Pan Tadeusz
Page 10
Think how best to bring it about, my dear.
They should get to know each other. I admit
They’re young, especially Zosia—but so be it.
The sheltered life she’s led can’t be maintained—
Her time of childhood’s coming to an end.”
Telimena was stunned, scared almost. Gradually
She rose to her knees. She’d listened attentively
At first, but then rejected what she heard,
Waving a hand to send back every word
Into the speaker’s mouth, as if they’d been
Troublesome flies.
“Here’s something new again!
She responded angrily. “What’s right or wrong
For Tadeusz, you can all decide among
Yourselves—he’s not my job. Make him a clerk,
Innkeeper, gamekeeper—whatever line of work
You think is best for him. But Zosia, brother—
Zosia’s another story altogether.
She’s not your business. Who she marries, I say,
Nobody else! Yes, Jacek chose to pay
For her upbringing, gave a small annuity;
And yes, he’s promised more, most generously—
But that doesn’t mean he owns her. And by the bye,
No one’s forgotten the reasons that underlie
All of the bounty the Soplicas show
The Horeszkos—you’re aware of what you owe.”
(The Judge was listening to her sorrowfully,
With great embarrassment, reluctantly;
As if fearing what would follow, he bent his head
And, assenting with a gesture, turned bright red.)
Telimena concluded: “Her dry nurse I was,
Her kin I still am—the only guardian she has.
No one but me will see she’s happily wed.”
The Judge looked up. “What if she’s happy,” he said,
“In such a match? What if she likes the boy?”
“Like him? The very idea! But either way,
To me it’s wholly immaterial.
Her dowry may be modest; but after all
She’s not some petty gentry from who-knows-where:
She’s of good birth. Her father was governor,
Her mother a Horeszko—she’ll find someone!
The upbringing she had was second to none!
Out here she’d run to seed.”
The Judge gazed at her,
Listening closely; he seemed to feel much better,
For he said quite cheerfully: “Oh well, too bad!
I meant to clinch the deal, I swear to God.
You have a perfect right not to say yes;
It’s sad, of course, but anger’s out of place.
I mentioned it since Jacek told me to,
But no one’s being forced; your answer’s no,
So I’ll write him that—through no fault of my own—
There’ll be no match between Zosia and his son.
I’ll handle it myself somehow—no doubt
The Chamberlain and I will work things out.”
Telimena meanwhile had cooled down. “Hold on,”
She said, “I’m not saying no to anyone.
You said yourself—they’re young, we can’t yet know.
It’s fine to wait—observe how it’ll go.
We’ll introduce them, see if things advance.
One mustn’t leave others’ happiness to chance.
But listen to me: don’t try and sway his course,
Or make him fall in love with her by force.
The heart’s no servant—it can’t be constrained
By any master; nor will it be enchained.”
The Judge stood up and left, preoccupied;
Tadeusz now approached from the other side.
Still feigning to look for where the mushrooms grew
The Count was moving slowly that way too.
During this conversation, the Count had been
Behind a tree, much taken with the scene.
Producing the pencil he always had with him
And leaning some paper on a handy limb
He said to himself as he began his sketching:
“Him on the rock, her on the grass—how fetching!
It’s like I’d specially posed them in their places.
A character study in contrasting faces!”
He wiped his lorgnette, kept pausing as he neared,
Fanned himself with his handkerchief, and stared.
“Will this delightful vision dissolve, or change,
If I should come within too close a range?
Will the velvet grass be merely beet and dock?
Will this nymph too turn out to be some cook?”
The Count had come across Telimena before
At the Judge’s house, but scarcely noticed her
During those times; when first he realized
She was his model, he was most surprised.
Her graceful pose, the elegance of her dress,
The lovely spot—he couldn’t have known her less.
Her recent anger still gleamed in her eyes;
Her face—given a freshness by the breeze,
Her quarrel with the Judge, and seeing the Count
So suddenly now—flushed more than it was wont.
“Ma’am,” said the Count, “Forgive my brazen attitude.
I’m here to apologize, and express my gratitude.
I’m sorry that I trailed you secretly
And thankful for witnessing your reverie.
I’ve so offended you! I owe you so!
I broke your chain of thought! And what I owe
Is blessed inspiration. Condemn the man
But please, forgive the artist if you can!
In fact, I sense this boldness in me growing.
What do you think?” He knelt and showed his drawing.
Telimena studied his efforts with much grace,
Though clearly she was a connoisseur. Her praise
Was sparing, but she encouraged him generously.
“Bravo!” she said. “You’ve great ability.
