Tales by Polish Authors Part 23

BY ADAM SZYMANSKI

After leaving Yakutsk I settled in X----, a miserable little town farther up the Lena. The river is neither so cold nor so broad here, but wilder and gloomier. Although the district is some thousands of versts nearer the civilized world, it contains few colonies. The country is rocky and mountainous, and the taiga[1] spreads over it in all directions for hundreds and thousands of versts. It would certainly be difficult to find a wilder or gloomier landscape in any part of the world than the vast tract watered by the Lena in its upper course, almost as far as Yakutsk itself. Taiga, gloomy, wild, and inaccessible, taiga as dense as a wall, covers everything here--mountains, ravines, plains, and caverns. Only here and there a grey, rocky cliff, resembling the ruin of a huge monument, rises against this dark background; now and then a vulture circles majestically over the limitless wilderness, or its sole inhabitant, an angry bear, is heard growling.

The few settlements to be found nestle along the rocky banks of the Lena, which is the only highway in this as in all parts of the Yakutsk district. Continual intercourse with Nature in her wildest moods has made the people who live in these settlements so primitive that they are known to the ploughmen in the broad valleys along the Upper Lena, and to the Yakutsk shepherds, as "the Wolves."

The climate is very severe here, and, although the frosts are not as sharp and continuous as in Yakutsk, this country, on account of being the nearest to the Arctic regions, is exposed to the cruel Yakutsk north wind. This is so violent that it even sweeps across to the distant Ural Mountains.

At the influx of the great tributary of the Lena there is a large basin; it was formed by the common agency of the two rivers, and subsequently filled up with mud. This basin is surrounded on every side by fairly high mountains, at times undulating, at times steep.

Its north-eastern outlet is enclosed by a very high and rocky range, through which both rivers have made deep ravines. X----, the capital of the district inhabited by the "Wolf-people," lies in this north-eastern corner of the basin, partly on a small low rock now separated from the main chain by the bed of the Lena, partly at the foot of the rock between the two rivers. The high range of mountains forming the opposite bank of the Lena rises into an enormous rocky promontory almost facing the town. Flat at the top and overgrown by a wood, the side towards the town stands up at a distance of several hundred feet as a perpendicular wall planed smooth with ice, thus narrowing the horizon still more. As though to increase the wildness of the scenery presented by the mountains and rocks surrounding the dark taiga, a fiendish kind of music is daily provided by the furious gales--chiefly north--which prevail here continually, and bring the early night frosts in summer, and ceaseless Yakutsk frosts and snowstorms in winter. The gale, caught by the hills and resounding from the rocks, repeats its varied echoes within the taiga, and fills the whole place with such howling and moaning that it would be easy for you to think you had come by mistake into the hunting-ground of wolves or bears.

It was somewhere about the middle of November, a month to Christmas.

The gale was howling in a variety of voices, as usual, driving forward clouds of dry snow and whirling them round in its mad dance. No one would have turned a dog into the street. The "Wolf-people" hid themselves in their houses, drinking large quant.i.ties of hot tea in which they soaked barley or rye bread, while the real wolves provided the accompaniment to the truly wolfish howling of the gale. I waited for an hour to see if it would abate; however, as this was not the case, I set out from the house, though unwillingly.

I had promised Stanislaw Swiatelki some days beforehand that I would go to him one day in the course of the week to write his home letters for him--"very important letters," as he said. It was now Sat.u.r.day, so I could postpone it no longer. Stanislaw was lame, and, on account of both his lameness and his calling, he rarely left the house. He came from the district of Cracow--from Wislica, as far as I recollect--and prided himself on belonging to one of the oldest burgher families of the Old Town, a family which, as far as fathers' and grandfathers'

memories could reach, had applied itself to the n.o.ble art of shoemaking. Stanislaw, therefore, was also a shoemaker, the last in his family; for although the family did not become extinct in him, nevertheless, as he himself expressed it, "Divine Providence had ordained" that he should not hand down his trade to his son.

"G.o.d has brought him up, sir, and it seems to have been His will that the shoemaker Swiatelkis should come to an end in me," Stanislaw used to say. He had a habit of talking quickly, as if he were rattling peas on to a wall. Only at very rare moments, when something gave him courage and no strangers were present, he would add: "Though His judgments are past finding out.... What does it matter? Why, my grandson will be a shoemaker!" He would then grow pale from having expressed his secret thought, turn round quickly, as though looking for something, shift uneasily, and--as I noticed sometimes--unconsciously spit and whisper to himself: "Not in an evil hour be it spoken, Lord!"

thereby driving away the spell from his dearest wish.

