“Grandfather,” said Maria, bending over him in such fashion that the old man could see her lips, and speaking not in a loud voice, but slowly and precisely, “this is Pan Svirski, a fellow-countryman and an artist.”
The old man turned his blue eyes toward the visitor, and looked at him persistently, meanwhile blinking as if summoning his mind.
“A fellow-countryman?” repeated he. “Yes! — a fellow-countryman.”
Then he smiled, looked at his daughter, his granddaughter, and again at Svirski; he sought words for a time, and asked at last, with an aged, trembling voice, —
“And what will there be in spring?”
Evidently there remained to him some single thought, which had outlived all the others, but which he had not been able to express. So, after a while, he leaned his trembling head against the back of the chair, and began to look at the window, smiling, however, at that thought, and repeating, —
“Yes, yes! It will be!”
“Grandfather always acts that way,” said Maria.
Svirski looked at him for a time with emotion; then Pani Cervi began to speak of her father and her husband. Both had taken part in the wars against Austria for Italian independence. They had lived some time in Florence; and only after the occupation of Rome did they return to Nice, where Cervi’s family originated. There Orysevich gave his daughter to his young comrade in arms. Both men found places in the bank, thanks to relatives in Nice. All succeeded well till Cervi was killed in a railroad accident, a few years before, and Orysevich lost his place through old age. From that time their trouble began, for the only capital which the three persons had to support them was sixty lires, which the Italian government gave the old man. That was enough to keep them from dying, but not enough to give them life. The two women earned a little by sewing or teaching; but during summer, when life died away in Nice, when it was impossible to earn anything, their slender supplies were swallowed up. Two years before the old soldier had lost the use of his legs altogether; he was frequently sick, and had to be cared for; through this their condition grew worse and worse.
Svirski, while listening to this narrative, made note of two things. First, that Pani Cervi did not speak as good Polish as her daughter. Evidently the old man, in the years of his campaigning, could not devote himself to the education of his daughter in the same degree as he had afterward to the education of his granddaughter. But the second thing was more important for Svirski. “This granddaughter,” thought he, “being such a beautiful girl, might, especially in Nice, on that shore where idlers squander millions every year, keep carriages, servants, and have a drawing-room finished in satin. But she wears a threadbare dress, and her only ornament is a faded lily-colored ribbon. There must be some strength which has kept her from evil. For this,” said he to himself, “two things are requisite, — pure nature and honorable traditions; there is no doubt that I have found both.”
And he began to have a pleasant feeling among those people. He noticed also that poverty had not destroyed in the two women traces of good-breeding, a certain elegance which comes from within and seems inborn. Both mother and daughter had received him as a providence; but in their words and manners one could notice more delight at making the acquaintance of an honest man, than at the aid which he brought them. It might be that the three hundred francs which he left with the mother saved the family from many cares and humiliations, but still he felt that mother and daughter were more thankful to him because he had acted in the studio like a man of true and tender heart, who understood the girl’s pain, her modesty, and sacrifice. But to him the greatest pleasure came from noting that in Panna Maria’s timidity, and in her charming glances, there was an anxiety which a young girl might experience before a man to whom she feels obliged with her whole soul, but who at the same time, according to Svirski’s expression, “is not out of the current yet.” He was forty-five years of age, but, in spite of a young heart, he began at moments to doubt himself, so that the lily-colored ribbon and this observation caused him real pleasure. Finally, he talked to them with the same respect and attention as with women of the best society, and, seeing that he entertained them more and more by this means, he felt satisfied. At parting, he pressed the hands of both; and when Panna Maria returned the pressure, with drooping eyelashes, but with all the strength of her warm young hand, he went out a little dazed, and with a head so full of the fair model that the driver of the carriage in which he took a seat had to ask him twice where he wished to go.
On the road he thought that it would not do to put the head of “Panna Maria” on a body naked to the waist, and he began to persuade himself that even for the picture it would be better to cast some light drapery over the bosom of the sleeping maiden.
“When I get back, I will bring in the first model I find, and work the picture over, so that to-morrow the thing will be ready,” said he to himself.
Then it occurred to him that still he would not be able to hire such a model as Panna Cervi permanently and take her with him; at this thought he was sorry.
Meanwhile the carriage stopped at the studio. Svirski paid, and stepped out.
“A despatch for you,” said the concierge.
The artist was roused as if from sleep.
“Ah! Very well, give it here!” And taking the despatch, he opened it impatiently.
But he had scarcely cast his eyes on it, when astonishment and terror were reflected on his face, for the telegram was as follows: —
Kresovich shot himself an hour ago. Come.
Helena.
CHAPTER VII.
PANI Elzen met Svirski with a troubled and excited face; her eyes were dry, but reddened, as if from fever, and full of impatience.
“Have you received no letter?” inquired she, hurriedly.
“No. I have received nothing but your telegram. What a misfortune!”
“I thought that perhaps he had written to you.”
“No. When did it happen?”
