Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “Father, take the rags; I cannot carry them.”

  He was roused, as if from sleep, —

  “Throw them away, then!”

  ‘But they will be of use.”

  “They will not be of use.”

  Seeing all at once that the girl hesitated, he cried in a rage, —

  “Throw them away, for I am going to kill thee!”

  This time she obeyed in terror, and they went on. The man repeated a number of times yet, —

  “If it is that way, then let it he that way!”

  He was silent, but something uncanny was gazing out of his eyes. Through narrow streets, still muddier, they were approaching the remotest harbor. They went out onto a large pier resting on piles; they passed near a building with an inscription, “Sailors’ Asylum,” and went down close to the very water. Men were building a new dock in that place. The lofty timbers of a pile-driver rose high above the water, and among the plank and beams persons occupied with the work were circling about. Marysia, when she had come to a pile of timber, sat down on it, for she could not go farther. Vavron sat near her in silence. —

  It was four in the afternoon. The whole wharf was seething with life and movement. The mist had fallen away; the calm rays of the sun cast their light and gracious warmth on the two unfortunates. The breath of spring came to land, fresh, full of life, and joyous. Round about there was so much azure and light that the eyes blinked under the excess of them. The surface of the sea blended charmingly with the sky. In those blue expanses nearer the middle of the harbor were masts standing motionless, smoke-stacks, flags waving lightly in the breeze. On the horizon, vessels sailing into the harbor seemed to move upward, or to push themselves out of the water. The tightly raised and swollen sails, looking like clouds, all in sunlight shone with blinding whiteness on the azure of the sea. Some vessels going out to the ocean left a foaming trail behind them. They were going in the direction in which Lipintse lay, hence for them both toward the place of lost happiness, — that is, peace and a better lot. The girl thought how could they have sinned so greatly, what could they have done against the Lord God, that He, the merciful, had turned His face from them in the midst of strange people, and thrown them out on that distant shore? In His hand was the power to return them happiness; and how many ships were sailing away toward that land, and sailing away without taking them. She was wearied. Marysia’s poor mind flew once more toward Lipintse and Yasko, the groom. Was he thinking of her? Did he remember her? She remembered him, for it is only in happiness that people forget; in misfortune, in loneliness, thought winds itself around the beloved one, as hops around a poplar tree. But he? Perhaps he has despised his former loving, and has sent matchmakers to another cottage. Besides, it would be even a shame for him to think of one so wretched, one who has nothing in this world but a garland of rue, and for whom, if any one is to send a matchmaker, it is death alone who will do so.

  As she was sick, hunger did not torment her much, but sleep, which came of suffering and weakness, overcame her; the lids closed over her eyes, and her pallid face dropped toward her breast. At moments she woke and opened her eyes, then she closed them again. She dreamed that while walking along certain chasms and precipices she fell down like Kasia, in the peasant song: “Into the deep Dunayets,” and immediately she heard distant singing clearly, —

  “Yasko on the high mountain saw that fall;

  He let himself down on a silken cord to Marysia;

  But the cord was too short, an ell was still wanting.

  Marysia, dear girl, give thy tress to me.”

  Here she woke suddenly, for it seemed to her that the tress was gone, and that she was falling into the abyss.

  The dream vanished. Not Yasko was sitting near her, but Vavron; and not the “Dunayets” was visible, but the harbor of New York, currents, scaffoldings, masts, and smoke-stacks. Again certain vessels sail out into the open, and from them came the singing. A calm, warm, clear, spring evening was reddening the sky. The surface of the water became like a mirror; every vessel, every pile, was reflected as if another were beneath it, and all was beautiful round about. A certain happiness and great bliss were in the air; it seemed that the whole world was rejoicing. They two alone were unhappy and forgotten. The laborers began to return home; they alone had no home.

