Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Life passed noisily in hard work, and moreover without order. The first thing was to build cottages; in fact, on the green plain there soon appeared the bodies of a number of them, and all the surface of the place was covered with shavings, pieces of bark, and similar leavings of wood. Redwood was easily worked; but often they had to go far to find it. Some put up temporary tents of canvas taken from the wagons. Others, especially the unmarried, who were less careful of having a roof above their heads, and were more averse to pulling stumps, began to plough in places where the forest had no undergrowth, and where oak and hickory were rarer. Then was heard for the first time since that Arkansas forest was a forest, “Hets, kso, bys!”

  But in general such a weight of work fell on the colonists that they knew not where to put their hands first, whether to build houses, or clear the land, or hunt.

  At the very beginning it came out that the agent of the colony had bought the land from the railroad on hearsay, and had never been there, otherwise he would not have taken a dense forest, since it was equally easy to buy pieces of prairie partly covered with timber. He and the agent of the railroad came, it is true, to the place to survey the sections, and show each man his own; but when they saw how matters stood really, they delayed a couple of days, then quarrelled, went away as if for surveying tools to Clarksville, and showed themselves never again in the colony.

  Soon it appeared that some colonists had paid more than others; and, what was worse, no man knew where his section lav, or how to survey that which fell to him.

  The colonists remained without leadership, without any authority which might bring their affairs into order and settle disputes. They did not know well how to work.

  Germans would have begun surely to cut down the timber in company, and, after they had cleared a certain space, put up the houses with combined labor; then they would have measured out the land at each house. But every Mazovian wanted to occupy his own ground immediately, put up his own house, and’ cut the forest on his own section. Besides, each man wanted to take his place in the middle of the plain where trees were fewest, and water nearest. From this rose disputes, which increased quickly, when the wagon of a certain Grunmanski appeared as if it had fallen from the sky. This Pan Grunmanski, in Cincinnati where Germans live, called himself, simply Grunman; but in Borovina he added “ski,” so that his business might go on better. His wagon had a lofty canvas top, on both sides of which was a black inscription in great letters, “Saloon,” and underneath, in smaller letters, “Brandy, whiskey, gin.”

  How that wagon had passed the dangerous wilderness between Clarksville and Borovina, how prairie adventurers had not broken it, why Indians, who were marauding in small bands, frequently very near Clarksville, had not taken the scalp from Pan Grunmanski’s head is his secret; it is enough that he arrived and began a perfect business that very day. But that same day also the colonists began to quarrel. To the thousand disputes about sections, tools, sheep, and places at the fire, were added very foolish things; for instance, among the colonists a certain provincial American patriotism was roused. Those who had come from Northern States began to praise their former homes at the expense of the colony and of colonists from Southern States, and vice versa.

  Where separation from the mother country and life among strangers had eaten through the native character, one might have heard frequently this North American Polonism, colored by the slang, “I don’t care a d — !”

  “But why praise your Southern country?” asked a young fellow from Chicago. “With us in Illinois, wherever you look is a railroad, and wherever you are in a car a short mile brings you to a city. You want to farm, you want to build a house, you don’t need to gnaw timber; you buy lumber and that is the end of it.”

  “With us one canon is worth whole blocks in your place.”

  “And you, God d — ! What do you touch me for?

  I was there, sir, and I am here, sir, and what sort of a fellow are you?”

  “Quiet, or I will take a shingle, or I will wet your head in the creek, if you get mad. What do you want of me?”