“This morning a shot was heard in his chamber. A servant ran in and found him lifeless.”
“Was it here in the hotel?”
“No. Fortunately he moved to Condamine yesterday.”
“What was the cause?”
“How am I to know?” answered she, impatiently.
“So far as I have heard he was not given to play.”
“No. They found money on his person.”
“You relieved him of his duties yesterday?”
“Yes; but at his own request.”
“Did he take the dismissal to heart?”
“I cannot tell,” answered she, feverishly. “If he had wished, he might have gone sooner. But he was a madman, and this explains everything. Why did he not go sooner?”
Svirski looked at her very attentively.
“Calm yourself,” said he.
But she, mistaken as to the meaning of his words, answered, —
“There is so much that for me is disagreeable in this, and there may be so much trouble. Who knows but I shall have to give some explanation, some evidence — can I tell what? Oh, a fatal history! — besides there will be people’s gossip. First, Vyadrovski’s — But I wanted to beg you to tell among acquaintances, that that unfortunate lost at play, that he lost even some of my money, and that that was the cause of his act. Should it come to testifying before a court, it would be better not to say this, for it might be proved untrue; but before people, it is necessary to talk so. If he had gone even to Mentone, or to Nice! Besides, God only knows whether he has not written something before his death purposely to take revenge on me! Only let a letter of that sort reach the papers after his death! From such persons everything may be expected. As it was, I wished to leave here; but now I must—”
Svirski looked more and more attentively at her angry face, at her compressed lips, and said at last, —
“An unheard of thing!”
“Really unheard of! But would it not increase gossip were we to go from here to-morrow?”
>
“I do not think it would,” said Svirski.
Then he inquired about the hotel in which Kresovich had shot himself, and declared that he would go there, get information from the servants, and occupy himself with the dead man.
She tried to stop him with uncommon stubborness; till at last he said, —
“Madame, he is not a dog, but a man; and it is necessary in every case to bury him.”
“Somebody will bury him anyhow,” answered she.
But Svirski took leave of her and went out. On the steps of the hotel he drew his hand across his forehead, then covered his head with his hat and said, —
“An unheard of thing!”
He knew from experience to what degree human selfishness may go; he knew also that women in selfishness, as well as in devotion, surpass the common measure of men; he remembered that during life he had met typical persons in whom, under an external crust of polish, was hidden an animal selfishness in which all moral sense ended exactly where personal interest began; still, Pani Elzen had been able to astonish him.
“Yes,” said he to himself, “that unfortunate was the tutor of her children; he lived under the same roof with her; and he was in love with her. And she? Not even one word of pity, of sympathy, of interest — Nothing and nothing! She is angry at him for causing her trouble, for not having gone farther away, for having spoiled her season, for exposing her to the possibility of appearing in court and of being subjected to the gossip of people; but the question of what took place with that man has not entered her head; or why he killed himself, and if it were not for her sake. And in her vexation she forgot even this, that she was betraying herself before me; and if not for her heart’s sake, for her reason’s sake, she ought to have appeared before me differently. But what spiritual barbarism! Appearances, appearances, and under that French bodice and accent, absence of soul and a primitive African nature, — a genuine daughter of Ham. Civilization stuck onto the skin, like powder! And this same woman asks me to report around that he played away her money. Tfu! May a thunderbolt split her!”
With such thoughts and imprecations he reached Condamine,
where he found easily the little hotel in which the
event had taken place. There was a doctor in Kresovich’s room, also an official of the tribunal, who rejoiced at the artist’s arrival, hoping that he would be able to give some items concerning the dead man.
“The suicide,” said the official, “left a letter directing to bury him in a common ditch so as to send the money on his person to Zürich, to a given address. Moreover, he has burned all papers, as is shown by traces in the chimney.”
Svirski looked at Kresovich, who was lying on the bed with open, terrified eyes, and with lips pursed together, as if to whistle.
“The dead man considered himself an incurable,” said the artist; “he mentioned that himself to me, and took his life very likely for that reason. He never entered the Casino.”
Then he told all that he knew concerning Kresovich, and afterward left the money needed for a separate grave, and went out.
Along the road he recalled what Kresovich had said to him in Nice about microbes, as well as his answer to Vyadrovski, that he would enroll himself in the party of the “silent;” and he reached the conviction that the young student had really occupied himself for a long time with the project of taking his own life, and that the main cause of his act was the conviction that he was condemned to death in every case.
But he understood that there might be collateral causes, and among them his unhappy love for Pani Elzen, and the parting with her. These thoughts filled him with sadness. The corpse of Kresovich, with lips fixed as if for whistling, and with the terror before death in his eyes, did not leave the artist’s mind. But he thought that no one would sink into that terrible night without dread, and that all life, in view of the inevitableness of death, is one immense, tragic absurdity; and he returned to Pani Elzen in great depression of spirit.
She drew a deep breath of relief when she learned that Kresovich had left no papers. She declared that she would send as much money as might be needed for his funeral; and only then did she speak of him with a certain regret. She strove in vain, however, to detain Svirski for a couple of hours. He answered that he was not himself that day, and must return home.
