Whirlpools

The words seconded that which was hidden in the girl's heart too much for her anger to remain, so she only glanced at Laskowicz, as if in sorrow, and replied:

"Eh! Much good will come of that law!"

"It will come or not come, in time. After all, if we adjusted the world in our own way, no dog would bark at such things. Is not the little lady worthy of Krzycki? Why not? Is it because he is richer? That is just what we are trying to prevent. Then what? Education? Lady, spit upon it. That education you can teach to a monkey. It is he, if the little lady wanted him, who ought yet to kiss the little lady's feet."

But she again became impatient and replied:

"Idle talk."

"I also want only to say that in case I should fall in love with Panna Marynia and the little lady with Krzycki, our lot would be identical and the wrong the same."

"Wrong in what?"

"In the vile institutions of this world; in this, that such riff-raff as ourselves are permitted to love only to suffer, and we are not allowed to raise our eyes even upon the bourgeoisie, even though the hearts within should whine like dogs."

"True," answered the girl through set teeth. "But what of it?"

"This: that we ought to give to each other our hands, as brother and sister, and not be angry at each other, but assist one another. Who knows whether one may not be of service to the other?"

"Eh! In what way can we help each other?"

And he again began to gaze fixedly at her with his eyes set so closely to each other and said, uttering each word slowly:

"I do not know whether Krzycki is in love with Panna Marynia or with that Englishwoman whom the little lady serves; or perhaps with neither of them."

In one moment Pauly's face was covered with a pallor; afterwards a flame passed over it, which in turn gave way to pallor. In her soul there might have been dumb fears, but up to that time she had dared not put to herself any questions. Those ladies were entertained in Jastrzeb as guests. Pani Otocka and Panna Marynia were Krzycki's relatives; therefore there was nothing unusual in their relations. On the other hand, when the "Englishwoman" in Jastrzeb drove for the doctor and later nursed the wounded man, that was a time when the heart of the girl raged with jealousy and uneasiness. Afterwards she was placated by the thought that such a young nobleman would not wed a foreign "intruder," no matter how wealthy, but, at present, jealousy pierced her like a knife.

Laskowicz continued:

"The little lady asked in what way we can help one another, did she not?"

"Yes."

"At least in-revenge,"

After which, he changed the conversation.

"Let the little lady come to me and, if I sometimes inquire about anything, let her not get angry. If at times it is hard for her, it is not easy for me. One lot, one wrong. Let the little lady come. I do not want to live with Swidwicki any longer. He is a peculiar man. I know that he did not take me out of the goodness of his heart, but as he placed himself in peril on my account I must endure everything from him. In the meantime he so maligns our party that I feel an impulse to shoot him in the head or stab him with a knife."

"Why do you argue with that old goat?"

"Because he talks and I must listen. Often he goads me into a reply. Somebody else for lesser things would get a knife under the ribs."

"But I will not be able to hide you a second time, for I do not know where."

"No. I myself will find some sort of hole; I have already thought of that. Our people will help. I now have a passport and am bleached yellow on the head. Some of my associates could not recognize me. Even if I am caught they will not try me as Laskowicz but as Zaranczko of Bessarabia, unless some one should betray me, but such there is not among us."

"Only be careful, sir, and when you know where to hide, let me know. I will not betray."

"I know, I know; such do not betray."

After which he suddenly asked:

"Why does not the little lady want to agree that we should call each other 'associates'? Amongst us we all speak that way."

But she rebuffed him at once.

"I told you once I cannot endure that."

"Ah, if it is so, then it is hard."

Pauly began to prepare for home. Laskowicz on the leave-taking made a second departure from the customs governing his associates, for he kissed her hand. Previously he had noticed that this raised her in her own eyes; that it flattered her and brought her into a good humor. Although not by nature over-intelligent, he observed that the principles of the Party alone would not entirely hold her, and that he would have in that girl an aid capable of all extremes, but only so far as her own personality entered into the play. This lowered the opinion which he held of her and his gratitude to her. He nevertheless submitted to this despotism, remembering that he owed to her his life.

At present he had, besides, a favor to ask of her; so at the door he kissed her hand a second time and said:

"Panna Pauly-the same lot, the same wrong. Let the little lady answer yet one more question. Where can I see though from a distance-though from a distance-"

"Whom?" she asked, knitting her brows.