  Hunger with iron hand was rending Vavron’s entrails more and more. The man sat gloomy and cloudy; but something, which seemed a terrible determination, began to depict itself on his face. Whoso might look at him would be frightened, for that face had the expression of a beast and a bird, because of hunger; but, at the same time, it was as despairingly calm as the face of a dead man. For a whole hour he had not spoken one word to the girl; but when night had come, when the dock was deserted completely, he said, with a strange voice, —

  “Let us go, Marysia.”

  “Where?” asked she, drowsily.

  “To those platforms above the water. Let us lie down on the planks there, and sleep.”

  They went. In the utter darkness they had to creep along very carefully, so as not to fall into the water.

  The American structure of beams and planks formed numerous windings, and as it were a wooden corridor, at the very end of which was a platform of plank, and beyond it a pile-driver. On this platform, covered with a roof to protect from rain, stood the men who drew the ropes of the pile-driver; but now there was no one there.

  When they reached the very end, Vavron said, —

  “Here we shall sleep.”

  Marysia fell rather than placed herself on the planks, and, though a swarm of mosquitoes attacked them, she fell asleep soundly.

  Suddenly in the dark night Vavron’s voice roused her:

  “Marysia, rise up!”

  There was something in that call of such nature that she woke at once.

  “What is it, tatulo?”

  In the silence and darkness of night the voice of the old peasant was deep and terrible, but calm, —

  “Girl! Thou wilt famish no longer from hunger. Thou wilt not go to strange thresholds for bread; thou wilt not sleep out of doors. People have deserted thee. God has deserted thee; thy fate is ended, — then let even death show thee kindness. The water is deep; thou wilt not suffer.”

  She could not see him in the darkness, though her eyes were widely open from terror.

  “I will drown thee, poor girl, I will drown myself, too,” continued he. “There is no salvation for us, no mercy above us. To-morrow thou wilt have no wish to eat; thou wilt be happier to-morrow than to-day.”

  But she had no wish to die. She was eighteen years of age, and had that attachment to life, that fear of death, which youth gives. The whole soul in her shuddered to its depth at the thought that to-morrow she would be a drowned corpse, that she would go into some darkness, that she would be lying among fish and vile creatures at the slimy bottom of the water. For nothing in the world! Repugnance and terror indescribable seized her at that moment, and her own father, speaking thus in the darkness, seemed to her some kind of evil spirit.

  During this time his hands were resting on her emaciated shoulders, and the voice continued, with its terrible calmness, —

  “If thou scream, no man will hear thee. I shall only push thee; the whole will not last two Our Fathers.”

  “I do not want to die, father. I do not!” cried Marysia. “Have you no fear of God? Oh, dear, golden father, take pity on me! What have I done to you? You know I have not complained of my fate; I have suffered hunger and cold with you — father!”

  His breathing became quicker, his hands closed like vices; she begged more and more despairingly against death.

  “Take pity on me! mercy! oh, mercy! but I am your child. I am poor; I am sick; I am not long for the world anyhow. Take pity on me! I am afraid.”

  Thus moaning, she clung to his coat, pressed her lips imploringly to those hands which were thrusting her into the abyss. But all this seemed merely to urge him on. His calmness passed into ma
dness; he began to rattle in the throat, and snort. At moments there was silence between them, and if any man had been standing near he would have heard only the loud breathing and struggling, and the creaking of planks. The night was dark. It was late, and aid could come from no place, for that was the very end of the port, at which even in the daytime there were no people save laborers.

  “Mercy! mercy!” cried Marysia, shrilly.

  At that moment one hand drew her violently to the very edge of the scaffolding, a second began to beat her head to stifle her cries. But those cries roused no echo; some dog merely howled in the distance.

  The girl felt that she was weakening. At last her feet were in emptiness; only her hands clung to her father, but her hands were weak. Her screams for rescue grew fainter and fainter; her hands at last tore off a piece of the coat, and Marysia felt that she was flying into the abyss.

  She had indeed fallen from the platform, but on the way she grasped a brace and hung above the water.