“Then we shall meet in the evening,” said she, giving him her hand at parting. “I intended even to drop in at Nice and go with you.”
“Where?” asked Svirski, with astonishment.
“Have you forgotten? To the ‘Formidable.’”
“Ah! Are you going to that ball?”
“If you knew how weighed down I am, especially after such a sad event, you would weep over me. I am sorry, too, for that poor fellow; but it is necessary — it is necessary even for this reason, that people should not make suppositions.”
“Is it? Till we meet again!” said Svirski.
And a moment later, while sitting in the train, he said to himself, —
“If I go with you to the ‘Formidable,’ or any other place, I am a dead crab!”
CHAPTER VIII.
BUT next morning, he received Pani Cervi and Panna Maria with a gladder heart. At sight of the fair, fresh face of the girl even delight seized him.
Everything had been prepared in the studio; the easel was in its place; the sofa for the model pushed forward and covered properly. Pani Lageat had received the strictest command not to admit any one, not even “Queen Victoria herself,” should she come. Svirski now opened and now closed the curtains which hid the window of the skylight; but while drawing the cords he looked unceasingly at his charming model.
Meanwhile the ladies removed their hats, and Panna Maria inquired, —
“What must I do now?”
“First of all, it is necessary to let down your hair,” said Svirski.
He approached her, and she raised both hands to her head. It was clear that this confused her somewhat, and seemed strange, but also nice. Svirski gazed at her confused face, at her drooping eyelashes, at her form bent backward, at her exquisite outline of hips, and said to himself that, in that great dust heap of Nice, he had discovered a genuine double pearl.
The hair fell, after a moment, on her shoulders. Panna Maria shook her head, wishing to spread her hair, which then covered her completely.
“Corpo Dio!” exclaimed Svirski.
Then came the turn for a more difficult task, — placing the model.
Svirski saw plainly that her heart was beating with more life in the maiden, that her breast was moving more quickly, that her cheeks were flushed, that she had to conquer herself and overcome an instinctive resistance, which she herself could not define, and at the same time she was yielding with a certain alarm which resembled an unknown delight.
“No! this is no common model,” said Svirski to himself; “this is something else; and I am not looking on her merely as an artist.” In fact, he also felt troubled, and his fingers trembled a little while he was placing her head on the pillow; but, wishing to save her and himself from embarrassment, he spoke to her jestingly, feigning temper.
“Lie quietly, in that way! Besides, we must do something for art. Oh, the position is perfect now! In this way the profile comes out beautifully on the red background. If you could see it! But that cannot be. You must not laugh! You must sleep. Now I will paint.”
And he began to paint; but while painting he chatted, as his custom was, told stories, and asked Pani Cervi of past times. He learned from her that “Maria” had held a good position the year before as reader for a Polish countess, the daughter of a great manufacturer of Lodz, Atrament by name; but the position lasted only till the countess learned that Maria’s father and grandfather had served in the Italian army. This was a great disappointment, for the dream of mother and daughter had been that Maria should hold such a place with some lady who passed every winter in Nice; for in that case they would have no need to separate.
The artist was roused i
n Svirski meanwhile. He wrinkled his brows, concentrated his mind, looked across the handle of the brush, and painted persistently. From time to time he laid down the pallet, approached the model, and, taking her lightly by the temples, corrected the position of her head. At such movements he bent toward her more nearly perhaps than was required by the interest of art; and, when the warmth from her youthful body struck him, when he looked at her long eyelashes and her lips slightly parted, a quiver went through his bones, his fingers began to tremble nervously, and in spirit he called to himself, —
“Hold up, old man! What the deuce is this? hold up!”
She simply pleased him with his whole soul. Her confusion, her blushes, her timid glances, which still were not devoid of maiden coquettishness, made him happy beyond expression. All this proved to Svirski that she did not look on him as too old. He felt that he pleased her also. The grandfather in his time must have told her wonderful things about his countrymen; he had roused her imagination, perhaps; and now at last one of them had come in her way — not some common man, but one honorable and famous, who, besides, had appeared as in a fairy tale, at the moment of direst need, with assistance and an honest heart. How could she help feeling sympathy for him and looking at him with interest and gratitude?
All this caused the time to pass for Svirski till midday in such a manner that he did not even notice it. But at midday Panna Maria was the first to declare that she must return, for her grandfather was alone, and it was time to think of lunch for him. Svirski then begged the ladies to come in the afternoon. If they could not leave the old man alone, perhaps they had an acquaintance who would consent to stay with him for two hours. Maybe the gatekeeper, or her husband, or some one else of the family would do so? It was a question of the picture. Two sittings a day would be an excellent thing! After that there might be some new work; meanwhile, two sittings a day would be useful for both sides. If there should be expense in finding some one to care for the old man, he, Svirski, would consider it a favor if he were permitted to bear it, for first of all he was anxious about the picture.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 716