He was of middle height, fair, but nearly grey, and had lost all his teeth. He wore a beard, and had a broad, shapeless nose and large, hollow eyes; it was difficult to say what kind of person he was as long as he sat silent. But only let him move--which, notwithstanding the inseparable stick, he always did hastily, not to say feverishly--only let him pour out his quick words with a tongue moving like a spinning-wheel, and no one who had ever seen a burgher of pure Polish blood could fail to recognize him as a chip of the old block.

Stanislaw had not long carried on his trade in X----. Having sc.r.a.ped together some money as foreman, he had started a small shop; but he was chiefly famous in the little town as the one maker of good Polish sausages. He had a house next door to the shop, consisting of one room and a tiny kitchen. He did not keep a servant; a big peasant, known as Maciej, prepared his meals and gave him companionship and efficient protection. Hitherto, however, I had known very little of this man.

I did not often visit Swiatelki, and as a rule only when I wanted to buy something. So we had chatted in the shop, and I had only seen Maciej in pa.s.sing. But I had noticed him as something unusually large.

He was, indeed, huge; not only tall, but, as rarely happens, broad in proportion. It was this which gave his whole figure its special characteristics, and made it seem imposing rather than tall.

A house calculated for ordinary people he found narrow. Furniture standing far enough apart to suit the average man hampered Maciej. He could not take two steps in the house without knocking against something. He trod cautiously and very slowly, continually looking round; and he always had the ashamed air of a man who feels himself out of place and is persuaded that his strongest efforts will not save him from doing absurd things. I had seen Maciej a few times when, in Swiatelki's absence, he had taken his place in the shop, where the accommodation was fairly limited. An expression almost of suffering was depicted on his broad face, and especially noticeable when, on approaching the pa.s.sage between the shelves and the counter, he stood still a moment and measured the extent of the danger with an anxious look. That it existed was undoubted, for the shelves were full of gla.s.ses and jugs of all kinds, so that one push could do no little harm. It was a real Scylla and Charybdis for him. He looked indescribably comical, and was so much worried that after a few minutes the drops of perspiration ran off his forehead. Once I found him there in utter misery, waiting for someone to come. For he had fancied, when going through this pa.s.sage after settling with a customer, that he had knocked against something behind him, and, not being able to ascertain what it was, he stood and waited, afraid to move until someone came.

"G.o.d be praised that you've come!" he exclaimed with delight. "I am fixed here as sure as a Jew comes to a wedding. _He's_ gone away and doesn't mean to come back! Good Lord! how little room there is here!

I've knocked against some teapot or other, and can't move either way.

The devil take all these shelves!" He continued his lamentations when I had set him free. "It's always like this; it's a real misfortune, this want of room. But what does it matter to him? He fits in here; though he has to help himself with a stick, he can spin round like a top."

"He" was, of course, the shoemaker, for Maciej's stupidity caused frequent bickerings, which, however, never became serious between them. Maciej's unwieldiness and awkwardness irritated the nervous, agile shoemaker; while, on the other hand, Maciej could not understand the shoemaker's quickness. But this was not their only cause of contention. The shoemaker, a burgher, was to a certain extent a man of position, with a deep sense of his higher rank; he wore a coat, and had needs which Maciej regarded as entirely superfluous--in fact, those of a gentleman. In addition, the shoemaker was the owner of the house, and Maciej's employer.

Apart from all this, however, the antagonism revealed in their mutual relations was not deep-seated, but in reality superficial. The shoemaker grumbled at Maciej, and sometimes made fun of him; but he always did it as if he were on equal terms with him, observing the respect due to a peasant of some standing--that is, he always used the form "you," and not "thou," in addressing him. Maciej usually received the shoemaker's grumbling in silence, but sometimes answered his taunts pretty sharply. Besides their common fate and present equality in the eyes of the law, other weighty reasons had an influence in making bearable the relations between people of different cla.s.ses in one small room.

In comparison with Maciej, the shoemaker possessed intelligence of which the latter could never even have dreamt. The shoemaker could read, and--what gave him a special charm, and no little authority in Maciej's eyes--he could scrawl the eighteen letters of his Christian and surname, although slowly, and always with considerable difficulty.

