Chapter X: 'The Election! The Election!' (1)

Countess Marya Jarzynski's head was full of it, and she thought, talked and dreamt of nothing else.

'You are a great politician,' an aristocratic neighbour said to her, kissing her small hands in a snake-like way. But the 'great politician' blushed like a cherry, and answered with a beautiful smile:--

'Oh, we only do what we can!'

'Count Józef will be elected,' the nobleman said with conviction, and the 'great politician' answered:--

'I should wish it very much, though not alone for Józef's sake, but' (here the 'great politician' dropped her imprudent hands again), 'for the common cause...'

'By God! Bismarck is in the right!' cried the nobleman, kissing the tiny hands once more. After which they proceeded to discuss the canvassing. The nobleman himself undertook Krzywda Dolna and Mizerów, (Great Krzywda was lost, for Herr Schulberg owned all the property there), and Countess Marya was to occupy herself specially with Pognebin. She was all aglow with the _rôle_ she was to fill, and she certainly lost no time. She was daily to be seen at the cottages on the main road, holding her skirt with one hand, her parasol with the other, while from under her skirt peeped her tiny feet, tripping enthusiastically in the great political cause. She went into the cottages, she said to the people working on the road, 'The Lord help you!' She visited the sick, made herself agreeable to the people, and helped where she could. She would have done the same without politics, for she had a kind heart, but she did it all the more on this account. Why should not she also contribute her share to the political cause? But she did not dare confess to her husband that she had an irresistible desire to attend the village meeting. In imagination she had even planned the speech she would make at the meeting. And what a speech it would be! What a speech! True, she would certainly never dare to make it, but if she dared--why then! Consequently when the news reached Pognebin that the Authorities had prohibited the meeting, the 'great politician' burst into a fit of anger, tore one handkerchief up completely, and had red eyes all day. In vain her husband begged her not to 'demean' herself to such a degree; next day the canvassing was carried on with still greater fervour. Nothing stopped Countess Marya now. She visited thirteen cottages in one day, and talked so loudly against the Germans that her husband was obliged to check her. But there was no danger. The people welcomed her gladly, they kissed her hands and smiled at her, for she was so pretty and her cheeks were so rosy that wherever she went she brought brightness with her. Thus she came to Bartek's cottage also. Although Lysek did not bark at her, Magda in her excitement hit him on the head with a stick.

'Oh lady, my beautiful lady, my dear lady!' cried Magda, seizing her hands.

In accordance with his resolve, Bartek threw himself at her feet, while little Franek first kissed her hand, then stuck his thumb into his mouth and lost himself in whole-hearted admiration.

'I hope'--the young lady said after the first greetings were over,--'I hope, my friend Bartek, that you will vote for my husband, and not for Herr Schulberg.'

'Oh my dear lady!' Magda exclaimed, 'who would vote for Schulberg?--Give him the ten plagues! The lady must excuse me, but when one gets talking about the Germans, one can't help what one says.'

'My husband has just told me that he has repaid Just.'

'May God bless him!' Here Magda turned to Bartek. 'Why do you stand there like a post? I must beg the lady's pardon, but he's wonderfully dumb.'

'You will vote for my husband, won't you?' the lady asked. 'You are Poles, and we are Poles, so we will hold to one another.'

'I should throttle him if he didn't vote for him,' Magda said. 'Why do you stand there like a post? He's wonderfully dumb. Bestir yourself a bit!'

Bartek again kissed the lady's hand, but he remained silent, and looked as black as night. The Magistrate was in his mind.

The day of the Election drew near, and arrived. Count Jarzynski was certain of victory. All the neighbourhood assembled at Pognebin. After voting the gentlemen returned there from the town to wait for the priest, who was to bring the news. Afterwards there was to be a dinner, but in the evening the noble couple were going to Posen, and subsequently to Berlin also. Several villages in the Electoral Division had already polled the day beforehand. The result would be made known on this day. The company was in a cheerful frame of mind. The young lady was slightly nervous, yet full of hope and smiles, and made such a charming hostess that everyone agreed Count Józef had found a real treasure in Prussia. This treasure was quite unable at present to keep quiet in one place, and ran from guest to guest, asking each for the hundredth time to assure her that 'Józio would be elected.' She was not actually ambitious, and it was not out of vanity that she wished to be the wife of a Member, but she was dreaming in her young mind that she and her husband together had a real mission to accomplish. So her heart beat as quickly as at the moment of her wedding, and her pretty little face was lighted up with joy. Skilfully manoeuvering amidst her guests, she approached her husband, drew him by the hand, and whispered in his ear, like a child, nicknaming someone, 'The Hon. Member!' He smiled, and both were happy at the most trifling word. They both felt a great wish to give one another a warm embrace, but owing to the presence of their guests, this could not be. Everyone, however, was looking out of the window every moment, for the question was a really important one. The former Member, who had died, was a Pole, and this was the first time in this Division that the Germans had put up a candidate of their own. Their military success had evidently given them courage, but just for that reason it the more concerned those assembled at the manor house at Pognebin to secure the election of their candidate. Before dinner there was no lack of patriotic speeches, which especially moved the young hostess who was unaccustomed to them. Now and then she suffered an access of fear. Supposing there should be a mistake in counting the votes? But there would surely not only be Germans serving on the Committee! The principal landowners would simply flock to her husband, so that it would be possible to dispense with counting the votes. She had heard this a hundred times, but she still wished to hear it! Ah! and would it not make all the difference whether the local population had an enemy in Parliament, or someone to champion their cause? It would soon be decided,--in a short moment, in fact,--for a cloud of dust was rising from the road.

