Without Dogma Part 27

"I will write too. I wanted to ask you that. I have my music, but it is not always sufficient now. I think you too will want to hear from me now and then; though you may have many friends, you have none more sincere and devoted than I. I am very foolish; anything upsets me, and it is time to go."

"We are both wanderers on the earth, you as an artist, I as a Bohemian; therefore it will not be farewell, but au revoir."

"Yes, au revoir, and that speedily. You too are an artist. You may not play or paint, but you are an artist all the same. I saw it the first moment I met you,--and also that you may seem happy, but are very sad at heart. Remember there is a German girl who will be always as a sister to you."

I raised her hand to my lip, and she, thinking I was going, said quickly:--

"There is still time, they have only rung the second bell!"

But I really wished to leave. Oh, those wretched nerves of mine!

Clara's companion wore a stiff mackintosh which rustled at her every motion; and that rustle, or rather swish of the india-rubber, set my very teeth on edge. Besides, we had only a few minutes left. I stepped aside to make place for Pani Sniatynska, who came rushing up.

"Hilst, Frankfurt," Clara called out after me; "at home they will forward my letters wherever I go!"

Presently I found myself on the platform under the window of her carriage, among all those who had come to see her off. Their farewells and good-bys mingled with the labored breathing of the locomotive and the shouts of the railway men. The window of the carriage was lowered, and I saw the friendly, honest face once more.

"Where are you going to spend the summer?" she asked.

"I don't know, I will write to you," I replied.

The panting of the locomotive grew quick, then came the last shrill whistle, and the train began to move. We gave Clara a loud cheer, she waved her hands to us, and then disappeared in the distance and the dusk.

"You will feel very lonely," said suddenly close to me Pani Sniatynska's voice.

"Yes, very," I said, and lifting my hat to her, I went home. And truly I had the feeling as if somebody had left, who in case of need would have given me a helping hand. I felt very despondent. Possibly the gloomy evening, the mist and drizzling rain, in the midst of which the street lamps looked like miniature rainbow arches, had something to do with it. The last spark of hope seemed to have died out. There was darkness not only within me, but it seemed to encompa.s.s the whole world, and weigh upon it as the atmosphere weighs upon us and permeates all nature.

I carried home with me a heaviness of feeling and great restlessness and a fear as if something unknown was threatening me. There woke up within me a sudden longing for the sun and brighter skies, for countries where there is no mist, no rain, and no darkness. It seemed to me that if I went where there was sun and brightness, it would shield me from some unknown danger.

Oh, to go away! The entire capacity of my thoughts was filled with that eager desire. Then suddenly another fear clutched at my heart: if I went away, Aniela would be exposed to that same impalpable danger from which I wanted to fly. I knew it was only a delusion of my brain, and that really my departure would be the best thing for her. Yet I could not get rid of the sensation that to desert her would be cowardice and meanness. All my reasoning cannot get over this.

Besides, the going away is only an empty word; I may say it to myself a hundred times, but if I were to try to change it into fact I should find it altogether beyond my power. I have put so much of my life in that one feeling that it would be easier to cut me into pieces than to part me from it.

I possess so much control over my thoughts, such a consciousness of self that it seems to me impossible that I could ever lose my reason.

I cannot even imagine it; but at moments I feel as if my nerves could not bear the strain any longer.

I am sorry Clara is gone. I have seen but little of her lately; but I liked to know that she was not far off; now Aniela will absorb me altogether, because I give to her that power which rules our likings, and makes us conscious of friendship.

When I returned home, I found there young Chwastowski, who had come to town in order to consult with his brother, the bookseller. They have some scheme in hand about selling elementary books. They are always scheming something, always busy, and that fills their life. I have come to such a pa.s.s that I rejoiced to see him as a child that is afraid of ghosts is glad to see somebody coming into the room. His spiritual healthiness seems to brace me. He said that Pani Celina was so much better that within a week she would be able to bear the journey to Gastein. Oh yes! yes! Anything for a change! I shall push that plan with all my powers. I will persuade my aunt to go too. She will do it for my sake, and in that case n.o.body will be astonished at my going. There is at least something I desire, and desire very much.

I shall have so many chances of taking care of Aniela, and shall be nearer to her than at Ploszow. I feel somewhat relieved; but it has been a terrible day, and nothing oppresses me so much as dark, rainy weather. I still hear the drops falling from the waterspouts; but there is a rift in the clouds, and a few stars are visible.

12 June.

Kromitzki arrived to-day.

Gastein, 23 June.

We arrived at Gastein a week ago,--the whole family: Aniela, my aunt, Pani Celina, Kromitzki, and myself. I interrupted my diary for some time, not because I had lost the zest for it, nor because I did not feel the necessity for writing, but simply because I was in a state of mind which words cannot express. As long as a man tries to resist his fate, and wages war against the forces that crush him, he has neither brains nor time for anything else. I was like the prisoner in Sansson's memoirs, who when they tore his flesh and poured molten lead into the wounds shouted in nervous ecstasy, "Encore! encore!" until he fainted. I have fainted too, which means that I am exhausted and resigned.

