Tales From Jokai Part 12

But the two old men did not only keep their common birthday together, but when their two sons had departed on the common path of learning, the homely pastor went up to the Castle twice a week with the letter he had received from his son, that he might read it aloud to the Starosta. And the Starosta always compelled him to remain to dinner. And though he might have a brilliant host of guests staying with him, the Rev.

Gottlieb Klausner, in his simple black ca.s.sock, always sat at the Starosta's right hand. The only change took place when a priest of the Starosta's own religion happened to be his guest. Then Klausner sat at the left hand of the Starosta, but there also he was treated with great distinction. And just before the b.u.mpers began to go round, the latest letter received from Henry was always read to the general delectation.

And Henry's letters certainly were amusing. There was no frothy effusiveness, no cheap claptrap in them as is generally the way with students' productions, and for that very reason they were all the more genuinely interesting. They were full, indeed, of the comical adventures, without which a student's life is inconceivable, and no mystery was made of the sc.r.a.pes and exploits which fell to his lot, but at the same time the distinctions which the two youths gained at the Sorbonne were duly enumerated.

It occurred to none of the guests to ask the reverend gentleman why he had sent his son to the Sorbonne instead of to Heidelberg, where Lutherans generally go to college.

But once when these scholastic testimonials were pa.s.sing from hand to hand among the army of guests, an inquisitive guest remarked that in young Moskowski's testimonial he was described as "eminent" in such sciences as "mathematics," "geometry," "chemistry," and "mineralogy."

What need, he added, had a Moskowski to grub about amongst such things as these. He was not going to be a miner, was he? Whereupon the reverend pastor, with philosophical composure and prophetic inspiration, replied: "A man never knows what sciences may be useful to him one day."

This was the _vaccinatio spiritualis_, the inoculation of the mind--against the infection of the serf distemper.

CHAPTER III

FACE TO FACE

The two youths spent two years in the foreign University. They studied together and they caroused together. They fought for each other, and they wrote each other's dissertations. When they spent all their money they wrote verses, and whichever of them was able to borrow a livre or two, always shared it with the other. And whenever the Philistines were too much for them they bolted into the next town.

Heinrich's last letter to his father was written from Utrecht. There both of them gained their _promotio_. Casimir became a baccalaureat of philosophy, Heinrich a doctor of medicine.

The Rev. Mr. Klausner told the Starosta that his little Heinrich had appropriated the new science, according to which doctors were no longer to plague their unfortunate patients with bitter draughts at the rate of a pint a dose; but went about with little white pillules, the size of millet seeds, in their pockets, and wrought marvellous cures on the principle of _similia similibus_.

"Very well," said the Starosta, "as your son Heinrich has become a doctor, I will make him my family physician, with a salary of 2000 thalers, on condition that he bleeds me in the first quarter of every month, and gives me some of his drugs. For I invented h.o.m.opathy before Herr Hahnemann, inasmuch as whenever wine gets into my head I drink still more to get it out again. That's my view of _similia similibus_.

Tell your son what I say."

Gottlieb Klausner thereupon took up his pen and informed his son what a brilliant opening had thus come in his way at the very beginning of his career. He would be sure of a post as soon as ever he got home, with a nice salary of 2000 thalers. Moreover, he would ride in a carriage, and give his orders to the cook, for he would have to taste of every dish before it was presented to the Starosta, according to the wont of princes, lest they be poisoned in their meat or drink. How many a man would envy him such an office!

And now the two accomplished young men were summoned back to Lithuania.

All the way to the boundary hillock of the Bialystok domain they travelled in a peasant's cart; but there a n.o.ble cavalcade awaited them, with the Major Domo of the Starosta at their head.

The great gilded carriage of the Starosta, which was only used on the greatest occasions of State, was sent to meet the young men, and to it the four most reliable nags from the Starosta's stables were harnessed, which went at a slow, dignified, parade step. On the box sat a coachman in the national costume, and a couple of heydukes clung on to the straps behind.

The Major Domo ought to have p.r.o.nounced a solemn greeting; but he never had the opportunity, for no sooner had the two youths leaped from the cart, than a rush was made upon them by the mounted _Szlachta_, who took possession of them uproariously, every one who could pressing up to, embracing, and kissing them. Besides the youths, there leaped from the cart a huge mastiff, the indispensable attribute of University students, who seemed to be greatly attracted by the Major Domo, and kept taking vigorous leaps at him. The gentleman in question was wearing a bear-skin kaczagany, which the n.o.ble beast had evidently determined to tear from his shoulder by hook or by crook, and in the mean time the fine oration the poor Major Domo had prepared for the occasion escaped him altogether.

The new arrivals were really two very nice young fellows--both of them heroic-looking figures, though entirely different from each other.

Casimir was dark, with fiery-black eyes. His head was entirely covered with curly hair, he had a luxuriant forelock hanging over his forehead, and such a thick, luxuriant crop of hair that it would have blunted the edge of a descending sword. His thick eyebrows drew near to each other like bushy-headed serpents--perhaps, also, they would have seized each other had they not been separated by the powerful authoritative nose, which was the characteristic feature of the Moskowski family. Such an aquiline nose you would not have met with in the whole Sarmatian race, and it was fitly accompanied by the protuberant red mouth and the p.r.o.nounced double chin, which were also hereditary peculiarities. He was his father's own son, though of a somewhat higher type.

