Iermola Part 20

At last the father aroused from the momentary state of stupefaction into which his wife's words had thrown him; he sighed, and going up to his wife, spoke to her for a moment in a low voice.

"Whether you are willing or not," said he, aloud, in a stern voice, "you will be obliged to give the child up to us; he is ours, and we have witnesses of the fact. But you may ask anything you desire in exchange."

Iermola trembled and rose quickly to his feet.

"The child does not know you," he cried; "you will be obliged to take him by force. I will not give him up to you of my own free will, for he is not your child. I will bring witnesses to contradict yours. This is not the child of a gentleman; he is a villager, a working boy, an orphan. Call him; you do not even know his name; and he will not listen to you, for he does not know your voice."

"Why, the old man is insane," cried Jan Druzyna, trembling with rage.

"Very well; we shall be compelled to resort to other means,--to those which our rights grant us. Do you, then, wish to deprive the child of the advantages and benefits of the position to which he was destined?"

"What position? What destiny?" replied the old man, proudly. "Ask him if he has ever been unhappy with me,--if he wants anything more, if he needs anything. I know the sort of life which is lived in the _dwors_ where I have been. Do not destroy my peace; do not desolate my old age; do not take away my child."

The young mother then drew near him and took him by the hand.

"My father, my brother," said she; "I understand your grief, I know what you lose in losing this child; but I, have I not swallowed my tears for twelve long years? Would you have the heart to refuse an unfortunate mother her dearest joy, her only treasure? Would you be so cruel as to force us to be ungrateful? No, you will come with us; you will rejoice when you see the child's happiness, and you will share ours."

These words of the mother went deeper into Iermola's heart; he became more like himself, dried his tears, and said in a low voice,--

"Oh, the hour has come before which I would rather have died! For so many years I have seen it in my dreams, I feared every shadow, I dreaded each stranger, thinking he came to take away from me the child of my old age. I trembled; I prayed G.o.d that He would let me die first, but He has purposely prolonged my days. May He receive the present hour as an expiation for all my sins!"

During this conversation, Radionek, agitated, troubled, and not knowing what to do, looked first at the old man and then at his parents. His father's eyes expressed great impatience, mingled with tenderness and a certain irritation; his mother wore a more quiet expression, more compa.s.sionate and gentle. Iermola felt his strength forsake him again; he once more fell into his seat, his head bent down, his hands clasped.

The conversation, thus abruptly disturbed, was resumed, but in a more peaceful and ordinary tone. Druzyna had evidently intended to take his son away at once; but an hour pa.s.sed, night came on, and he still did not know what to do. Iermola, overcome, no longer offered any resistance; he kept silence, exhausted, and only questioned the child with his eyes.

"Come, let us go," said the young man at last, as he turned toward his wife. "We will come back to see him to-morrow."

"But the child?"

Radionek heard the words; frightened, he threw himself into the arms of his adoptive father, and Iermola, touched and grateful, pressed him to his breast.

"You are a good dear child," he cried. "You will not go away from me; you will not leave me alone; you will not forget your old father. You know I should die without you; you can do as you like when you have closed my eyes. And may G.o.d's eternal blessings follow you then!"

Druzyna, who was gazing in silence upon this scene, led, or rather dragged his wife away by force, carried her to the carriage, and ordered the coachman to return home. Chwedko set off for the village, where he spread this important piece of news.

After Druzyna's departure, there was no visible change in the old inn, but the peace and happiness which the day before had reigned beneath that thatched roof had flown away. Iermola, silent and motionless, remained seated on the door-sill; Radionek at times wept quietly, and at others gave himself up to dreamy meditation. Then they drew near each other and spoke a few sad, tender words in a low voice. The morning found them still in the door-sill, half asleep, and cowering in each other's arms as though they feared some one would come to separate them.

The broad daylight, as it opened their eyes to the sun, which dispels the terrors of night and revives the forces of life, brought back to them the remembrance of the events of the day before; but it presented them in another light, and awoke in them other sentiments, which gathered about each event, each serious thought, like mercenary servants grouped around a coffin. A thousand ideas, a thousand confused impressions crowded upon their minds, each struggling with the other to clear away the difficulty.

Neither the old man nor Radionek felt himself capable of working that morning. The ordinary course of their life had been interrupted; they did not know what to do with themselves. In the child's mind arose, now a thousand images of a brilliant, an unknown future, now regret for past days filled with so much happiness, and which would never return.

He tried to recall the features of his mother, those of his young father whom he had seen only in the dim twilight. Sometimes his heart leaned toward them; sometimes he trembled, agitated by a feeling of fear. What would become of him near them? Would he be better or worse than here? And in either case, he would be obliged to begin a new life, to leave his peaceful corner, go to a strange house, renounce all his old happiness, and bid adieu to what he had loved so well.

Iermola dreamed also; the new day had brought him new thoughts.

