Читать книгу The Foreigner: A Tale of Saskatchewan - Ralph Connor - Страница 7

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The northbound train on the Northern Pacific Line was running away behind her time. A Dakota blizzard had held her up for five hours, and there was little chance of making time against a heavy wind and a drifted rail. The train was crowded with passengers, all impatient at the delay, as is usual with passengers. The most restless, if not the most impatient, of those in the first-class car was a foreign-looking gentleman, tall, dark, and with military carriage. A grizzled moustache with ends waxed to a needle point and an imperial accentuated his foreign military appearance. At every pause the train made at the little wayside stations, this gentleman became visibly more impatient, pulling out his watch, consulting his time table, and cursing the delay.

Occasionally he glanced out through the window across the white plain that stretched level to the horizon, specked here and there by infrequent little black shacks and by huge stacks of straw half buried in snow. Suddenly his attention was arrested by a trim line of small buildings cosily ensconced behind a plantation of poplars and Manitoba maples.

"What are those structures?" he enquired of his neighbour in careful book English, and with slightly foreign accent.

"What? That bunch of buildings. That is a Mennonite village," was the reply.

"Mennonite! Ah!"

"Yes," replied his neighbour. "Dutch, or Russian, or something."

"Yes, Russian," answered the stranger quickly. "That is Russian, surely," he continued, pointing eagerly to the trim and cosy group of buildings. "These Mennonites, are they prosperous—ah—citizens—ah—settlers?"

"You bet! They make money where other folks would starve. They know what they're doing. They picked out this land that everybody else was passing over—the very best in the country—and they are making money hand over fist. Mighty poor spenders, though. They won't buy nothing; eat what they can't sell off the farm."

"Aha," ejaculated the stranger, with a smile.

"Yes, they sell everything, grain, hogs, eggs, butter, and live on cabbages, cheese, bread."

"Aha," repeated the stranger, again with evident approval.

"They are honest, though," continued his neighbour judicially; "we sell them implements."

"Ah, implements?" enquired the stranger.

"Yes, ploughs, drills, binders, you know."

"Ah, so, implements," said the stranger, evidently making a mental note of the word. "And they pay you?"

"Yes, they are good pay, mighty good pay. They are good settlers, too."

"Not good for soldiers, eh?" laughed the stranger.

"Soldiers? No, I guess not. But we don't want soldiers."

"What? You have no soldiers? No garrisons?"

"No, what do we want soldiers for in this country? We want farmers and lots of them."

The stranger was apparently much struck with this remark. He pursued the subject with keen interest. If there were no soldiers, how was order preserved? What happened in the case of riots? What about the collecting of taxes?

"Riots? There ain't no riots in this country. What would we riot for? We're too busy. And taxes? There ain't no taxes except for schools."

"Not for churches?" enquired the foreigner.

"No, every man supports his own church or no church at all if he likes it better."

The foreigner was deeply impressed. What a country it was, to be sure! No soldiers, no riots, no taxes, and churches only for those who wanted them! He made diligent enquiry as to the Mennonite settlements, where they were placed, their size, the character of the people and all things pertaining to them. But when questioned in regard to himself or his own affairs, he at once became reticent. He was a citizen of many countries. He was travelling for pleasure and to gather knowledge. Yes, he might one day settle in the country, but not now. He relapsed into silence, sitting with his head fallen forward upon his breast, and so sat till the brakeman passing through shouted, "Winnipeg! All change!" Then he rose, thanked with stiff and formal politeness his seat-mate for his courtesy, put on his long overcoat lined with lambskin and adorned with braid, placed his lambskin cap upon his head, and so stood looking more than ever like a military man.

The station platform at Winnipeg was the scene of uproar and confusion. Railway baggagemen and porters, with warning cries, pushed their trucks through the crowd. Hotel runners shouted the rates and names of their hotels. Express men and cab drivers vociferously solicited custom. Citizens, heedless of every one, pushed their eager way through the crowd to welcome friends and relatives. It was a busy, bustling, confusing scene. But the stranger stood unembarrassed, as if quite accustomed to move amid jostling crowds, casting quick, sharp glances hither and thither.