"Panna Marynia."

"If from a distance, then I will tell," she replied reluctantly. "The little lady is to play for the starving working people and at noon goes to the rehearsals."

"Alone?"

"No, with Pani Otocka or with my mistress; but sometimes with one of us servants."

"Thank you."

"But only from a distance-do you understand, sir, – for otherwise you will fare badly."

And after these words, which sounded like a menace, she left him. The next moment Laskowicz heard through the door Swidwicki's voice and laughter, after which something resembling a scuffle, a suppressed scream, and-the sound of hasty footsteps on the stairs; finally Swidwicki stumbled into the room, drunk.

"What were you doing here?" he asked.

"Nothing," answered Laskowicz.

And he began to scan the room, evidently desiring to satisfy himself whether he could not detect some signs of disorder, and repeated:

"Nothing!"

"I give you my word of honor," the student exclaimed with energy.

At this Swidwicki leered at him, fingering his disheveled beard and said:

"Then you are a fool!"

After which he flung himself upon the sofa, for he had partaken of a sumptuous breakfast and was sleepy.

III

Laskowicz's extreme fanaticism could not in reality harmonize with the extreme cynical scepticism of Swidwicki, who in addition took advantage of the situation not only beyond measure, but to the point of cruelty. He himself spoke of it and boasted about it to Gronski, when he met him in the restaurant, to which Gronski went after Krzycki's removal.

"I have enough of my revolutionary maggot," he said, "I have enough of him, especially since I have satisfied myself that personally he is honest and will not pilfer any money from my pocket-book. From that time he has bored me. As for harboring such a simpleton one might go to Siberia. I regarded it in the beginning as a species of sport. I thought I would have a permanent sensation of a certain anxiety and, in the meantime, I have not experienced anything of the kind. The only satisfaction which I have is to point out to him his own stupidity and that of his party. By that I drive him to rabidness."

"But that he cares to argue with you-"

"He does not want to but is unable to restrain himself. His temperament and fanaticism carry him away."

"At one time I met a similar individual," answered Gronski, "and not very long ago-out in the country, in Jastrzeb. He was a student, a tutor of Stas, whom Krzycki later discharged because he incited the field hands and was an agitator among peasants of the neighborhood."

"Ah," ejaculated, with a strange smile, Swidwicki, to whom it occurred that Pauly also was at Jastrzeb.

"What? Why do you smile?" asked Gronski.

"Oh, nothing. Speak further."

"I rode with him once to the city and on the way had quite a chat with him."

"According to your habit."

"According to my habit. Now among empty phrases, which only dull minds would accept as genuine coin, he said some interesting things. I learned a little about the angle from which they view the world."

"My maggot at times says interesting things. Yesterday I led him into the admission that socialists of the pure water regard as their greatest enemies the peasants and the radical members of the bourgeoisie. I began to pour oil on the fire and he unbosomed himself. An unsophisticated peasant aspires to ownership, and that aspiration the devil cannot eradicate, and as to the bourgeoisie he spoke thus: 'What harm,' he said, 'do these few nobles and priests who infest the world do to us? Our enemy is the bourgeois, rich or poor. Our enemy is the radical, who thinks that as soon as he shouts that he does not believe in God and priests that he buys us. Our enemy is that boaster, who speaks in the name of the common people and is ready to tickle us under the armpits, so that we should smile on him. He is the one who fawns on us, like a dog at a roll of butter, and preserves all the instincts of a bourgeois.' And he chattered further until I said: 'Hold on! Why, you are with the radicals "fratres Helenae!"' And he to this: 'That is not true! The radical, wealthy bourgeois, who from fear dyes in red and borrows the standard and methods from us, introduces confusion in minds and drabbles in the mud our idea; and the poor one, if he annually saves even the smallest amount, injures us for he offers to work at a lower price than the pure proletaire, who always is as poor as Job. We,' he said, 'will put the knife, above all things, to the throats of the bourgeois for latent treachery lurks in him.' Thus he chattered and I was willing to concede justice to him, if in general I believed in justice, but I did not concede it yet for another reason, and that is, he is too stupid to have reasoned out such things. It was evident that he repeated what others taught him. In fact I did not neglect to tell him so."

