Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Here the old man waved his hand, and, settling himself more deeply into the chair, fell, as it were, into meditation; but his head shook more than usual, and his eyes stared more.

  The inspector was crying from laughter.

  “Father Benefactor, who was fighting with whom; where was it, and when?”

  The canon put his hand to his ear and said, —

  “Hei?”

  “I am just dying from laughter,” remarked the inspector to Pani Skorabevski.

  “Perhaps a cigar?”

  “Perhaps coffee?”

  “No, I cannot, from laughter.”

  The Skorabevskis laughed through politeness toward the inspector, though they had to listen to that narrative every Sunday. The joyousness was general; when it was interrupted by a low, timid voice from outside the porch, which said, —

  “May He be praised!”

  Pan Skorabevski rose at once, passed along the porch, and inquired, —

  “But who is there?”

  “It is I, Repa’s wife?”

  “Why?”

  The woman bent as low as she could with the child, and seized his feet.

  “I came for salvation, serene heir, and for mercy.”

  “My dear woman give me peace, even on a Sunday!” interrupted Pan Skorabevski with as good faith as if the woman had been attacking him every week day. “You see, besides, that I have guests. So I shall not leave them for you.”

  “I will wait.”

  “Well, wait, then. Besides, I shall not be broken in two.”

  Then Pan Skorabevski pushed his bulk back into the porch; the woman withdrew to the garden fence, and stood there in humility. But she had to wait long enough. The lord and lady amused themselves with conversation; and to her ears flew from time to time glad laughter, which gripped her heart wonderfully, for she was not inclined to laughter, poor thing. Later Panna Yadviga and Pan Victor came home; and all entered the house. The sun inclined gradually to its setting. To the porch came out the lackey Yasek, whom Pan Skorabevski always called “one another,” and began to lay the table for tea. He changed the cloth, set glasses on the table, and put spoons into them with a rattle. Marysia waited and waited. It came to her head to go back to her cottage and return later; but she was afraid that it might be too late then; so she sat down on the grass near the fence and gave her breast to the child. The child suckled and went to sleep, but with an unhealthy sleep, for since morning he was weak, somehow. She too felt that heat and cold ran through her from foot to head.

  At times yawning seized her; but she did not mind that, she just waited patiently. By degrees it grew dark, and the moon rose on the dome of the sky. The table was set for tea; lamps were burning on the porch; but the company did not come out, for the young lady was playing on the piano.

  Repa’s wife repeated the “Angel of the Lord,” at the paling; and then she thought how Pan Skorabevski would save her. She did not know well how; she did not understand that he, from his position, was acquainted with the commissioner and with the chief of the district; that if he would only say a word, all would be well, and with God’s help the evil would be turned aside. Meanwhile she thought that if Zolzik or the mayor opposed, he would know where to go for justice. “The young lord has always been kind and good to people,” thought she, “so he will not desert me.” And she was not mistaken, for Pan Skorabevski was really a humane man. She remembered that he had always been kind to Repa; further, that her late mother had nursed Panna Yadviga: so consolation entered her heart. That she had been waiting already a couple of hours seemed so natural that she did not stop to think over it.

  Now the company returned to the porch. Marysia saw through the grapevine leaves that the young lady was pouring tea from a silver tea-pot, and, as her mother used to say, such odoriferous water that thou art sweet the whole day from it. All drank tea, conversed and laughed joyously. Only then did it come to Marysia’s head that in the condition of lords there is always more happiness than in that of simple people; and she herself did not know why the tears flowed again down her face. But those tears soon gave way to another impression. “One another” brought out steaming dishes; and then she remembered that she was hungry, for she had been unable to take dinner into her mouth, and in the morning she had only drunk a little milk.

  “Oh, if they would give me even bones to gnaw!” and she knew they would surely give, not bones alone; but she dared not ask lest she might offend, and intrude before guests; for this Pan Skorabevski might be angry.

  At last supper was over; the inspector went away immediately; half an hour later the two priests took their places in the mansion carriage. Marysia saw Pan Skorabevski seat the canon; then she judged that the moment had come, and she drew near the porch.

  The carriage moved away; Pan Skorabevski cried to the driver, “If thou turn over the carriage on the embankment, I will turn thee over!” Afterward he looked at the sky wishing to see what kind of weather there would be on the morrow, then he noticed the white shift of the woman in the darkness.

  “Who is there?”

  “Repa’s wife.”

  “Ah, that is you! Tell me quickly what is needed, for it is late.”

  She repeated everything again; he listened, puffing his pipe all the time, and then said, —

  “My dear, I would help you willingly if I could; but I have promised myself not to mix up in the affairs of the village.”

  “I know, serene heir,” said Marysia, with a quivering voice; “but I thought that perhaps you, serene heir, would take pity on me—” Her voice broke on a sudden.

