The Judge foiled his plan; and, cutting him off, hurried to the spring. In the wind fluttered the white skirts of his dressing-gown and a large handkerchief, of which the end was fastened in his girdle; his straw hat, tied beneath his chin, flapped in the wind from his swift motion like a burdock leaf, falling now on his shoulders and now again over his eyes; in his hand was an immense staff: thus strode on the Judge. Bending down and washing his hands in the stream, he sat down on the great rock in front of Telimena, and, leaning with both hands on the ivory k.n.o.b of his enormous cane, he thus began his discourse:-
"You see, my dear, that ever since our Thaddeus has been our guest, I have been not a little disquieted. I am childless and old; this good lad, who is really my only comfort in the world, is the future heir of my fortune.
By the grace of heaven I shall leave him no bad portion of gentleman"s bread; it is time too that we think over his future and his settlement.
But now, my dear, pray observe my distress! You know that Jacek, my brother, Thaddeus"s father, is a strange man, whose intentions are hard to penetrate. He refuses to return home; G.o.d knows where he is hiding; he will not even let us inform his son that he is alive, and yet he continually gives us directions in regard to him. At first he wanted to send him to the legions; I was fearfully distressed. Later, however, he agreed that he might remain at home and marry. He would easily find a wife; I have a match in mind for him. None of our citizens compares in name or connections with the Chamberlain; his elder daughter Anna is of marriageable age, a fair and well-dowered young lady. I wanted to begin negotiations."
At this Telimena grew pale, closed her book, rose a bit, and sat up.
"As I love my mother," she said, "is there any sense in this, my dear brother? Are you a G.o.d-fearing man? So you think that you will really be doing a good turn to Thaddeus if you make a sower of buckwheat out of the young man! You will close the world to him! Believe me, some time he will curse you! To think of burying such talent in the woods and the garden!
Believe me, judging from my knowledge of him, he is a capable boy, worthy of acquiring polish in the great world. You will do well, brother, if you send him to the capital, for instance, to Warsaw; or, if you wish to know my real opinion, to St. Petersburg. I shall surely be going there this winter on business; we will consider together what to do with Thaddeus. I know many people there and have influence; that is the best means of making a man. Through my aid he will gain access to the leading houses, and when he is known to important people he will get an office and a decoration; then let him abandon the service if he wishes and return home, being by that time of some importance and well known in society. What do you think about that, brother?"
"In his early years," said the Judge, "it is not bad for a young man to gain social experience, to see the world, and acquire polish among men. I myself, when young, covered no small ground; I have been in Piotrkow and in Dubno, now following the court as a lawyer, now attending to my own affairs; I have even visited Warsaw. Not a little did I profit by this. I should like to send out my nephew also among men, simply as a traveller, as an apprentice who is finishing his term, in order that he might acquire some little knowledge of the world. Not for the sake of office-holding or decorations! I beg your most humble pardon; a rank in the Muscovite hierarchy, a decoration, what sort of distinction are they? What man among our ancient notables-nay, even among those of this present day-what man of any prominence among the district gentry cares for such trifles? And yet these men are esteemed among us, for we respect in them their family, their good name, or their office-but a local office, conferred by the votes of their fellow-citizens, and not by the influence of any one set in authority."
"If that is your opinion, brother," interrupted Telimena, "so much the better; send him out as a traveller."
"You see, sister," said the Judge, mournfully scratching his head, "I should like to do so very much, but what if I have new perplexities!
Brother Jacek has not abandoned the oversight of his son, and has just sent down upon me that Bernardine Robak, who has arrived from across the Vistula, a friend of my brother, who knows all his plans. And so the fates have already uttered their decree as to Thaddeus, and will have him marry, but marry Zosia,53 your ward; the young couple will receive, besides my own fortune, a dowry in ready money by the generosity of Jacek. You know that he is rich, and that through his favour I possess almost all my own estate; thus he has the right to give directions. Pray think this over, in order that it may be accomplished with the least possible trouble; we must make them acquainted. To be sure, they are very young, especially little Zosia, but that is no matter; it is time at last to release Zosia from confinement, for at all events she is growing up and is no longer a child."
Telimena, amazed and almost panic-stricken, raised herself gradually and knelt on the shawl; at first she listened with attention, then with a gesture she opposed him, waving her hand vigorously over her ear, as if she were driving off the unpleasant words like gnats, back into the mouth of the speaker.
"Ha! ha! that is a new idea! Whether that is good or bad for Thaddeus,"
she said angrily, "you may judge for yourself, my dear sir. I don"t care anything about Thaddeus, plan for him yourselves; make him a steward, or put him in a tavern; let him be a bar-tender, or bring game for your table from the woods; do with him whatever you wish! But as for Zosia! What have you men to do with Zosia? I control her hand; I alone. That Jacek provided money for Zosia"s education, and that he has a.s.signed her a small yearly allowance, and has deigned to promise more, does not mean that he has bought her. Besides you both know, and it is pretty generally known too, that your generosity for us is not without its reasons; the Soplicas owe something to the family of the h.o.r.eszkos."