  In the colony evil was done directly; that society brought to mind a drove of sheep without a shepherd. Quarrels about land grew more violent. It came to fights in which comrades of certain towns or settlements joined against those who came from others. The more experienced, the elder or wiser secured, it is true, respect and importance gradually; but they were not always able to keep them. Only in moments of danger did the common instinct of defence command those colonists to forget their quarrels. Once on an evening when a company of renegade Indians stole sheep, the men rushed together in pursuit, without a moment’s hesitation. The sheep were recovered; one of the Indians was so beaten that he died soon after; the most perfect harmony reigned that day, but the next morning there was quarrelling again at the forest. Concord returned when, in the evening, the fiddler played, not a dance, but various songs, which each man had heard long before under thatched roofs, then conversation stopped. All surrounded the musician in a great circle; the sound of the forest accompanied him; the blazing fires hissed and shot up sparks; some dropped their heads gloomily as they stood there, the souls flew out of them and went beyond the sea. More than once the moon rose high above the forest, and still they were listening. But except these short intervals, everything became more and more unhinged in the colony. Disorder increased, hatred burrowed into them. That little society, cast away among those forests, almost separated from the rest of humanity, deserted by its leaders, had neither the power nor the knowledge to help itself.

  Among the colonists we find two figures known to us: the old man, Vavron Toporek, and his daughter, Marysia. Arriving in Arkansas, they had to share the common lot in Borovina. Indeed, at first they were in a better condition than others. Whatever a forest may be, it is not the pavement of New York; moreover, in New York they had nothing; here, they had a wagon, some live-stock bought cheaply in Clarksville, and a few tools for fieldwork. There, a terrible yearning was gnawing them; here, hard work did not let the mind wander from the present.

  The old man felled trees from morning till evening; he hewed off chips and prepared logs for the cottage. The girl washed clothes in the river, made a fire, cooked; but, in spite of heat, exercise and the air of the forest obliterated gradually the traces of her sickness which she had incurred through want in New York. The burning breeze from Texas tanned her pale face and covered it with a slightly golden hue. Young men from San Antonio, and from the Great Lakes, who jumped at each other with fists on any pretext, were agreed only in this, that Marysia’s eyes looked from under her bright hair as star-thistles in wheat, and that she was the prettiest girl that human eye had ever seen.

  The beauty of Marysia was useful to Vavron. He picked out for himself a strip of the nicest forest, and no one opposed him, for all the young men were on his side. More than one helped him in the felling of trees, the hewing of beams, or in putting them in place for hewing; but the old man, since he was shrewd, knew their reasons, and said from time to time, —

  “My daughter walks the plain like a lily, like a lady, like a queen. To whom I wish, to him I will give her; but I shall not give her to this man or that, for she is a landowner’s daughter. Whoso will bow lower and please better, to him I will give her, not to a straggler.”

  So whoever helped Vavron thought that he was helping himself.

  Vavron was better off even than others; and in general he would have been quite well to do if the colony had had any future before it. But things grew worse daily. One week passed and another. Round about the plain they cut trees; the ground was covered with chips; here and there rose the yellow walls of houses; but what was done was a trifle in comparison with what those men should have done. The green wall of the forest yielded only slowly before the axes. Those who went into the forest more deeply brought back strange tidings: that that forest had no end whatever; that farther on there were terrible swamps and bayous in it, morasses, and some kind of sleeping w
ater under the trees; that wonderful creatures of some sort were dwelling there; that certain steaming things, like spirits, pushed along through the thickets, serpents of some kind hissed there; that voices cried, “Do not come!” Certain imps seized men by the clothing and would not let them go. A young man from Chicago declared that he had seen the very devil in person, that Satan raised his terrible shaggy head from the mud and snorted at him so that he was barely able to run home.

  A colonist from Texas explained to the man, from Chicago that he must have seen a buffalo; but he would not believe this. So the superstition of fear added to the terrible position. A few days after seeing the devil, it happened that two smart young men went into the forest and were seen no more. Some people fell ill with pain in the back from overwork, and then fever attacked them. Quarrels about division of land increased to the degree that it came to wounds, blood, and battles. If any man failed to brand his cattle, others denied his ownership. The camp lost cohesion; wagons were removed to all corners of the plain, so as to be as far from one another as possible. They could not agree as to who should go out to guard the cattle; sheep began to die.

