Читать книгу In Vain - Henryk Sienkiewicz - Страница 5

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A month passed.

The evening was fair, autumnal; the sun was quenching slowly on the towers of Kieff and on the distant grave-mounds of the steppe. Its light was still visible on the roof above Yosef and Gustav. Both were bent over their work and, sitting in silence, used the last rays of evening with eagerness. Gustav had returned from the city not long before; he was suffering and pale, he panted more than usual. On his face a certain uneasiness was manifest, vexation, even pain; this he strove to conceal, but still it was evident from the fever of his eyes. Both men were silent. It was clear, however, that Gustav wished to break the silence, for he turned to Yosef frequently; but since it seemed as though the first word could be spoken only with difficulty, he sank back to his book again. At last evident impatience was expressed on his face; he seized his cap from the table, and rose.

"What o'clock is it now?" asked he.

"Six."

"Why art thou not going to the widow's? Thou goest every day to visit her."

Yosef turned toward Gustav—

"It was at her request that I went with thee to her lodgings the first time. Let us not mention the subject. I do not care to speak of that which would be disagreeable to both of us; for that matter, we understand each other perfectly. I will not see the widow to-day, or to-morrow, or any day. Thou hast my word and hand on that."

They stood then in silence, Yosef with extended hand. Gustav, hesitating and disturbed by the awkward position, finally pressed the palm of his comrade.

Evidently words came to both with difficulty; one did not wish to use heartfelt expressions, the other heartfelt thanks. After a while they parted.

Men's feelings are strange sometimes, and the opposite of those which would seem the reward of noble deeds. Yosef promised Gustav not to see Pani Helena, the widow. Whether he loved her or not, that was a sacrifice on his part, for in his toilsome and monotonous existence she was the only bright point around which his thought loved to circle. Though thinking about her was only the occupation of moments snatched from hard labor and devoted to rest and mental freedom, to renounce such moments was to deprive rest of its charm, it was to remove a motive from life at a place where feeling might bud out and blossom.

Yosef, after thinking a little, did this without hesitation. He made a sacrifice.

Still, when Gustav had gone from the room, there was on Yosef's face an expression of distaste, even anger. Was that regret for the past, or for the deed done a moment before?

No.

When he extended his hand to Gustav, the latter hesitated in taking it. Not to accept a sacrifice given by an energetic soul is to cover the deed of sacrifice itself with a shadow of ridicule; and this in the mind of him who makes the sacrifice is to be ungrateful, and to cast a grain of deep hatred into the rich field of vanity.

But to accept a rival's sacrifice is for a soul rich in pride to place one's own "I" under the feet of some other man morally; it is to receive small coppers of alms thrust hastily into a hand which had not been stretched forth for anything.

Pride prefers to be a creditor rather than a debtor.

Therefore Gustav when on the street twisted his mouth in bitter irony, and muttered through his pressed lips.

Better and better. Favor, favor! Bow down now to Pan Yosef daily, and thank him. A pleasant life for thee, Gustav!

And he fell into bitter, deep meditation. He ceased even to think of himself, he was merely dreaming painfully. He felt a kind of gloomy echo in his soul, while striving to summon up the remembrance of even one happy moment. That echo sounded in him like a broken chord. The mind and soul in the man were divided. One tortured half cried hurriedly for rest; the other half, energetic and gloomy, strove toward life yet. One half of his mind saw light and an object; the other turned moodily toward night and nothingness. To finish all, there was something besides in this sorrowing man which made sport of its own suffering; something like a malicious demon which with one hand indicated his own figure to him, pale, ugly, bent, and pointed out with the other, as it were in the clouds in the brightness of morning, Helena Potkanski, in marble repose, in splendid beauty.

Torn apart with the tumult of this internal battle, he went forward alone, almost without knowing whither. Suddenly he heard behind a well-known voice singing in bass the glad song:—