To Maciej's credit, on the other hand, besides his physical strength--that brute force which impresses even those who are not lame--stood the fact that he took service more from motives of comradeship than of necessity. For he possessed capital of his own, having made several hundred roubles, which were deposited at present at the shoemaker's house. Moreover--the most important thing of all--he was a conscientious and honest man. When, before knowing this, I asked the shoemaker in conversation if he could trust Maciej completely, since he lived alone with him and often left him in the shop, he repeated my question with so much astonishment that I at once realized its thorough inappropriateness. He repeated it, and, not speaking quickly, as usual, but slowly and emphatically, he gave me this answer: "Maciej, sir, is a man--of gold."

Immediately on my arrival the shop was closed and we went into the house. A small table with a chair on either side stood under the only window of the little room. Close behind the chairs there was a bed along one wall, and a small wooden sofa along the other. A narrow opening opposite the table led to the kitchen where Maciej lived. We sat down to consult what to write. Not only the shoemaker, but even Maciej, was in an extremely serious mood; both evidently attached no little importance to the writing of letters. The shoemaker fetched from a trunk a large parcel tied up in a sheet of paper, and, having taken out the last letters from his wife and son, handed them carefully to me. Maciej squeezed himself into the kitchen, and did not return to us. A moment later, however, his head with the large red face--but his head only--showed like the moon against the dark background of the opening.

"Why do you go so far away, Maciej?" I asked.

"Eh, you see, sir, it's not comfortable sitting in there. I've knocked a bench together here that's a bit stronger."

The shoemaker mumbled something about breaking the chairs, but Maciej busied himself with his pipe and did not hear, or pretended not to hear.

We began to read the letters. The letter from his wife contained the usual account of daily worries, interspersed with wishes for his return and the hope of yet seeing him. The letter from his son, who had finished his apprenticeship as journeyman joiner half a year ago, was sufficiently frivolous. After telling his father that he was now free, he wrote that, as he could not always get work, he was unable to make the necessary amount of money to buy himself a watch, and he begged his father to send him thirteen roubles or more for this purpose. I finished reading this, and looked at the shoemaker, who was carefully watching the impression the letter was making on me. I tried to look quite indifferent; whether I succeeded to any extent I do not know, for I did not look straight at him. But I was convinced after a moment that my efforts had been vain, for I heard the anxious question: "Well, and what else, sir?" It was clear that his son's letter was very painful to him, even more so than I had supposed.

"Here am I, trying and working all I can, so that in case I return there may be something to live upon and I mayn't have to beg in my old age, and that fool----"

We both began to remonstrate with him that it was unnecessary to take this to heart, and that his son was probably--in fact, certainly--a very good lad, only perhaps a little spoilt, especially if he was the only child.

"Of course he is the only one, for I have never even seen him."

"How--never?"

"Yes, really never; because--I remember it as if it were to-day--it was five o'clock in the evening. I was doing something in the backyard, when my neighbour, Kwiatkowski, called out to me from behind the wooden fence: 'G.o.d help you, Stanislaw, for they are coming after you!' I only had time to run up to the window and call out: 'Good-bye, Basia; remember St. Stanislaw will be his patron!' That's all I said.

Basia was confined shortly after, but I didn't see her again. So it was a good thing I said it, for now there'll always be something to remember me by."

"G.o.d be praised that it's so! but if it hadn't been a son----"

Maciej did not finish his sentence, however, for the offended shoemaker began to reprimand him sternly.

"You are talking nonsense, Maciej, and it is not for the first time!

Does not the Church also give the name of St. Stanislawa? Besides, though I am a sinner as every man is, couldn't I guess that a word spoken at a moment like that would carry weight with the Almighty?

Isn't everything in G.o.d's hand?"

Maciej looked down, and a deep sigh was the only testimony to the shoemaker's eloquence.

Stanislaw's explanation of the circ.u.mstances lightened our task very much, and when he had remembered that the mother never complained of her son--on the contrary, was always satisfied with him--we succeeded in calming his excessive anxiety concerning the fate of his only child. In order to settle the matter thoroughly, it was decided to ask some responsible and enlightened person to examine the lad as he should think fit and to keep an eye on him in future, reporting the result of the examination to the father. This was arranged because the mother, being a simple and uneducated woman, was thought to be possibly much too fond of her only son, and an over-indulgent and blind judge. The only question was the choice of the individual--a sufficiently difficult matter; this one had died, that one had grown rich, the other had lately taken to drink. We meditated long, and would have meditated still longer, if finally the shoemaker had not said firmly, with the air of a man persuaded that he is speaking to the point:

"We will write to the priest!" And when Maciej, glad that the troublesome deliberation was over--possibly, also, in order to regain his position after having just said a stupid thing--hastily supported this with, "Yes, the priest will be best," I conceded to the majority.

