Children of the Soil

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

And he rose to take farewell; he was in a hurry to work, but wishing to hear more about the catastrophe of the Osnovskis, had engaged to dine with Kresovski. Bigiel and Pan Stanislav remained alone.

“Evil must always pay the penalty,” said Bigiel, after some thought. “But do you know what sets me thinking? that the moral level is lowering among us. Take such persons as Bronich, Castelli, Pani Osnovski,—how dishonest they are! how spoiled! and, in addition, how stupid! What a mixture, deuce knows of what! what boundless pretensions! and with those pretensions the nature of a waiting-maid. So that it brings nausea to think of them, does it not? And men, such as Ignas and Osnovski, must pay for them.”

“And that logic is not understood,” answered Pan Stanislav, gloomily.

Bigiel began to walk up and down in the room again, clicking his tongue and shaking his head; all at once he stopped before Pan Stanislav with a radiant face, and, slapping him on the shoulder, said,—

“Well, my old man, thou and I can say to ourselves that we drew great prizes in life’s lottery. We were not saints either; but perhaps the Lord God gave us luck because we have not undermined other men’s houses like bandits.”

Pan Stanislav gave no answer; he merely made ready to go.

Conditions had so arranged themselves lately that everything which took place around him, and everything which he heard, became, as it were, a saw, which was tearing his nerves. In addition, he had the feeling that that was not only terribly torturing and painful, but was beginning to be ridiculous also. At moments it came to his head to take Marynia and hide with her somewhere in some tumbledown village, if only far away from that insufferable comedy of life which was growing viler and viler. But he saw that he could not do that, even for this reason,—that Marynia’s condition hindered it. He stopped, however, the bargaining for Buchynek, which had been almost finished, so as to find for himself a more distant and less accessible summer place. In general, relations with people began to weigh on him greatly; but he felt that he was in the vortex, and could not get out of it. Sometimes the former man rose in him, full of energy and freshness, and he asked himself with wonder, “What the devil! why does a fault which thousands of men commit daily, swell up in my case beyond every measure?” But the sense of truth answered straightway that as in medicine there are no diseases, only patients, so in the moral world there are no offences, only offenders. What one man bears easily, another pays for with his life; and he tried in vain to defend himself. For a man of principles, for a man who, barely half a year before, had married such a woman as Marynia, for a man whom fatherhood was awaiting, his offence was beyond measure; and it was so inexcusable, so unheard of, that at times he was amazed that he could have committed it. Now, while returning home under the impression of Osnovski’s misfortune, and turning it over in his head in every way, he had again the feeling as if a part of the responsibility for what had happened weighed on him. “For I,” said he to himself, “am a shareholder in that factory in which are formed such relations and such women as Castelli or Pani Osnovski.” Then it occurred to him that Bigiel was right in saying that the moral level was lowering, and that the general state of mind which does not exclude the possibility of such acts is simply dangerous. For he understood that all these deviations flowed neither from exceptional misfortunes, nor uncommon passions, nor over-turbulent natures, but from social wantonness, and that the name of such deviations is legion. “See,” thought he, “only in the circle of my acquaintances, Pani Mashko, Pani Osnovski, Panna Castelli; and over against them whom shall I place? My Marynia alone.” And at that moment it did not occur to him that, besides Marynia, there were in his circle Pani Emilia, Pani Bigiel, Panna Helena, and Panna Ratkovski. But Marynia stood out before him on that ground of corruption and frivolity so unlike them, so pure and reliable, that he was moved to the depth of his soul by the mere thought of her. “That is another world; that is another kind,” thought he. For a moment he remembered that Osnovski, too, had called his own wife an exception; but he rejected this evil thought immediately. “Osnovski deceived himself, but I do not deceive myself.” And he felt that the skepticism which would not yield before Marynia would be not only stupid, but pitiable. In her there was simply no place for evil. Only swamp birds can sit in a swamp. He himself had said once in a jest to her, that if she wore heels, she would have inflammation of the conscience from remorse, because she was deceiving people. And there was truth in this jest; he saw her now just there before him as clearly as one always sees the person one thinks of with concentrated feeling. He saw her changed form and changed face, in which there remained always, however, that same shapely mouth, a little too wide, and those same clear eyes; and he was more and more moved. “Indeed, I did win a great prize in life’s lottery,” thought he; “but I did not know how to value it. ‘Evil must always pay the penalty,’ said Bigiel.” And Pan Stanislav, to whom a similar thought had come more than once, felt now a superstitious fear before it. “There is,” thought he, “a certain logic, in virtue of which evil returns, like a wave hurled from the shore, so that evil must return to me.” And all at once it seemed to him perfectly impossible that he could possess such a woman in peace, and such happiness. Just in that was lacking the logic which commands the return of the wave of evil. And then what? Marynia may die at childbirth, for instance. Pani Mashko, through revenge, may say some word about him, which will stick in Marynia’s mind, and in view of her condition, will emerge afterward in the form of a fever. Not even the whole truth is needed for that effect. On the contrary, Pani Mashko may boast even that she resisted his attempts. “And who knows,” said Pan Stanislav to himself, “if Pani Mashko is not making a visit to Marynia this moment? in such an event the first conversation about men—and a few jesting words are sufficient.”

Thinking thus, he felt that the cap was burning on his head; and he reached home with a feeling of alarm. At home he did not find Pani Mashko; but Marynia gave him a card from Panna Helena, asking him to come after dinner to see her.

“I fear that Ignas is worse,” said Marynia.

“No; I ran in there for a moment in the morning. Panna Helena was at some conference with the attorney, Kononovich; but I saw Panna Ratkovski and Pan Ignas. He was perfectly well, and spoke to me joyously.”