To this part of her speech the Judge listened with indescribable confusion and grief and with evident repugnance. As though fearing what she might say further, he bowed his head, made a gesture of a.s.sent, and flushed deeply.
Telimena concluded by saying:-
"I have had the care of her; I am of her kin, Zosia"s only guardian. No one but me shall ever plan her happiness!"
"But what if she finds happiness in this marriage?" said the Judge, raising his eyes; "what if she likes young Thaddeus?"
"What if she likes him? That"s a pear on a willow tree! Like him or not-much I care for that! To be sure Zosia will not be a wealthy match, but yet she is not a common village girl, a simple gentleman"s daughter; her ancestors were called, "Your Grace"; she is the child of a wojewoda; her mother was a h.o.r.eszko: she will get a husband! I have taken such pains with her education-if only she has not degenerated into savagery here!"
The Judge listened with attention, looking her in the eye; he was apparently mollified, for he said cheerfully enough:-
"Well, what"s to be done? G.o.d knows that I have sincerely wished to do the right thing. Only do not be angry, sister; if you do not agree, sister, you are quite within your rights. It is a sad business, but there is no use being angry. I gave the advice, for my brother bade me; no one here is using compulsion. If you refuse Thaddeus, sister, I will reply to Jacek that through no fault of mine the betrothal of Thaddeus and Zosia cannot come to pa.s.s. Now I will take my own counsel; perhaps I can open negotiations with the Chamberlain and arrange the whole matter."
In the meantime Telimena"s wrath had cooled down:-
"I do not refuse him, my dear brother; not at all! You said yourself that it is rather early, that they are too young. Let us think it over and wait; that will do no harm. Let us make the young people acquainted; we will observe them-we must not thus expose to chance the happiness of others. Only I caution you betimes, brother, do not prompt Thaddeus, and do not urge him to fall in love with Zosia, for the heart is not a servant, and acknowledges no master, and will not let itself be forcibly put in chains."54
Thereat the Judge, arising, walked away in deep thought. Thaddeus approached from the opposite side, pretending that the search for mushrooms had enticed him there; the Count slowly moved on in the same direction.
During the dispute between the Judge and Telimena the Count had been standing behind the trees, mightily affected by the scene. He took from his pocket paper and pencil, implements that he had always with him, and, leaning on a stump and spreading out the sheet before him, he was evidently drawing a picture, and saying to himself: "They might have been grouped thus intentionally, he on the rock, she on the gra.s.s, a picturesque group! What characteristic heads! and what contrasting faces!"
He approached, checked himself, wiped his lorgnette, brushed his eyes with his handkerchief, and continued to gaze:-
"Is this marvellous, this charming prospect destined to perish or to be transformed when I approach near it? Will that velvet gra.s.s prove only poppies and beets? In that nymph shall I discover only a mere housekeeper?"
Although before this the Count had often seen Telimena at the Judge"s house, where he had been a frequent visitor, he had paid little heed to her; he was now amazed to find her the model of his picture. The beauty of the spot, the charm of her posture, and the taste of her attire had so changed her that she was hardly recognisable. Her eyes shone with her recent anger, which was not yet extinct; her face, animated by the fresh breath of the breeze, by her dispute with the Judge, and by the sudden arrival of the young men, had a.s.sumed a deep flush, of unwonted liveliness.
"Madam," said the Count, "deign to pardon my boldness; I come both to crave forgiveness and to express my grat.i.tude. To crave forgiveness, since I have stealthily followed your steps; and to express grat.i.tude, since I have been the witness of your meditations. Much have I injured you, and much do I owe to you! I have interrupted a moment of meditation; to you I owe moments of inspiration! blessed moments! Condemn the man; but the artist awaits your forgiveness. Much have I dared, and more will I dare!
Judge!"
Here he knelt and offered her his landscape.
Telimena pa.s.sed judgment on his sketch with the tone of a courteous lady, but of one conversant with art; of praise she was chary, but she did not spare encouragement.
"Bravo, I congratulate you," she said, "you have no small talent. Only do not neglect it; above all you need to search out a beautiful environment!
O happy skies of the Italian lands! rose gardens of the Caesars! ye cla.s.sic cascades of Tibur, and dread craggy paths of Posilipo! That, Count, is the land of painters! On us may G.o.d have pity! A child of the Muses, put out to nurse in Soplicowo, would surely die. My dear Count, I will have this framed, or I will put it in my alb.u.m, in my collection of drawings, which I have gathered from every source: I have numbers of them in my desk."
