Children of the Soil

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

“That is all right; but I am curious to know what people would say of it?”

And the last question seemed to occupy her most of all; but Pan Ignas quarrelled that moment with her because she said “you” to him, but he did not notice, however, that, in her “that is all right,” there was that peculiar indifference with which things too familiar or less important are slipped over. With a similar half-attention she heard what he said then,—that not being vain, he considers himself a man like his fellows, but that he respects his career, and counts a life the greatest happiness in which it is possible to serve loftily, and love simply. In the feeling of this happiness he embraced her with his arm, so as to have his simple love as near his breast as possible. But when his prominent chin pushed forward still more, as happened whenever he spoke with enthusiasm, Lineta begged him to leave off the habit, as it made him look stern, and she liked joyous faces around her. While her hand was in now, she reminded him also that yesterday, when they were sailing over the pond, and he was tired after rowing, he breathed very loudly. She did not like to tell him then how that “acted on her nerves.” Any little thing “acts on her nerves;” but nothing acts like some one who is tired, and breathes loudly near her.

Saying this, she took off her hat and began to fan her face. The breeze raised her bright hair; and in the green shade of the alder-trees, quivering in the sun, which shone in through the leaves, she looked like a vision. Pan Ignas delighted his eyes with her, and in her words admired, above all, the charm of a spoiled child. There was perhaps something more in them; but he neither sought nor found it, just because his love, with all its force, was simple.

Simplicity, however, does not exclude loftiness. Lineta had, in fact, clung like a spider-web to the wings of the bird, which, in spite of her, bore her to heights where one had to feel every movement with the heart, to divine all, to understand all, and where even the mind must exert itself to give expression to feeling. But Lineta was “so lazy,”—she had said so on a time to her soarer, who at present did not even suspect that those heights merely made her tired and dizzy, nothing more.

It happened to her now oftener and oftener to wake in the morning, and remember that she must meet her betrothed, that she must tune herself up to his high note; and this gave her the feeling that a child has, for whom a hard lesson is waiting. She had recited that lesson already; she had answered more or less everything which had been taught her; and she judged that her betrothed ought to give a vacation now. Finally, she had enough of all those uncommonnesses, both of herself and of others, those original sayings, those apt answers, with which she had campaigned in society so far. She felt, moreover, that the supply was exhausted, that the bottom of the well could be seen. There remained to her yet only certain artistic feelings, and that unendurable “Pan Ignas” might be satisfied, if from time to time she showed him now a broad field, now a bit of forest, now a strip of land with yellow grain, as if scattered in the light, and said, “Beautiful! beautiful!” That was easier. He, it is true, could not find words to express admiration of the artistic depth of soul hidden in such a single word as “beautiful;” but if that were true, what more did he want? and why, in conversation, in feelings, in method of loving, did he force her to those useless efforts? If he did not force her, if that came without his knowledge, so much the worse for him, that, being by nature so abrupt, he did not even know it. In such a case let him talk with Steftsia Ratkovski.

With “Koposio,” on the other hand, there was no need of effort; his society was real rest for Lineta. The mere sight of him made her gladsome, called out a smile on her face, inclined her to jesting. It is true that Pan Stanislav had once in his life been jealous of Kopovski; but to Pan Ignas, a man who lived a mental life far more exclusively, and therefore measured everything with a measure purely mental, it did not even occur that a maiden so spiritualized and so “wise” as “Nitechka,” could for a moment consider Kopovski as other than a subject for witticisms, which she permitted herself continually. Had not Pani Bronich, in spite of all her mental shallowness, grown indignant at the mere hint of giving Lineta to Kopovski? What Pan Ignas had seen between Kopovski and Pani Aneta was no lesson, for he considered his “Nitechka” as the opposite pole of Aneta. “Nitechka,” besides, had chosen him, and he was the antithesis of Kopovski; that alone set aside every doubt. “Nitechka” amused herself with “Koposio,” painted him, conversed with him, though Pan Ignas could not exhaust his astonishment at this,—how she could avoid falling asleep while he talked; she joked with him, she followed him with a look of amusement, but only because she was a child yet, needing moments of amusement, and even of vanity. But no one saw better than she his whole measureless stupidity, and no one spoke of it more frequently. How often had she ridiculed it to Pan Ignas!

