Читать книгу Whirlpools - Генрик Сенкевич, Henryk Sienkiewicz - Страница 9

Ladislaus Krzycki possessed such a happy nature that, having once lain down to sleep, he could a few minutes later fall into a deep slumber which would continue until the morning. That night, however, he could not fall asleep because the impressions of the day, together with the parting words of Dolhanski, had led him into a state of exasperation and anger. He was angry at Rzeslewo; at the disturbances which were taking place there; at Dolhanski because he had observed the impression which the young girl had made upon him-and particularly because he himself had afforded him an opportunity to comment upon it-and finally at the innocent Miss Anney. After a time, rolling from side to side, he opened an imaginary conversation with her, in which he assumed the rôle of a man, who, indeed, does not deny that he is deeply under the spell, nevertheless, can view matters soberly and sanely. Therefore he admitted to Miss Anney that she was handsome and amiable; that she had an immensely sympathetic voice, a strange, fascinating look, and a body like marble-ah, what a body! Nevertheless, he made the explicit reservation that she must not think that he loved her to distraction, or was even smitten with her. He would concede anything to her that she desired, but to admit that he was in love with her was as far removed from his thoughts as love is from matrimony, of which, of course, there could not be any talk. Above all, she was a foreigner, and Mother in that respect had her prejudices, justly so; and he himself would prefer to have at his side during the remainder of his life a Polish soul and not a foreign one. True, there was something homelike in her, but after all, she was not a Pole. "Identical blood has its own meaning; it cannot be helped," he further told Miss Anney. "So, since you are an Englishwoman, marry some Englishman or Scotchman, provided, however, you do not require me to form the acquaintance of such an ape and become intimate with him, for that is something I can dispense with perfectly." And at that moment he was seized with such a sudden, unexpected antipathy to that eventual Englishman "with projecting jaw" and Scotchman "with bare knees," that he felt that upon a trivial misunderstanding he could flog them. But through this attack of rage he roused himself completely from that half-drowsy, half-wakeful condition in which whimsical fancies mingle, and having recovered his senses, he experienced a great relief in the thought that the betrothed person beyond the sea was only a figment of his imagination, and at the same time a wave of gratitude towards Miss Anney surged in his heart. "Here I am, quarrelling with her and making reservations," he thought, "while she is snugly nestling her bright head upon a pillow and peacefully slumbering." Here again his blood began to frisk, but soon the perverse musings vanished. This became easier for him, as he was encompassed by a yearning for honest affection and for that future being, yet unnamed, who was to share his life. Again he resumed his imaginary conversation with Miss Anney, but this time in a meek spirit. He assured her, with a certain melancholy, that he was not solicitous about her, as he well knew that even if there were no obstacles she certainly would not have him, but that he was anxious that his future life-companion should resemble her a little; that she should have the same look and the same magnetic strength to which, if he did not succumb it would be a miracle. As to Miss Anney personally, plainly speaking, he owed only gratitude. Of course, nowhere was it so well with him as at his beloved Jastrzeb, but nevertheless he could not deny that in that exclusive den it became lively and bright after her arrival; and that after her departure it would become darker, more dreary and monotonous than ever before. So for those bright moments he would willingly kiss her hand and, if that seemed insufficient to her, then her feet. In the meantime he begged her pardon for the mad thoughts which passed through his brain when he brushed against her shoulder in the salon, for though he was always of the opinion that responsiveness upon her part was worth the sacrifice of life, yet at the same time he had to contend that Dolhanski was a blockhead and cynic who meddled with matters which did not concern him and who was unworthy of notice. Here renewed rage against Dolhanski possessed him, and he continued for some time to toss from side to side until finally the late hour, youth, hungry for sleep, and weariness sprinkled his eyes with poppy.3