'The priest is coming! The priest is coming!' reiterated those present. The lady grew pale. Excitement was visible on every face. They were certain of victory, all the same this final moment made their hearts beat more rapidly. But it was not the priest, it was the steward returning from the town on horseback. Perhaps he might know something? He tied his horse to the gate post, and hurried to the house. The guests and the hostess rushed into the hall.

'Is there any news?--Is there any? Has our friend been elected?--What?--Come here!--Do you know for certain?--Has the result been declared?'

The questions rose and fell like rockets, but the man threw his cap into the air.

'The Count is elected!'

The lady sat down on a bench abruptly, and pressed her hand to her fast beating heart.

'Hurrah! Hurrah!' the neighbours shouted, 'Hurrah!'

The servants rushed out from the kitchen.

'Hurrah! Down with the Germans! Long live the Member! And my lady the Member's wife!'

'But the priest?' someone asked.

'He will be here directly;' the steward answered, 'they are still counting....'

'Let us have dinner!' the Hon. Member cried.

'Hurrah!' several people repeated.

They all walked back again from the hall to the drawing room. Congratulations to the host and hostess were now offered more calmly; the lady herself, however, did not know how to restrain her joy, and disregarding the presence of others, threw her arm round her husband's neck. But they thought none the worse of her for this; on the contrary, they were all much touched.

'Well, we still survive!' the neighbour from Mizerów said.

At this moment there was a clatter along the corridor, and the priest entered the drawing room, followed by old Maciej, of Pognebin.

'Welcome! Welcome!' they all cried. 'Well,--how great?'

The priest was silent a moment; then as it were into the very face of this universal joy he suddenly hurled the two harsh, brief words:

'Schulberg--elected!'

A moment of astonishment followed, a volley of hurried and anxious questions, to which the priest again replied:

'Schulberg is elected!'

'How?--What has happened?--By what means?--The steward said it was not so.--What has happened?'

Meanwhile Count Jarzynski was leading poor Countess Marya out of the room, who was biting her hankerchief, not to burst into tears or to faint.

'Oh what a misfortune, what a misfortune!' the assembled guests repeated, striking their foreheads.

A dull sound like people shouting for joy rose at that moment from the direction of the village. The Germans of Pognebin were thus gleefully celebrating their victory.

Count and Countess Jarzynski returned to the drawing room. He could be heard saying to his wife at the door, 'Il faut faire bonne mine,' and she had stopped crying already. Her eyes were dry and very red.

'Will you tell us how it was?' the host asked quietly.

'How could it be otherwise, Sir,' old Maciej said, 'seeing that even the Pognebin peasants voted for Schulberg?'

'Who did so?'

'What? Those here?'

'Why, yes; I myself and everyone saw Bartek Slowik vote for Schulberg.'

'Bartek Slowik?' the lady said.

'Why, yes. The others are at him now for it. The man is rolling on the ground, howling, and his wife is scolding him. But I myself saw how he voted.'

'From such an enlightened village!' the neighbour from Mizerów said.

'You see, Sir,' Maciej said, 'others who were in the war also voted as he did. They say that they were ordered--'

'That's cheating, pure cheating!--The election is void--Compulsion!--Swindling!' cried different voices.

The dinner at the Pognebin manor house was not cheerful that day.

The host and hostess left in the evening, but not as yet for Berlin, only for Dresden.

Meanwhile Bartek sat in his cottage, miserable, sworn at, ill-treated and hated, a stranger even to his own wife, for even she had not spoken a word to him all day.

In the autumn God granted a crop, and Herr Just, who had just come into possession of Bartek's farm, felt pleased, for he had not done at all a bad stroke of business.

Some months later three people walked out of Pognebin to the town, a peasant, his wife, and child. The peasant was very bent, more like an old man than an able-bodied one. They were going to the town because they could not find work at Pognebin. It was raining. The woman was sobbing bitterly at losing her cottage, and her native place. The peasant was silent. The road was empty, there was not a carriage, not a human being to be seen; the cross alone, wet from the rain, stretched its arms above them.--The rain fell more and more heavily, dimming the light.

Bartek, Magda and Franek were going to the town because the victor of Gravelotte and Sedan had to serve his term of imprisonment during the winter, on account of the affair with Boege.

Count and Countess Jarzynski continued to enjoy themselves in Dresden.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Nightingale.

[2] 'Czlowiek' and 'Slowik.'

[3] 'Czlowiek' (man).

[4] A popular song. Skrzynecki was a well-known leader in the Polish Revolution of 1863.

[5] 'They are going.' 'Jadom' and 'jada' are pronounced similarly.

[6] 'Macki' = 'Tommies.'

[7] Polish 'picie' = a drink.

[8] Polish e = French _in_.

TWILIGHT

STEFAN ZEROMSKI

The sun was gliding into a lustrous copper haze, drawn in wide streaks, like transparent dust, across the distant scene. It sank behind some thick red firs left standing at the edge of a clearing and behind the dark trunks which lay rotting on the hillside. Its beams still lighted the corners of a cottage, gilding it and colouring it scarlet; they penetrated the folds of grey clouds, and glittered on the water.