  “All this is very good,” answered Pan Skorabevski; “but what can I do? I cannot break my word for you; and to the chief I will not go on your account, for as it is, he says that I annoy him with my own affairs all the time. You have your commune, and if the commune cannot help you, you know the way to the chief of the district as well as I do. What did I wish to say? But go with God, my woman.”

  “The Lord reward,” said Repa’s wife, in a dull voice, seizing the feet of the heir.

  CHAPTER IX.

  REPA on leaving the pig-pen went, not straight to his cottage, but to the inn. It is known that in trouble the peasant takes to drink. From the inn, led by the same thought as his wife, he went to Pan Skorabevski’s and committed folly.

  A man who is not sober knows not what he says. So Repa was stubborn; and when he heard the same thing that his wife had about the principle of non-intervention, he answered rudely; not only did he not understand that lofty diplomatic principle because of the mental dulness innate in peasants, but he answered with that rudeness which is also special to them, and was thrown out of doors.

  When he returned to the cottage, he told his wife himself, “I was at the mansion.”

  “And thou didst receive nothing.”

  He struck the table with his fist, “To set fire to them, the dog faiths!”

  “Be quiet, thou wretch. What did Pan Skorabevski say?”

  “He sent me to the chief of the district. May he be—”

  “That is it; we must go to Oslovitsi.”

  “I will go there,” said Repa. “I will show him that I can do without him.”

  “Thou wilt not go, poor man, thou wilt not go, my dear; but I will go. Thou wouldst drink, become insolent, and only increase the misfortune.”

  Repa did not wish to give way at first; but in the afternoon he went to the inn to drown the worm, next day the same; his wife inquired no more about anything, she left all to the will of God, and on Wednesday took the child and started for Oslovitsi.

  The horse was needed for field work, so she went on foot, and at daylight, for it was fifteen solid miles to Oslovitsi. She thought that perhaps she might meet good people on the road, who would let her sit even on the side of a wagon; but she met no one. About nine in the morning, while sitting wearied at the edge of a forest, she ate a piece of bread and a couple of eggs which she had with her in a basket; then she went on. The sun bega
n to burn; so when she met Hershek, the tenant of Lipa, who was taking geese to the city, she asked him to let her sit in his wagon.

  “With God, my woman,” said Hershek; “but there is so much sand here that the horse is hardly able to draw me alone. Give a zloty and I’ll take you.”

  Then Marysia remembered that she had only one cheski (three copecks) tied up in a handkerchief. She was ready to give that to the Jew and offered it; but he answered, —

  “A cheski? But thou wilt not find a cheski on the ground; a cheski is money, keep it!”

  So saying, he lashed his horse and drove on. It became hotter in the world, and sweat flowed in a stream from the woman; but she walked with all her might, and an hour later she was entering Oslovitsi.

  Whoever knows geography properly, knows that a person entering Oslovitsi from the direction of Barania-Glova must pass a church built before the Reformation. In this church long ago there was a miracle-working image of the Mother of God; before this church, to the present time, a whole street of beggars sit every Sunday, and call for alms in heaven-piercing voices. Since it was a week-day, there was only one beggar at the paling; but he, stretching from beneath his rags a naked foot without toes, held in his hand the cover of a box of shoe-polish, and sang:

  “Holy, heavenly,

  Angelic lady!”

  Seeing some one passing, he stopped singing, and pushing his foot out still more, began to cry, as if some one were flaying him, —

  “Oh, compassionate people! A poor cripple begs charity! May the Lord God, the Merciful, give you every good thing on earth!”

  When Repa’s wife saw him, she untied the handkerchief, took the cheski, and approaching him said, —

  “Have you five groshes?”

  She wanted to give him only one grosh; but when the beggar felt the six groshes in his fingers he began to abuse her, “You grudge a cheski to the Lord God, and the Lord God will grudge you assistance. Go to the paralysis, while I am in good humor.”

  Then the woman said to herself, “Let it be to the glory of God,” and went on. When she came to the market square, she was frightened. It was easy to find Oslovitsi; but to go astray in Oslovitsi was still easier, and indeed that place was no joke. Go to a new village, and thou wilt have to inquire where this or that person lives; but what must it be in a place like Oslovitsi!

  “I shall go astray here, as in a forest,” thought Marysia.

  There was no help for it but to inquire of people. It was easy to inquire about the commissioner; but when she went to his house she learned that he had gone to the capital. As to the chief of the district, they told her that she must look for him at his office. But where was the office? Ei! stupid, stupid woman, it is in Oslovitsi, and nowhere else!

  She looked and looked in Oslovitsi for the office; at last she saw a kind of palace, so big that it was a terror, and before it numberless wagons, carriages, and Jewish carts. It seemed to Marysia that there was some kind of festival. “But where here is the office?” asked she of some one in a frock-coat, seizing him by the leg.

