“Ah, that is the countess then!” thought he.
The countess roused his curiosity. He did not know himself why in the dusk sitting in front of the fire he saw definitely before him that pair of eyes covered with the hand, the white forehead surrounded with curls of dark hair, and the feet in black boots.
A couple of evenings later when at an advanced hour he had put out the light and lain down in bed, he heard some voice singing a melancholy song in Italian. The passage and Yosef’s room also were filled with those tones, youthful, resonant, sympathetic; the fond and passionate adjurations and reproaches were given out with a marvellous charm; in the stillness of night the words came forth clearly.
“Ah! the countess is singing!” murmured Yosef.
Next morning early, he knew not why, while dressing and rubbing his hands with soap stubbornly, he sang with much pathos as if to lend himself energy.
But soon he ceased; the widow came to his mind instead of the countess. “That woman either loves me already, or she would love me very soon,” thought he. He wished the return of those moments during which he had looked into her eyes. “What a strange woman!” thought he. “How that Potkanski must have loved her — ha! and Gustav!” He frowned. “If I go there, will he not grieve to death, will he not poison himself? That love will ruin him — h’m! Each answers for himself. But I am curious to know what she says since I do not visit her.”
Thenceforth that moment recurred to his mind frequently when she, so pale and with outstretched arms, exclaimed, “I have found thee, my Kazimir!”
If only he wished, he could go to her, love her, and be loved by her.
This plan of probable love did not let him sleep. Like every young man, he felt the need of love; his heart beat violently, as if it wanted to burst, broken by its own strength. And so far he knew no woman except the widow. The black boots and white stockings of the countess passed before his eyes, but that slight imagining vanished into nothingness.
He remembered meanwhile how on a certain time during conversation he had held the widow’s hand; he remembered what a wish he had had to kiss it, but he remembered also how ominously Gustav’s eyes were glittering at that moment. Jealousy seized him. Occasionally a scarcely visible cloud, regret for a premature promise, sped past in his soul and hid somewhere in its darkest caves. Then he repeated in a very tragic tone, “I have promised, I will not go.”
One thing more angered him, — to people respected and more advanced in life this would seem a paradox, — the quiet of life angered him. Science came to him easily, he did not expend all his powers, and this roused distaste in him. Fresh, active natures, like young soldiers, feel a need of bathing in the fire of battle. This desire of his to fight which at a more advanced age seems to us improbable, becomes in certain years, and quite seriously, one of the needs of the spirit. Let us remember Yosef’s monologue in Gustav’s room, the first day of his coming to Kieff. He wanted then to throw down the gauntlet in the name of science or the name of feeling, before the whole world. Young eagles try to fly with a cloud above them and an abyss underneath. Even the most common man, before learning that he is a turtle, has moments in which he thinks himself an eagle.
In such a condition was Yosef, and in this case there was simply no one with whom to be at sword’s-points.
In the University he had a greater or less number of adherents, a field in the wide world might open, but Yosef did not know this wide world yet.
Suddenly something happened which snatched him from his lethargy.
Augustinovich had acted in a way that offended the honor of students. They determined to expel him.
That was not his first offence, but the students had always passed those matters over among themselves, not wishing to be compromised in public opinion; now the measure had been exceeded. We will not acquaint the reader with the offence; what concern have we with foulness? It is enough that a court composed of students had decided to expel the offender. From such decisions there was no appeal, for the University authorities always confirmed them; an appeal would only make it more widely known.
Indignation among students was great; no one took the part of Augustinovich except Yosef, who rousing half the University exerted his power to save the man.
“You wish to expel him,” said he, at a very stormy meeting. “You wish to expel him? But do you think that after he has left the University he will not bring shame to you? What will he do with himself? Where will he go? How will he find means of living? How will he maintain himself? And do you know why he fell? No! — Ask him when he has eaten a dinner. We are among ourselves. Raise either of his feet, the right or the left, all the same! If under his boots you find one sound sole, expel him. As to me I declare, and may the thunderbolts split any one who will say otherwise, that we ought to save, not to ruin him. Give him salvation, give him bread — take him on your own responsibility!”
