Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland Part 4

The other listeners, like Pani Krzycki, her children, the instructress, and Miss Anney, gazed at her as if at a miracle-working image. Only one, Laskowicz, young Stas' tutor, did not share in the general rapture. He was a medical student who, owing to the closing of the university, was earning money by teaching for the further pursuit of his studies, and he found himself, together with his inexorable hatred for the "pampered" of this world, like Pilate in Credo, in this country home. His convictions by this time were not a secret to anybody in Jastrzeb; he was tolerated, however, with that improvident indulgence of which the Polish n.o.bility is only capable, upon the principle that "the greatest radical must eat," and also in the hope that Stas was yet too young to be infected with the "evil spirit" by his tutor.

To Laskowicz, when he looked at the gentle young lady, it seemed that she was a flower which grew higher than the hands of a proletaire could reach; therefore she was bred to the injury of the proletariat. This was sufficient for him to look on both sides with reluctance and a readiness to hate.

But, in the meanwhile, the moment for beginning the concert had arrived. For some time Marynia had been drawing the bow over the chords, turning the ringlets of the violin, and pa.s.sing her fingers over the notes, indicating something to her sister and the notary; afterwards silence ensued, interrupted only by the indistinct talk of the servants, a.s.sembled beyond the windows, who for the first time in their lives were to hear the young lady play on the violin.

V

The first chords of the moonlight sonata are sounded and a vision begins. Lo! a pale ray creeps stealthily through a crevice and touches the forehead of a sleeper, as if it wanted to arouse thought; afterwards the lips, as if it wished to waken words, and later the bosom, as if it desired to stir the heart. But the weary body slumbered in a heavy sleep. In its place the soul emerges from its embrace, like a b.u.t.terfly from a coc.o.o.n, and flies into s.p.a.ce. The night is bright and silent. Below, alders are dimly wrapped in muslin mists. On the sylvan meadows nymphs dance their rites, accompanied by the playing of a faun on a flute. About, stand with flaming azure eyes, stags, crowned with antlers. On the heath, glow-worms glimmer; on the moss, phosphorate toadstools, under whose canopies tiny elfs watch the gambols. From the decaying vegetation and fens rise Jack-o'-lanterns which flit about lightly and mysteriously, as if seeking something in vain. The moon ascends each moment higher and higher, and bounteous dew falls.

Over the vast fields rivers wind in silvery ribbons and tracks of the roadways can be seen leading to towns and castles. Through the narrow Gothic windows the moon's l.u.s.tre invades silent castle-halls, where lurk the ghosts of dead knights and maidens. At the feet of the castles, cities slumber. In the calm light the roofs of houses whiten and crosses on the towers glitter. From the blossoming orchards, with the vapors rises the fragrance of flowers and gra.s.s. But lighter than the fragrance and the moonlight the winged soul soars higher and farther. The lowly habitations of men vanish; likewise vanish the forests, vales, sparkling shields of ponds, and the white threads of streams. Gradually lofty regions are attained.

And lo, the mountains! Amidst the crags sleeps the translucent buckler of the lake. In the chasms lies concealed cool dusk. The needles of the glaciers shine verdantly. On the declivities and rocky nests rest the weary clouds and mists; and on the peaks, on the eternal snow the moonlight reposes. Even the wind has fallen asleep. How still, ethereal, and immense! Here the moon is the only sentinel of silence and the human soul the only living ent.i.ty. Free as a mountain eagle, detached from the flesh, enamoured with the expanse, desolation, and silence, happy, and sad with a supernal sorrow, dissolved in the stillness, she hovers and courses above the precipices; and again flies farther on, entirely abandoned to pleasure, flight, and speed.

And the mountains have already disappeared beneath her and lo! some voices rise and reach from below as if summoning her to them. It is the sea. It, alone, never sleeps; restless and vast, it dashes wave after wave against the sh.o.r.e, as if it were an immense pulsation of life. Its monstrous lungs heave and fall eternally and at times groan in complaint of endless toil.