  “Thou art standing in front of it, woman.”

  She plucked up courage, and entered the palace. She looked again. It was full of corridors, on the right a door, on the left a door, farther on doors and doors, and on each letters of some kind. She made the sign of the cross, and, opening silently and timidly the first door, found herself in a great room divided into stalls, like a church. Behind one stall sat a man in a frock-coat with gilt buttons, a pen over his ear; before the stalls stood a great number of all sorts of people. The men were paying and paying, and he of the frock-coat was smoking a cigarette and writing receipts which he gave to the men. Whoever took a receipt went out. Then Marysia thought that it was needful to pay there, and she was sorry for her cheski, so she walked up with great timidity to the barrier.

  But no one even looked at her. She stood there, stood; about an hour passed, some came in, others went out; the clock ticked behind the barrier, and still she stood there. At last the number decreased somehow, and finally there was no one. The official sat at the table and began to write. Then she grew bold to speak, —

  “Jesus Christ be praised!”

  “Who is there?”

  “Serene chief—”

  “This is the money department.”

  “Serene chief!”

  “This is the money department, I tell you.”

  “But where is the chief?”

  The official pointed with his pen to a door.

  “There!”

  She went out again into the corridor. There? but where? There were doors everywhere without number; into which was she to enter? At last she saw, among the various people who were going hither and thither, a peasant standing with a whip in his hand, so she went straight to him.

  “Father.”

  “But what do you want?”

  “Where do you come from?”

  “From Lipa; but why?”

  “Where is the chief here?”

  “Do I know?”

  Then she asked some one with gilt buttons, but not in a frock-coat, and with holes in his elbows. He would not even listen, he merely answered, —

  “I’ve no time!”

  Again the woman went into the first door that she came to; she did not see, poor thing, that there was a notice, “Persons not belonging to the service are forbidden to enter.” She did not belong to the service; the notice she did not see, as is said.

  The moment she entered she saw an empty room, under the window a bench, on the bench some one sitting and dozing. Farther on a door to another room, in which she saw men walking, they were in frock-coats and in uniforms.

  She approached the man who was dozing on the bench; she had some courage in his presence, for he seemed a peasant, and on the feet stretched out in front of him were boots with holes in them. She pushed his arm.

  He woke, looked at her, and then shouted, —

  “It is forbidden!”

  The poor woman took to her legs, and he slammed the door behind her.

  She found herself for the third time in the corridor. She sat down near some door, and, with a patience truly peasant-like, determined to sit there even to the end of time. “And, besides, some one may ask,” thought she. She did not cry; she just rubbed her eyes, for they were itching, and she felt that the whole corridor, with all its doors, was beginning to whirl around her.

  There were people near her, one to the right, another to the left. Doors slam! slam! and the people were talking one to another; she could hear, “Haru! haru!” just as at a fair.

  But at last God had pity on her. Out of the door near where she sat came a stately nobleman whom she had seen in the church at Lipa; he stumbled against her, and asked, —

  “Why are you sitting here, woman?”

  “Waiting for the chief.”

  “Here is the sheriff, not the chief.”

  The nobleman pointed to a door down the corridor, “There, where the green tablet is. But do not go to him, for he is occupied. Wait here; he must pass.”

  And the noble went on; but Marysia looked after him with a glance such as she would give to her guardian angel Still she had to wait long enough. At last the door with the green tablet opened with a clatter; out of it came a military man no longer young, and he walked along the corridor hastening greatly. Oi! you could know at once that he was the chief, for after him flew a number of petitioners, running up now from the right, now from the left, and to Marysia’s ears came the exclamations: “One short word, lord chief!” “Gracious chief!”

  But he did not listen, and went on. It grew dark in the woman’s eyes at sight of him. “Let the will of God be done,” shot through her head; she rushed to the middle of the corridor, and, kneeling with upraised hands, barred the way.

  He saw her, and stopped; the whole procession halted.

  “What is the matter?” inquired he.

  “Most holy chief!” And she could go no further; she was so frightened that t
he voice broke in her throat: her tongue became a stake of wood.

  “What is it?”

  “Oh, oh! according to the list—”

  “What is that? Do they want you in the army? Hei?” asked the chief.

  The petitioners immediately fell to laughing in a chorus, to uphold the good humor of the chief; but he said at once to those courtiers, —

  “I pray you! I pray you be silent!”

  Then he said impatiently to the woman, —

  “More quickly! What is it? — for I have no time.”

  But she had lost her head altogether from the laughter of the audience, and blurted out disconnectedly: “Burak, Repa! Repa! Burak, O!”

  “She must be drunk,” said one of those nearer.

  “She left her tongue in the cottage,” added another.