Certain difficulties arose from the fact that the priest was not personally known to Swiatelki, and that, as Maciej put it, "the priest couldn't be approached just anyhow." These difficulties were overcome by the business-like shoemaker, who began by ordering a solemn Requiem Ma.s.s for the souls of his parents, for which he sent the priest ten roubles, and in this way commended his son to the kind consideration of his benefactor.

I began to write the letters, of which there were to be three: to his wife, to his son, and to the priest. In the course of my stay in Siberia I had written so many similar letters that I had gained no little facility in this kind of composition. I therefore wrote quickly, only asking for a few particulars. The shoemaker crept from the bed, on which he had hitherto been sitting, to the chair standing by the table, and bending over this followed the movement of my pen attentively, ready to answer any questions. Maciej cleaned out his pipe in silence. I finished the letters, and proceeded to read them.

Stanislaw sent his wife fifty roubles. As he retained a most affectionate remembrance of his faithful Basia, loved her possibly more now than twenty years ago, and could never speak of her without deep emotion, the letter to her corresponded to the feelings of his youth. He was paler than usual as he listened to it, and he tried to say something, but his lips trembled and the words caught in his throat. When the reading was finished, however, Stanislaw wriggled in the way peculiar to him, and, after blowing his nose several times, finally articulated: "Now I will sign." Having discovered his spectacles in the table drawer and duly fixed them on his nose, the shoemaker pointed to the place where the signature was to be put, and began:

"Es, tee." He had already opened his mouth to p.r.o.nounce the third letter, when the incautious Maciej, who had behaved most properly while I was writing, unexpectedly interrupted with:

"If you would also----"

He burst in with this, but of course did not finish. The shoemaker laid down the pen, lifted his head high, so as to look through his spectacles at Maciej--who without doubt was already regretting his ill-timed remark--and said drily:

"Maciej, you are hindering me."

Maciej grew very red, and, naturally, did not utter another word. The shoemaker finished writing his name without further interruption, and took out the money. In order to avoid mistakes, he at once enclosed it with the letter in an addressed envelope.

However much Stanislaw had wished during our consultation to "pull the silly fellow's ears," the letter to his son was indulgent rather than stern. It was easy to guess what that yet unseen son, the one hope of the old burgher family, was to Swiatelki. He had worked perseveringly and honestly for so many years, and had overcome all kinds of difficulties; lonely and neglected, he had pa.s.sed victoriously through the temptations to enrich himself easily with which Siberia beguiles the unsuspecting novice. Doubtless he owed all this in a certain degree to the honest principles he had brought from his home and country, as well as to his character, but, without any doubt, equally to that son in whose very birth he saw the Hand of G.o.d. It was clear that the poor fellow dreamt of standing before his beloved child as an ascetic dreams of appearing at the Judgment-Seat. The thought that he would be able to tell him--openly and fearlessly--"I have nothing to bring you, my son, but a name unstained by a past full of the gravest temptations," was the lodestar of his life. Taking this into consideration, therefore, I did not scold the "silly fool," but explained to him in an affectionate way what the money was the father was sending to the family--money he had earned by working extremely hard, and frequently by pinching himself. I told the lad what he ought to be and might become, being strong and healthy, and that on this account his wish for money to spend on trifles gave his father pain. I wrote large and distinctly, adapting myself to the young joiner's powers of comprehension, and at the end fervently blessed him in his new walk in life.

The reading of this letter was carried on with constant interruptions, as I stopped to ascertain if I had interpreted the father's feelings and wishes rightly. From the beginning I was sure that this was the case, and became all the more certain of it as I read on. Each time I looked at him inquiringly, Stanislaw answered me hastily: "Yes, yes, yes, that's just as I wanted it!" But the farther I read the shorter and quicker became the "Yes, yes." In the middle of the letter, it is true, he opened his lips once more, but I only saw that they were moving, for they did not utter a sound. I looked up again: his chin was resting on the table, and the tears were flowing down his pale cheeks. He did not make the restless movements peculiar to him when his feelings overflowed. He did not sc.r.a.pe his throat or blow his nose. He merely rested his chin on the table, and, sitting near me by the candle, with its light falling upon him, he quietly cried before us. He did not quiver or sob, but the tears, which had certainly not flowed from those hollow eyes for a long time, streamed from them now.

When he was calm he looked at me with his large, intelligent eyes, and thanked me without raising his head. "May the Lord repay you--may the Lord repay you!" But Maciej, having already expressed his satisfaction by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and indistinct mumbling, now took courage at a longer pause to make quite a speech.