Tales by Polish Authors Part 34

The bell ceased. But the men had not yet had time to get their breath before the news spread from the village that the policeman had escaped. The peasants came running one after the other, talking and shouting:

"The policeman has made off! We went into his room when the bell began to ring, and he had gone."

"He escaped through the larder. The miller's daughter had warned him."

"Of course; we saw her go in! She gave him the tip. It was she!"

"That's a lie!" the miller bawled, springing towards them and threatening them with his fists.

"We all know that she got herself into trouble with the policeman--all of us!" the women cried; and everyone suddenly knew something about the matter, and put in his word.

Then Jedrzej began to speak again: "You people, listen! Brothers! We have punished only these; but the biggest thief has run away. We must catch him.... For that is how we will punish everyone who does wrong to the people, steals, and is a traitor. Jump on your horses and hunt him down! Quick! Get on your horses, you fellows! He has made off to the town; catch him! Alive or dead, we must get him! Hurry up there, or else he may play us a dirty trick! Look sharp!"

They poured out of the churchyard and ran hurriedly towards the village. In no time a number of peasants were tearing towards the town at full speed, their horses scattering the mud from under their feet.

The village became almost deserted, except for a few women in the churchyard, who were crying bitterly.

Keeping to the middle of the road, and heedless of the sleet beating into his face, the miller dragged himself homewards. He breathed with difficulty, and often paused, sighing heavily. At times he staggered, at times he stopped short, as though petrified; and now and then a low, pained whisper broke from the depth of his tortured heart.

"You--my daughter! So that's what you are!--With the policeman!" he repeated involuntarily.

And he clenched his fist in his bitterness; but he was trembling as in a fever, and heavy tears rolled fast down his face.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The greeting usual among peasants.

[19] The colloquial name for policeman.

[20] The Uniats are forbidden by the Russian Government to be baptized, married, etc., by their own or Roman Catholic priests.

[21] Children are only allowed to attend specially licensed schools--one of the measures taken by the Russian Government to prevent Polish subjects from being taught.

THE STRONGER s.e.x

By STEFAN ZEROMSKI

DR. PAWEL OBARECKI returned home in rather a bad temper from a whist-party, where he had been paying his respects to the priest, in company with the chemist, the postmaster and the magistrate, for sixteen successive hours, beginning the previous evening. He carefully locked the door of his study so that no one, not even his housekeeper, aged twenty-four, should disturb him. He sat down at the table, glared angrily at the window without knowing why, and drummed on the table with his fingers. He realized that he was in for another fit of his "metaphysics."

It is a well-established fact that a man of culture who has been cast out by the irresistible force of poverty from the centres of intellectual life into a small provincial town succ.u.mbs in time to the deadening effects of wet autumn, lack of means of communication, and the absolute impossibility of sensible conversation for days together.

He develops into a carnivorous and vegetable-eating animal, drinks an excessive quant.i.ty of bottled beer, and becomes subject to fits of weariness resembling the weakness that precedes physical sickness. He swallows the boredom of a small town unconsciously, as a dog swallows dirt with his food. The actual process of decay begins at the moment when the thought "Nothing matters" takes hold of the organism. This was the case with Dr. Obarecki of Obrzydlwek. At the period of his life when this story begins, he had already come to the end of the resources of Obrzydlwek as regards his brain, his heart, and his energy.

He had an unconquerable horror of intellectual effort, could walk up and down his study for hours together, or lie on the couch with an unlighted cigar in his mouth, straining his ear to catch a sound which would foretell an interruption of the oppressive silence, anxiously longing for something to happen: if only someone would come and say something, or even turn somersaults! The autumn usually oppressed him specially; there was something painful in the silence brooding over Obrzydlwek from end to end on a late autumn afternoon--something despairing that roused one to an inward cry for help. As though a fine cobweb were being spun across it, his brain elaborated ideas which were sometimes coa.r.s.e and occasionally positively absurd.

His only diversion was whistling and his conversations with his housekeeper. They turned on the remarkable superiority of roast pork stuffed with buckwheat to pork with any other kind of stuffing; but at times they became very improper.

The sky was frequently half covered by a cloud resembling enormous bays and promontories; unable to disperse, it would lie motionless, threatening to burst suddenly over Obrzydlwek and the distant lonely fields. The fine snow from this cloud would fasten in crystals on the window-panes, while the wind made weird penetrating sounds like an exhausted baby crying out its last sobs close by at a corner of the house. Stripped of their leaves and lashed by the driving snow, wild pear trees swayed their branches over the distant field paths....

There was something of a catarrhal melancholy in this landscape, which unconsciously induced sadness and restless fear. The same chronic melancholy lasted in a diminishing degree through the spring and summer. Without any tangible cause, a malignant sadness had settled in the doctor's heart. He had fallen into a fatal state of idleness, so that it had even become too much effort to read Alexis' novels.

Dr. Pawel's "metaphysics," with which he was seized from time to time, consisted in a few hours' severe self-examination. This was followed by a violent inflowing of memories, a hasty ama.s.sing of shreds of knowledge, and a furious struggle of all his n.o.bler instincts against the stifling inactivity; he indulged in reflections, outbursts of bitterness, firm resolutions, and projects. Naturally all this led to nothing, and pa.s.sed in time like any other more or less acute illness.

A good sleep would cure him of "metaphysics" as of a headache, and enable him to wake up fresh the next morning, with more energy to meet the tedium of daily life, and with a greater mental capacity for the invention of the most savoury dishes. This endemia of "metaphysics"

made the doctor realize, however, when his mind was filled with the philosophy of strong common sense, that beneath his existence as a well-fed animal there was a hidden wound, incurable and unspeakably painful, like that of a diseased bone.

Dr. Obarecki had come to Obrzydlwek six years before, directly after completing his medical training, with a few exceptionally useful ideas in his mind and a few roubles in his pocket. There had been a great deal of talk at that time of the necessity of finding enlightened people who would settle in G.o.d-forsaken backwood places like Obrzydlwek. He had listened to the apostles of these schemes. Young, high-minded and reckless, he had within a month of settling in the town declared war against the local chemist and barbers, who encroached upon the medical profession. It was twenty-five miles to the nearest larger town, so the local chemist had exploited the situation. Those who wished to profit by his medicaments had to pay a high price for them. He and the barbers, who got a percentage on the business, played into each others' hands. Consequently they were able to build themselves fine houses and wear "kacalyas" trimmed with bearskin. They went about with an air of dignity like "supporters"[22]

at the Corpus Christi procession. When gentle hints and heated arguments had broken against the chemist's resistance, who declared the doctor's point of view to be a youthful Utopia, he sc.r.a.ped together a small sum and bought a travelling medicine-chest, which he carried with him on his rounds. He made up the medicines on the spot, sold them at a nominal price or gave them away, taught hygiene, made experiments, and worked perseveringly and with the utmost enthusiasm, giving himself no time for proper rest and sleep. It was a foregone conclusion that when the news of his portable chemist's shop, his giving his services to the people free of charge, and other things ill.u.s.trating his point of view, became known, his windows were smashed. As Baruch Pokoik, the only glazier in Obrzydlwek, was busy at the time celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, the doctor was obliged to paste up the window-panes with paper, and keep watch at night, revolver in hand. The windows were, in fact, broken periodically, until wooden shutters were procured for them. Rumours were spread among the common people that the doctor had intercourse with evil spirits, while the better educated were told that he was ignorant of his profession. Patients who wished to consult him were kept away by threats and noisy demonstrations outside the house.

The young doctor paid no attention to all this, and relied on the ultimate triumph of truth. But truth did not triumph--it is difficult to say why not. By the end of the year his energy was slowly ebbing away. Close contact with the ignorant ma.s.ses had disillusioned him more than words can say. His lectures on hygiene, entreaties and arguments had fallen like the seed on rocky ground. He had done all that was in his power--and it had been in vain.

To speak candidly, people can hardly be expected to restore their neglected health by simple laws of hygiene when they have to go without boots in winter, dig up rotten potatoes from other people's fields in March to get themselves a meal, and grind alderbark to powder so as to mix it with a very slender supply of pilfered rye flour.

Imperceptibly things began not to matter to the doctor. "If they will eat rotten potatoes, let them eat them! I can't help it, even if they eat them raw...."

The Jewish inhabitants of the little town were the only ones who continued to consult the idealist; they were not frightened by evil spirits, and the cheapness of the medicines greatly attracted them.

One fine morning the doctor awoke to the fact that the flame of inspiration burning brightly in him when he came to the little town, and to which he had trusted to illuminate his path, was extinguished.

It had burnt out of its own accord. From that moment the travelling dispensary was locked up, and the doctor was the only one to profit by its contents. It was bitterly galling to him to own himself beaten by the chemist and barbers, and to end the war by locking his medicine-chest away in his cupboard. They had the right to boast that they had conquered, and to divide the spoil. Yet he knew it was not they; he had been conquered by his own weaker nature. He had allowed his high aims and n.o.ble actions to be suppressed, maybe because he had begun to attach too much importance to good dinners. Anyway they had been suppressed. He still carried on his practice, but no one seemed to reap any real benefit from his work.

By a strange coincidence all the neighbouring country-houses were in the possession of n.o.ble families of feudal character, who treated the doctor in an antiquated manner instead of conforming to the views of the present day. Dr. Pawel had once paid a call at one of these houses, which turned out rather a failure. The n.o.bleman received him in the study, remained in his shirt-sleeves during the interview, and went on quietly eating ham, which he cut with a penknife. The doctor felt his democratic spirit rising within him, made a few unpleasant remarks to the Count, and paid no more visits in the neighbourhood.

He had therefore no other choice than the priest and the magistrate.

It is dull, however, to get too much of the priest's company, and the stories told by the magistrate were not worth following. So the doctor was left very much to his own company. To counteract the evil consequences of living alone, he made up his mind to get nearer to Nature, to recover his calm and inner harmony, and regain strength and courage by the discovery of the links which unite man with her. He did not, however, discover these links, though he wandered to the edge of the forest, and on one occasion sank into a bog in the fields.

The flat landscape was surrounded on all sides by a blue-grey belt of forest. A few firs grew here and there on grey sandhills, and waste strips of ground, belonging to G.o.d knows whom, were scattered in all directions. The only relief was given by the meadows covered with goat's-beard and yellowish gra.s.s, but even this withered prematurely--it was as if the light did not possess enough intensity to develop colour. The sun seemed to shine on that desolate spot only in order to show how arid and depressing it was.

Daily the doctor trudged, umbrella in hand, along the edge of the sandy road, which was full of holes and marked by a tumbled-down fence. This road did not seem to lead anywhere, for it divided into several paths in the middle of the meadows, and disappeared among molehills. Later on it reappeared on the top of a sandhill in the shape of a furrow, and ran into a wood of dwarf pines.

Impatient anger seized the doctor when he looked at that landscape, and a vague feeling of fear made him restless....

The years pa.s.sed.

The priest's mediation had brought about a reconciliation between the doctor and the chemist, now that it was clear that the doctor's zeal for innovations had cooled. Henceforward the rivals hobn.o.bbed at whist, although the doctor always felt a sense of aversion towards the chemist. By degrees even this slightly lessened. He began to visit the chemist, and to make himself agreeable to his wife. On one occasion he was startled by the result of a.n.a.lyzing his heart, which showed that he was even capable of falling platonically in love with Pani Aniela, whose intellect was as blunt as a sugar-chopper. She was under the entirely mistaken impression that she was slim and irresistible, and talked unceasingly and with unexceptionable zeal of her servant's wickedness. Dr. Pawel listened to Pani Aniela's eloquence for hours together with the stereotyped smile that appears on the lips of a youth who is making himself agreeable to beautiful women while suffering tortures from toothache.

He was no longer capable of starting democratic ideas in Obrzydlwek, though for no better purpose than that of pa.s.sing the time. He had intended at first to exchange visits with the butcher, but now he would not have done it at any price. If he talked, he preferred that it should be to people with at least a pretence to education. Not only had his energy given out, but also all respect for broader ideas. The wide horizon which once the idealist's eyes could hardly perceive had dwindled down to a small circle, measurable with the toe of a boot.

When he had read socialistic articles during the first stages of his moral decay, it had been with bitterness and envy, alternating with the caution of a man who has a certain amount of experience in these matters. Gradually he came to reading them with distrust, then with contempt, and at last he could not conceive why he had ever troubled himself about these ideas which had become absolutely indifferent to him. The longing to make himself into a centre for intellectual life was far from him. He doctored according to routine methods, and succeeded in working up a fairly good practice with the maxim: "Pay me and take yourself off!" His loneliness and the boredom of Obrzydlwek had become familiar to him.

And yet, in spite of everything, at this moment when he sat drumming with his fingers on the table, "metaphysics" had taken hold of him again. Already towards the end of the sixteen hours during which he had been celebrating the priest's name-day by playing whist, he had begun to feel uncomfortable. This was due to the chemist's beginning to talk atheism. Dr. Obarecki knew the hidden reason for this sudden a.s.sault on the priest's feelings quite well.

He foresaw that it was meant to be a prelude to a friendship between him and the chemist for the purpose of joining hands in a common utilitarian aim. One would write prescriptions a yard long, and the other exploit the situation. Possibly the chemist would soon pay him a visit and make an open proposal for such a partnership, and the doctor foresaw that he would not have the strength of mind to kick him out.

He did not know what reasons to give for the refusal. The course that the interview would take would be this: The chemist would touch on the matter gradually, skilfully, referring to the doctor's need of capital as the cause of his being in difficulties, then bring the conversation round to Obrzydlwek affairs, and point out how much they would benefit the community by joining hands; and the end would be their paddling in the mire together.

Supposing the partnership existed? What then...?

His heart overflowed with bitterness. What had happened? How could he have gone so far? Why did he not tear himself out of the mire? He was an idler, a dreamer, corrupting his own mind--a horrible caricature of himself.