Further discussion was interrupted by the arrival of Dolhanski who, observing Gronski, approached him, although he disliked to meet Swidwicki.

"How are you?" he said, "My ladies took a trip to Czestochowo; so I am free. Will you permit me to be seated with you?"

"Certainly, certainly. Why, these are your last days."

"It would be worth while even for that reason to drink a little bottle," observed Swidwicki, "particularly as it is, besides, my birthday."

"If the calendar was a wine-cellar and the dates in it bottles, then your birthday would occur every day," answered Gronski.

"I swear to you upon everything at which I jeer, that, contrary to my habit and inclination, this time I speak the truth."

Saying this, he nodded to the waiter and ordered him to bring two bottles, calculating that afterwards more would be forthcoming. In the meantime Dolhanski said:

"I met Krzycki to-day. He looks poorly; somehow not himself, and he told me that he does not live with you but in a hotel. Did you by chance quarrel?"

"No. But he moved away from me and Pani Krzycki from Pani Otocka's."

"There is some kind of epidemic," exclaimed Swidwicki, "for my cutthroat is leaving me."

"Perhaps something has passed between Krzycki and Miss Anney," said Dolhanski. "I supposed that they were getting quite intimate. Did they part-or what?"

"A marchpane, that Englishwoman," interrupted Swidwicki; "but her maid has more electricity in her."

Gronski hesitated for a while; after which he said:

"No, they have not parted, but something has occurred. I do not know why I should make a secret of that which, sooner or later, you will find out. It has developed that Miss Anney is not the born, but adopted, child of the rich English manufacturer, lately deceased, Mr. Anney, and of his late wife."

"Well, if the adoption gives her all the rights, and particularly the right of inheritance, is it not all the same to Krzycki?"

"The adoption gives her all rights; nevertheless it is not entirely the same to Krzycki, for it appears that Miss Anney is the daughter of a blacksmith of Rzeslewo and is named Hanka Skibianka."

"Ha!" cried Swidwicki, "Perdita has been found but not the king's daughter. What does the pretty Florizel say to this?"

But Dolhanski began to stare at Gronski as if he saw him for the first time in his life.

"What are you saying?"

"The actual fact."

"Sapristi! But that is a nursery tale. Sapristi! You are joking."

"I give you my word it is so. She herself told that to Krzycki."

"I like that expression of astonishment on Dolhanski's face," exclaimed Swidwicki. "Man, come to yourself."

Dolhanski restrained himself, for he always proclaimed that a true gentleman never should be surprised.

"I remember now," he said, "that this is the Skibianka to whom Uncle Zarnowski bequeathed a few thousand roubles."

"The same."

"Therefore his daughter."

"Fancy to yourself otherwise. Skiba came from Galicia to Rzeslewo with a wife and a child a few years old."

"Therefore of pure peasant blood."

"A Piast's,10 a Piast's," cried Swidwicki.

"Absolutely pure," answered Gronski.

"And what does Laudie say?"

"He swallowed the tidings and is trying to digest them," again blurted out Swidwicki.

"That substantially is the case. He found himself in a new situation and locked himself up. It dumfounded him a little, and he desires to come to himself."

"He was enamoured to the point of ludicrousness but now he will probably break off."

"I do not admit that, but I repeat, that, in view of the changed situation, he has fallen into a certain internal strife, which he must first quell."

"I candidly confess that I would break off all relations unconditionally."

"But if Kaska or Hanka had a hundred thousand pounds?" asked Swidwicki.

"In such a case-I would have fallen into a strife," answered Dolhanski, phlegmatically.

After a while he continued:

"For it seems that it is nothing, but in life it may appear to be something. Omitting the various cousins, 'Mats' and 'Jacks,' who undoubtedly will be found; there also will be found dissimilar instincts, dissimilar dispositions, and dissimilar tastes. Why, the deuce! I would not want a wife who suddenly might be ruled by an unexpected passion for amber rosaries, for shelling peas, for swingling flax, for picking fruit, or for gathering mushrooms, not to say berries and nuts, and walking barefooted."

Here he turned to Gronski.

"Shrug your shoulders, but it is so."

