Tales by Polish Authors Part 55

They were now in front of the house. Adler stopped.

"Who is wounded?" he asked.

"Ferdinand."

The old man did not comprehend.

"Has he broken his leg or his neck, or what do you mean?"

"It is a bullet wound."

"A bullet? How?"

"He has had a duel."

The mill-owner's red face now flushed the colour of brick. He threw down his hat in the portico and hurried through the open door. He did not ask who had wounded his son. What did that matter?

He found the servants and another stranger in the room. Pushing them aside, he stepped up to where Ferdinand was lying on the couch. The wounded man was without coat or waistcoat, and his face was so dreadfully changed that at first the father scarcely recognized his own son. The doctor was sitting at the head of the couch. Adler stared, and then fell upon a chair, leant forward with his hands on his knees, and asked in a stifled voice:

"What have you been doing, you scamp?"

Ferdinand gave him a look of indescribable sadness; then he took his father's hand and kissed it. He had not done this for a long time.

Adler shuddered and was silent. Ferdinand began to speak in a low voice and with pauses:

"I had to ... father ... I had to. Everyone spoke against us, the n.o.bility, the newspapers, even the waiters. They were saying that I was squandering the money while you sweated the workpeople. Before long they would have spat in our faces."

"Do not exert yourself," whispered the doctor.

The old man listened with the greatest astonishment and sorrow. His thick lips were parted.

"Save me ... father...!" cried Ferdinand with raised voice. "I have promised ten thousand roubles to the doctor."

A cloud of displeasure flashed across Adler's face. "Why so much?" he asked mechanically.

"Because I am dying ... I feel I am dying."

The old man started up from his chair.

"You are mad!" he exclaimed. "You have done a foolish thing, but you are not going to die!"

"I am dying," the wounded man groaned.

Adler, in utter bewilderment, pulled his fingers till the joints cracked.

"He is mad! Good Lord! he is out of his mind! Tell him he is silly, doctor--he speaks of dying.... As if we should allow him to die! You have been promised ten thousand roubles: that is not enough,"

feverishly continued the old man. "I will give a hundred thousand for my son, if there is the slightest danger. But mind you, I am not going to pay if he is merely silly. What is his condition?"

"It is not exactly dangerous," replied the doctor; "yet we must be careful."

"Of course! Do you hear him, Ferdinand? Now, don't bother yourself and me.... Johann! Send a wire to Warsaw for all the best doctors. Send to Vienna and Berlin--to Paris, if necessary. Let the doctor give you the addresses of the most famous men. I will pay ... I have enough money...."

"Oh, I feel so terribly ill," Ferdinand groaned, tossing about on the couch. His father hurried to his side.

"Compose yourself," said the doctor.

"Father!" cried the dying man; "my father, I cannot see you any more!"

Blood appeared on his lips. His eyes were dilated with despair.

"Air!" he cried.

He jumped up, and with hands outstretched like a blind man he turned towards the window. Suddenly his arms dropped; he staggered and fell upon the couch, striking his head against the wall. Once more he turned towards his father, and opened his eyes with difficulty. Large tears stood in them. Adler, utterly overcome and trembling all over, sat down near him, and wiped the tears from his eyes and the froth from his lips with his large hands.

"Ferdinand ... Ferdinand," he whispered, "be quiet.... You shall live.... You shall have all I possess."

Suddenly he felt his son getting heavy on his arms and dropping.

"Doctor! Bring him round! He is fainting!"

"Pan Adler, you had better go out of the room," said the doctor.

"Why should I go out of the room when my son is in need of my help?"

"He is no longer in need of it!"

Adler looked at his son, gripped him tightly, shook him. A large patch of blood had appeared on the bandage which covered his chest.

Ferdinand was dead.

Frenzy seized the old man. He jumped up from the couch, kicked over the chair, knocked against the doctor, and ran out into the courtyard and from there into the road. On the road he met one of the van-drivers bringing in the cotton. He seized him by the shoulders.

"Do you know my son is dead?" he shouted.

He flung the man on the ground and ran on to the porter's lodge.

"Hallo, there! Call up all the men! Let them all come in front of my house!"

He ran back to his dead son's room as fast as he had run out of it, sat down, and looked and looked at him in silence for half an hour.

Then he suddenly started up.

"What does this silence mean?" he asked. "Has the machinery broken down?"

"You ordered all the hands to be called up, sir," answered Johann, "so they stopped the machinery, and are now waiting in the yard."

"What for? There is no reason for them to wait! Let them go back to work, and weave and spin and make a noise...."

He clasped his head with both hands.