The ruffled expanse of the sea throbs with the opalescent lunar l.u.s.tre and the silvery laces of stars, and on those illuminated tracks, in the distance appears, wakeful as the sea itself, a ship with sails and a sanguinary light in the rounded windows.

But thou, oh soul, mountest higher and higher. Already the earth is left somewhere at the bottom of the abyss. Thou, light as down, dost pa.s.s feathery clouds, which have strayed upon the heights and dost pierce s.p.a.ce flooded with splendor--empty and cool. There thou liest upon thine own wings and floatest about in luminous nothingness; higher and higher; and now doth scintillate and change color over thee, in gold and purple, the jewels of heaven, and thou dost frolic and swing in the unattainable ether, serene, freed from the dross of matter as if, beyond the limits of time and s.p.a.ce, thou wert already partly admitted into heaven.

The firmament of heaven grows each moment darker, but the moon, great as the world, shines more and more brightly. Already we behold her glistening plains, mangled, wild, studded by mountain peaks, perforated with the blackness of craters, bleak, frosty, and lifeless. Thus in the abyss of s.p.a.ce appears this silvery, corpse-like wanderer, who speeds around the earth as if condemned by a divine command to a perpetual race. Above and about her, an immensity which the swooning brain is incapable of comprehending. A new galaxy of stars twinkle sanguinarily and powerfully, like distant fire-places. The music of spheres is heard. Here Eternity fans with her breath and a supernal chill prevails.

Return, over-indulged swan, return, oh soul, before some occult rapids and whirlpools seize thee and tear thee forever from the earth.

Thou returnest from the pinnacle of all-existence, bathed in the waves of infinity, purer and more perfect. Lo, thou furlest thy wings! Look, in the depths beneath are those downy, light clouds, which now thou greetest as thine own and kin. Below, the earth. The protuberances of the mountains flash to the moon; at their feet sobs the sea. And now lower, the vague outlines of forests, enveloped in mist. Again whiten the cities, silent towers and roofs of villages sunk in sleep. The night grows pale. On the moors, ostlers build fires and play on fifes.

The roosters crow. The day breaks. It is dawn.

The strains subsided and silence ensued. Marynia stood near the piano with a countenance, composed as usual, but seemingly, awakened from a dream.

The aged notary sat for a while with bowed head, moving his toothless jaws; afterwards he rose, and when the young maid placed the violin beside the key-board, he ardently kissed her hands; after which he threw a challenging look at those present as if he sought the person who would dare to protest against that mark of homage or deem it a superfluous act. n.o.body, however, protested because under the enchantment of that music that happened with the listeners which always happens with mankind, when fanned by the breath of genius. As sometimes in a dream it seems to a person that having shoved himself off the earth with his feet, he afterwards reels a long time in the air, so, too, their bodies became lighter, less material, as if deprived of those heavy and gross elements which bound them to the earth. Their nerves became more susceptible and subtle and their souls more volatile, approaching more closely those boundaries on which eternity begins. It was an unconscious feeling; after the pa.s.sage of which the daily life was to encompa.s.s and drag them down. But during this momentary exaltation there awakened within them, unknown to themselves, a power of apprehending, appreciating, and feeling beauty, and in general such things as in their customary moods they had not felt and did not know that they could have felt.

Even the young and unfledged physician, Laskowicz, notwithstanding all his prejudices, could not resist this influence. The moment when Marynia stood up to play, he began to scrutinize her from his dark corner in the salon and examine her form as an anatomist. He was conscious that there was something brutal in this, but such a viewpoint gave him satisfaction, as being proper for an investigator and a man of his convictions. He started to persuade himself that this young lady of the so called higher spheres was for him merely an object which one should examine in the same manner as a corpse on the dissecting-table is examined. So, when tuning her violin, she bent her head, he took a mental inventory of the Latin names of all her cranial bones, repelling the thought which, against his will, rushed to his head that this was, however, an extraordinarily n.o.ble skull. Afterwards, during the first moments after the beginning of the concert, he became occupied with the nomenclature of the muscles of her hands, arms, breast, limbs, outlined under her dress and whole figure. But as he was not only a medical student and a socialist, but also a young man, this anatomical review ended in the conclusion that this was a girl, not yet sufficiently developed, but exceedingly pretty and attractive, resembling a spring flower. From that moment he began, to a certain extent, to forgive her connection with spheres living "from the wrongs of the proletariat,"

and could not get rid of the thought that if, as a result of some unheard-of social upheaval, such "a saintly doll" became dependent upon his favor or disfavor, then such a state of affairs would bring to him an indescribably coy delight.