"That would not shock me," said Swidwicki, "only, if I were to marry Miss Anney, I would just stipulate that she at times should go about barefooted. When I am in the country, nothing affects me so much as the sight of the bare feet of girls. It is true that they often have erysipelas about the ankles, which comes from the prickle of the stubblefields. But I assume that Miss Anney has not got erysipelas."

"One cannot talk with you in a dignified manner."

"Why?" replied Swidwicki. "Let Krzycki now clip coupons from his dignity but not we. Did you say that he belongs to the National Democrats?"

"No, not I. But what connection has that with Miss Anney?"

"Oh, – oh, a nobleman-a National Democrat-has found out that his flame has peasant blood in her veins and nevertheless his belly on that account has begun to ache; nevertheless, he is stung by that deminutio capitis."

"Who told you that? Besides, it should be permutatio, not deminutio."

"Yes! The English wares take on the appearance of a domestic product and fall in value. Justly, justly."

"Do you know who could with perfect independence enter into a marriage under such conditions?" asked Dolhanski. "A truly great gentlemen."

"But not Polish," exclaimed Swidwicki.

"There you are already beginning! Why not Polish?"

"Because a Polish gentleman has not sufficient faith in his own blood; he plainly has not sufficient pride to believe that he will elevate a woman to himself and not lower himself to her."

Gronski began to laugh:

"I did not expect that charge from your lips," he said.

"Why? I am an individualist, and in so far as I do not regard myself as a specimen of the basest race, so far do I regard myself as a specimen of the best. According to me one belongs to the aristocracy only through lucky chance; that is, when one brings into the world a suitable profile and corresponding brain. But Dolhanski, for instance, in so far as he has not purchased portraits of ancestors at an auction-and our other gentlemen-judge that blood constitutes that appurtenance. Now granting these premises, I contend that our tories do not know how to be proud of their blood."

"At home," said Gronski, "you vent your spleen upon the socialists, and here you wish to vent it upon the aristocracy."

"That does not diminish my merits. I have a few pretty remarks for the National Democracy."

"I know, I know. But how will you prove that which you said about the Polish tories?"

"How will I prove it? By the Socratic method-with the aid of questions. Did you ever observe when a Polish gentleman abroad becomes acquainted with a Frenchman or Englishman? I, while I had money, passed winters in Nice or in Cairo and saw a number of them. Now, every time I propounded to myself the question which now I put to you: why the devil it is not the Frenchman or Englishman who tries to please the Pole, but the Pole them? Why is it that only the Pole fawns, only the Pole coquets? Because he is almost ashamed of his descent; and if by chance a Frenchman tells him that from his accent he took him for a Frenchman, or an Englishman takes him for an Englishman, then he melts with joy, like butter in a frying-pan! Ah, I have seen such coquettes by the score-and it is an old story. Such coquetry, for instance, Stanislaus Augustus11 possessed. At home, the Polish gentleman at times knows how to hold his nose high. Before a foreigner he is on both paws. Is not that a lack of pride in his own race, in his own blood, in his own traditions? If you have the slightest grain of a sense of justice, even though no larger than the grain of caviar, you must admit the justice of my remarks. As to myself, I have been ashamed sometimes that I am a Pole."

"That means that you committed the same sin with which you charge others," replied Gronski. "If the tips of the wings of our eagle reached both seas, as at one time they did, perhaps Poles might be different. But at present-tell me-of what are they to be proud?"

"You are twisting things. I am speaking of racial pride only, not political," answered Swidwicki. "After all, may the devils take them. I prefer to drink."

"Say what you will," asserted Dolhanski, "but I will merely tell you this: if internal affairs were exclusively in their hands, some fooleries might take place, but we would not be fried in the sauce in which we are fried to-day."

Swidwicki turned to him with eyes glistening already a little abnormally.

"My dear sir," he said, "in order to govern a country it is necessary to have one of three things: either the greatest number, which the canaille has behind it-I beg pardon, I should have said the Democracy-or the greatest sound sense, which nobody amongst us possesses, or the most money, which the Jews have. And as I have demonstrated that our great gentlemen do not even have any sentiment of traditions, therefore what have they?"

"At least good manners, which you lack," retorted Dolhanski with aversion.

"No. I will tell you what they have-if not all of them, then the second or third one: but I will tell it to you in a whisper, so as not to shock Gronski's virgin ears."