A recent storm had laid the marshy plains and newly cultivated woodlands partly under water. Here and on the furrows of the stubble-fields and the fresh autumn ploughing the puddles turned red and their irridescent surface became like molten glass, while entrancing violet shadows, dazzling to the sight, fell on the grey, beaten-down clods; the sand hills turned yellow; the weeds growing on the banks, the bushes at the edge of the field paths, all borrowed some unwonted momentary colour.

In a deep hollow surrounded by sparsely wooded hills to the east, west and south ran a little brook, which overflowed into bays, swamps, shallows and creeks. Tangles of reeds grew at the water's edge, lank bulrushes, sweet-flags, and clumps of willows. The still, red water was now shining in formless pale-green patches from under the large leaves of the water-lilies and coarse water-weeds.

A flight of teals was hovering above with outstretched necks, and broke in upon the silence with the swish of their wings. Otherwise everything was still. Even the glassy blue dragon-flies, which had been hovering ceaselessly on their gossamer wings round the stems of the bulrushes, had disappeared. The untiring water-flies alone yet strayed over the illuminated surface of the swamps on their stilt-like legs.... And there were two human beings at work.

The marshes belonged to the manor house. Formerly the young owner, accompanied by his spaniel, had floundered through them, shooting ducks and snipe, which were to be found there before he cut down all the woods. He left quite half of the land uncultivated, and having very quickly run through his property, he found no means of supporting himself until he went to Warsaw, where he was now selling soda-water at a stall.

When a new and prudent owner appeared, he inspected the fields, stick in hand, and frequently stood still on the marshes, rubbing his nose.

He fumbled with his hands in the swamp, dug holes, measured, sniffed,--till he invented a strange thing. He ordered the bailiff to hire labourers daily to dig peat, to heap barrow-loads of the mud on to the fields, and to go on digging a hole until it was large enough for a pond. He was to make a dyke, and to choose a lower position for a second pond, till there were some thirteen in all; then to cut trenches; to let the water down, build water-gates, and set fish in the ponds.

Walek Gibala, a day labourer without any land of his own, who was working for wages in the neighbouring village, was hired to cart away the peat. Gibala had been groom to the former landlord, but had not stayed on with the new one. In the first place, the new landlord and the new steward had lowered the wages and allowances, and, in the second place, they made an enquiry into everything that was stolen. In the time of the former landlord each groom used half a bushel of oats for a pair of horses, and took the rest in the evening to the 'Berlin' Inn, in exchange for tobacco or a drop of brandy. However, this business had come to an end at once when the new steward appeared, and since he justly laid the blame of it on Walek, he had boxed his ears, and dismissed him from his service.

So from that time Walek and his wife had lived on their daily earnings in the village, because he could not find a situation; he was not likely even to apply for one, so thoroughly had the steward taken his character away. At harvest time they both earned something here and there from the peasants, but in winter and early spring they suffered terribly,--indescribably, from hunger. Large and bony, with iron muscles, the man was as thin as a board, with an ashen look, round-shouldered and weakened by privation. The woman--like a woman--supported herself by her neighbours; she sold mushrooms, raspberries and strawberries to the manor house, or to the Jews, and at least thus earned a loaf of wheat-bread. But, without food, she was no match for the man at threshing. When the bailiff gave the order for digging in the meadows, the eyes of both sparkled. The steward himself promised thirty kopeks for digging two cubic yards.

Walek kept his wife occupied with the digging every day and all day. She loaded the wheelbarrow, and he wheeled the mud on to the field along planks thrown across the swamp. They worked feverishly. They had two large, deep wheelbarrows, and before Walek had brought back the empty one, the second was already full; then he threw the strap round his shoulder and pushed the barrow up the hill. The iron wheel creaked horribly. The liquid, dark, rank slime, thick with marsh-weeds, overflowed and trickled down on to the man's bare knees, as the wheelbarrows were tilted from plank to plank; it penetrated to his neck and shoulders, marking his shirt with a dark, evil-smelling streak. His arms ached at the elbows, his feet were painful and stiff from being continually plunged into the mud, but--with a hard day's work, they dug out four cubic yards:--and he knew that he had sixty kopeks in his pocket.

They were hopeful, for they had earned thirty roubles by the end of the autumn. They paid their rent, bought a cask of pickled cabbage, five bushels of potatoes, a 'sukmana,'[9] boots, some aprons and homespun for the woman, and linen for shirts. Thus they could last till the spring, when they would be able to earn by threshing and weaving at other people's houses.

All of a sudden the steward considered it excessive to give thirty kopeks for two cubic yards. It struck him that no one would be tempted to patter about in a swamp from daybreak to nightfall unless on the verge of starvation, and these people had undertaken it without hesitation. 'Twenty kopeks is enough,' he said, 'if not,--well, go without.'

There was nothing to be earned at this time of year, and the manor house had enough of its own people to attend to the threshing and machinery;--it was no use being fastidious in the matter. After this announcement Walek went to the inn, and made a beast of himself. Next day he beat his wife, and dragged her out to work for him.

From that time forward--beginning when it grew light--they dug out the four cubic yards, never stopping work from daybreak until night.