Gradually the platform cleared. The hotel runners marched off in triumph with their victims, and express drivers and cab men drove off with their fares, and only a scattering few were left behind. At one end of the platform stood two men in sheepskin coats and caps. The stranger slowly moved toward them. As he drew near, the men glanced at first carelessly, then more earnestly at him. For a few moments he stood gazing down the street, then said, as if to himself, in the Russian tongue, "The wind blows from the north to-night."

Instantly the men came to rigid attention.

"And the snow lies deep," replied one, raising his hand in salute.

"But spring will come, brother," replied the stranger.

One of the men came quickly toward him, took his hand and kissed it.

"Fool!" said the stranger, drawing away his hand, and sweeping his sharp glance round the platform. "The bear that hunts in the open is himself soon hunted."

"Ha, ha," laughed the other man loudly, "in this country there is no hunting, brother."

"Fool!" said the stranger again in a low, stern voice. "Where game is, there is always hunting."

"How can we serve? What does my brother wish?" replied the man.

"I wish the house of Paulina Koval. Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, we know, but—" the men hesitated, looking at each other.

"There is no place for our brother in Paulina Koval's house," said the one who had spoken first. "Paulina has no room. Her house is full with her children and with many boarders."

"Indeed," said the stranger, "and how many?"

"Well," replied the other, counting upon his fingers, "there is Paulina and her three children, and—"

"Two children," corrected the stranger sharply.

"No, three children. Yes, three." He paused in his enumeration as if struck by a belated thought. "It is three children, Joseph?" he proceeded, turning to his friend.

Joseph confirmed his memory. "Yes, Simon, three; the girl, the boy and the baby."

The stranger was clearly perplexed and disturbed.

"Go on," he said curtly.

"There is Paulina and the three children, and Rosenblatt, and—"

"Rosenblatt!" The word shot from the stranger's lips with the vehemence of a bullet from a rifle. "Rosenblatt in her house! S-s-s-o-o-o!" He thrust his face forward into the speaker's with a long hissing sound, so fiercely venomous that the man fell back a pace. Quickly the stranger recovered himself. "Look you, brothers, I need a room for a few days, anywhere, a small room, and I can pay well."

"My house," said the man named Joseph, "is yours, but there are six men with me."

Quickly the other took it up. "My poor house is small, two children, but if the Elder brother would accept?"

"I will accept, my friend," said the stranger. "You shall lose nothing by it." He took up the bag that he had placed beside him on the platform, saying briefly, "Lead the way."

"Your pardon, brother," said Simon, taking the bag from him, "this is the way."

Northward across the railway tracks and up the street for two blocks, then westward they turned, toward the open prairie. After walking some minutes, Simon pointed to a huddling group of shacks startlingly black against the dazzling snow.

"There," he cried with a laugh, "there is little Russia."

"Not Russia," said Joseph, "Galicia."

The stranger stood still, gazing at the little shacks, and letting his eye wander across the dazzling plain, tinted now with crimson and with gold from the setting sun, to the horizon. Then pointing to the shacks he said, "That is Canada. Yonder," sweeping his hand toward the plain, "is Siberia. But," turning suddenly upon the men, "what are you?"

"We are free men," said Joseph. "We are Canadians."

"We are Canadians," answered Simon more slowly. "But here," laying his hand over his heart, "here is always Russia and our brothers of Russia."

The stranger turned a keen glance upon him. "I believe you," he said. "No Russian can forget his fatherland. No Russian can forget his brother." His eyes were lit with a dreamy light, as he gazed far beyond the plain and the glowing horizon.

At the door of the little black shack Simon halted the party.

"Pardon, I will prepare for my brother," he said.

As he opened the door a cloud of steaming odours rushed forth to meet them. The stranger drew back and turned his face again to the horizon, drawing deep breaths of the crisp air, purified by its sweep of a thousand miles over snow clad prairie.