Not all eyes, however, looked at this amusement of hers in that way, and, above all, Pani Aneta looked at it differently; from time to time she told her husband directly that Castelli was coquetting with Kopovski; to “Yozio” himself this seemed at times to be true, and he had the wish to send Kopovski away from Prytulov politely. This Pani Aneta would not permit: “Since he is paying attention to Steftsia, we have no right to hinder that poor girl’s fortune.” Osnovski was sorry to lose that dear Steftsia on Kopovski; but since, in fact, she had no property, and since Aneta wished the match, he would not oppose it.

But he was not able to control himself from astonishment and indignation at Castelka: “To have such a man as Ignas, and coquet with such a fool; to act so, a woman must be a soulless puppet surely.” At first he could not understand it. On the hypothesis, however, that Aneta must have been mistaken, he began to observe the young lady diligently; and since, aside from his personal relation to his wife, he was not by any means dull-witted, he saw a number of things which, in view of his friendship for Pan Ignas, disquieted him greatly. He did not admit, it is true, that anything might take place to change the position; but he asked himself what Ignas’s future would be with a woman who knew so little how to value him, and who was so slightly developed morally that she not only found pleasure in the society of such a brainless fop, but allowed herself to turn his head, and allure him.

“Anetka judges others by herself,” thought Osnovski, “and has really deceived herself, ascribing certain deep feelings to Castelka. Castelka is a puppet; and, if spirits like Anetka and Ignas do not come, nothing rouses her.” In this way that unfortunate man, affected with the daltonism of love, while discovering truth on one side, fell into greater and greater error on the other. On “Castelka,” therefore, he looked more justly every day, and needed no excessive effort to convince himself that in the relations of that “ideal” “Nitechka” with Kopovski there were jests, it is true, there was much contradiction, teasing, even ridicule; but there was also such an irresistible weakness, and such an attraction, as women with the souls of milliners have for nice and nicely dressed young men. The phenomenal stupidity of Kopovski seemed to increase in country air; but as a recompense the sun gilded his delicate complexion, through which his eyes became more expressive, his teeth whiter, while the beard on his face was lighter, and gleamed like silk. Indeed, brightness shone not only from his youth and beauty, but also from his linen, from his neckties, from his exquisite and simple costumes. In the morning, dressed for lawn-tennis, in English flannel, he had in him the freshness of morning and the dreaminess of sleep. His slender, finished form appeared as if fondlingly through the soft cloth; and how could that bony Pan Ignas, with his insolent Wagner jaw and his long legs, be compared, in the eyes of those ladies, with that “mignon” who called to mind at once the gods of Greece and the fashion sheets, the glyptotheks of Italy and the table d’hôtes of Biarritz or Ostend. One should be such an original as that still-water Steftsia to insist, unless from malice, that he was an insufferable puppet. Castelka, it is true, laughed when Svirski said that Kopovski, especially when some question was put to him on a sudden, had an expression in which were evident the sixteen “quarterings” of stupidity in his escutcheon, both on the male and female side. In truth, he had a somewhat absent look, and, in general, could not understand at first what people said to him. But he was so joyous, he seemed so good-natured, and, in spite of a way of thinking which was not over elevated, he was so well-bred, beautiful, and fresh that everything might be forgiven him.

Pan Ignas deceived himself in thinking that only Pani Bronich was pining for things of external richness, and that his betrothed did not even know of those requests with which her aunt comes. Castelka did know of them. Having lost hope that “Pan Ignas” could ever be equal to Kopovski, she wanted at least that he should approach him. For things of external richness she had an inborn leaning, and “aunt,” when begging Pan Ignas to buy this or that for himself, merely carried out Lineta’s wishes. For her, really, one glance was enough to distinguish silk from Scotch thread, and all her soul was rushing instinctively to silk; for her Kopovski was among men what silk is among textures. Had it not been for Pani Aneta, who restrained the young man, and for the various lofty feelings which she had talked into Lineta, Lineta, without fail, would have married Kopovski. Osnovski, knowing nothing of all this, was even astonished that that had not taken place; for he, in the end of his observations, had come to the conclusion that both for Lineta and Pan Ignas this would have been perhaps better.