“Who will answer for him?” asked one of Augustinovich’s opponents.
“I!” shouted Yosef in a thundering voice; and he threw his cap on the floor.
There was uproar and confusion in the room. Vasilkevich supported Yosef with all his influence, others insisted on his expulsion, there was no “small uproar.” Yosef sprang onto a bench, and turning to Augustinovich shouted, —
“They forgive thee! Come with me.”
He left the room, rubbing his hands with internal delight, and cried, —
“It would be a pity to lose such a head! Besides, let them eat the devil if they act without me now!”
“Why didst thou save me?” inquired Augustinovich.
Yosef turned a severe face toward him and said, —
“To-day thou wilt move into my lodgings.”
Meanwhile another drama was played in Pani Helena’s lodgings. She was a most peculiar person; she could not exist, she knew not how to exist, without attaching her life to some feeling. Her first chance had been fortunate; she proved a model wife and mother. It had seemed to her that she found salvation in Yosef, and now months had passed since she had seen him; and she desired him the more, the more persistently Gustav resisted.
The last struggle of these directly opposing forces had to come.
“If thou wilt not return him to me,” said the widow in tears, one evening, “I will go myself to find him. I am ready to kneel down before thee and beg on my knees for him, Gustav! Thou sayest that Kazimir begged thee to have care over me; so I implore thee in his name. O God, O God! Thou dost not understand that it is possible to suffer; thou hast never loved, of course.”
“I, Pani! have never loved?” repeated Gustav, in a very low voice; and in his eyes real pain was evident. “Perhaps thou art speaking the truth. Then thou hast observed nothing, hast seen nothing? I know not myself that I have loved any one except — O God, what do I utter! — except thee alone.”
He threw himself at Helena’s feet.
Great silence followed. One might have said that the two persons had become stone, — she bent backward, with her hands over her face, he at her feet. They continued in this posture, both oblivious of everything around them. But a moment comes when the greatest pain is conquered.
He rose soon, a new man; he was very calm. He roused her, and spoke in a low voice, interrupted through a lack of breath.
“Pardon me, Helena! I should not have done this, but thou seest I have been suffering so long. This is the third year since I saw thee the first time — I saw thee in a church; the priest was just elevating the chalice, and thou wert inclining — I visited that church afterward, I saw thee more frequently, and, pardon me! I myself cannot tell how it happened. Afterward thou didst become his wife — I said nothing. And this time I did not wish to offend or annoy thee, but thou sayest that I have never loved. Thou seest that that is not true. How hard it is to renounce the last hope! Pardon me! Pan Yosef will come to-day to thee — he is a man of noble nature, love him, be happy — and farewell.”
He bent toward her, and raising the hem of he
r garment, with gleaming upturned eyes, he kissed the cloth as though it were sacred.
After a while the widow was alone.
“What did he say?” whispered she, in a low voice. “What did Gustav say? He said, I remember it, that he would come again to me. Am I dreaming? But no, he will come.”
CHAPTER VI
Meanwhile Augustinovich went to live permanently with Yosef. How different was his former from his present life! Formerly he had had no warm corner, now Yosef gave him a warm corner; he had had no bed, Yosef bought him a bed; he had had no blanket, Yosef bought him a blanket; he had had no clothes, Yosef got clothes for him; he had been without food, Yosef divided his own dinner with him. He found himself in conditions entirely different. Warmed, nourished, in a decent overcoat, combed, washed, shaved, he became a different man altogether. He was, as we have said, a person with a character unparalleled for weakness; conditions of life always created him, he was merely the resultant of forces. So under Yosef’s strong hand he changed beyond recognition. He began to enjoy order and plenty, abundance in life. As he had not been ashamed before of anything, so now he began to be ashamed of everything which did not accord with elegant clothing and gloves. The most difficult thing was to disaccustom himself from drinking; but he had no chance to resume his former vice, for Yosef, who guarded him as the eye in his head, did not let him out of sight; he bought vodka for him, but did not let him have money. It would be difficult to describe the impatience with which Augustinovich waited for the moment when Yosef opened the cupboard to pour him a glass. How much he dreamed in that moment, how he represented the taste of the drink to himself, the putting of it to his lips, the touch of it on his tongue, the swallowing through his throat, and finally the solemn entrance of it into his stomach!