And now, indeed, night was drawing on from afar. The distant light-blue woods were growing dark, and melting into grey gloom. The radiance on the waters was extinguished. Immense shadows from the red firs standing towards the north fell on the summits of the hills, and along the clearings. The tree trunks alone remained crimson here and there, and then the stones. Small, fugitive rays were reflected from these points of light, and, falling into the deep wastes created among objects by the half-darkness, were refracted, quivered for an instant, and went out in turn. The trees and bushes lost their convexity and brilliance, their natural colours mingled with the grey distance, and they appeared only as flat and completely black forms with weird contours.

A thick mist was already gathering in the low-lying country, chilling the man through as he worked. The darkness was coming on in unseen waves, creeping along the slopes of the hills, gathering to itself the dreary colours of the stubble-fields, the water-courses, the clefts in the hills, and the rocks.

As the waves of mist met, others--white, transparent, and scarcely visible--which rose from the marshes, crept along in streaks, winding in balls round the undergrowth, trembling and curling over the surface of the water. The cold, damp wind drove the mist along the bottom of the valley, till it was stretched out flat like a face on the canvas of a picture.

'The mist is coming on,' Walkowa murmured. It was that moment of twilight, when every form seems to be visibly reducing itself to dust and nothingness, when a grey emptiness spreads over the surface of the earth, looks into the eyes, and oppresses the heart with unconscious sorrow. Terror seized Walkowa. Her hair stood on end, and a shudder passed through her body. The mists rose like a living thing, stealthily crawling over towards her; they came up from behind, retreated, lay in wait, and again crept forward in more impetuous pursuit. Her hands were clammy with the damp, it soaked through her skin to the bone, it irritated her throat, and tickled her chest. Then she remembered her child, whom she had not seen since noon. He was lying asleep,--locked up in a room quite alone,--in a cradle of lime wood, suspended from the beams of the ceiling by birch-twigs. Surely he was crying now,--choking,--sobbing? The mother heard that cry, as wailing and pitiful as that of a solitary bird in a desert place. It rang in her ears, it tormented a particular spot in her brain, it tore at her heart. She had not thought about him all day, for her hard work had scattered all her thoughts, in fact, it had drained and annihilated her power of thinking; but now the uncanny sensations caused by the twilight compelled her to concentrate herself and fasten her mind upon this small morsel of humanity.

'Walek' she said timidly, when the man brought up the barrow, 'shall I be off to the cottage and finish scraping the potatoes?'

Gibala did not answer, as though he had not heard. He seized the barrow and set forth. When he returned, the woman implored again: 'Walek, shall I be off?'

'Eh?' he grumbled carelessly.

She knew what his anger meant; she knew that he could catch a man under the ribs, gather up his skin in handfuls, and, having shaken him once or twice, throw him down like a stone among the rushes. She knew he was capable of tearing the handkerchief from her head, twisting her hair in a knot round his fist and dragging her in terror along the road; or, in a fit of absent-mindedness, of pulling his spade out of the swamp quickly, and cutting her across the head without considering--whether it had hit, or not hit her.

But impatient anxiety, kindled to the point of pain, rose above the fear of punishment. At moments the woman thought of running away; it only meant creeping into the little ravine, leaping across the brooklet, and then making straight through the fields and plantations. As she stooped and filled her barrow, she was already escaping in thought, leaping like a marten, scarcely feeling the pain of running barefoot across the stubble, overgrown with thick blackthorn and blackberries. The sharp clods would sting not only her feet but her heart. She would come running to the cottage, and open the bolt with the wooden key; the warmth and close air of the room would meet her face; she would clasp the cradle ... Walek would kill her when he returned to the cottage,--beat her to death:--but what then? That would be for later....

As soon, however, as Walek emerged from the mist, she was seized afresh by a dread of his fists. Again she humbly begged him, although she knew that her tormentor would not set her free:

'Perhaps the baby is dead in there.'

He answered nothing, threw down the strap of the barrow from his shoulder, approached his wife, and, by a movement of the head, pointed to the stakes up to which they must dig that day. Then he seized the spade, and began to throw mud into his barrow, time after time. He worked without thinking, quickly,--as fast as he could breathe. When he had filled the barrow he pushed it forward, running at top speed, and said as he left:

'Push yours too, you lazy brute....'

She took this mild concession to the object of her love, this brutal goodness, this hardness and severity as if it had been a caress. For it would be possible to finish the work far sooner if they both wheeled the mud. Rapidly and impetuously she now imitated his movements, like a monkey, and shovelled up the mud four times more quickly, no longer drawing on her muscular peasant's strength, but on her nervous power. Her chest rattled, dazzling colours passed under her eyelids, she felt faint, and large burning tears fell from her eyes into that cold, evil-smelling filth,--tears of unheeded pain. Every time she struck the spade into the ground she looked to see if it was still far to the stakes; her barrow ready, she seized it, and ran at full tilt after the man.

The mists rose high; they drew past the rushes and stood over the tops of the alders in an unmoving wall. The trees loomed through them as patches of indefinite colour, astonishingly large, but imperfect forms, which ran across the deep gorge like monstrous, terrible apparitions.

Their heads fell forward; their hands executed a uniform movement; their bodies were bowed to the ground....