So they began to converse of the blue of the skies, of the murmur of waves and of fragrant breezes, and of the summits of crags, mingling here and there, after the fashion of travellers, laughter and mockery at the land of their fathers. And yet around them stretched the forests of Lithuania, so majestic and so full of beauty! The black currant, intertwined with a wreath of wild hop; the service tree, with the fresh blush of a shepherdess; the hazel, like a maenad, with green thyrsuses, decked with the pearls of its nuts as with cl.u.s.ters of grapes; and beneath them the children of the forest, the hawthorn in the embrace of the elder, the blackberry pressing its black lips upon the raspberry. The trees and bushes joined hands with their leaves, like young men and maidens standing ready for a dance around a married pair. In the midst of the company stood the pair, distinguished from all the rest of the forest throng by gracefulness of form and charm of colour; the white birch, the beloved, with her husband the hornbeam. But farther off, like grave elders sitting in silence and gazing on their children and grandchildren, stood on this side h.o.a.ry beeches, and on that matronly poplars; and an oak, bearded with moss, and bearing on its humped back the weight of five centuries, supported itself-as on the broken pillars of sepulchres-on the petrified corpses of other oaks, its ancestors.
Thaddeus writhed, being not a little wearied by the long conversation in which he could not take part. But when they began to glorify the forests of foreign lands, and to enumerate in turn every variety of their trees-oranges, cypresses, olive trees, almonds, cactuses, aloes, mahogany, sandalwood, lemons, ivy, walnuts, even fig trees-praising extravagantly their forms, flowers, and bark, then Thaddeus constantly sniffed and grimaced, and finally could no longer restrain his wrath.
He was a simple lad, but he could feel the charm of nature, and, gazing on his ancestral forest, he said full of inspiration:-
"In the botanical garden at Wilno I have seen those vaunted trees that grow in the east and the south, in that fair Italian land-which of them can be compared to our trees? The aloe with its long stalk like a lightning rod? Or the dwarfish lemon tree with its golden b.a.l.l.s and lacquered leaves, short and dumpy, like a woman who is small and ugly, but rich? Or the much-praised cypress, long, thin, and lean, which seems the tree, not of grief, but of boredom? They say that it looks very sad upon a grave; but it is like a German flunkey in court mourning, who does not dare to lift his arms or turn his head, for fear that he may somehow offend against etiquette.
"Is not our honest birch tree fairer, which is like a village woman weeping for her son, or a widow for her husband, who wrings her hands and lets fall over her shoulders to the ground the stream of her loose tresses? Mute with grief, how eloquently she sobs with her form! Count, if you are in love with painting, why do you not paint our own trees, among which you are sitting? Really, the neighbours will laugh at you, since, though you live in the fertile plain of Lithuania, you paint only crags and deserts."
"Friend," said the Count, "beautiful nature is the form, the ground, the material, but the soul is inspiration, which rises on the wings of imagination, is polished by taste, and is supported by rules. Nature is not enough, enthusiasm is not enough; the artist must fly away into the spheres of the ideal! Not everything that is beautiful can be painted! You will learn all this from books in the course of time. As for painting: for a picture one requires viewpoints, grouping, ensemble-and sky, the Italian sky! Hence in landscape art Italy was, is, and will be the country of painters. Hence also, except for Breughel-not Van der h.e.l.le, but the landscapist, for there are two Breughels55-and except for Ruysdael, in the whole north where has there been a landscape artist of the first rank? The sky, the sky is necessary."
"Our painter Orlowski,"56 interrupted Telimena, "had a Soplica"s taste.
(You must know that this is the malady of the Soplicas, not to like anything except their own country.) Orlowski, who spent his life in St.
Petersburg, a famous painter (I have some of his sketches in my desk), dwelt close by the Emperor, in his court, as in paradise; and, Count, you cannot believe how homesick he was, he loved constantly to call to mind the days of his youth; he glorified everything in Poland, land, sky, forests."
"And he was right," cried Thaddeus warmly; "that Italian sky of yours, so far as I have heard of it, is blue and clear, but yet is like frozen water: are not wind and storm a hundred times more beautiful? In our land, if you merely raise your head, how many sights meet your eye! how many scenes and pictures from the very play of the clouds! For each cloud is different; for instance, in spring they crawl like lazy tortoises, heavy with showers, and send down from the sky to the earth long streamers like loose tresses: those are the streams of rain. The hail cloud flies swiftly on the wind like a balloon; it is round and dark-blue, with a glint of yellow in the centre; around it may be heard a mighty uproar. Even these white cloudlets of every day, just see how rapidly they change! At first they are like a flock of wild geese or swans; and from behind, the wind, like a falcon, drives them into a dense throng; they crowd together, grow and increase; new marvels! They gain curved necks, send forth manes, shoot out rows of legs, and over the vault of the skies they fly like a herd of chargers across the steppe. All are white as silver; they have fallen into confusion; suddenly masts grow from their necks, and from their manes broad sails; the herd changes into a ship, and majestically floats slowly and quietly across the blue plain of the skies!"