But Yosef, to deprive this treat of its humiliating character, drank to him usually.
In the course of time he treated him better; he began to associate him with various affairs of his own and the University, and finally with his own way of thinking. There is no need of saying that Augustinovich took all this to himself, that he repeated Yosef’s words where he could preface them usually with, “I judge that, etc.” Who would have recognized him? He, for whom nothing had been too cynical, said now in student gatherings when the conversation took too free a turn, “Gentlemen, above all, decency.” The students laughed; Yosef himself smiled in silence, but so far he was content with his own work.
We need not add that Yosef attending the same faculty with Augustinovich studied with him evenings. He had then the opportunity of estimating his capabilities to the full. For that mind there was no such thing as more difficult or easier; a certain wild intuition took the place of thought and deliberation. His memory, not so retentive as it was capacious, took the place of labor.
Vasilkevich was a frequent visitor of theirs. At first he came with Karvovski, then he came alone daily at his own hour. His conversations with Yosef, circling about the most important questions of life and science, became more confidential. Those two men felt each other, and each divined in the other a powerful mind and will. A relation founded on mutual esteem seemed to herald a permanent future.
Both seized in their hands the direction of youth in the University; the initiative of general activities started only with them, and since they agreed there was agreement in the University; comradeship and science gained most by that friendship.
“Tell me,” inquired Yosef on a time, “what do they say of my action with Augustinovich?”
“Some pay thee homage,” answered Vasilkevich; “others laugh. I visited one of thy opponents on behalf of our library; I found there no small crowd, and they were just speaking of thee and Augustinovich. But dost thou know who defended thee most warmly?”
“Well, who was it?”
“Guess.”
“Lolo Karvovski.”
“No, not he.”
“As God lives, I cannot imagine.”
“Gustav.”
“Gustav?”
“Ah, he told those who were laughing at thee so many agreeable facts — they will not forget them soon, I guarantee that. Thou knowest how well he can do such things. I thought that the deuce would take them.”
“I should not have expected this of Gustav.”
“I had not seen him for a long time. Oh, he has sunk in that wretched love to the ears. But he is a strong fellow — and I am sorry for him. Tell me, thou art more skilled in this than I am: is he very sick?”
“Oh, he is not well.”
“What is it? asthma?”
Yosef nodded. “Excessive work, grief.”
“Too bad.”
All at once steps were heard on the stairs, the door opened, Gustav walked in.
He was changed beyond recognition. The skin on his face had become wonderfully white, it had grown transparent. From his face came a certain coldness, as from a corpse; a yellowish shade shone from his forehead, which seemed to be of wax. His lips were white; his hair, beard, and mustache looked almost black as compared with that pallor. He was like a man who had passed through a long illness, and on his face had settled certainty concerning himself and a kind of despairing resignation.
Yosef, a little astonished, a little confused, did not know perhaps how to begin. Gustav brought him out of the trouble.
“I have come to thee with a prayer,” said he. “Once thou didst promise not to visit the widow; withdraw that promise.”
Yosef made a wry face with a kind of constraint. But he only answered, —
“It is not a custom with me to break my word.”
“True,” answered Gustav, calmly; “but this is something entirely different. If I were to die, for example, the promise would not bind thee, and I, as thou seest, am sick, very grievously sick. Meanwhile she needs protection. I cannot protect her now, I cannot watch over her. I must lie down to rest, for I am wearied somewhat. For that matter, I will tell the whole truth to thee. She loves thee, and beyond doubt thou lovest her also. I have stood in thy way and hers, but now I withdraw. I do so perforce, and I shall not represent this as a sacrifice. I loved her much, and I had a little hope that she would love me some day; but I was mistaken.” Here his voice fell an octave lower. “No one has ever loved me. It has been very gloomy for me in life — But what is to be done? Of late I have passed through much, but now that is over. To-day my concern is that she be not left alone. Had I been able to decide on a sacrifice, thou wouldst be her protector to-day. Canst thou do this for me, Yosef? Thou hast energy, thou art rich, and she, I say, loves thee, so thou wilt not end as I have. Oh, it has been hard in this world for me — But never mind. I should not like to do her an injury — I love her yet. I should not wish her to be alone because of me. At times, seest thou, it is not proper to refuse people anything. Go, go to her! Thou and I lived together once, we fought the same trouble, hence thou shouldst do me this favor; for, I repeat, I am sick and I know not whether I shall see her or thee again.”