The wheels of the barrows clattered and whined. Waves of mist like milk when poured into water, swayed amid the darkening hills.

The evening star shone low in the sky, and tremblingly threw its feeble light across the darkness.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Peasant's dress.

TEMPTATION

STEFAN ZEROMSKI

Countess Anna Krzywosad--Naslawska's youngest son had decided to take Holy Orders. From boyhood he had shown an unusual fondness for prayer, had been silent and obedient, and worn an earnest, pious expression. He had been educated in Rome under the eye of a distant cousin--a Cardinal--and completed his course at the seminary there with distinction, when barely twenty. Having not yet attained the proper age to hold any spiritual office, he went back to his own country for the first time for many years, and stayed at his mother's house.

He occupied a corner room in the mansion, as cold and damp as any monastic cell; he slept on the ground, fasted unceasingly, read Latin books, very probably scourged himself at nights, and wore a hair shirt under his shabby cassock. He was unspeakably good and gentle, forgave injuries, and was over-modest.

When he sat down, it was on the very edge of the chair, as if anxious that when he rose quickly his cassock should hinder him and make him move like a priest; he walked on tiptoe as if a mystic heel protected him from the dust of the earth; he shunned society, he murmured a prayer at the sight of a village girl.

Every day at dawn he left the house, and went into the fields. He felt that there he could be in closest communication with his Creator, there ecstatic visions came to him most clearly. He followed the beaten track through numberless rye-fields to the upland, where a half-ruined little chapel lay hidden in the shade of the pine forest.

One morning he went there as usual. The landscape was still buried in the night-mist, but a violet streak of daybreak had begun to spread on the horizon. The bearded rye brushed against his knees and scattered large dewdrops, yet the pathway was not damp, being sheltered by the full drooping ears. The corn, feebly illumined by the early morning light, rose in great waves along the hill, where the undulating line of the fields showed against the wood. The scent of earth and ripening corn hung on the breeze, bringing a sense of health, strength, and youth. From the dark gloom of the huge trees, whose tops were beginning to break up the expanse of dawning blue, came the keen, damp breath of the forest. The seminarist walked along slowly and lazily, passing his hand over the surface of the rye. Sky larks and crested larks rose at his feet, and dropped again like stones into the thickly-growing corn.

The dawn was now tinging the horizon with a rosy light; it burst forth like a wide flash of lightning, illuminating the rifts and curves in the dark clouds which lay idly over the wood. Unexpectedly hundreds of red firs, crowning the summit of the hill, emerged tall and grand from the night, their boughs standing out prominently against the transparent background of blue, as if stretching out their arms to the approaching sun.

Suddenly a thrill passed through the earth. The next moment a puff of wind, the forerunner of daybreak, stirred the boughs of the firs, and announced alike to plant, to grass, and corn--the coming of the sun.

It seemed as if the earth were quivering, as if her heart began to beat. Then the wind spread its wings, and hovered over the scented trunks, over the osiers and corn in the distance. A long, soothing moment of death-like silence followed, and then that mysterious moment of early dawn, when each living plant glows in its every part as if on fire.

The student walked with his face turned eastwards. Words of prayer rose from his heart to his lips as the sap rises to the bark of the pines when Spring comes. He went up to the little chapel, opened the grey wooden door, studded with nails, and fell on his face with outstretched hands before the picture of Christ, clumsily drawn by a rustic hand.

He felt as if his soul had fled from earth to the very Throne of God. The scales had fallen from his eyes in a moment: he was gazing on the face of the Eternal.

All at once a rough, coarse peasant's song was heard:

'It was then that I liked you best, Hanka,
When you bleached yourself in the fields, in the fields,
like a gosling.'

This was answered by a woman's voice, approaching from a distance:

'I did not bleach myself, I bleached a linen shirt,
But you, Kaska, thought that I was painted.'

The young man rose from the ground, and stood at the door of the chapel. He saw a sturdy farmer's lad in shirt sleeves, bare-foot, in a straw hat, and loaded like a horse, with juniper wood. This strapping fellow was taking up a kilo of roots--digging out bushes with the clods, and moistening his hands in the branches. A girl was going along the path, carrying a load of weeds on her back. The corners of her petticoat were turned up and tucked into her belt, her broad shoulders were bent together under the heavy burden, only her head, tied round with a red handkerchief, was raised towards the hill where the lad was working. When she reached the turn of the path, he stopped her, pulled down the hem of her skirt from her waist, and laid her bundle on the ground. She pushed him away with her hands, laughing.

The student shaded his eyes with his hand, but dropped it again the next minute, as the sound of the two singing a fresh song echoed through the glade. It was strange music. The wood, like a tuned string, seemed to quiver in harmony with the sound of those two voices:

'In the garden is a cherry tree,
In the orchard there are two;
I have loved you, Hanus, since you were small,
Nobody else but you.'

They went down into the hollow through the corn, which reached up to their heads, bent towards one another. Those two heads stood out in sharp relief against the dark rye, while the giant, brazen shield of the sun was rising over the ridge. They walked thus for a long time, never completely hidden by the corn.

Tears flowed from under the young man's closed eyes, and he clenched his hands convulsively. Words unknown to him, words known as longing and the desire for love, forced themselves unnoticed to his lips.

