He loved Marynia and at the same time he hated her, for he thought that she looked upon him as a worm which squirms at her feet, unworthy of a glance. He was confirmed in this conviction by the fact that his letters evidently did not make the slightest impression upon her and did not disturb her usual tranquillity. Laskowicz had given his word to Pauly that he would see Marynia only from a distance, and he could not approach her, because she was never out alone. But in reality he could not conjecture that those letters were received and burnt by Pani Otocka and that Marynia knew nothing about them. It appeared to him that his pa.s.sionate appeals in which the words, "Beloved! beloved!"
were repeated every little while, and those fiery outbursts in which he prostrated himself in humility at her adored feet must have represented him to her as the ruling king-soul shoving the human wave into the unknown future, and ought to have evoked some result. "Let it be anger, let it be hatred," he said to himself in his soul, "but here there is nothing! She pa.s.ses by me as if I was a street cur; she does not see me; she does not deign to recognize me."
In fact it was so. In the moments when they pa.s.sed each other on the street, Marynia did not and could not recognize Laskowicz, for after his departure from Jastrzeb he allowed his youthful beard to grow, and afterwards, Swidwicki, in order to disguise him in the eyes of the police, bleached his beard, together with his mustache and the hair on his head, a light yellow. His clothes and spectacles also changed his appearance but he forgot about that, and he fretted with the supposition that her eyes do not see him or do not recognize him, firstly, because a recollection of him never comes to her mind, and again because she belongs to some kind of social Olympus and he to the "proletarian garbage-box."
Under such impressions his anguish changed into fury. With savage satisfaction, he thought of this: that there might come a time when the fate of this "sacred doll" and all her kin would be in his hands. He persuaded himself that that moment would be a triumph for himself personally and for the "good cause," and therefore he rejoiced at this conjunction. He pictured to himself what would happen when Marynia came to him to beg for a favor for herself and her relatives. Whether, at that time, he would prostrate himself on the ground before her and tell her to plant her foot on his head, or whether he would seize her in his arms and afterwards pa.s.s time away shamelessly--he did not know. He only had a feeling that he could do one or the other.
In the meantime he often said to himself that he ought not to see her any more, and decided to seek her no more, but on the following day he rushed to the place where he could meet her. He struggled with himself, he was torn inwardly, and became exhausted to such an extent that he began to fail in health. Want of such air as he breathed in Jastrzeb, the necessity of hiding from the police, uneasiness, lack of sleep, sudden and painful spiritual changes sapped his strength. He became haggard, swarthy, and at times he thought that death threatened not on the gallows but in a hospital.
In such a disposition was he found by Pauly, who after her scene with Hanka, dashed like a whirlwind into his little garret room.
Her face was so changed, so pale, so sickly and malignant, and her eyes glittered so feverishly that at the first glance he knew that she was driven to him by some extraordinary accident and he asked:
"What has happened?"
"I am no longer with that low peasant."
And she remained silent for she could not catch her breath, and only her face was twitching nervously.
Laskowicz understood only that she had abandoned her employment and looked at her with a questioning gaze, awaiting further explanations.
"Then, sir, you do not know," she broke out after a while, "then you do not know that he is to marry her? And that she is no Englishwoman, but only a low peasant! And such a one I served! He is to marry her--a low peasant!--a low peasant!--he!"
And her voice changed into a shrill nervous hiccough. Laskowicz was frightened at her transports, but at the same time breathed easily.
Howsoever he might long since have conjectured that Krzycki"s affections were directed towards Miss Anney and not towards Marynia, he was nevertheless pleased in his soul that reality corroborated those conjectures.
Living, however, in a world which no echoes of the higher social sphere reach, and knowing nothing of the transformation of Miss Anney into a Polish peasant woman, he began to interrogate Pauly minutely because the affair aroused his curiosity; he wished also to give time to the excited girl to calm herself. But this last was not an easy matter, and he long had to put questions to her to elicit the news which Swidwicki had first told her that Miss Anney was a simple peasant woman, but which, however, she did not at first believe, as he said it while under the influence of intoxicants. Only from the conversations which she overheard did she become convinced not only of the truth of the statement but also that Krzycki was to wed Miss Anney. Afterwards she peeped through the keyhole and saw him kneel before her and kiss her hands. Then she could not restrain herself any longer and at the first opportunity flung at the feet of her mistress her "linen frock," and, reviling her as a base peasant, left her service.
Here again indignation began to seize her so that Laskowicz from fear that she might have an attack of convulsions, said:
"We will consult together about this, but only let the lady be pacified."
But she replied with increasing irritation:
"I did not come here for you to pacify me. You, sir, have prated about our mutual wrongs and now you order me to be pacified. I want help and not your chatter."
"You are anxious that he should not marry her?"
"And what else do you suppose?"
In any case Laskowicz would have sided with the girl for he was obligated to do that by grat.i.tude to her for saving his life, by the similarity of their lot, and those "joint wrongs" of which he himself had previously spoken to Pauly, and of which she now reminded him. But the existence of Krzycki at present ceased to stand in his way and Miss Anney"s existence less so. Only one thing he could not forgive in her:
"She was a peasant woman, she was a wage-earner, and afterwards became a female bourgeois. In this is the crime."
"In it or not in it, it is now I or she! Do you understand, sir?"
"I understand, but what is to be done?"
"When you ran away from the police, I did not ask what was to be done."