"Ah," he said, "wonderful! wonderful! Yes, that is Russia, that air, that sky, that plain."

After some minutes Simon returned.

"Enter," he said, bowing low. "This is your house, brother; we are your slaves."

It was a familiar Russian salutation.

"No," said the stranger, quickly stretching out his hand. "No slaves in this land, thank God! but brothers all."

"Your brothers truly," said Simon, dropping on his knee and kissing the outstretched hand. "Lena," he called to his wife, who stood modestly at the other side of the room, "this is the Elder of our Brotherhood."

Lena came forward, dropped on her knees and kissed the outstretched hand.

"Come, Margaret," she cried, drawing her little girl of six toward the stranger, "come and salute the master."

Little Margaret came forward and offered her hand, looking up with brave shyness into the stranger's face.

"Shame! shame!" said Lena, horrified. "Kneel down! Kneel down!"

"She does not understand how to salute," said her father with an apologetic smile.

"Aha, so," cried the stranger, looking curiously at the little girl. "Where did you learn to shake hands?"

"In school," said the child in English.

"In school?" replied the stranger in the same language. "You go to school. What school?"

"The public school, sir."

"And do they not teach you to kneel when you salute in the public school?"

"No, sir, we never kneel."

"What then do you learn there?"

"We sing, and read, and write, and march, and sew."

"Aha!" cried the stranger delighted. "You learn many things. And what do you pay for all this?" he said in Russian to the father.

"Nothing."

"Wonderful!" cried the stranger. "And who taught her English?"

"No one. She just learned it from the children."

"Aha, that is good."

The father and mother stood struggling with their pride in their little girl. A sound of shouting and of singing made the stranger turn toward the window.

"What is that?" he cried.

"A wedding," replied Simon. "There is a great wedding at Paulina's. Every one is there."

"At Paulina's?" said the stranger. "And you, why are you not there?"

"We are no friends of Rosenblatt."

"Rosenblatt? And what has he to do with it?"

"Rosenblatt," said Joseph sullenly, "is master in Paulina's home."

"Aha! He is master, and you are no friends of his," returned the stranger. "Tell me why this is so?"

"We are Russian, he is Bukowinian; he hires men to the railroad, we hire ourselves; he has a store, we buy in the Canadian stores, therefore, he hates us."

The stranger nodded his head, comprehending the situation.

"And so you are not invited to the wedding."

"No, we are not invited to the wedding," said Joseph in a tone of regret.

"And they are your friends who are being married?"

"Yes."

"And there is good eating and drinking?"

"Yes," cried Joseph eagerly. "Such a feast! Such a load of beer! And such a dance!"

"It is a pity," said the stranger, "to miss it all. You fear this Rosenblatt," he continued, with a hardly perceptible sneer.

"Fear!" cried Simon. "No! But one does not enter a shut door."

"Aha, but think of it," said the stranger, "the feasting and the dancing, and the beer! I would go to this wedding feast myself, were I not a stranger. I would go if I knew the bride."

"We will take our brother," cried Joseph eagerly. "Our friends will welcome him."

Simon hesitated.

"I like not Rosenblatt."

"But Rosenblatt will be too drunk by this time," suggested the stranger.

"Not he," replied Simon. "He never gets drunk where there is a chance to gather a dollar."

"But the feast is free?"

"Yes, the feast is free, but there is always money going. There is betting and there is the music for the dancing, which is Rosenblatt's. He has hired Arnud and his cymbal and the violins, and the dancers must pay."

"Aha, very clever," replied the stranger. "This Rosenblatt is a shrewd man. He will be a great man in this city. He will be your lord some day."

The eyes of both men gleamed at his jibes. "Aha," the stranger continued, "he will make you serve him by his money. Canada is, indeed, a free country, but there will be master and slaves here, too."

It was a sore spot to the men, for the mastery of Rosenblatt was no imagination, but a grim reality. It was with difficulty that any man could get a good job unless by Rosenblatt's agency. It was Rosenblatt who contracted for the Galician labour. One might hate Rosenblatt, or despise him, but it was impossible to ignore him.