In a vision he saw moist eyes and a girl's long braided hair rising and sinking in some sea cavern. An unknown force, inexpressibly sweet, a force which could be neither expelled nor conquered, rose within him, carrying him far away into space. His soul threw off its fetters, and rushed forth in its wild freedom, as a colt starts for a mad gallop....

SRUL--FROM LUBARTÓW

ADAM SZYMANSKI

I

It happened in the year,...; but no matter what year. Suffice it to say that it happened, and that it happened at Yakutsk in the beginning of November, about a month after my arrival at that citadel of frosts. The thermometer was down to 35 degrees Réamur. I was therefore thinking anxiously of the coming fate of my nose and ears, which, fresh from the West, had been making silent but perceptible protests against their compulsory acclimatization, and to-day were to be submitted to yet further trials. These latest trials were due to the fact that one of the men in our colony, Peter Kurp, nicknamed Baldyga,[10] had died in the local hospital two days before, and early that morning we were going to do him a last service, by laying his wasted body in the half-frozen ground.

I was only waiting for an acquaintance, who was to tell me the hour of the funeral, and I had not long to wait. Having wrapped up my nose and ears with the utmost care, I set out with the others to the hospital.

The hospital was outside the town. In the courtyard, and at some distance from the other buildings, stood a small shed--the mortuary.

In this mortuary lay Baldyga's body.

When the doors were opened, we entered, and the scene within made a painful impression on the few of us present. We were about ten people, possibly a few more, and we all involuntarily looked at one another: we were standing opposite a cold and bare reality, not veiled by any vestige of pretence....

In the shed,--which possessed neither table nor stool, nothing but walls white with hoarfrost and a floor covered with snow,--lay a large bearded corpse, equally white, and tied up in some kind of sheet or shirt. This was Baldyga.

The body, which was completely frozen, had been brought near the light to the door, where the coffin was standing ready.

Never shall I forget Baldyga's face as I saw it then with the light full upon it, and washed by the snow. There was something strange and indescribably sad in the rough, strongly marked countenance; the large pupils and projecting eyeballs seemed to look far away into the distance towards the stern frosty sky.

'That man,--he was a good sort,' one of those present said to me, noticing the impression which the sight of Baldyga made on me. 'He was always steady and industrious; people who were hard up used to go to him and he would help them. But there never was anyone so obstinate as Kurp: he believed to the last that he would go back to the Narev.[11] Yet before the end came it was plain that he knew he would never get there.'

Meanwhile the petrified body had been laid in the coffin, and placed upon the small one-horse Yakut sledge.

Then the tailor's wife--a person versed in religious practices,--undertook the office of priest for such time as we could give her, and began to sing 'Ave Maria,' while we joined in with voices broken with emotion. After this we proceeded to the cemetery.

We walked quickly; the frost was invigorating, and made us hasten our steps. At last we reached the cemetery. We each threw a handful of frozen earth on to the coffin.... A few deft strokes of the spade ... and in a moment only a small freshly turned mound of earth remained to bear witness to Baldyga's yet recent existence in this world. This witness would not last long, however,--scarcely a few months. The spring would come, and, thawed by the sun, the mound on the grave would sink and become even with the rest of the ground, and grass and weeds would grow upon it. After a year or two the witnesses of the funeral would die, or be dispersed throughout the wide world, and if even the mother who bore him were to search for him, she would no longer find a trace on the earth. But, indeed, none would seek for the dead man, nor even a dog ask for him.

Baldyga had known this; we knew it too: and we dispersed to our houses in silence.

The day following the funeral the frost was yet more severe. There was not a single building to be seen on the opposite side of the fairly narrow street in which I lived, for a thick mist of snow crystals overspread the earth, like a cloud. The sun could not penetrate this mist, and although there was not a living soul in the street, the air was so highly condensed through the extreme cold that I continually heard the metallic sound of creaking snow, the sharp reports of the walls and ground cracking in the frost, or the moaning song of a Yakut. Evidently those Yakut frosts were beginning, which reduce the most terrible Arctic cold to insignificance. They fill human beings with unspeakable dread. Every living thing feels its utter helplessness, and although it cowers down and shrinks into itself for protection, knows quite well--like the cur worried by fierce mastiffs,--that all is in vain, for sooner or later the inexorable foe is bound to be victorious.

And Baldyga was continually in my mind, as if he were alive. I had sat for hours at my half-finished task. Somehow I could not stick to work; the pen fell from my hand, and my unruly thoughts ranged far away beyond the snowy frontier and frosty ground. In vain I appealed to my reason, in vain I repeated wholesome advice to myself for the tenth time. Hitherto I had offered some resistance to the sickness which had consumed me for several weeks; to-day I felt completely overcome and helpless. Homesickness was devouring and making pitiless havoc of me.

I had been unable to resist dreaming so many times already; was it likely I should withstand the temptation to-day? The temptation was stronger, and I was weaker than usual.

So begone frost and snow, begone the existence of Yakutsk! I threw down my pen, and surrounding myself with clouds of tobacco smoke, plunged into the waters of feverish imagination.

And how it carried me away!... My thoughts fled rapidly to the far West, across morasses and steppes, mountains and rivers, across countless lands and cities, and spread a scene of true enchantment before me. There on the Vistula lay my native plains, free from misery and human passions, beautiful and harmonious. My lips cannot utter, nor my pen describe their charm!