"I remember."
"And you said at Swidwicki"s that your people could accomplish everything."
"For it is so."
"So if he only does not marry her, then even let the world end."
Laskowicz began to look at her with his closely set eyes and after a moment commenced to speak slowly and with emphasis:
"Krzycki was once already condemned and lives, thanks to you, lady, but if he gets a bullet in his head, then he will marry no one."
But she, hearing this, turned pale as a corpse; in the same moment she sprang at him with her finger-nails!
"What!" she cried in a hoa.r.s.e voice; "what! he! Let but a hair fall from his head, then, I will have you all--"
Laskowicz"s patience, however, was exhausted. He was irritated, torn internally and sick; hence, after her threat, a wave of bitterness and rage flooded his brains. He started up and, glaring in her eyes, shouted!
"Do not threaten with betrayal, for that is death!"
"Death?" she screamed. "Death! this is what life is to me!"
And shoving her palm close to his face, she blew on it so that her breath moistened him, and repeated:
"Look! This is what life is to me."
"And to me," exclaimed Laskowicz.
For an interval they stared in each other"s eyes like two odious and despairing souls. He recovered his wits first, and clasping his head with both hands, said:
"Oh, how unfortunate we are! oh!"
"Yes! yes!" reiterated Panna Pauly.
And she began to sob hysterically.
Then he commenced to quiet her. He promised her that nothing should befall Krzycki and that his marriage would not under any circ.u.mstances take place. He said that at that moment he could not indeed disclose to her what measures would be adopted, but he a.s.sured her that neither he nor his party would show any consideration to a mere female bourgeois, as here was involved a higher social justice, which does not need to take into account any particular individual. Pauly only understood that that "low peasant" would not wed the young master of Jastrzeb, and became appeased in some measure: and afterwards, both, from necessity, became occupied with other matters. It was imperative that some kind of shelter be found for the young girl: so Laskowicz placed her with "a female a.s.sociate" residing in the neighborhood, who immediately went for her wages and belongings. He himself returned to his own rooms and began to revolve in his mind how he could repay Panna Pauly for saving his life.
And in this feeling of grat.i.tude lay the first reason why he took the matter to heart. A second reason was his own ill-luck and ill-fated love for Marynia which made him sensitive to similar strifes; and the third was that "social justice" which he mentioned to Pauly. As to the third reason he felt, however, the necessity of deliberating with his own soul in order that when the time for action arrived his hands would be untied, and under the pressure of this necessity he began to reason in the following fashion:
"On the background of the general concern of the proletariat, personal affairs will appear. It might be said that the general concern is the sum-total of them all. In this respect whoever stands in defence of the personal affair of a proletaire by that act alone defends universal principles. But here comes the question of ethics. Whither are we tending? To universal justice. Ergo, our principle is moral for it is only the sum-total of personal affairs: therefore these personal affairs also must be moral. From this it follows that the proletaire, who is in the wrong in a controversy with a bourgeois, nevertheless has justice on his side simply because he is a proletaire. In this world everything is relative. A soldier, slaying his opponent in a war, commits manslaughter; therefore the act itself is not ethical. But as he commits it in defense of Fatherland, therefore, from the viewpoint of national welfare he acts ethically. If in addition thereto he has the spur of personal hatred to an antagonist, his act would gain in energy and would not lose its additional significance for Fatherland.
For us, the Polish proletariat is the nation and the idea of their emanc.i.p.ation, the Fatherland. For this we wage war and if there is war, then murder and injuries are inflicted upon the antagonists; and even though the motives for them might be personal, they nevertheless are not only justifiable but are covered a hundred-fold by the universal welfare."
"Besides,"--he reasoned further--, "the quintessence of our existence is unhappiness; and from unhappiness as well as, inversely, from happiness must blossom corresponding deeds. This is a necessity flowing from the nature of things; and with this ethics have nothing to do. I and that rabid girl are luckless, like homeless dogs; in view of which it is all one whether a wrong was perpetrated upon us intentionally or unintentionally; just as it is all one to the wolf whether the forester who shoots him in the head, hunted him purposely or whether they met by chance. The wolf has teeth to defend himself. That is his right. The moment has come when our fangs have grown; therefore we have the right to mangle.
"As to that girl, she is mangled by despair which can only be a.s.suaged by revenge. Is it just? Will it be beneficial to the girl? That is all one. The wage-earners without work and bread drown their woes in alcohol; the bourgeois in case of pain injects morphine into himself, and for her, revenge will be alcohol and morphine. Whatever may be the consequences, she will destroy the happiness of the pampered; she will change their joy into tears; she will break their lives and raze a particle of that world, which lies heavily, like a nightmare, upon the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the proletariat. So it is necessary to aid that revenge, for so does grat.i.tude for saving life command; likewise common wrong, also the good of the cause."
In view of this, it already seemed to Laskowicz a matter of minor importance whether in that aid a role would be played by a knife, or by a revolver, or by casting upon Hanka some ignominy, after which nothing would remain for her to do but to fly and hide herself forever from human eyes. Neither opportunity nor willing hands were wanting. It was only necessary to deliberate upon the choice: and afterwards to act promptly and decisively.
With this he went to Pauly who agreed to everything. As a compensation he demanded that she should release him from his promise to see Marynia only from a distance, and he secured that with ease. He evidently wanted to have his hands untied also in that regard.