And leaning over to Dolhanski, he whispered a word to him, after which he snorted, maliciously:

"I do not say that that is nothing, but it is not sufficient to govern the country with."

But Dolhanski frowned and said:

"If that is so, then you surely belong to the highest aristocracy."

"Of course! certainly! I have a diploma certified a few years ago in Aix-la-chapelle, the place of the coronation!"

Saying this, he again quaffed his wine and continued with a kind of feverish gayety:

"Ah, permit me to rail, permit me to scoff at men and things! I always do that internally but at times I must expectorate the gall. Permit me! For after all, I am a Pole, and for a Pole there perhaps cannot be a greater pleasure than defacing, belittling, pecking at, calumniating, spitting on, and pulling down statues from the pedestals. Republican tradition, is it not? In addition Providence so happily arranged it that a Pole loves that the most, and when he himself is concerned, he feels it most acutely. A delightful society!"

"You are mistaken," replied Gronski, "for in that respect we have changed prodigiously and in proof of it, I will cite one instance: When the painter Limiatycki received for his 'Golgotha' a grand medal in Paris, all the local little brushes at once fumed at him. So meeting him, I asked him whether he intended to retaliate, and he replied to me with the greatest serenity: 'I am serving my fatherland and art, but only stupidity cannot understand that, while only turpitude will not understand it.' And he was right, for whoever has any kind of wings at his shoulders and can raise himself a little in the air, need not pay attention to the mud of the streets."

"Tut, tut; mud is a purely native product, the same as other symptoms of your national culture, namely: filth, scandals, envy, folly, indolence, big words and little deeds, cheap politics, brawling, a relish for mass-meetings, banditism, revolvers, and bombs; if I wanted to mention everything I would not finish until late at night."

"Then I will throw in for you a few more things," said Gronski; "drunkenness, cynicism, a stupid pose of despair, thoughtless hypercriticism, scoffing at misfortune, fouling one's own nest, spitting at blood and suffering, undermining faith in the future, and blasphemy against the nation. Have you yet enough?"

"I have not enough of wine. Order some more, order some more!"

"I will not order any more wine, but I will tell yet more, that you err in claiming that these are native products. They are brought by a certain wind which evidently has fanned you."

But Swidwicki, who this time had no desire to quarrel but did have a desire to drink, evidently wishing to change the subject of the conversation, unexpectedly exclaimed:

"Apropos of winds, what a pity that such sensible people as the Prussians commit one gross blunder."

Gronski, who had already risen to bid him farewell, was overcome temporarily by curiosity.

"What blunder?" he asked.

"That they assume super-villeiny to be superhumanity."

"In this you are right."

"I feel a contempt for myself as often as I am right."

"Then we will leave you with your wine and your contempt."

Saying this, Gronski nodded to Dolhanski and they departed. Swidwicki's last words, however, caused him to reflect; so after a while he said:

"Now people's minds are haunted by the Prussians and they are reminded of them by the slightest cause. After all, Swidwicki's description of them was apposite."

"If you knew how little I am interested in Swidwicki's descriptions."

"Nevertheless, you vie with him and talk in a similar strain," answered Gronski.

After which, pursuing further the train of his thoughts, he said:

"Nietzsche also did not perceive that the susceptibility and appreciation of other people's woes becomes manifest only upon the culmination of the creative …"

"Good, good, but at this moment I am more interested in what Krzycki is going to do about Miss Anney."

Dolhanski, who could not endure Swidwicki, would have been sorely afflicted, if he had suspected that the same question occurred to the latter's mind.

Remaining alone, Swidwicki recalled Gronski's recital and began to laugh, as the thought of such unusual complications amused him immensely. He imagined to himself what excitement must have prevailed at Krzycki's and at Pani Otocka's, and how far the affair would agitate the circles of their relatives and acquaintances. And suddenly he began to soliloquize in the following manner:

"And if I paid Miss Anney a visit? It even behooves me to leave her a card. That would be eminently proper. I may not find her in-that does not matter much, but if I should find her in, I will try to see whether her legs are not too bulky at the ankles. For culture, education, even polish may be acquired, but delicate ligaments of the legs and hands it is necessary to inherit through a whole series of generations. That furious Pauly, nevertheless, has a sufficiently thin ligature. The devil, however, knows who her father was, I will go. If I do not find one, I shall find the other."