The Argonauts

by Eliza Orzeszkowa

And since he made no answer even then, she continued:

"But rememberest thou that Lipovka grove beyond the yard? It is there yet. Stefan has not cut it down; God forbid! And dost thou remember how beautifully the sun sets behind that grove?"

When the sun had gone down in the world it began to grow dark in Kranitski's room. And Mother Clemens continued in the thickening twilight:

"And rememberest thou how quiet the evenings are there? In summer, the nightingales sing; in autumn, the bagpipes play; in winter, God's winds rush outside the wall and roar; but, inside, it is honest, and quiet, and safe."

CHAPTER X

What Maryan had told Kranitski about Darvid was true. The man was engaged in real orgies of labor. His assistants and associates were bending beneath it, and losing breath; he seemed more untiring than ever: Counsels, meetings, accounts, balances, correspondence, discussions with functionaries of the government, of finance, and of industries, banks, bureaus, exchanges, auctions, etc. And in all this appeared order, sequence, punctuality, logic, lending to the course of these gigantic interests the seeming of a machine with multitudes of wheels moved by a force elemental, invincible. For even those who had known him longest and most intimately, Darvid had become this time a surprise; he had surpassed himself. The number of men was continually increasing who began to look on him as on a rare phenomenon of nature. Whence did the man get such uncommon mental and physical vigor? From mid-day till hours which were far beyond midnight he was unceasingly active. When has he time to sleep and take rest? What is he seeking to reach? What will he reach? This last question brought out before the imagination of men certain summits of financial might, to be reared to such dizzy heights for the first time in the history of the country. A giant of mentality and energy. Some said: He is superhuman.

But in the immense number of men connected with Darvid by a net of most varied relations there were some to whom he seemed a curious enigma, representing a certain inveterate struggle, the motives of which rested on the mysterious bases of his being. That hurling of himself with greater force than at any time hitherto into the whirl of occupations and business; that exertion to the remotest limits of the possible, directed toward one object of thought and energy, seemed to penetrating eyes, not merely a thirst for acquisition and profit, but a desperate conflict with something undiscovered and invisible. At that moment of his life it seemed to some that Darvid was like a man running straight forward and with all his might, because he felt that were he to halt, something awful would seize him. Others said, that he called to mind a man into whose ear some buzzing insect had crept, and who was hiding in a factory filled with uproar which was to drown the unendurable buzzing of the insect.

The truth was, that Darvid was building at that time, and with iron labor, a wall between himself and the giantess whom, for the first time in life, he had seen face to face, and very closely. It was clear enough that he had always known, not merely of her existence, but of this, that there was no power in the world more familiar than that giantess; still, this knowledge of his had been in a comatose condition, something separated altogether from the every-day substance of life, and touching which there had never been any need of thinking. Someone dies—a certain acquaintance; a comrade in amusement; a famous, or unknown power in the world—what do people say? A pity that he is gone! or, no help for it! Well, what influence can the disappearance of that man exercise on a given sphere of human action; on the course of men's relations and interests? Life, like a rushing river, tears all living men forward, and behind them, ever more distant, remains that misty region, which is filled with the vanished and forgotten. Who are they who, at any time, think of that misty region, and look at the face of the giantess who reigns in it? Priests, perhaps, devotees it may be; a few poets at times; or people who sail on a slow and sad stream in life. Darvid had never had time for such thoughts. The stream which bore him on was rushing and roaring, glittering and turbulent.

But the giantess, because of her power, sprang over all golden mountains—and came! He was thinking of this at the moment when Kranitski saw him standing at the wall and squeezing into its snowy drapery, just as a frightened insect might squeeze itself into a cranny. That was a cranny in one more of his golden mountains. In the great city, people had spoken with amazement of the cost, well-nigh fabulous, of that last chamber of the millionnaire's little daughter. He had means to do that and much more. What are those means to him? He had vanquished enormously great things in life, and he had immense power at that moment. But of what use is that power to him, since something has come which he cannot overthrow; something against which he can do nothing, and which has struck him doubly—struck his heart with pain, and his head with anxiety? What virtue is there in power which cannot shield a man from suffering? And even suffering is not important, since man can battle with it; but to shield against annihilation! That, at which he was looking then so nearly, was a sudden and merciless annihilation of life, blooming in all its charm and with great fullness. Something out of the air, something out of space, and from beyond boundaries attainable by human thought, had rushed in and trampled down that life fresh and beautiful. A power invincible—not to be bribed by wealth, persuaded by reason, or vanquished by energy. A mysterious power—the beginning and object of which were unknown, which had flown in on silent wings and swept from the earth everything that it wished to take; and, against this, there were no means of resistance, or rescue. It seemed to him that the gloomy rustle of giant wings was filling that snowy chamber of the dead from edge to edge; and, for the first time in life, he felt things beyond mankind and the senses. His breast, which had breathed with pride; his head, which held one faith, the might of reason, and that which reason can accomplish, were struck now by an incomprehensible secret, which roused in him for the first time a feeling of his own inconceivable insignificance. He felt as small as an earth-worm must feel when on the grass along which it is crawling—the shadow of a vulture falls as it sweeps through the azure sky—and as the worm hides in the crack of a stone, so he sank into the snowy folds of crape and muslin which veiled the walls of that chamber. He felt as weak as if he were not a man of strong will and splendid labor, but a little child which is unable to push aside with its tiny fingers the terror which is standing out in front of it. With his shoulders and one half of his head sunk in the snowy folds, with his glance fixed on the sleeping face of Cara, which was visible among the white flowers, he said to her, mentally: "I can do nothing, nothing for thee, little one! I can do much, almost anything; but for thee I can do nothing!" Slender, grayish bits of smoke passed above her sleeping face, and, impelled by invisible movements of air, stretched in waving threads from her to him. Just at that moment he saw Kranitski come from an inner apartment of the house and kneel at the steps strewn with flowers. He looked; he recognized the man, and felt none of those emotions which his name alone had roused in him previously. What were human anger, hatred, disagreement in presence of that immense something into whose face he was gazing at that moment? What could Kranitski, hitherto hateful to Darvid, be to him now, when he said to himself: "I know not; I understand not; it is impossible to comprehend this; and still it is real; since I—I can do nothing for thee, my little daughter."

But this was not the only discovery which he was to make on that occasion. He knew not how many hours he had passed in that chamber, but he saw the dawn, which drew a blue lining beyond the snowy folds which covered the windows, and then he saw the sun which flooded it with molten gold; he heard clocks striking a number of times in a chamber; one of these clocks was bass, and announced the hours slowly somewhere behind him, while another before him answered in a thinner and more hurried voice, till, all at once, beyond the closed doors, in one of the drawing-rooms, music was heard. Darvid knew what the meaning of that was: another golden mountain which he had reared for the "little one."