A great hand seems to weigh upon me, as immense as the mountains that loom up before me. What can I do against it? Nothing but submit and remain pa.s.sive while it crushes me. I did not know that one could find, if not comfort, at least some kind of peace in this consciousness of impotence and the looking straight at one's misery.

If only I could keep from struggling against it, and not disturb this state of quiescence. I could write then about things that happen to me as if they had happened to somebody else. But I know from experience that one day does not resemble another, and I am afraid of what the morrow will bring forth.

24 June.

Towards the end of my sojourn at Warsaw I put down these words: "Love for another man's wife, if only a pastime, is a great villany, and if real, is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man."

Writing this before Kromitzki's arrival, I had not taken into account all the items which make up the sum of this misfortune. I also thought it n.o.bler than it really is. Now I begin to see that besides great suffering, it includes a quant.i.ty of small humiliations, the consciousness of villany, ridicule, the necessity of falsehood, the doing of mean things, and the need of precautions unworthy of a man.

What a bouquet! Truly the scent of it is enough to overpower any man.

G.o.d knows with what delight I would take such a Kromitzki by the throat, press him to the wall, and tell him straight in his face, "I love your wife!" Instead of that I must be careful lest the thought should enter his mind that she pleases me. What a n.o.ble part to play in her presence! What must she think of me? That too is one of the flowers in the bouquet.

As long as I live I shall not forget the day of Kromitzki's arrival.

He had gone straight to my house. Coming home late at night, I found somebody's luggage in the anteroom. I do not know why it did not occur to me that it might be Kromitzki's. Suddenly he himself looked out from the adjacent room, and dropping his eyegla.s.s rushed up with open arms to salute his new relative. I saw as in a dream that dry skull, so like a death's-head, the glittering eyes, and the crop of black hair. Kromitzki's arrival was the most natural thing in the world, and yet I felt as if I had looked into the face of death. It seemed to me like a nightmare, and the words, "How do you do, Leon?" the most fantastic and most improbable words I could have heard anywhere.

Presently such a rage, such a loathing combined with fear, seized me that it took all my self-control to prevent me from throwing him down and dashing out his brains. I have sometimes felt such paroxysms of rage and loathing, but never combined with fear; it was not so much fear of a living man as horror of the dead. For some time I could not find a word to say. Fortunately he might suppose I had not recognized him at first, or was astonished that a man I scarcely knew should treat me so familiarly. It still irritates me when I think of it.

I tried to recover myself; he in the mean while readjusted his eyegla.s.s, and shaking my hand once more, said:--

"Well, and how are you? How are Aniela and her mother? Old lady always ill, I suppose. And our aunt, how is she?"

I was seized with amazement and anger that this man should mention those nearest and dearest to me as if they belonged to him. A man of the world bears most things and hides his emotions, because he is trained from his earliest years to keep himself under control; nevertheless I felt that I could not bear it any longer, and in order to pull myself together and occupy my thoughts with something else, I called for the servant and told him to get tea ready.

Kromitzki appeared uneasy that I did not reply at once to his questions; the eyegla.s.s dropped again, and he said, hurriedly:--

"There is nothing wrong, is there? Why don't you speak?"

"They are all well," I replied.

It suddenly struck me that my emotion might give the hateful man an advantage over me, and the thought restored all my self-possession at once. I led him into the dining-room, asked him to sit down, and then said:--

"How is it going with you? Have you come to make a long stay?"

"I do not know," he replied. "I was longing for Aniela; and I fancy she too must have been anxious to have me back again. We have only been a few months together, and for a newly married couple that is not much, is it?" and he burst out into one of his wooden laughs.

"Besides," he added, "I have some business here to look after. Always business, you see."

Then he began a long-winded harangue about his affairs; of which I did not hear much, except the often repeated words "combined forces,"

observing meanwhile the motion of the eyegla.s.s. It is a strange thing how in presence of some great calamity small things will thrust themselves into evidence. I do not know whether this be so with everybody, but in the present instance the reiterated words "combined forces" and the shifting of the eyegla.s.s irritated me beyond endurance. In the earlier moments of the interview I was almost unconscious, and yet I could count how often that eyegla.s.s dropped and was put up again. It always used to be thus with me, and it was so now.

After tea I conducted Kromitzki to the room he was to occupy for the night. He did not cease talking, but went on in the same strain while with the help of the servant he unpacked his portmanteau. Sometimes he interrupted his flow of words in order to show me some specimens brought from the East. He undid his travelling straps, unfolded two small Eastern rugs, and said:--

"I bought these at Batoum. Pretty things, are they not? They will do to put before our bed."

He got tired at last, and after the servant had gone he sat down in the armchair, and still continued to talk about his affairs, while I thought of something else. When we are not able to defend ourselves from a great misfortune, there is one safety-valve,--we may be able to grapple with some of its details. I was now mainly busy with the thought whether Kromitzki would go with us to Gastein or not.

Therefore after some time I remarked:--

"I did not know you formerly; but I begin to think that you are the kind of man to make your fortune. You are not in the least flighty, and would never sacrifice important affairs for mere sentimentality."

He pressed my hand warmly. "You have no idea," he said, "how much I wish you to trust me."