Children of the Soil

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

“At the first moment I lost my head,” continued Osnovski; “I am not hasty, but how I avoided breaking his bones, I know not. Perhaps I remembered that he was my guest; perhaps, since it is a question here of something more important than he, I thought of Ignas; perhaps I thought of nothing. I lost my head, and went out. After a time I returned, and told him to follow me. I saw that he was pale, but decided. In my own room I told him that he had acted unworthily; that he had abused the hospitality of an honorable house; and that Lineta was a wretch, for whom I had not sufficient words of contempt; that, by this same act, her marriage with Pan Ignas was broken,—but that I would force him to marry her, though I had to go to extremities. Here it turned out that they must have taken counsel during the interval in which I left them alone; for he told me that he had been in love with Lineta a long time, and that he was ready to marry her at any moment. As to Pan Ignas, I felt that Kopovski was repeating words which Lineta had dictated, for he told me that which he could not have come at himself. He said that he was ready to give every satisfaction, but that he was not bound to count with Pan Ignas, for he had no obligations touching him: ‘Panna Lineta has chosen me finally; that,’ said he, ‘is all the worse for him, but it is her affair.’ What was going on meanwhile between aunt and Lineta, I cannot tell; it is enough that before I had finished with Kopovski, Aunt Bronich rushed in like a fury, with reproaches, saying that I and my wife had not permitted Lineta to follow the natural impulse of her heart; that we had thrust her on Pan Ignas, whom she had never loved; that Lineta had cried whole nights, and that she would have paid for that marriage with her life; that what happened now was by the express will of God,—and so for a whole hour. We are to blame; Pan Ignas is to blame,—they alone are faultless.”

Here Osnovski rubbed his forehead with his hand, and said,—

“I am thirty-six years of age; but before this affair I could not even imagine what woman’s perversity may be. I cannot understand yet such an inconceivable power of perverting things, of placing them bottom upward. I understand what the situation was; I understand that they thought everything finished with Pan Ignas, even for this alone, that I hindered, and that there was no one left for them save Kopovski. But the ease with which white was made black, and black white; that lack of moral sense, that absence of truth and justice,—that egotism without bound or bottom. The deuce might take them were it not for Ignas. He would have been most unhappy with them; but what a blow for a man of such nature, and so much in love; what a deception! But Lineta! Who could have supposed? Kopovski, such a fool, such a fool! And that young woman thought to be so full of impulses; she who a few weeks before exchanged rings, and gave her word! And she the betrothed of Pan Ignas! As God lives, a man might lose his senses.”

“A man might lose his senses,” repeated Pan Stanislav, as an echo.

A moment of silence followed.

“But is it long since this happened?” asked Pan Stanislav, at last.

“Three days ago they went to Scheveningen together. They started that very day; Kopovski had a passport. See how a supreme ass may still have some cunning. He had a passport ready, for he pretended to pay court to Panna Ratkovski, my cousin, and to be ready to go abroad with us; he pretended to be courting this one, so as to have the chance of turning the other one’s head. Ai, poor Pan Ignas, poor man! I give you my word, that if he had been my brother, I should not have had more sympathy for him. Better, better, that he had not bound himself to such a Lineta; but what a crash!”

Here Osnovski took out a handkerchief and rubbed his glasses, blinking meanwhile with a suffering and helpless expression of face.

“Why did you not inform us earlier?” inquired Pan Stanislav.

“Why did I not inform you earlier? Because my wife fell ill. Nervous attacks—God knows what! You will not believe how she took it to heart. And no wonder! Such a woman as she is—and in our house! With her sensitiveness, that was a blow, for it was a deception on the part of Lineta, whom she loved so much; and her sorrow for Ignas, and that contact with evil, and her disgust! On such a pure and sensitive nature as hers is, that was more than was needed. At the first moments I thought that she would be dangerously ill, and even now I say, God grant that it have no fatal effect on her nerves! We simply cannot give an account to ourselves of what takes place in a soul like hers at the very sight of evil.”