"What say you, my brothers," said the stranger, "shall we attend this feast?"

The men were eager to go. Why should Rosenblatt stand in their way? Were they not good friends of Jacob and Anka? Was not every home in the colony open to a stranger, and especially a stranger of rank? Simon swallowed his pride and led the way to Paulina's house.

There was no need of a guide to the house where the feasting was in progress. The shouting and singing of the revellers hailed them from afar, and as they drew near, the crowd about the door indicated the house of mirth. Joseph and Simon were welcomed with overflowing hospitality and mugs of beer. But when they turned to introduce the stranger, they found that he had disappeared, nor could they discover him anywhere in the crowd. In their search for him, they came upon Rosenblatt, who at once assailed them.

"How come you Slovaks here?" he cried contemptuously.

"Where the trough is, there the pigs will come," laughed one of his satellites.

"I come to do honour to my friend, Jacob Wassyl," said Simon in a loud voice.

"Of course," cried a number of friendly voices. "And why not? That is quite right."

"Jacob Wassyl wants none of you here," shouted Rosenblatt over the crowd.

"Who speaks for Jacob Wassyl?" cried a voice. It was Jacob himself, standing in the door, wet with sweat, flushed with dancing and exhilarated with the beer and with all the ardours of his wedding day. For that day at least, Jacob owned the world. "What?" he cried, "is it my friend Simon Ketzel and my friend Joseph Pinkas?"

"We were not invited to come to your wedding, Jacob Wassyl," replied Simon, "but we desired to honour your bride and yourself."

"Aye, and so you shall. You are welcome, Simon Ketzel. You are welcome, Joseph Pinkas. Who says you are not?" he continued, turning defiantly to Rosenblatt.

Rosenblatt hesitated, and then grunted out something that sounded like "Slovak swine!"

"Slovak!" cried Jacob with generous enthusiasm. "We are all Slovak. We are all Polak. We are all Galician. We are all brothers. Any man who says no, is no friend of Jacob Wassyl."

Shouts of approval rose from the excited crowd.

"Come, brothers," shouted Jacob to Simon and Joseph, "come in. There is abundant eating. Make way for my friends!" He crowded back through the door, taking especial delight in honouring the men despised of Rosenblatt.

The room was packed with steaming, swaying, roaring dancers, both men and women, all reeking with sweat and garlic. Upon a platform in a corner between two violins, sat Arnud before his cymbal, resplendent in frilled shirt and embroidered vest, thundering on his instrument the favourite songs of the dancers, shouting now and then in unison with the melody that pattered out in metallic rain from the instrument before him. For four hours and more, with intervals sufficient only to quench their thirst, the players had kept up their interminable accompaniment to dance and song. It was clearly no place for hungry men. Jacob pushed his way toward the inner room.

"Ho! Paulina!" he shouted, "two plates for men who have not eaten."

"Have not eaten!" The startling statement quickened Paulina's slow movements almost to a run. "Here, here," she said, "bring them to the window at the back."

Another struggle and Jacob with his guests were receiving through the window two basins filled with luscious steaming stew.

As they turned away with their generous host, a man with a heavy black beard appeared at the window.

"Another hungry man, Paulina," he said quietly in the Galician tongue.

"Holy Virgin! Where have these hungry men been?" cried Paulina, hurrying with another basin to the window.

The man fumbled and hesitated as he took the dish.

"I have been far away," he said, speaking now in the Russian tongue, in a low and tense voice.

Paulina started. The man caught her by the wrist.

"Quiet!" he said. "Speak no word, Paulina."

The woman paled beneath the dirt and tan upon her face.

"Who is it?" she whispered with parched lips.

"You know it is Michael Kalmar, your husband. Come forth. I wait behind yon hut. No word to any man."

"You mean to kill me," she said, her fat body shaking as if with palsy.

