Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  In this human Gehenna we find our old acquaintances, Vavron Toporek and Marysia, his daughter. The “inheritance” which they had hoped for was a dream, and like a dream had it vanished; but reality presents itself to us now in the form of a little room sunk in the earth, having one window with broken panes. On the walls of the room is foul, black mould with streaks of dampness; at the wall stands a rusty little iron stove with holes in it, and a three-legged table; in one corner a small bundle of barley straw takes the place of a bed.

  This is all. Old Vavron, kneeling before the stove, is searching in the cold ashes to find a potato somewhere, and to that search he returns now in vain — the second day; Marysia is sitting on the straw clasping her knees with her hands, and looking at the floor with fixed stare. The girl is ill and emaciated. She is the same Marysia, as it were: but her cheeks, once blooming, are deeply sunken; her complexion has grown pallid and sickly, her whole face as if smaller than before; her eyes are larger and staring. On her face the effects of foul air, gnawing grief and vile food are evident. They had lived on potatoes only; but for two days potatoes are lacking. Now they know not what to do or how to exist any longer. It is now the third month that they have lived on this street and inhabited this den; their money is gone. Old Vavron tried to find work; but no one understood even what he wanted; he went to the wharf to carry packages and load coal into ships; but he had no wheelbarrow, and, moreover, he got a black eye right away; he wanted to find work with an axe in building piers, men gave him a black eye the second time. Besides, what sort of a laborer is he who does not understand what people say to him? Wherever he thrust in his hand, to whatever he wished to betake himself, whithersoever he went, people laughed him out, threw him out, pushed him out, beat him; consequently he found nothing; he was neither able to earn money or beg it from any source. His hair whitened from gnawing grief; hope was exhausted, and hunger began.

  In his own country, among his own people, were he to lose everything, were disease to harass him, were his children to drive him from his cottage, he would need simply to take a staff in his hand and stand under a cross at the roadside, or at the door of some church, and sing: “O God the merciful, hear Thou my cry!” A rich man, passing, would give him ten coppers; a lady would send from her carriage a little girl with money in her rosy hand, and with great eyes fixed on the grandfather (the beggar); a peasant would give a loaf of bread; a peasant woman, a bit of bacon, — and he might live, even as a bird which neither ploughs nor sows. Besides, whenever he stood at a cross, its arms would be over his head, above that the heavens, and round about fields. In that quiet of the country the Lord God would hear his complaint. There, in that city, something was roaring as terribly as in an enormous machine; each one, rushing straightforward, looked ahead so directly that no man saw another’s misfortune. Dizziness seized the brain; a man’s hands fell; his eyes could not take in all that thrust itself on them, nor could one thought catch another. All was so wonderful, foreign, repelling, and scattering that the man who could not turn in that whirl was shot out of the circle and broken, like an earthen pot.

  “Ei! what a difference! There in quiet Lipintse, Vavron was a householder and a counsellor; he had land, the respect of people, a sure spoonful of daily food; on Sunday he went out before the altar with a candle; but here he was the last of all, he was like a dog which has wandered into a strange yard, timid, trembling, curled up, and famished.

  In the early days of his misfortune memory said frequently, “It was better in Lipintse.” His conscience cried to him, “Vavron, why hast thou deserted Lipintse?” Why? — because God had deserted him. The man would bear his cross, would suffer, if to that way of the cross there was an end in any place; but he knew well that every day would bring a still harder trial, and every morning the sun would shine upon still greater misery for him and Marysia. What then? Was he to twist a rope, say an Our Father, and hang himself? The man would not wink an eye in face of death; but what would happen to his daughter? When he thought of all this, he felt that not only had God deserted him, but that his mind was deserting him. There was no light in that darkness which he saw before him, and he could not even name the greatest pain that he felt.

  The yearning for Lipintse was that greatest pain. It tortured him night and day, and tortured him the more terribly because he knew not what he needed, or whither the peasant soul in him was tearing, or why that soul was howling from torture; but he needed the pine wood, the fields, and the cottages thatched with straw, and lords and peasants, and priests, and all that over which a part of his native sky was hanging, and to which the heart becomes so attached that it cannot tear itself away, and if it is torn away it bleeds. The man felt that something was crushing him into the earth. At moments he would have been glad to seize his hair and smash his head against the wall, or throw himself on the ground, or howl like a dog on a chain, or call as if in frenzy — whom? — he knew not himself. Now he is just bending under this unknown burden, just falling, and here the strange city roars and roars. He groans and calls Jesus; but there is no crucifix there; no man answers; the city roars and roars; and on the straw sits his daughter with eyes staring at the floor, — famishing and suffering in silence. A wonderful thing! — he and the girl were always together, but often they did not speak one word to each other for days. They lived as if greatly offended. It was evil and oppressive for them to live in that way, but of what could they speak? It is better not to touch festering sores. What could they talk about except this, — that there was no money in the pocket, no potatoes in the stove, no counsel in the head.

  Assistance they got from no one. Very many Poles inhabit New York, but none who are prosperous live near Chatham Square.