Though never forget: an artist has a duty
To seek out nature’s loveliness. Oh, the beauty
Of Italy’s skies! Of Rome’s imperial
Rose gardens! Tibur’s ancient waterfall,
Pausilippo’s fearsome tunnel! Now that’s a land
For art! This place is pitiful, my friend!
A child of the muses, sent to be raised out here
In Soplicowo, would die—that much is clear.
I’ll frame this, Count, or put it in my drawer—
I have an album there with many more.”
The talk then turns to azure skies, sea spume,
Sweet-smelling winds, and crags that tower and loom;
At times, as travelers tend to, they revile
Their homeland. Yet around them all the while
The Lithuanian woods stretch limitless—
North, south, east, west—solemn and beauteous!
Hackberries that garlands of wild hop enlace;
The rowan, ruddy as a shepherdess;
Hazels like maenads with green rods, a wreath
Of pearly nuts like grapes round each; beneath,
The woodland children—guelder rose embraced
By hawthorn, blackberry’s lips to raspberry pressed.
The trees and bushes hold leaves like hands, their stance
Like bridesmaids and their groomsmen set to dance
Around a wedding couple. From among
The rest, one pair is marked off from the throng
By charming hue and slender silhouette:
&nbs
p; The hornbeam and the loving birch, his mate.
Next, gazing silently at all these riches
As if at their progeny, stand hoary beeches,
Matronly poplars, and one moss-whiskered oak
Who’s borne five centuries on his crooked back,
And rests, as on shattered tombstones, on a floor
Of the fossil forms of oaks that went before.
The talk, from which Tadeusz was excluded,
Bored him to tears. He paced about and brooded.
Then, when they came to foreign trees—heaped praise
On all they named: the walnuts, cypresses,
Orange and olive trees—said how very good
Were cactus and aloe, mahonia, sandalwood,
Lemon-trees, almond, ivy—each of them,
Even the fig—praised form, and flower, and stem—
Tadeusz harrumphed and snorted; in the end
His irritation could not be contained.
A simple fellow, he still felt nature’s draw
And said, moved by the native woods he saw:
“In Vilna once I toured the botanical garden
And saw those famous trees. But, begging the pardon
Of all your Orients and Italies,
Which of those kinds can match our local trees?
Not the aloe, with stalks like lightning rods. And not
The lemon tree, unnaturally short and squat,
With lacquered leaves and gold knobs, like a witch
Who’s short and ugly—yet happens to be rich.
Nor the vaunted cypress, tall and skinny—in brief,
More a tree of tedium than of grief.
It’s said to look sad at gravesides; but it’s like
Some German footman, stiff in mourning black,
Who doesn’t dare to raise his hands, or bend
His head, so that decorum be maintained.
“Our honest birch is surely lovelier—drooping
Like a countrywoman wringing her hands and weeping
For a dead son, or husband, hair unbound
And spilling from her shoulders to the ground!
Her grief is silent, yet so eloquent!
Since you’re so fond of art, Count, why not paint
These trees of ours that are growing all about you?
Believe me, the neighbors will end up laughing at you
That, living here on the lush Lithuanian plain,
You only draw cliffs and deserts, again and again.”
“Friend!” said the Count. “What natural beauty supplies
Is background, raw matter. The soul of the enterprise—
Shaped by both rules, and taste—is inspiration,
Which soars on the wings of the imagination.
For the artist, nature’s not enough, nor zeal;
He must ascend to realms of the ideal!
Not all that’s beautiful can be portrayed—
You’ll learn that in due course from what you read.
Now as for painting—a picture’s harmonies
Come from perspective, composition—and skies,
Italian skies! So it shall ever be
That the home of landscape art is Italy.
Aside from Breughel—the landscapist, that is,
Not Hellish Breughel as he was called (because
There were two of them), and Ruisdael, in the north
There wasn’t a single landscapist of worth.
Skies, skies are needed!”
Telimena broke in:
“The Polish painter Orłowski was akin.
(The Soplicas, you should know, have a disease—
For them, what isn’t Polish cannot please.)
He lived in Petersburg, close to the Tsar,
At court (I have his pictures in my drawer);
Spent his whole life in comfort, celebrated—
Yet his homesickness never once abated.
He’d always talk about his childhood, praise
All that was Polish—earth and sky and trees.”
“He was right!” exclaimed Tadeusz fervently.
“From what I’ve heard, those skies of Italy
All clear and blue—they look like stagnant water!
Wind and rain are surely so much better.
Look up right now: there’s ever so much to see.
The scenes in the clouds alone change constantly.