Heinrich, on the other hand, was an excellent specimen of the type of masculine beauty peculiar to the German race. His thick, leonine, dark-red hair rolled over his shoulders in luxuriant ma.s.ses. His face was ruddy, his forehead white, he had a small and delicate nose, with sensitive nostrils, large bright-blue eyes, above which the thin straight eyebrows seemed to have been added by a painter's brush. His mouth was large, but his lips were finely chiselled, and a large brown mole at the corner of the lips gave a peculiar expression to the mouth.

There was no fear of mistaking one of them for the other.

And the dog, too, was a fine dog. He belonged to that race of mastiffs which in the Hungarian Corpus Juris bears the name of "sinkoran," the keeping of which is forbidden in Hungary by a special paragraph of the code.

When the feted gentlemen had been released from the embraces of the young cavaliers, and the Major Domo from the jaws of the sinkoran, the next thing was for them to take their places in the State carriage. The n.o.ble youths carried Casimir on their shoulders to the carriage, and set him down on the back seat. Heinrich also was carried on men's shoulders to the carriage--only in his case it was not the cavaliers, but the heydukes who performed that office, and they placed him in the front seat face to face with Casimir.

"Why may I not sit by my friend's side?" asked Heinrich.

"What an odd question!" said the Major Domo. "Here you have been to half a dozen colleges, and learnt so much, and yet you don't know that! A subject _cannot_ sit down by the side of his Prince; and when they ride together in the same carriage his proper place is the front seat."

Of course, it was the regular thing.

Moreover, as the place beside Casimir on the back seat remained empty, the big mastiff leaped into the carriage, and occupied the place of honour by his master's side.

"Then is a dog allowed to sit down by a n.o.bleman?" inquired Heinrich, indignantly.

"Certainly, for the sinkoran is also a n.o.ble animal."

And then the procession, amidst the crack of pistol-shots, proceeded towards the castle.

In the castle gate a triumphal arch awaited the new arrivals, and the notabilities of the place were grouped around the entrance, the damsels arrayed in white and the peasantry in gala costumes.

When they reached the gate of the castle, it was not Heinrich's face that was red, but his forehead, and his eyes seemed rather to be green than blue.

He saw his father among the deputation. He could easily make him out--one black ca.s.sock was very prominent amidst the dazzling-bright Polish parade costumes.

He did not wait for the carriage to stop, but leaped from it, and rushed up to the old man, embracing him again and again with great ostentation, and kissing him in the sight of every one. The clergyman did not betray the least emotion.

When the congratulatory addresses came to an end, the Major Domo shouted to Heinrich--

"Come, doctor! Get in!"

"I am going with my father."

"But I am going on foot," said the clergyman.

"Then, I'll go on foot with you."

They did not press him further. Every one's head was full of something else. The ladies praised the young squire. What a fine fellow he was, they said. The girls flung flowers into the carriage, which went so slowly that the foot-pa.s.sengers could easily keep up with it.

Father and son trudged on together among the ranks of the pedestrians.

Presently the old man began speaking to his son in the Latin tongue, so that the people might not understand him.

"My dear son, you well remember, no doubt, that I have always looked upon lying and deception as the greatest of sins; and from your childish years upwards you have always had a great inclination thereto. You know how many hazel twigs I have worn out upon you in endeavouring to eradicate that evil tendency. But I see that even now you are not cured of it. Look, now! the moment you beheld your poor father amidst a group of gentlemen, you immediately leaped from the gilded carriage, ran up to me, embraced me, called me _carissime pater_, pinned yourself on to my ca.s.sock, and accompanied me on foot. You thought you would deceive me by all this hypocrisy. Yet all this ostentation of filial piety was only because you were obliged to sit in the State carriage opposite to your comrade, instead of by his side, and your pride was wounded in consequence. That was why your heart suddenly conceived such a fondness for your father. Look me straight in the face, and tell me if it was not so."

"Yes, it was."

"Exactly; it was your pride that suffered. I do not count pride among the more deadly sins, although I know that Petrus Lombardus elevated this opinion into the rank of a dogma. We Protestants are content with the definition of John the Evangelist, who saith that every falsehood is a deadly sin. Yet pride is not falsehood, but the true image of every man. It is the very eye of his soul. Moreover, as a philosopher, you must know very well that whoever attaches himself to a master must make submission his business. A colonel is a big man; but when the general speaks it is for the colonel to listen; and if the general says to him, 'Go through fire,' or, 'Go through water,' he must submit and obey. If a man who has been born poor would drink and make merry, he must first renounce his pride. When you wanted to choose a career, I left you a fine choice. You had only to please yourself. You might have become a clergyman, like myself, in the usual way. True, we cook with water and do not throw away our crusts, and when we wear out our clothes we turn them, and so wear them again; but, on the other hand, the clergyman always sits in the front seat, and gives place to no son of man, unless it be the Son of G.o.d. But this haughty poverty seemingly is not to your liking. You say to yourself, '_Dat Galerius opes, dat Justinia.n.u.s honores._' Well, you have got what you sought. Wealth, a life of comfort is in your hands. Galerius has given them to you. He who wants to wear a bedizened hat must be prepared to doff it right and left--to high and low. _I_ need take off my _capillum_ to no man. Why do you oscillate like a pendulum? A man must make his own position. If you don't like subjection, turn back, go to Gottingen, go through a whole course of theology--then come here, be my curate, and then perhaps in ten years'

time you may get a living somewhere. But if you want to live in splendour and comfort, go back to the carriage, and sit on the back seat face to face with your lord and master, for that is your proper place."

Heinrich, very red in the face, went back to the slowly lumbering carriage, and again took his place in it opposite his youthful comrade.

And thus they went to the town together, and right into the castle.