"Bah! You Sow! Who would kill a sow? Come forth, I say. Delay not."

He disappeared at once behind the neighbouring shack. Paulina, trembling so that her fingers could hardly pin the shawl she put over her head, made her way through the crowd. A few moments she stood before her door, as if uncertain which way to turn, her limbs trembling, her breath coming like sobs. In this plight Rosenblatt came upon her.

"What is the matter with you, Paulina?" he cried. "What is your business here?"

A swift change came over her.

"I am no dog of yours," she said, her sullen face flaming with passion.

"What do you mean?" cried Rosenblatt. "Get into your house, cat!"

"Yes! cat!" cried the woman, rushing at him with fingers extended.

One swift swoop she made at his face, bringing skin and hair on her nails. Rosenblatt turned, and crying, "She is mad! She is mad!" made for the shelter of the cellar, followed by the shouts and jeers of the men standing about.

Raging, at the door Paulina sought entrance, crying, "I was a good woman. He made me bad." Then turning away, she walked slowly to the back of her house and passed behind the neighbouring shack where the man stood waiting her.

With dragging steps she approached, till within touch of him, when, falling down upon her knees in the snow, she put her head upon his feet.

"Get up, fool," he cried harshly.

She rose and stood with her chin upon her breast.

"My children!" said the man. "Where are my children?"

She pointed towards the house of her neighbour, Mrs. Fitzpatrick. "With a neighbour woman," she said, and turned herself toward him again with head bowed down.

"And yours?" he hissed.

She shuddered violently.

"Speak," he said in a voice low, calm and terrible. "Do you wish me to kill you where you stand?"

"Yes," she said, throwing her shawl over her face, "kill me! Kill me now! It will be good to die!"

With a curse, his hand went to his side. He stood looking at her quietly for a few moments as if deliberating.

"No," he said at length, "it is not worth while. You are no wife of mine. Do you hear?"

She gave no sign.

"You are Rosenblatt's swine. Let him use you."

Another shudder shook her.

"Oh, my lord!" she moaned, "kill me. Let me die!"

"Bah!" He spat on the snow. "Die, when I have done with you, perhaps. Take me where we can be alone. Go."

She glanced about at the shacks standing black and without sign of life.

"Come," she said, leading the way.

He followed her to a shack which stood on the outskirts of the colony. She pushed open the door and stood back.

"Go in," he said savagely. "Now a light."

He struck a match. Paulina found a candle which he lit and placed on a box that stood in the corner.

"Cover that window," he commanded.

She took a quilt from the bed and pinned it up. For a long time he stood motionless in the centre of the room, while she knelt at his feet. Then he spoke with some deliberation.

"It is possible I shall kill you to-night, so speak truly to me in the name of God and of the Holy Virgin. I ask you of my children. My girl is eleven years old. Have you protected her? Or is she—like you?"

She threw off her shawl, pulled up her sleeves.

"See," she cried, "my back is like that. Your daughter is safe."

Livid bars of purple striped her arms. The man gazed down at her.

"You swear this by the Holy Cross?" he said solemnly.

She pulled a little iron cross from her breast and kissed it, then looked up at him with dog's eyes of entreaty.

"Oh, my lord!" she began. "I could not save myself. I was a stranger. He took my money. We had no home."

"Stop, liar," he thundered, "I gave you money when you left Galicia."

"Yes, I paid it for the house, and still there was more to pay."

"Liar again!" he hissed; "I sent you money every month. I have your receipts for it."

"I had no money from you," she said humbly. "He forced me to have men sleep in my house and in my room, or lose my home. And the children, what could I do? They could not go out into the snow."

"You got no money from me?" he enquired.

Again she kissed the little cross. "I swear it. And what could I do?"

"Do!" cried the man, his voice choked with rage. "Do! You could die!"

"And the children?"

He was silent, looking down upon her. He began to realize the helplessness of her plight. In a strange land, she found herself without friends, and charged with the support of two children. The money he had given her she had invested in a house, through Rosenblatt, who insisted that payments were still due. No wonder he had terrified her into submission to his plans.

While his contempt remained, her husband's rage grew less. After a long silence he said, "Listen. This feast will last two days?"

"Yes, there is food and drink for two days."

"In two days my work here will be done. Then I go back. I must go back. My children! my children! what of my children? My dead Olga's children!" He began to pace the room. He forgot the woman on the floor. "Oh, fatherland! My fatherland!" he cried in a voice broken with passionate grief, "must I sacrifice these too for thee? God in heaven! Father, mother, brother, home, wife, all I have given. Must I give my children, too?" His strong dark face was working fiercely. His voice came harsh and broken. "No, no! By all the saints, no! I will keep my children for Olga's sake. I will let my wretched country go. What matter to me? I will make a new home in this free land and forget. Ah, God! Forget? I can never forget! These plains!" He tore aside the quilt from the window and stooping looked out upon the prairie. "These plains say Russia! This gleaming snow, Russia! Ah! Ah! Ah! I cannot forget, while I live, my people, my fatherland. I have suffered too much to forget. God forget me, if I forget!" He fell on his knees before the window, dry sobs shaking his powerful frame. He rose and began again to stride up and down, his hands locked before him. Suddenly he stood quite still, making mighty efforts to regain command of himself. For some moments he stood thus rigid.

The woman, who had been kneeling all the while, crept to his feet.

"My lord will give his children to me," she said in a low voice.

"You!" he cried, drawing back from her. "You! What could you do for them?"

"I could die for them," she said simply, "and for my lord."

"For me! Ha!" His voice carried unutterable scorn.

She cowered back to the floor.

"My children I can slay, but I will leave them in no house of lust."

"Oh!" she cried, clasping her hands upon her breast and swaying backwards and forwards upon her knees, "I will be a good woman. I will sin no more. Rosenblatt I shall send—"

"Rosenblatt!" cried the man with a fierce laugh. "After two days Rosenblatt will not be here."

"You will—?" gasped the woman.

"He will die," said the man quietly.

"Oh, my lord! Let me kill him! It would be easy for me at night when he sleeps. But you they will take and hang. In this country no one escapes. Oh! Do not you kill him. Let me."

Breathlessly she pleaded, holding him by the feet. He spurned her with contempt.

"Peace, fool! He is for none other than me. It is an old score. Ah, yes," he continued between his teeth, "it is an old score. It will be sweet to feel him slowly die with my fingers in his throat."

"But they will take you," cried the woman.

"Bah! They could not hold me in Siberia, and think you they can in this land? But the children," he mused. "Rosenblatt away." With a sudden resolve he turned to the woman. "Woman," he said, in a voice stern and low, "could you—"

She threw herself once more at his feet in a passion of entreaty. "Oh, my lord! Let me live for them, for them—and—for you!"

"For me?" he said coldly. "No. You have dishonoured my name. You are wife of mine no longer. Do you hear this?"

"Yes, yes," she panted, "I hear. I know. I ask nothing for myself. But the children, your children. I would live for them, would die for them!"

He turned from her and gazed through the window, pondering. That she would be faithful to the children he well knew. That she would gladly die for him, he was equally certain. With Rosenblatt removed, the house would be rid of the cause of her fall and her shame. There was no one else in this strange land to whom he could trust his children. Should death or exile take him in his work—and these were always his companions—his children would be quite alone. Once more he turned and looked down upon the kneeling woman. He had no love for her. He had never loved her. Simply as a matter of convenience he had married her, that she might care for the children of his dead wife whom he had loved with undying and passionate love.

"Paulina," he said solemnly, but the contempt was gone from his voice, "you are henceforth no wife of mine; but my children I give into your care."

Hitherto, during the whole interview, she had shed no tear, but at these words of his she flung her arms about his knees and burst into a passion of weeping.

"Oh, my lord! My dear lord! Oh, my lord! my lord!" she sobbed, wildly kissing his very boots.

He drew away from her and sat down upon a bench.