There was, however, in the Jastrzeb manor-house another who did not sleep and who talked with a person not present, and that was Laskowicz. After all that had taken place and what had been revealed in the past few days, he was prepared for his farewell parting with the Krzycki family, as he well knew that his further presence in Jastrzeb would be intolerable. And nevertheless he desired at present to stay in it, even though for a few days, in order that he might gaze longer upon Panna Marynia and, as he called it, "further narcotize himself." Somehow, from the first moment he had heard her play, she actually absorbed his thoughts in a way that no woman up to that time had done. Foremost among the prepared formulæ which he, with dogmatic faith, had adopted to judge mankind with, was the precept that a woman belonging to the so-called pampered class was a thoughtless creature. In the meantime he had to dissent at once from that formula as a soul had spoken to him through the violin. Later he was astonished to find in that young lady two entities, one of which manifested itself in music as a finished artist, concentrated, filled with exaltation within herself, dissolved in the waves of tones and playing as if she drew the bow over her own nerves; the other appeared in every-day life in her customary relations with people. The latter seemed at the first glance of the eye, if not an insignificant, a common girl, full of simplicity and even gaiety, who screamed like a cat when Dolhanski, for instance, said things disagreeable to her; who jested with Gronski, telling him absurdities about spirits or, to the great alarm of Gronski and her older sister, fled into the garden for a boat ride on the pond. Laskowicz did not fully comprehend the world and was not a subtle person; nevertheless, he observed in the "common girl" something which made her, as it were, a little divinity, haloed with a quiet worship. Evidently she herself did not appear to be conscious of this and, viewing such a state of affairs as something which was self-understood, she lived the life of a flower or a bird. Confident that she will not suffer any harm from any one, gentle, bright, living beyond the misery and wretchedness of life, beyond its cares, beyond its chilling winds which dim the eyes with tears, beyond the dust which defiles, she resembled a pure spring which people look upon as blessed and whose translucency they fear to muddy. It seemed that the environment did not exact of her anything more than that she should exist, just as nothing more is demanded of a masterpiece.

To Laskowicz, as often as he gazed at her, there came recollection of his childhood days. He and his older brother, who, a few years before falling into consumption had committed suicide on the Riviera, were the sons of a woman who conducted near one of the churches in Warsaw a shop for the sale of consecrated wax candles, medals, rosaries, and pictures. Owing to this, both brothers were, in a way, bred upon the church portals and were in constant relations with the priests. Once it happened that the aged canon, the rector of the church, bought at an auction an alabaster statuette of some saint, and for an unknown reason took it for granted that it was not only the work, but the masterpiece of Canova. The statuette, which, in reality, was pretty and finely executed, after consecration, was placed in a separate niche near one of the altars under the name of Saint Apollonia and from that time the gentle old rector surrounded it with great worship as a holy relic and with more particular care as the greatest church rarity. He led his guests and more pious parishioners before it and commanded them to admire the work and got angry if any one ventured to make any critical observation. In fact, the admiration of the canon was shared by the organist, the sexton, the church servants, and both boys. The thought that Panna Marynia amidst her environment was such a Saint Apollonia unwittingly suggested itself to Laskowicz. For that reason, after the first impression he called her "a saintly doll." But he also recalled that when in the course of time he lost his faith-and he lost it in the gymnasium where, speaking parenthetically, he completed his studies with the aid of the venerable canon-he often was beset with a desire to demolish that alabaster statuette. At present he was consumed with a greater desire, for it bordered upon a passion, to destroy this living one. And yet he did not in the least bear her any hatred. On the contrary, he could not resist the charm of this maiden, so loved by all, any more than one can resist the charm of dawn or spring. It even happened that what vexed and exasperated him also at the same time attracted him towards her with an uncontrollable force. Consequently he was drawn to her by her appurtenance to this world, the existence of which he deemed a social injustice, crime, and wrong; she attracted him in spite of his internal anguish, and even by the thought that beside such a flower the proletariat was but manure. A lure for him was her refined culture and her art, though he regarded such things as superfluous and unnecessary for people of deflorated life; the fascination was her utter dissimilarity to the women whom he met up to the time of his arrival at the village, and her whole form was an intoxication. Never before was he under the same roof with a being like her; therefore he forgot himself and lost his head at the sight of her, and though he had not yet familiarized himself with the power which began to play in his bosom and had not christened it with the name of love, the truth was that during the past few days he was aflame like a volcano and loved her to distraction. He vaguely felt, however, that in this passion there was something of the lust of a negro for a white woman, and what was more, that in that particular love there was apostasy to principles. So then in the same germ he poisoned her with the virus of hatred and the wolfish propensity of annihilation.