I saw the golden fields, the emerald meadows; the dense forests murmured their old legends to me.

I heard the rustle of the waving corn; the chirping of the feathered poets; the sound of the giant oaks as they haughtily bid defiance to the gale.

And the air seemed permeated by the scent of those aromatic forests, and those blossoming fields, adorned in virgin freshness by the blue cornflowers and that sweetest beauty of Spring,--the innocent violet.

... Every single nerve felt the caress of my native air.... I was touched by the life-giving power of the sun's rays; and although the frost outside creaked more fiercely, and showed its teeth at me on the window panes more menacingly, yet the blood circulated in my veins more rapidly, my head burnt, and I sat as if spellbound, deaf, no longer seeing or hearing anything round me....

II

I did not notice that the door opened and someone entered my room, neither did I see the circles of vapour, which form in such numbers every time a door is opened that they obscure the face of the person entering. I did not feel the cold: it penetrates human dwellings here with a sort of shameless, premeditated violence. In fact, I had seen or heard nothing until suddenly I felt a man close to me, and even before catching sight of him, found myself involuntarily putting him the usual Yakut question:

'Toch nado?' ('What do you want?')

'If you please, Sir, I am a hawker,' was the answer.

I looked up. Although he was dressed in ox and stag's hide, I had no doubt that a typical Polish Jew from a small town stood before me. Anyone who had seen him at Lossitz or Sarnak would have recognized him as easily in Yakut as in Patagonian costume. I knew him at once. And since, as I have said, I was as yet only semi-conscious, and had asked the question almost mechanically, the Jew now standing before me did not interrupt my train of thought too harshly; the contrast was, therefore, not too disagreeable. Quite the reverse. I gazed into the well-known features with a certain degree of pleasure; the Jew's appearance at that moment seemed quite natural, since it carried me in thought and feeling to my native land, and the few Polish words sounded dear to my ear. Half dreaming still, I looked at him kindly.

The Jew stood still for a moment, then turned, and retreating to the door, began to pull off his multifarious coverings.

Then I came to myself, and realized that I had not yet answered him, and that my sagacious countryman, quite misinterpreting my silence, was anxious to dispose of his wares to me. I hastened to undeceive him.

'In heaven's name, man, what are you doing?' I cried quickly, 'I do not want to buy anything; I am not wanting anything. Do not unload yourself in vain, and go away with God's blessing!'

The Jew stopped undoing his things, and after a moment's consideration, came towards me with his long fur coat[12] half trailing behind him, and began to mumble quickly in broken sentences: 'It's all right; I know you won't buy anything, Sir. I saw you, for I have been here a long time, a very long time.... I didn't know before that you had come.... You come from Warsaw, don't you, Sir? They only told me yesterday evening that you had been here four months already; what a pity it was such a time before I heard of it! I should have come at once. I have been searching for you to-day for an hour, Sir. I went quite to the end of the town,--and there's such a frost here,--confound it!... If you will allow me Sir,--I won't interrupt for long?... Only just a few words....'

'What do you want of me?'

'I should only like to have a little chat with you, Sir.'

This answer did not greatly surprise me. I had already come across not a few people, Jews among them, who had called solely for the purpose of 'having a little chat' with a man recently arrived from their country. Those who came were interested in the most varied topics imaginable; there were the inquisitive gossipers pure and simple, there were the people who only enquired after their relations, and there were the politicians, including those whose heads had been turned. Among those who came, however, politics always played a specially important part. So it did not surprise me, I repeat, to hear the wish expressed by a fresh stranger, and although I should have been glad to rid my cottage as quickly as possible of the unpleasant odour of the ox-hide coat,--badly tanned, as usual--I begged him in a friendly way to take it off and sit down.

The Jew was evidently pleased. He took a seat beside me at once and I could now observe him closely.

All the usual features of the Jewish race were united in the face beside me: the large, slightly crooked nose and penetrating hawk's eyes, the pointed beard of the colour of a well-ripened pumpkin, the low forehead, surrounded by thick hair; all these my guest possessed. And yet, strange to say, the haggard face expressed a certain frank sincerity, and did not make a disagreeable impression on me.

'Tell me where you come from, what your name is, what you are doing here, and why you wish to see me?'

'Please, Sir, I am Srul, from Lubartów. Perhaps you know it,--just a stone's throw from Lublin?--Well, at home everyone thinks it a long way from there, and formerly I thought so too. But now,' he added with emphasis, 'we know that Lubartów is quite close to Lublin, a mere stone's throw.'

'And have you been here long?'

'Very long; three good years.'

'That is not so very long; there are people who have lived here for over 20 years, and I met an old man from Vilna in the road, who had been here close upon 50 years. Those have really been a long time.'

But the Jew snubbed me. 'As to them, I can't say. I only know that I have been here a long time.'

'You must certainly live quite alone, if the time seems so long to you?'

'With my wife and child--my daughter. I had four children when I set out, but, may the Lord preserve us, it was such a long way, we were travelling a whole year. Do you know what such a journey means, Sir?... Three children died in one week--died of travelling, as it were. Three children!... An easy thing to say!... There was nowhere even to bury them, for there was no cemetery of ours there.... I am a Husyt,' he added more quietly. 'You know what that means Sir?... I keep the Law strictly ... and yet God punishes me like this....' He grew silent with emotion.