  On the second week after the arrival they made the acquaintance, it is true, of two Polish families, — one from Silesia, the other from near Poznan itself; but those were dying of hunger a long time. The Silesians had lost two children already; the third child was sick, still for two weeks it slept under an arch of a bridge with its parents, and all lived only on what they found on the streets. Later they were taken to a hospital, and it was unknown what had happened them. Equal evil came to the second family, and even greater, for the father drank. Marysia saved the woman while she could; but now she herself needed rescue.

  She and her father might have betaken themselves to the Polish church at Hoboken. The priest would at least have informed others concerning them; but did they know that there was any Polish church, or Polish priest; or could they speak with any one, or in quire of any one? So every cent expended was for them, as it were, a step toward the abyss of misery.

  They were sitting at that moment, he at the little stove, she on the straw. One hour and a second hour passed.

  In the room it had become darker and darker; for, though it was midday, mist had risen from the water, as is usual in spring-time, a dense, penetrating mist. Though it was warm out of doors, both were trembling from cold in that room; at last Vavron lost hope of finding anything in the ashes. —

  “Marysia,” said he, “I cannot endure this any longer, and neither canst thou; I will go to the water to find driftwood; we will heat up the stove even, and I may find something to eat.”

  She made no answer, so he went. He had learned already to go to the river and fish out bits of boards from boxes and crates which the water brought to shore. So do all who have no means to buy coal. He was cuffed frequently while doing this, but frequently not; sometimes he happened to find a thing to eat, — certain remnants of spoiled vegetables thrown out of ships; and at that occupation, when he went about in the mist and sought what he had not lost, he forgot at moments his misfortune, and the grief which hunted him more than all.

  He came at last to the water; and because it was “lunch” time there circled about the shore only a few little boys, who began, it is true, to cry at the man, throw black mud and mussels at him; but these did not hurt. Small boards enough were dancing on the water, one wave brought them in, another t
ook them out to deep places. Soon he had captured enough of them.

  Bunches of green stuff of some sort were floating on the water; perhaps there was something in these fit to eat; but, being light, they did not come to shore, hence he could not get them. The boys threw out lines and captured them in that way; he, having no line, merely looked on greedily and waited till the boys went away, then he searched the remnants and ate what seemed to him fit to be eaten. He did not remember that Marysia had eaten nothing.

  But fate was to smile on him. On the way home he met a large wagon with potatoes which had stuck fast in a rut while going to the wharf. Vavron seized the spokes straightway and pushed the wheel, together with the teamster. The work was so hard that it made his back ache; but at last the horses gave a sudden pull, the wagon came out, and because it was loosely laden a good number of potatoes fell to the mud from it. The teamster did not even think of collecting them; he thanked Vavron for his assistance, cried “Get up!” to the horses, and drove on.

  Vavron rushed immediately for the potatoes, gathered them greedily with trembling hands, hid them in his breast, and straightway a better feeling entered his heart. In hunger a morsel of bread found seems a fortune discovered; hence the man, while returning home, muttered, —

  “Well, thanks be to God, the Highest, that He looked down on our misfortune. There is wood, the girl will make a fire; there are potatoes enough for two meals. The Lord God is merciful! There will be more cheer in the room right away. The girl has not eaten for a day and a half; she will be delighted. The Lord God is merciful!”

  Thus talking to himself, he carried the wood in one hand, with the other he felt every moment to be sure that the potatoes were not falling from his bosom. He bore a great treasure; hence he raised his eyes to heaven and muttered, —

  “I thought to myself: I will steal! and here, without stealing, they fell from the wagon. We have not eaten, but we shall eat. The Lord God is merciful! Marysia will rise from the straw right away when she knows that I have potatoes.”

  Meanwhile Marysia had not left the straw from the time that her father had gone out. Formerly when Vavron had brought wood in the morning, she would heat the stove, bring water, eat what there was, and then gaze for whole hours at the fire. She, too, had tried to find work. They had even hired her in a boarding-house to wash dishes and sweep; but since they could not talk to her, and because she did her work badly, not understanding her employers, they sent her away in two days. After that she looked for nothing and found nothing. She sat whole days in the house, afraid to go out in the street, for drunken sailors would attack her there. Through this idleness she was still more unhappy. Homesickness devoured her as rust eats out iron. She was even more unhappy than Vavron, for besides hunger, and all those sufferings which she endured, besides the conviction that there was no help, no salvation, no tomorrow, to the terrible yearning for Lipintse was added the thought of Yasko, the groom. He had promised her, it is true, and said, “Whithersoever thou turnest, will I turn;” but she went away to be an heiress and a lady, and now how all had changed, —

  He was a young man, working at a great house; he had his inherited share in the village land: and she had become as poor, and as hungry, as a mouse in the church of Lipintse. Would he come, and even should he come, would he take her to his bosom, would he say to her, Poor girl, beloved of my heart! or would he say, Go off, beggar’s daughter? What is her dower now? — rags. The dogs in Lipintse would bark at her; but still something so draws her there that in truth the soul would he glad to fly out of her and speed away as a swift swallow over the water, and even to die, if only there. There he is, Yasko, mindful or not, but greatly beloved; only near him could she have peace, and joy, and gladness, of all people, only with him in the world.