  The man bent over, and, dreadful to relate, fell to loosening her hands.

  A crowd of thoughts, like a flock of frightened birds, fly through her brain in the form of images, and lightning flashes, — Lipintse, the well-sweep, the departure, the ship, the storm, the Litany, the misery of New York, finally that which is happening to her. Then she sees a ship, immense, with lofty prow, on it a throng of people, and out of that throng two hands are stretched toward her. As God lives! that is Yasko standing there; Yasko stretches his hand out, and, above the ship, and above Yasko, is the Mother of God smiling, surrounded with immense brightness. At sight of this she pushes apart the, people on shore: “Most holy Virgin! Yasko! Yasko!” One moment more — once again she raises her eyes to her father: “Oh, father! the Mother of God is up there, the Mother of God is up there!”

  The next moment those same hands which were pushing her into the water seize her weakening arms, and draw her up with a kind of preterhuman strength. Now she feels the plank of the structure under her feet; again an arm surrounds her, but the arm of a father, not an executioner, and her head falls on his breast.

  When she recovered from her faint, she saw that she was lying quietly near her father; and, though it was dark, she saw him lying in the form of a cross, and saw that deep, penitent sobs were shaking him, and rending his breast.

  “Marysia,” said he, at length, in a voice broken with sobs, “forgive me, child.”

  The girl sought his hand in the darkness, and, putting it to her pale lips, whispered, —

  “Father! may the Lord Jesus forgive you as I forgive.”

  Out of the pale clearness which for some time had been on the horizon came the moon at last, large, mild, full, and again something wonderful happened. Marysia saw whole swarms of little angels, like golden bees, and they floated to her on the moon-rays, buzzing with their little wings, circling, winding, and singing with childlike voices, —

  “Maiden tormented, peace to thee! Poor little bird, peace to thee! Flower of the field, peace to thee! Patient and silent, peace to thee!”

  Thus singing, they shook over her the cups of white lilies, and little silver bells which sounded, —

  “Sleep to thee, maiden! sleep to thee! sleep! sleep! sleep!”

  And it became so pleasant for her, so clear, so calm, that she fell asleep really.

  The night passed, and began to grow pale. Dawn came. Light whitened the water. The masts and smokestacks came out of the darkness and drew nearer; Vavron was kneeling now, bent over Marysia.

  He thought that she had died. Her slender form lay motionless; her eyes were closed her face, pale as linen, with a bluish tinge, calm and deathlike. In vain did the old man shake her arm, she quivered not, neither did she open her eyes. It seemed to Vavron that he too would die; but, putting his hand to her mouth, he felt that she was breathing. Her heart was I eating, though faintly; he understood that she might die any moment. If a pleasant day rose from the mist of the morning, if the sun warmed her, she would waken, otherwise she would not.

  The sea-gulls circled above her as if concerned for her safety; some of them sat on a neighboring pillar. The morning mist vanished slowly under the breath of wind from the west. It was a spring breeze, warm, full of sweetness.

  Then the sun rose. Its rays fell first on the top of the pile-driver, then, descending lower and lower, cast their golden light on the deathlike face of Marysia. They seemed to kiss it, to fondle it, and as it were embrace it. In those rays, and in that garland of bright hair, dishevelled from the struggle of the night and from dampness, the face seemed simply angelic; but Marysia, too, was almost an angel through her suffering and misfortune.

  A beautiful, rosy day came up from the water; the sun warmed with increasing strength; the wind blew with pity on the maiden; the sea-gulls, circling like a garland, cried, as if they wished to rouse her. Vavron, taking off his coat, covered her feet with it, and hope entered his heart.

  Indeed the blueness left her face gradually; her cheeks gained a slight rose-color; she smiled once and a second time; and finally she opened her eyelids.

  Then that old peasant knelt on the pier, raised his eyes heavenward, and tears flowed in two streams along his wrinkled face.

  He felt once and forever that that child was now the sight of his eyes, the soul of his soul, and as it were a sacredness beloved above everything.