The Count and Telimena looked up; Thaddeus with one hand pointed out a cloud to them, while with the other he squeezed Telimena"s dainty fingers.
The quiet scene lasted for several minutes; the Count spread a sheet of paper on his hat and took out his pencil; then, unwelcome to their ears, the house bell resounded, and straightway the quiet wood was full of cries and uproar.
The Count, nodding his head, said in an impressive tone:-
"Thus fate is wont to end all in this world by the sound of a bell. The calculations of mighty minds, the plans of imagination, the sports of innocence, the joys of friendship, the outpourings of feeling hearts! when the bronze roars from afar all is confused, shattered, perturbed-and vanishes!"
Then, turning a feeling glance on Telimena, he added, "What remains?" and she said to him, "Remembrance"; and, desiring somewhat to relieve the Count"s sadness, she gave him a forget-me-not that she had plucked. The Count kissed it and pinned it on his bosom. Thaddeus on the other side separated the branches of a shrub, seeing that through the greenery something white was stealing towards him. This was a little hand white as a lily; he seized it, kissed it, and silently buried his lips in it as a bee in the cup of a lily. On his lips he felt something cold; he found a key and a bit of white paper curled up in the hole of it; this was a little note. He seized it and hid it in his pocket; he did not know what the key meant, but that little white note would explain.
The bell still pealed, and, as an echo, from the depths of the quiet woods there resounded a thousand cries and shouts; this was the uproar of people searching for one another and calling, the signal that the mushroom-gathering was over for the day: the uproar was not at all gloomy or funereal, as it had seemed to the Count, but a dinner uproar.57 Every noon this bell, calling from the gable, invited the guests and servants home to dinner; such had been the custom on many old estates, and in the Judge"s house it had been preserved. So from the wood there came a throng carrying boxes, and baskets, and handkerchiefs with their ends tied up-all full of mushrooms; each young lady carried in one hand, like a folded fan, a large _pine-lover_; in the other _tree-fungi_ tied together in a bunch, like field flowers, and _leaf-mushrooms_ of various colours. The Seneschal had his _fly-bane_. With empty hands came Telimena, and after her the young gentlemen.
The guests entered in order and stood about the table. The Chamberlain took his place at the head; this honour befitted him from his age and his office; advancing to it he bowed to the ladies, the old men, and the young men. By him the Monk took his station, and next the Bernardine was the Judge. The Bernardine p.r.o.nounced a short grace in Latin, brandy was pa.s.sed around; thereupon all sat down, and in silence and with relish they ate the cold Lithuanian salad of beet leaves.
The dinner was more quiet than usual; no one talked, despite the host"s entreaties. The factions involved in the mighty strife over the dogs were thinking of the morrow"s contest and the wager; great thought is wont to constrain the lips to silence. Telimena, though she talked constantly with Thaddeus, was forced to turn now and then to the Count, and even now and then to glance at the a.s.sessor; thus a hunter gazes at the same time at the net into which he is coaxing goldfinches, and at the snare for sparrows. Thaddeus and the Count were both content with themselves, both happy, both full of hopes, and therefore not inclined to chatter. The Count would cast a proud look at the flower, and Thaddeus would stealthily gaze into his pocket, to see whether that little key had not run away; he would even reach in his hand and finger the note which he had not yet read. The Judge, pouring out Hungarian wine and champagne for the Chamberlain, served him diligently, and often pressed his knees; but he had no zest for conversation with him, and it was evident that he felt certain secret cares.
They changed the plates and the viands in silence; at last the tiresome routine of the dinner was interrupted by an unexpected guest. A forester, rushing in, did not even observe that it was dinner time, but ran up to his master; from his bearing and his expression it was clear that he was the bringer of important and unwonted tidings. On him the whole company turned their gaze; recovering his breath somewhat, he said: "A bear, sir!"
All guessed the rest, that the beast had come out from the _jungle_,58 that it was slipping through to the wilderness beyond the Niemen; all immediately recognised that it must be pursued at once, although they had not consulted together or thought the matter over. The common thought was evident from the clipped words, the lively gestures, the various orders that were issued, which, though they came tumultuously and at one time from so many lips, still all tended to a like aim.
"To the village!" shouted the Judge, "on horseback, for the headman of the peasants! To-morrow at daybreak let the beaters be ready, but volunteers!
Whoever comes with a pike I will release from two days" work on the roads and five days" field-service for myself."