But when Beethoven placed his hands upon his head, there awakened within him better and higher instincts. He saw during the performance the lips and eyebrows of the young lady contract, and began to concede that "she, however, felt something." In consequence of this, his ill-will towards her began to melt away, although slowly and with difficulty. He half confirmed, half conjectured that not only the hands but also the soul played. He did not have sufficient culture for music to appeal to him as it did, for instance, to Gronski, nevertheless there awakened within him a certain dismal consciousness that this was something, like the air, which all b.r.e.a.s.t.s can breathe, regardless of whether they love or hate. Amazement seized him at the thought that there were things lying beyond the swarm of human pa.s.sions. At the conclusion he so identified music with the figure of the playing girl that when the old notary, at the end of the concert, kissed her hands, he almost felt inclined to do the same.

In the meanwhile, Ladislaus said to Miss Anney:

"As long as Jastrzeb has been Jastrzeb, never yet has such music been heard. I am not a connoisseur, but must admit that this has captivated me. Besides, though I am often in the city, it has always so happened that I never have had an opportunity of seeing a woman play on the violin. And this is so beautiful that I now have an impression that only women should play the violin."

"One gets such an impression when he hears Marynia play."

"a.s.suredly. I even begin to understand Pan Gronski. You, of course, know that she is his adoration?"

"The greatest in the world. And mine and everybody's who knows her,--and soon she will be yours."

"I do not deny that she will be, only I doubt whether she will be the greatest."

A temporary pause in the conversation followed, after which Ladislaus, not desiring that Miss Anney should take his words as an untimely compliment, added:

"In any event, I owe her grat.i.tude for music which is slightly different from that which we hear every evening in spring and summer."

"What kind of music is that?"

"From dusk to moon-rise the orchestra of frogs, and afterwards the concert of nightingales, which, after all, I do not hear, as, after daily toil, I am sound asleep. The frog band has already commenced.

This also has its charm. If you care to hear it, let us go out upon the veranda. The night is almost as warm as in summer."

Miss Anney rose and together they went on the veranda, which the servants, who listened under the windows to Marynia's performance, had already left, and only in the distance the blooming jasmines, shaded by the dusk, whitened. From the pond came the croakings of the confederation of frogs, drowsy and, at the same time, resembling choral prayers.

Miss Anney for a while listened to these sounds and afterwards said:

"Yes, this also has its charm, particularly on a night like this."

"Are not nights the same in England?"

"No, not as quiet. There is hardly a corner there to which the whistling of locomotives or the factory noises do not reach. I like your villages for their quiet and their distance from the cities."

"So, then, this is not the first time that you have seen a Polish village?"

"No. I have pa.s.sed the last month with Zosia Otocka."

"I wish that our Jastrzeb would find favor in your eyes. It is too bad that you chanced here upon a funeral. That is always sad. I saw that you were even affected."

"It reminded me of something," answered Miss Anney.

Whereupon, evidently desiring to change the subject of the conversation, she again began to peer into the depths of the garden.

"How everything blooms and smells agreeably here!"

"Those are jasmines and elders. Did you observe on the forest road, riding to Jastrzeb, that the edges of the woods are planted with elders? That is my work."

"I only observed it at the bridge, where an old building stands. What kind of building is that?"

"That is an ancient mill. At one time there was a great deal of water in the stream beside it, but later my uncle, Zarnowski, drained it off to the fish-ponds in Rzeslewo and the mill stood still. Now it is a ramshackle building in which for over ten years we have stored hay instead of keeping it in hayricks. Folks say that the place is haunted, but I myself circulated, in its time, that myth."

"Why?"

"First, so that they should not steal the hay, and again because it was of much concern to me that no one should pry in there."

"What an invention!"