  Meanwhile one thing became more and more evident: before the grain sown on the edge of the forest would be green, and the increase of cattle come, the supply of provisions would fail, and hunger appear. Despair seized people. The sound of axes in the forest decreased, for patience and courage had begun to fail. Every man would have continued his work if some one could have said to him, “Here, this is thine forever.” But no one knew what was his, and what was not his. The just complaints against leaders increased. People said that they had been led into the wilderness to die for nothing.

  Whoever had some money yet sat in his wagon and drove away to Clarksville. But there were more who, having put their last copper into the colony, had nothing with which to return to their former homes. These wrung their hands, seeing certain ruin.

  At last the axes stopped cutting; but the forest sounded as if jeering at men’s helplessness. “Cut for two years, and then die of hunger,” said man to man. But the forest sounded as if it were jeering. A certain evening Vavron came to Marysia and said, —

  “I see that everything is going to ruin, and we also are going to ruin.”

  “The will of God,” answered the girl. “He has been merciful and will not desert us now.”

  Thus speaking, she raised her blue eyes to the stars, and in the gleams of the fire she looked like a church image. And the young men from Chicago, and the hunters from Texas, looking at her, said, —

  “And we will not desert thee, Marysia, thou morning dawn.”

  She thought to herself that there was only one with whom she would go to the end of the earth, — one, Yasko in Lipintse. But he, though he had promised to swim through the sea after her, to fly as a bird after her, roll as a ring after her on the highway, had not swum, had not flown, he alone had deserted her, hapless girl.

  Marysia could not but know that evil was going on in the colony, but she had been in such distress, God had freed her from such abysses; her soul had become so serene in misfortune that nothing could deprive her of faith in Heaven’s aid.

  Besides she remembered that the old gentleman in New York, who had helped them to rise out of misery and reach that place, had given her his card, saying, that should misfortune oppress her to call to him, he would save her always.

  Every day brought new peril for the colony. People flew from it by night, and what happened to them it is difficult to tell. Round about the forest sounded and mocked.

  At last old Vavron fell ill from exertion. Pain began to pass through his spine. For two days he paid no attention to it, but on the third he could not rise. The girl went to the forest, collected moss and covered with it the wall of the house, which was ready and lying on the grass; she placed her father on the moss and prepared for him medicine with whiskey.

  “Marysia,” muttered the old man, “death is coming to me now through the forest; thou wilt remain alone in the world, poor orphan. God is punishing me for my grievous sins; I took thee beyond the sea, and ruined thee. Painful will my end be.”

  “Father,” answered the girl, “God would have punished me if I had not come with you.”

  “If thou wert not alone when I leave thee, if I might bless thee for marriage, I should die more easily. Marysia, take Black Orlik as husband; he is good, he will not desert thee.”

  Black Orlik, an unerring hunter, from Texas, who heard this, threw himself on his knees at once.

  “O father! bless us!” said he, “I love this maiden as my own life. I know the forest, and I will not let her die.”

  Saying this he looked with his falcon eyes on Marysia as on a rainbow; but she, bending down to the feet of her father, said, —

  “Do not force me, father, I shall be his whom I promised, or no man’s.”

  “Thou wilt not he his whom thou hast promised, for I will kill him. Thou must be mine, or else no man’s,” answered Orlik. “All will perish here; thou wilt perish with them unless I rescue thee.”

  Orlik was not mistaken. The colony was going to nothing; again a week passed and a second week. Supplies were near the end. They had begun to kill working cattle. The fever seized new victims day by day; people began now to curse, now to cry in loud voices to Heaven for deliverance.

  One Sunday, the old men, boys, women, and children, all knelt on the ground and sang a supplication. A hundred voices repeated, “Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy and Invincible, have mercy on us!” The forest ceased to move, ceased to sound, and listened. Only when the hymn was ended did the forest sound again, as if speaking terribly. “Here I am king; here I am lord; here I am the mightiest.”

  But Orlik, who knew the forest, fastened his black eyes on it, looked at it somehow strangely, and then said aloud, —

  “Well, let us grapple.”