According to his custom, he went to see the widow, as he always did when he felt in need of some one to talk to.

"Are you crazy?" cried the old woman as she saw him. "How could you yesterday evening have been so obstinate as to keep the child, just as if you had any sort of prospects for him? And besides, he is the son of a lord; he has his position already given him. And could it have done you any harm to go to the _dwor_ with Radionek and live peacefully, enjoying his good fortune?"

"Yes, yes! but how could I be to him there what I have been to him up to this hour? I should no longer be his father; I should become his serving-man. They would take his heart away from me little by little; they would spoil and ruin my child. Do I not know something about the life of lords and rich people? Food a little more delicate, clothes a little finer, words a little smoother; but are they happier? G.o.d knows we cannot tell anything about it. Ask them if they do not weep in secret, if there are no sad moments spent under their roofs, if their happiness is as great, as pure, as it appears from a distance."

"It is doubtless your great grief which causes you to talk in this way," cried the widow, shrugging her shoulders. "Their life is not like ours, that is certain. If our fate is the better of the two, why is it that all do not wish to live as we do? It is indeed a rare thing that a great lord is willing of his own accord to live as we do; while each one of us, on the contrary, would like to taste their bread. But the truth must be told."

Iermola remained silent for a few moments, leaning his head on his hand.

"Neighbour," said he, at last, "when we shall come to die, it will then matter very little to us whether during our lives we have eaten bread of fine wheat flour or coa.r.s.e rye bread; no matter how a man has lived, it will be all the same to him, provided he has clean hands and a pure conscience to present before G.o.d. And as for knowing whether my child will then have been better off as lord of his father's house or with me, a potter in the old inn, upon my word, it is a serious question which I cannot take upon myself to answer."

"But you will nevertheless be obliged to give him up; there is no way of avoiding it."

"I shall not prevent him from following them if he will; but he must choose between us, because I myself wish to die as I have lived. I shall lay my bones in our old cemetery. I have already tasted the bread of servitude. I will not go in my last years to hold out my hand and bow down before young fools who would laugh at me,--not for any amount.

I will remain in Popielnia; as for Radionek, if he wishes, he can go play the lord at Malyczki."

"And how will you be able to live without him, poor old man?"

"And you, how have you managed to live without Horpyna, without your grandchildren? Unless, indeed, you can see them by stealth."

"Ah! that is true, that is true," sighed the widow. "With pain and tears we rear our children, to see them, as soon as they have wings, fly out of the nest; as for us, we are left behind with broken wings to look at them far off."

"It is not for long, however," added Iermola, with a sad smile; "our days are numbered. A few more will pa.s.s, and then death will come knocking gently at our window; our eyes will close, and all will be over. We shall then have only to render our account to the Lord G.o.d."

"Ah, you speak sad words, neighbour."

"Because, as you see, my heart is not merry."

While this conversation was taking place in the widow's house, Radionek, who had not the heart to go to work, sat in the door-sill, thinking and dreaming. At one time his heart inclined him toward that unknown world; at another his tenderness for the old man called him back and held him.

Parents! a mother!--these are sweet words, which bring sweet thoughts and have great power over an orphan's heart; for no one can take the place of a father, no one can take the place of a mother.

The idea of living at the _dwor_, of being rich, of being a master, seemed very pleasant to the boy; but as he knew nothing of any other life than the one he had lived until that moment, he did not know what awaited him in that higher position. His ardent childish curiosity alone painted the unknown future for him. Then he said to himself that it would be very sad for the old man to be separated from him; he recalled all that he had done for him, how much he had loved him.

He did not know whether even maternal tenderness, so powerful and G.o.d-inspired, could equal that love.

While he was thus reflecting, the carriage he had seen the day before drew near, arrived, and stopped. Radionek might have run away and hidden himself, but he had not the strength; his mother saw him from a distance, waved her hand to him, and he remained motionless. His parents hastened to him, embraced him, and wept.

"It is true,--it is true, is it not, that you are coming with us?"

cried Marie Druzyna, gazing in agitation upon the handsome young fellow, whom it distressed her to see dressed in peasant's clothes and a coa.r.s.e cloak. "You will see," said she, "how happy you will be with us; you have suffered, but all that will soon be forgotten."

"But I have not suffered," cried Radionek, who began to grow bold, "and I shall never forget my old father. I shall be very, very much grieved to leave him."

"I am your father," said Jan Druzyna, in a grieved and irritated tone; "call the old man what you will, but do not give him the name which belongs to me."

"Oh, he has been a father to me for a long time, and will be as long as he lives. He has loved me so dearly."

"And we? Shall not we love you also? Do you not know that you have cost us many tears?"

"I did not see you shed them; but I know that the old man has wept over me, and more than once I have seen his tears fall."

"We will take him away with us."

"He would not want to go," murmured Radionek.