed to speak with her sincerely about anything, for pride tied the words on my lips; and she, I know not why, so arranged affairs that we were never alone for an instant. At last she grew sad, looked wretched and thin. Noting this sadness, I trembled and thought, “Indeed, this is not the passing caprice of a girl; it is a genuine, deep feeling, unfortunately.”
I was irritable, gloomy, and sad. In vain did my father, the priest, and Pani d’Yves inquire what the matter was. Was I sick? I answered in the negative; their solicitude simply annoyed me. I passed whole days alone, on horseback; sometimes I was in the woods, sometimes among the reeds in a boat. I lived like a savage. Once I spent a whole night in a forest, with a gun and a dog, before a fire which I had kindled purposely. Sometimes I spent half a day with our shepherd, who was a doctor, and grown wild through continual solitude; he was eternally collecting herbs and testing their properties. This man initiated me into a fantastic world of spells and superstitions.
But would any one believe it, there were moments when I grieved for Selim and my “circles of suffering” as I called them.
Once the idea came to me of visiting Mirza Davidovich in Horeli. The old man was captivated by this, that I visited him for his own sake, and received me with open arms. But I had come with another intent. I wished to look at those eyes in the portrait of Sobieski’s terrible colonel of light horse. And when I saw those evil eyes turning everywhere after a man, I remembered my own ancestors, whose counterfeits hung at home in the drawing-room; they were equally stern and iron-like.
My mind, under the influence of such impressions, came to a condition of wonderful exaltation. Loneliness, the silence of night, life with nature, — all these should have acted on me with soothing effect; but within me I carried, as it were, a poisoned arrow. At times I gave myself up to dreams, which made that condition still worse. More than once, while lying in some remote corner of a pine wood, or in a boat among reeds, I imagined that I was in Hania’s apartment at her feet; that I was kissing her hands, her feet, her dress; that I was calling her by the most fondling names, and she, placing her hands on my heated forehead, was saying: “Thou hast suffered enough; let us forget everything! It was a bitter dream. I love thee, Henryk.” But then came the awakening and the dull reality, — that future of mine, gloomy as a day of clouds, always without her, to the end of life without her; this future seemed to me all the more terrible. I grew misanthropic, avoided people, even my father, the priest, and Pani d’Yves. Kazio, with his talkativeness of a boy, his curiosity, his eternal laughter and endless tricks, disgusted me to the utmost.
And still those honest people tried to distract me, and suffered in secret over my condition, not knowing how to explain it. Hania, whether she divined something or not, — for she had strong reason to suppose that I was in love with Lola Ustrytski, — did what she could to console me. But I was so harsh even toward her that she could not free herself of a certain dread when talking to me. My father himself, usually severe and unsparing, strove to distract me, turn my attention to something, and meanwhile to test me. More than once, he began conversations which, as he judged, should be of interest. One day after dinner we went out in front of the mansion.
“Does not a certain thing strike thee at times?” asked he, looking at me inquiringly; “I wanted to ask thee about it this good while, — does it not strike thee that Selim is circling a little too much about Hania?”
Judging the case simply, I should have grown confused and let myself be caught, as they say, in the very act. But I was in such a state of mind that I did not betray by one quiver the impression which my father’s words made on me, and replied calmly, —
“No; I know that he is not.”
It wounded me that my father took part in those questions. I considered that, since the affair touched me alone, I alone should decide it.
“Wilt thou guarantee that?” asked my father.
“I will. Selim is in love with a schoolgirl in Warsaw.”
“I say this, for thou art Hania’s guardian, and ’tis thy duty to watch over her.”
I knew that my honest father said this to rouse my ambition, occupy me with something, and snatch my thoughts from that gloomy circle in which I seemed to be turning; but I answered, as if in perverseness, indifferently and gloomily, —
“What sort of guardian am I? Thou wert not here, so old Mikolai left her to me, but I am not the real guardian.”
My father frowned; seeing, however, that in this way he could not bring me to terms, he chose another. He smiled under his gray mustache, half closed one eye, in the fashion of a soldier, took me gently by the ear, and asked, as if joking, —
“But has Hania, perhaps, turned thine own head? Speak, my boy.”
“Hania? Not in the least. That would amuse thee.”
I lied as if possessed; but it passed off more smoothly than I had expected.
“Then has not Lola Ustrytski? Hei?”
“Lola Ustrytski, a coquette!”
My father became impatient.
“Then what the devil is it? If thou art not in love, go as a soldier to the first muster.”
“Do I know what the matter is? Nothing is the matter with me.”
But I was tormented and made more impatient by questions which in their anxiety neither my father nor the priest spared, nor even Pani d’Yves. At last relations with them became disagreeable. I was carried away by everything and enraged at every trifle. Father Ludvik saw in this certain traits of a despotic character coming to the surface with age, and looking at my father significantly he laughed and said, —
“Topknot chickens by blood!”
But even he lost patience sometimes. Between my father and me there were frequently very disagreeable passages. Once at dinner during a dispute about nobility and democracy I so forgot myself as to declare that I should prefer a hundred times not to be born a noble. My father ordered me to leave the room. The women fell to crying because of this, and the whole house was embittered for two days.
As to me, I was neither an aristocrat nor a democrat; I was simply in love and unhappy. There was no place in me whatever for principles, theories, or social convictions; and if I fought in the name of some against others, I did so only through vexation, to annoy it is unknown whom or why, just as I began religious disputes with Father Ludvik to annoy him. These disputes ended with slamming of doors. In short, I poisoned not the
existence of myself only, but that of the whole house; and when after ten days Selim returned, a stone, as it were, fell from every one’s breast. When he came I was not at home, for I was racing about through the neighborhood on horseback. I returned only toward evening and went straight to the farm buildings, where a stable-boy said, while taking my horse, —
“The Panich has come from Horeli.”
At that moment Kazio came up and repeated the same news.
“I know that already,” answered I, harshly. “Where is Selim now?”
“In the garden with Hania, I think. I will go and look for him.”
We both went to the garden, but Kazio ran ahead. I, not hurrying purposely with the greeting, had not gone fifty steps when, at the bend of the alley, I saw Kazio hastening back.
Kazio, who was a great rogue and a joker, began from afar to make gestures and grimaces like a monkey. His face was red; he held his finger to his mouth and laughed, stifling laughter at the same time. When he came up to me he called in a low voice, —
“Henryk! He! he! he! Tsss!”
“What art thou doing?” asked I, in ill-humor.
“Tss! as I love mamma! he! he! Selim is kneeling before Hania in the hop arbor. As I love mamma!”
I caught him immediately by the arms and drove my fingers into them.
“Be silent! Stay here! Not a word to anybody, dost understand? Stay here! I will go myself; but be silent, not a word before any one, if thy life is dear to thee.”
Kazio, who from the beginning had considered the whole affair on the humorous side, seeing the corpse-like pallor that covered my face, was evidently frightened, and stood on the spot with open mouth; but I ran on, as if mad, toward the arbor.
Crawling forward quickly and silently as a serpent, between the barberry bushes which surrounded the arbor, I worked myself up to the very wall; the wall was made of small short bits of sticks, so I could hear and see everything. The repulsive rôle of a listener did not seem repulsive at all to me. I pushed aside the leaves very delicately and thrust forward my ear.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 687