  The people looked in turn at Orlik, and a certain consolation entered their hearts. Those who knew him when in Texas had great trust in the man, for he was famed even in Texas. He had really grown wild in the prairies, and was as strong as an oak-tree. He used to go alone against a bear. In San Antonio, where he had lived before, they knew well that sometimes, when he took a gun and went to the desert, he was absent for two months, and always returned in health, sound. They nicknamed him “Black,” because he was burned from the sun. They said even that on the Mexican boundary he had been a bandit, but that was untrue.

  He brought back only skins; he brought Indian scalps sometimes till the local priest threatened to curse him. Now in Borovina he was the only man who cared for nothing and was concerned about nothing. The forest gave him food and drink; the forest clothed him. So when people began to flee and lose their heads, he took everything in hand, and managed like a gray goose in the sky, having behind him all who were from Texas. When, after the prayer, he challenged the forest, people thought to themselves: “He will invent something.”

  Meanwhile the sun went down. High among the black branches of the hickories the brightness of gold shone for a while yet, then reddened, and was quenched. The wind shifted to the south at nightfall. Orlik took his gun and went to the forest.

  Night had begun when, in the dark distance, people saw as it were a great golden star, as it were a coming dawn, or a sun which rose with tremendous swiftness, spreading red and bloody light.

  “The forest is burning! The forest is burning!” shouted people in the camp.

  Clouds of birds rose with a clatter from every side of the forest, screaming, croaking, twittering. Cattle in the camp began to bellow pitifully; dogs howled; people ran about in terror, not knowing but the fire might come on them, though the strong south wind could only drive the flames away from the plain. Meanwhile in the distance rose a second red star, then a third. Both of these were merged quickly in the first, and the conflagration roared on over increasing expanses. The flames spread like water; they ran along dry, interlaced lianas and wild grape-vines; the forest trembled. The wind tore
burning leaves away and bore them, like fiery birds, farther and farther.

  Hickories burst in the fire with a report like the sound of cannon. Red serpents of fire wound themselves over the resinous bark of the wilderness. Hissing, roaring, the breaking of limbs, the deep howl of flames, mingled with the uproar of birds, and the bellowing of beasts filled the air. Heaven-touching trees tottered like flaming pillars and columns. Climbing plants, burned at the windings, broke away from the trees and, swinging terribly, like satanic arms, passed forward sparks and fire from tree to tree.

  The sky grew red as if another conflagration were there. It was as clear as daylight. Then all the flames blended into one sea of fire, and went through the forest like the breathing of death, or the anger of God.

  Smoke, heat, and the odor of burning filled the air. People in the camp, though no danger threatened them, shouted and cried to one another; when all at once, from the direction of the burning, came Orlik in the sparks, in the glare. His face was darkened with smoke, and terrible. When all stood around him in a circle, he leaned on his musket, and said, —

  “You will not cut timber; I have burned the forest. To-morrow you will have on that side fields, as many as each man may wish for.” Then, approaching Marysia, he said, —

  “You must be mine; it was I who burnt the forest. Who here is stronger than I?”

  The girl shivered through her whole frame, for the conflagration shone in the eyes of Orlik, and he seemed to her terrible. For the first time since their coming, she thanked God that Yasko was far away in Lipintse.

  Meanwhile the roaring conflagration receded farther and farther. The dawn was cloudy, and threatened rain.

  At daybreak, some people went to look at the burned region; but they could not go near, because of heat. The second day, smoke like a fog filled the air, so that one man could not see another twenty steps distant. That night rain began, which soon passed into a frightful downpour. Perhaps the fire, by disturbing the air, had caused the settling of clouds; but, besides, it was the spring season, during which on the lower Mississippi, at the meeting of the Arkansas and Red River, enormous rains fall. Another cause of these rains is the evaporation of water, which, in Arkansas, covers the whole country in the form of swamps, small lakes, and streams, which are increased in spring by the melting of snow on the distant mountains.