'My friend,' I tried to say to console him a little,--'no doubt under such circumstances it is difficult to remember that it makes no difference; but all earth is hallowed.'

But the Jew jumped as if he had been scalded.

'Hallowed! how hallowed! In what way is it hallowed! What are you saying, Sir? It's unclean! It's damned!... Hallowed earth?... You must not talk like that, Sir, you ought to be ashamed! Is earth hallowed, which never thaws? This earth is cursed! God doesn't wish human beings to live here; it wouldn't have been like this, if He had wished it. Cursed! Bad! Damned! Damned!'

And he began to spit about him, and stamp his feet, threatening the innocent Yakut earth with tightened lips and his shrivelled hands, and muttering Jewish maledictions. At last, exhausted by the effort, he fell rather than sat down at the table beside me.

All exiles, without regard to religion or race, dislike Siberia: evidently a fanatic does not learn to hate it half-heartedly. I paused until he had calmed himself. Educated in a severe school, the Jew quickly regained his self-possession and mastered his emotion, and when I gazed questioningly into his eyes the next moment, he immediately answered me:

'You must pardon me; I do not speak of this to anyone, for to whom should I speak here?'

'Then are there very few Jews here?'

'Those here? Do you call them Jews, Sir? They're such low fellows, not one of them keeps the Law strictly.'

Fearing another outburst, I would not, however, allow him to finish, and decided to change the conversation by asking him straight out what he wanted to talk to me about now.

'I should like to know the news from there, Sir. I have been here so many years, and I have never yet heard what is going on there.'

'You are asking a good deal, for I can't exactly tell you everything. I don't know what interests you,--politics perhaps?'

The Jew was silent.

I concluded that my present guest, like many of the others, was interested in politics; but as I myself did not understand the very elements of the subject, I began to give the stereotyped account I had already composed with a view to frequent repetition of the situation of European politics, our own,[13] and so forth. But the Jew fidgeted impatiently.

'Then this does not interest you?' I asked.

'I have never thought about it,' he answered candidly.

'Ah, now I know why you have come! I am sure you wish to know how the Jews are doing, and how trade is going?'

'They are better off than I am.'

'Exactly. I am sure, under the circumstances, you will wish to know if living is dear with us, what the market prices are, how much for butter, meat, etc.'

'What does it concern me if it is ever so cheap there, if I can get nothing here?'

'Quite right again; but what the devil did you actually come here for?'

'Since I don't know myself, I ask you, Sir, how I am to tell you? You see, Sir, I often get thinking ... I think so much ... that Ryfka (that's my wife) asks, "Srul, what's the matter with you?" And what can I tell her, for I don't know myself what it is. Perhaps some people would laugh at me?' he added, as if fearing I were amongst them.

But I did not laugh; I was interested. Something, the cause of which he himself could not explain or express in words, was evidently weighing on him, and his unusually poor command of language added to this difficulty. In order to help him I re-assured him by telling him that I was in no hurry, as my work was not urgent and there would therefore be no harm in our having an hour's talk, and so on.--The Jew thanked me with a glance, and after a moment's thought opened the conversation thus:

'When did you leave Warsaw, Sir?'

'According to the Russian calendar, at the end of April.'

'Was it cold there then or warm?'

'Quite warm. I travelled in a summer suit at first.'

'Well, just fancy, Sir! Here it was freezing!'

'Then you have forgotten, is that it? Anyway, with us the fields are sown in April, and all the trees are green.'

'Green?' Joy shone in Srul's eyes. 'Why, yes, yes--green:--and here it was freezing!'

Now at last I knew why he had come to me. Wishing to make certain, however, I was silent: the Jew was evidently getting animated.

'Well, Sir, you might tell me if there is any--with us now ... but you see, I don't know what it's called; I have already forgotten Polish,' he apologized shyly, as if he had ever known it--'it's white like a pea blossom, yet it's not a pea, and in summer it grows in gardens round houses, on those tall stalks?'

'Kidney beans?'

'That's just it! Kidney beans! Kidney beans!' he repeated to himself several times, as if wishing to impress those words on his memory for ever.

'Of course there are plenty of those. But are there none here?'

'Here! I have never seen a single pod all these past three years. Here the peas are what at home we should not expect the ... the....'

'The pigs to eat,' I suggested.

'Well, yes! Here they sell them by the pound, and it's not always possible to get them.'

'Are you so fond of kidney beans?'

'It's not that I am so fond of them, but they are so beautiful that ... I don't know why ... I often get thinking and thinking how they may be growing round my house. Here there's nothing!'

'And now, Sir,' he recommenced, 'will you tell me, if those small grey birds are still there in the winter,--like this--' and he measured with his hand. 'I have forgotten their names too. Formerly there were a great many, when I used to pray by the window. They used to swarm round! Well, whoever even looked at them there? Do you know, Sir, I could never have believed that I should ever think about them! But here, where it's so cold that even the crows won't stop, you can't expect to see little things like that. But they are sure to be there with us? They are there, aren't they, Sir?...'

But I did not answer him now. I no longer doubted that this old fanatical Jew was pining for his country just as much as I was, and that we were both sick with the same sickness. This unexpected discovery moved me deeply, and I seized him by the hand, and asked in my turn: