Tales by Polish Authors Part 43

To the fat, well-groomed pony, the flies, the heavy collar, the sultry day, and the dusty road were of much greater interest than the virtues of his master, or even his whip. His master took the whip with him only for fear of being laughed at, for he never used it. In fact, he would have been unable to use it; for when he exhibited his worthy personality, with its short whiskers, panama hat, and white and pink percoline coat, on the roads, he had to hold the reins firmly in one hand to prevent the old pony from stumbling, and with the other he poured out continual and benevolent, but ineffectual blessings on all pa.s.sers-by. For they all took off their caps to him; regardless of religious differences they liked the "worthy German."

On this particular July afternoon the reverend gentleman was on his way to perform one of his minor spiritual duties, namely that of first grieving his neighbour and then comforting him. In short, he was going to see his friend Gottlieb Adler, to inform him that his son, Ferdinand, had run into debt abroad, and subsequently to exhort the father to forgive his prodigal son.

Gottlieb Adler was the owner of a cotton-mill. The road along which the pastor was driving connected the mill with the railway-station; it was a well-kept road, though it had not been planted with trees. A little country town lay on the left, and the factory on the right, at some distance. The black and red roofs of the workmen's cottages peeped from the sheltering plane-trees, limes and poplars; behind them lay a large four-storied building in the shape of a horseshoe. This was the factory. A thicker clump of trees close by indicated Adler's garden; it surrounded an elegant villa with some farm buildings attached. The sun was flooding everything with golden light. The tall red-brick chimney sent out thick, curling smoke, and had the wind been in his direction the pastor would have heard the busy roar of the engines and the noise of the power-looms. But as it was, nothing disturbed the peaceful silence except the whistle of a distant train and the rattling of his own cart. A quail diving into the corn was singing its little song.

The constant attention needed to prevent the fat pony from stumbling at last wore out the pastor; so trusting to the mercy of Him who delivered Daniel from the lions' den and Jonah from the whale's belly, he tied the reins to the back of the seat, and folded his hands as in prayer. Boehme loved to dream, and a gentle doze helped to open memory's enchanted gates. He now recalled (probably for the hundredth time that year and at the same spot) another factory, somewhere in the plains of Brandenburg, where he and his friend Gottlieb Adler had spent their childhood. They were sons of fairly well-to-do master-weavers, were born in the same year, and went to the same elementary school. A quarter of a century pa.s.sed after they left it before they met again. Boehme had finished his theological studies at the University of Tbingen, and Adler had ama.s.sed some twenty thousand thalers.

On Polish soil, far away from their Fatherland, they met again. Boehme had been appointed pastor of a Protestant parish, and Adler had set up a little cotton-mill. Another quarter of a century had now pa.s.sed, during which they had never been separated; they visited each other several times every week. Adler's little mill had grown into a huge factory which at the moment employed some six hundred workmen, and brought him in a clear profit of several thousand roubles a year.

Boehme had remained poor except for the profit of several thousand blessings yearly.

The two friends also differed in other respects. The pastor had a son who was now finishing his studies at the technical college at Riga, and who looked forward to supporting himself, his parents and his sister for the rest of their lives. Adler's only son had never even completed his school course; he was now travelling abroad, and his only concern was to get as much as he could for himself out of his father's money. While the pastor was fairly satisfied with his several thousand blessings a year, and only wondered sometimes whether his daughter, aged eighteen, would marry well, Adler was ever impatient for his banking account to reach the desired sum of a million roubles as quickly as possible, and he often worried himself with thoughts as to what would ultimately become of his son.

At the present moment Boehme was quite content to look at the cornfields around him and the sky above--scattered with white and grey clouds--and to recall the memories of childhood; a similar factory in the shape of a horseshoe, the same kind of trees, and the same villa with a pond in the garden.... What a pity there was no village school here, no almshouses, no hospital! Adler had forgotten to build these, although he had copied the shape of the Brandenburg factory. "Had there not been a school there," the pastor reflected, "Adler would never have been a millionaire, nor I a pastor."

The britzka was now approaching the factory, and the noise became audible and roused the musing pastor. A group of dirty children in ragged dresses or only in shirts were playing in the road. Vans with cotton goods became visible behind the wall which surrounded the yard, and Adler's villa appeared to the left in all its elegance. The pastor could now distinctly see the summer-house in the garden, near the pond, where he and his friend usually sat drinking their hock and talking of old times and current news.

Here and there the washing was hanging out of the windows of the workmen's cottages. The inhabitants were nearly all at work at the mill; only a few pale, hollow-cheeked women greeted the pastor with the words:

"May the Lord be praised!"

"For ever and ever!" he answered, raising his battered old panama hat.

Meanwhile the britzka had turned to the left, for the pony, needing no further guiding, trotted into the courtyard of the villa residence. A groom came out at once, wiped his nose on his sleeve, and helped the pastor out.

"Is your master at home?"

"He is at the factory; I'll run and tell him you are here, sir."

The pastor entered the portico. Having divested himself of his coat, the reverend gentleman now revealed himself in a long frock-coat which made his short legs look still shorter, while the long nose adorning his faded face seemed to grow in proportion. The pastor folded his hands and waited, reminding himself of the object of his visit, and rehearsing a well-thought-out address, which was to be divided into three parts according to the laws of rhetoric. The introductory part dealt with the unfathomable ways of Providence which lead human beings along th.o.r.n.y paths to eternal joy; the second part dwelt on the story of young Ferdinand Adler, who was unable to return to the paternal home until his creditors had been satisfied.... This was likely to produce an outburst of wrath on the part of the father, and a long list of Ferdinand's misdoings. But when the angry cotton-spinner would be on the point of disinheriting his son, there would follow the third part of the pastor's address, which would include a reconciliation.