And each cloud’s different. In autumn time they crawl
At a snail’s pace, water-heavy; when the rains fall,
They plummet from sky to ground on every side
In slanting streaks, like braids of hair untied.
Hail clouds race by like wind-whipped balloons; they’re round,
Dark blue, with an inner yellow glow; the sound
Of roaring follows them. Regular clouds as well—
Like those small white ones—are so changeable.
At first, like wild geese or like swans they throng,
The wind like a falcon driving them along.
They join, swell—and there come new marvels soon!
Their necks bend, and grow manes; long legs drop down
And they race across the heavens at a sweep
Like a herd of galloping horses on the steppe,
All silvery white. They mingle—suddenly
Masts spring from necks, broad sails from manes, and see:
The herd is a ship adrift in brilliance,
Silent and slow against the sky’s expanse!”
The Count and Telimena had raised their eyes.
With one hand Tadeusz pointed to the skies,
While the other squeezed Telimena’s hand discreetly.
They stood in such a way for some time mutely.
The Count rested his notepad on his hat,
Took out his pencil—then to the regret
Of all, the manor bell rang; the woodland stillness
At once became a din of shouts and shrillness.
Nodding, the Count said gravely: “Very well,
As always fate ends everything with a bell.
Schemes of great minds and great imaginations,
Innocent pastimes, friendship’s delectations,
Effusions of tender hearts! The distant toll
Disrupts, confounds, and brings an end to all.”
Then, gazing at Telimena tenderly:
“What then remains?” She answered: “Memory.”
And, seeking to ease the Count’s distress somewhat
She picked and gave him a forget-me-not.
Kissing the flower, he pinned it to his breast.
On her other side, Tadeusz’s hand was thrust
Into a bush where something white had come
In his direction—it was a lily-white palm.
He seized it and kissed it, letting his lips bask freely
Within, like a bee plunged deep inside that lily.
His mouth felt something cold—it was a key,
And a white slip of paper that proved to be
A rolled-up letter. He hid it in his coat,
Thinking he’d learn the secret from the note.
The bell kept up; from deep in the woods there rose
In echoing cry a thousand hey’s and ho’s
As people searched and called. This was to show
That the mushroom-picking was all over now.
Yet the Count was wrong—it wasn’t funereal
Or sad, this sound: it was the dinner bell.
It rang each noontime from the manor’s gables
Calling both guests and farmhands to their tables.
This custom, widely known in bygone days,
Was still maintained at the Judge’s.
From the trees
&nbs
p; Came a multitude with baskets of all sizes
And tied-up handkerchiefs, filled with their prizes:
Each young lady carried in one hand—
Like a folded fan—a large boletus, and,
In the other, russulas in reds, whites, grays,
With honey fungus tied like wildflower sprays.
The Warden had an agaric; empty-handed, though,
Was Telimena, like the pair she had in tow.
Entering in order, each guest stood to wait.
The Chamberlain had the place of honor—his right
By age and rank. He bowed as he came past
To the older men, the ladies, the youngsters last.
By him stood Robak; then came the Judge. The monk
Said a short prayer in Latin. Vodka was drunk;
Then, taking their places all, the company
Ate their chilled soup with gusto, wordlessly.
Dinner was quieter than usually occurred;
Though the Judge coaxed them, no one said a word.
Both parties to the hunting-dog dispute
Dwelled on the next day’s wager, and were mute.
Such lofty thoughts often make mouths fall still.
Telimena spoke with Tadeusz through the meal
But sometimes had to turn to the Count, and once
Or twice, shoot the Assessor a quick glance
The way a bird catcher eyes a goldfinch snare
Where a stray sparrow has been caught. This pair—
The Count and Tadeusz—were both content today,
And filled with hope—so neither had much to say.
The Count gazed proudly at his forget-me-not;
Tadeusz stole looks at the pocket of his coat
To check the key was there, and patted it,
And felt the letter, which he’d not opened yet.
The Judge served the Chamberlain attentively—
Topped up his wine and champagne, and squeezed his knee—
But seemed unwilling to talk; it was quite clear
That he was troubled by some secret care.
In silence, plates and courses came and went.
At last, the monotony of the event
Was broken by an unexpected guest—
A gamekeeper. Ignoring all the rest,
He ran to the Judge; his body, his expression,
All showed he was the bringer of sensation.
The eyes of all the company turned to stare.
Catching his breath, he said: “Sir, there’s a bear!”
Everyone guessed the rest: that, leaving its den,
The beast was in the woods. And everyone
Knew that it must be hunted, though nobody
Conferred, no one reflected consciously.
This one thought showed in looks unwavering,