A tear gathered in Vasilkevich’s eye; he rose and said, turning to Yosef, —
“Thou shouldst do all that Gustav asks of thee.”
“I will go to her, I will protect her,” answered Yosef, decidedly. “I give my word of honor to both of you.”
“I thank thee,” said Gustav. “Go there now.”
A little later he was alone with Vasilkevich. The Lithuanian was silent for some time, he struggled with his own heart; finally he spoke in a voice of heartfelt sympathy, —
“Gustav, poor Gustav, how thou must suffer at this moment!”
Gustav made no answer. He drew the air into his mouth with hissing, gritted his teeth, his face quivered convulsively, and a sudden sobbing tore his breast, strength left him completely.
Three days later Yosef and Vasilkevich were sitting in Gustav’s lodging. The evening was bright; bundles of moonlight were falling into the room through the panes. At the bedside of the sick man a candle was burning. The sick man himself was still conscious. Almost beautiful was hi
s face, which had grown yellow from suffering, with its lofty forehead, as it rested on high pillows. One emaciated hand lay on the blanket, with the other he pressed his bosom.
The light of the candle cast a rosy gleam on that martyr to his own feelings. The opposite corner of the room was obscure in the shadow. Gustav was giving an account of how he had cared for Helena. From time to time he answered, though with difficulty, now to Yosef, now to Vasilkevich, who, standing at the head of the bed, wiped away the abundant perspiration which came out on the forehead of the sufferer.
“I wish to forewarn thee,” said Gustav. “They send her two thousand zlotys yearly (about $250), but she needs from five to six thousand. I earned the rest for her — Push away the candle, and moisten my lips — I took from my own mouth, I did not sleep enough — Sometimes I did not eat a meal for two days — Raise me a little, and support me higher, I cannot speak — There are thirty rubles more for her in that box — It is dark around me — Let me rest—”
A mouse made a piece of paper rustle in one corner; except that, silence held the room. Death was coming.
“I should like to finish our work,” continued Gustav. “Tell my associates not to quarrel — Cold is seizing me — I am curious to know if there be a heaven or a hell. I have never prayed — but, but—”
Vasilkevich inclined toward him and asked in a low voice, —
“Gustav, dost thou believe in immortality?”
The sick man could speak no longer; he nodded in sign of affirmation. Then low tones of enchanting music seemed to be given forth in that chamber. Along the rays of the moonlight a legion of angels pushed in from the sky; the room was filled with them, some with white, others with golden or colored wings. They came quietly, bent over the bed. The rustle of their wings was audible.
The spirit of Gustav went away with that low-sounding orchestra.
The funeral took place with great solemnity. The whole University in a body was present around the coffin. Then they spoke for the first time of the accurate knowledge, the toil and sacrifices of the deceased. It appeared from the accounts which Yosef examined that Gustav had earned about four thousand zlotys ($500) yearly. All of this went to the widow; he lived himself like a dog. This voluntary but silent heroism made for him an enduring monument in the hearts of the young men. They discovered also various labors of the deceased which indicated solid acquirements, nay, talent. They found his diary, which was a confession in simple and even blunt words of all the dark side of his life of privation, a kind of apology for the passionate outbreaks of youth, those imaginary but still real sufferings, those struggles, those pains, those internal storms, and conversations held with self. The inner life of enthusiastic natures was unveiled there in all its dark solemnity. It was a terror to look into that chaos which is not to be known in every-day life, in that “so devilishly gilded world,” as the poetess calls it.
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 761