  When there was a fire in the stove, and hunger did not torment as to-day, the flames, hissing, shooting up sparks, jumping and glittering, spoke to her of Lipintse, and reminded her how she sat long ago with other girls spinning. Yasko, looking in from another room, cried, “Marysia, let us go to the priest, for thou art dear to me!” And she answered, “Be silent, you rogue!” And it was so pleasant for her, so joyous in her soul, as even at that time when he invited her from a corner to a dance in the middle of the room, he drew her by force, and she, covering her eyes with her arm, whispered, “But go away, I am ashamed!” When the flames reminded her of this, sometimes tears covered her face; but now, just as there was no fire in the stove, there were no tears in her eyes, for she had cried out all her tears. She felt great exhaustion and weariness; she lacked strength even to meditate; but still she endured patiently, merely looking forward with great eyes, like a bird which some one is torturing.

  She was looking in that manner this time, also sitting on the straw. Meanwhile some one moved the door of the room. Marysia, with the thought that that was her father, did not move her head till the voice of a strange man called out to her, —

  “Look here!”

  This was the owner of the tumble-down house in which they were living, — an old mulatto, gloomy-faced, dirty, tattered, with cheeks puffed out with tobacco.

  When she saw him, the girl was terribly frightened. They owed a dollar for the coming week, and had not one cent. All that she might effect was through humility, so, approaching him, she took hold of his feet, and kissed his hand.

  “I came for the dollar,” said he.

  She understood the word dollar, and, shaking her head, spoke in broken English, looked imploringly, and tried to explain that they had spent everything, that that was the second day since they had eaten, that they were hungry, and that he ought to take pity on them.

  “God will repay thee, great, mighty lord,” added she, in Polish, not knowing what to say or what to do.

  The great, mighty lord did not understand, it is true, that he was great, mighty, but he divined that he would not get the dollar. He divined so clearly indeed that, seizing with one hand the bundles containing their effects, he took the girl with the other by the arm, pushed her lightly upstairs, conducted her to the street, and, throwing the things at her feet, opened the door of an adjacent bar-room and called, —

  “Hei! there is a room for you!”

  “All right!” answered some voice from within. “I will come in the evening.”

  The mulatto vanished then in the dark entrance, and the girl remained alone on the sidewalk. She put her bundles in a niche of the house, so that they might not roll in the mud, and, standing near them, waited, humble as ever, in silence.

  The drunken men who passed by did not touch her this time. It was dark in the room, but outside there was much light, and in that light the girl’s face seemed as emaciated as after a great illness. Only her bright, flaxen hair remained as before; her lips had grown blue; her eyes were sunken and black underneath; the bones stood forth in her cheeks. She was like a flower which is withering, or a girl who must die.

  Passers-by looked at her with a certain consideration. An old negro woman asked her some question, but, receiving no answer, passed on offended.

  Meanwhile Vavron hastened homeward with that pleasant feeling which in very poor people is roused by an evident proof of God’s kindness. He had potatoes now; he was thinking how he and Marysia would eat them; how to-morrow again he would go around wagons; but of the day after to-morrow he was not thinking at that moment, for he was very hungry. When from a distance he saw the girl standing on the pavement in front of the house, he wondered greatly, and hastened still more.

  “But why art thou standing here?”

  “The house-owner has driven us out, father.”

  “Has he driven us out?”

  The wood fell from Vavron’s hand. That was too much indeed! To drive them out at that moment when there was wood and potatoes! What could they do now; where could they cook the potatoes; with what could they nourish themselves; whither could they go? After the wood, Vavron hurled his cap into the mud. “O Jesus, O Jesus!” he turned around; he opened his mouth;
he looked wildly at the girl and repeated once more, —

  “Did he drive us out?”

  Then he wished as it were to go somewhere, but turned at once, and his voice became deep, hoarse, and threatening, when he said again, —

  “Why didst thou not beg him, thou blockhead?”

  She sighed.

  “I begged him.”

  “Didst thou take him by the knees?”

  “I did.”

  Again Vavron turned on the spot, like a worm which some one has pierced. It became entirely dark in his eyes.

  “Would to God thou wert dead!” cried he.

  The girl looked at him with pain.

  “Tatulo! how am I to blame?”

  “Wait here, stir not. I will go and beg him to let us even cook the potatoes.”

  He went. After a while an uproar was heard in the entrance, a trampling of feet, loud voices, and then out flew Vavron to the street, pushed evidently by a strong hand.

  He stood a moment, then said to the girl, mildly, —

  “Come.”

  She bent down over the bundles to take them; they were very heavy for her exhausted strength; but he did not help her, as if he had forgotten, as if he did not see that the girl was barely able to carry them.

  Two such wretched figures, the old man and the girl, would have attracted the attention of passers-by if those passers-by had been less accustomed to spectacles of misery. Whither could they go? Into what other darkness, into what other misfortune, into what other torture?

  The girl’s breath came with more and more difficulty; she tottered once, and a second time. At last she said, with entreaty in her voice, —