  She not only woke, but she woke feeling better and more lively than the day previous. The pure air of the harbor was more wholesome for her than the poison air of the room. She had returned to life indeed, for, sitting on the plank, she said immediately, —

  “Father, I want very much to eat.”

  “Come, daughter, to the edge of the water, we may find something there,” said he.

  She rose without great effort and went. Evidently that day was to be somehow exceptional in the days of their misfortune, for barely had they gone a few steps when they saw there near them on the scaffolding a handkerchief thrust in between two beams, in it was cooked corn and salt meat. The simple explanation of this was that some laborer working at the wharf had put away yesterday a part of his food for to-day. Laborers there had that custom; but Vavron and Marysia interpreted it still more simply. Who put that food there? In their opinion He who thinks of every bird and flower, every grasshopper and ant.

  God!

  They repeated Our Father and ate, though there was not much there, and then went along the water to the main docks. New strength entered into them. Going to the custom-house, they turned up Water Street toward Broadway. With halts, this occupied two hours, for the road was a long one. At times they sat on boards or empty boxes. They went on, not knowing themselves why they went; but somehow it seemed to Marysia that they ought to go to the city. On the way they met a multitude of goods-wagons going to the wharf. On Water Street the movement was not slight. Doors opened and out came people who went hurriedly to their daily labor.

  In one of these doorways appeared a tall, gray-mustached gentleman with a young boy. When he came out, he looked at Vavron and Marysia, at their dress; his mustache quivered, astonishment appeared on his face, then he looked more quickly, and smiled.

  A human face smiling at them in a friendly manner in New York was a wonder, a witchery, at sight of which both were astounded.

  The gray-haired man approached them, and asked, in the purest Polish, —

  “And you people, whence come you?”

  A thunderbolt as it were had struck them. Vavron, instead of answering, became as pale as a wall and tottered, believing neither his ears nor his eyes. Marysia, recovering first, fell at once to the feet of the old gentleman, embraced them, and said, —

  “From Poznan, serene heir, from Poznan.”

  “What are ye doing here?”

  “We are in need, in hunger, in terrible misfortune, dear master.”

  Here her voice failed. Vavron cast himself flat at the feet of the old gentleman, kissed the hem of his overcoat, and, holding to it, thought that he ha
d caught a piece of heaven.

  “This is a lord for thee, and he is our lord. He will not let a man die; he will save, he will not let us perish.”

  The young lad who was with the gray-haired gentleman stared; people gathered around, gaped, and looked wonderingly at one man kneeling before another and kissing his feet. In America this is unheard of. The old gentleman grew angry at the gapers.

  “This is no ‘business’ of yours,” said he to them in English; “go about your own business!” Then he turned to Vavron and Marysia, —

  “We will not stand on the street; come with me.”

  He conducted them to the nearest restaurant, where they entered a room apart, and he shut himself in with them and the boy. Again they fell at his feet, which he forbade, and scolded them angrily, —

  “An end to this! We are from the same country, children of one mother.”

  Here, evidently, smoke from a cigar which he had in his mouth began to affect his eyes, for he wiped them with his hand, and asked, —

  “Are you hungry?”

  “For two days we have eaten nothing; but to-day we found a little near the water.”

  “William!” said he to the lad, “order them something to eat.” Then he continued, —

  “Where do you live?”

  “Nowhere, serene lord, nowhere.”

  “Where have you slept?”

  “Above the water.”

  “You were driven from your lodgings?”

  “Driven.”

  “You have no things except those on your bodies?”

  “We have not.”

  “You have no money?”

  “We have not.”

  “What will you do?

  “We know not.”

  The old gentleman, inquiring quickly, and as it were angrily, turned all at once to Marysia, —

  “How old are you, girl?”

  “I shall finish the eighteenth year Assumption day.”

  “You have suffered much?”

  She made no answer, but bowed to his feet with humility.