Boehme intended to allude to the story of the Prodigal Son, to touch lightly on the fact that his friend was himself responsible for Ferdinand's bad upbringing, and that in expiation of this sin he should offer the sum demanded by the creditors as a sacrifice.

While the pastor was rehearsing his plan of action, Adler appeared. He was huge and of clumsy build, already slightly bent; with large feet, a big round nose, and thick lips like those of a negro. He had thin fair whiskers and no moustache, and was dressed in a long grey frock-coat of an unfashionable cut, and trousers to match. When he took off his hat in order to mop the perspiration off his forehead, he showed tow-coloured, closely cropped hair, and projecting light blue eyes without eyebrows.

The millionaire walked with a heavy tread like a trooper; his big arms stood out from his body like the ribs of some antediluvian animal. His broad chest heaved and fell like a pair of smith's bellows as he greeted the pastor from a distance with phlegmatic nods and loud guffaws; but he did not smile. Indeed, it would have been difficult to imagine what a smile would look like on this fleshy, apathetic face which Nature had fashioned so roughly. Yet it was not repulsive, merely rather strange; it did not inspire fear, only the feeling that opposition to those clumsy hands would be useless. Obviously it was impossible to get at the heart of this battering-ram in human form, but, if injured, the whole fabric would collapse like a building the foundations of which had crumbled away.

"How are you, Martin?" Adler called from the lowest step of the staircase. Shaking the pastor's hand firmly, he went on: "Ah, of course, you were in Warsaw yesterday.... Have you heard anything of my boy? The rascal writes so rarely.... Probably the only person who knows his whereabouts is the banker."

As they stood together in the portico, the little pastor looked, beside his friend, like "a locust beside a camel."

"Well, tell me," Adler continued, sitting down on a little cast-iron seat; its metallic sound as it creaked under his weight harmonized strangely with the thundering roar of the factory. "Has Ferdinand not written to the bank?"

Boehme found himself plunged unwillingly into the middle of his business. Sitting down on the seat facing Adler, he remembered with marvellous presence of mind the opening part of his speech--namely the unfathomable ways of Providence.

The pastor had one drawback; this was that he could not speak fluently without his gla.s.ses, which he was in the habit of mislaying. He felt that he ought now to begin the introduction; but how was he to begin without his gla.s.ses? He cleared his throat and fidgeted, turned out his pockets and found nothing. Where could he have left his spectacles? He quite forgot his opening sentences.

Adler, who knew his friend by heart, began to feel uneasy.

"Why are you fidgeting like that?" he asked.

"I am sorry--it is very annoying--I have left my spectacles behind."

"What do you want your spectacles for? You are not going to preach a sermon, are you?"

"No, but you see----"

"I am asking about Ferdinand--any news of him?"

"I will tell you presently," Boehme said, grimacing. Again he put his hand into his breast pocket, and took out a letter and a large purse, but no spectacles.

"I wonder if I left them in the britzka," he said, turning towards the steps.

Adler, who knew that the pastor carried only important doc.u.ments in his breast pocket, s.n.a.t.c.hed the letter from his hand.

"My dear Gottlieb," Boehme said, confused; "give me back the letter; I will read it to you myself, but I must first find my gla.s.ses."

He ran out into the courtyard, but returned in dismay a few minutes later, not having found them.

Adler was reading the letter with great interest; the veins stood out on his forehead, and his eyes seemed to project more than ever.

When he had finished he spat on the floor.

"What a scoundrel, this Ferdinand!..." he burst out. "In two years'

time he is fifty-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in debt, though I gave him a yearly allowance of ten thousand roubles."

"Ah, I know!" suddenly exclaimed the pastor, and ran off. "I couldn't have left them anywhere but in the pocket of my overcoat."

He returned triumphantly.

"You are always mislaying your spectacles and finding them again,"

grumbled Adler, leaning his head on his hand. He looked thoughtful and sad.

"Fifty-eight and twenty--that's seventy-eight thousand and thirty-one roubles in two years. How shall I be able to make that up? By Heaven, I don't know."

Meanwhile the pastor had put on his spectacles and regained his usual presence of mind. Though the introduction and the second part of his speech had been lost, there was still the third part left. Boehme was always resourceful in a difficulty, so he cleared his throat, and began:

"Although, dear Gottlieb, your feelings as a father may be deeply wounded, and you may sometimes justly complain----"

Adler roused himself from his reverie, and replied calmly:

"It's more than mere complaining; I have to pay. Johann!" he suddenly shouted, with a voice that shook the roof of the portico.

The footman appeared.

"A gla.s.s of water!"

He emptied two gla.s.ses, and then said without a shade of excitement: "I must telegraph to Rothschilds' to-night. I will send that rascal a wire too; he must come back; he has had enough travelling."

Boehme realized that not only the chance of the third part of his speech was gone, but that Adler was treating his son far too indulgently. To incur debts of nearly sixty thousand roubles was not only a financial loss, but an abuse of parental confidence, and therefore no light offence. Who knows? If it had not been for this money, Adler might have been persuaded to found a school for the children, without which they were growing up idle and wild. Instead of standing up for the frivolous son, the pastor would now become his censor, which was all the easier for him as he had known him from his childhood. Moreover, he had now recovered his spectacles and his balance of mind.