Hania

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Kamionka, through reasons of economy, kept no separate lodging-place; he slept in the studio. Usually the bed was concealed by a screen, but the screen had been removed to let the sick man look out more easily through the window near the foot of his bed, and see if the weather were clearing. Another and larger window placed in the ceiling of the studio was covered with dust on the outside to such a degree that even on bright days a gray and gloomy light passed in through it.

But the weather did not clear. After a number of days of darkness the clouds settled down thoroughly, the air was penetrated to the last degree with a watery, heavy mist, and became still darker. Kamionka, who so far had lain on the bed in his clothing, felt worse, so he undressed and lay down for good.

Speaking precisely, he was not so much sick with any definite disease as he was bowed down, dissatisfied, exhausted, and sad in general. His weakness cut the feet from beneath him. He had no wish to die; but neither did he feel strength to live.

The long hours of the dismal day seemed longer because he had no one for company. His wife had been dead twenty years; his relatives lived in another part of the country; and he did not live with his colleagues. In recent years every acquaintance had withdrawn from him because of his ever-increasing sorrow. At first, his disposition amused people; but later, when he grew stranger and stranger, when every jest roused a permanent feeling of offence in him, even those nearest the man broke off all relations with him.

People took it ill of him also that with age he had grown devout, and his sincerity was suspected. Malicious tongues said that he sat in church only to receive orders from churches through his relations with priests. This was not true. His piety did not flow from deep and calm faith, perhaps, but it was unselfish.

What, however, lent a show of truth to the critics, was the penuriousness which increased more and more in Kamionka. For a number of years he had lived in his studio to lessen expenses; he lived God knows on what food, and injured his health so much that at last his face was as yellow and transparent as if moulded from wax. He avoided people also for this, lest some one might ask of him sometime a favor.

In general, he was a man of broken character, embittered and uncommonly unhappy. Still his was not a common nature at bottom, for even his faults had artistic traits which were special to him. Those who judged that with his penuriousness he must have collected a considerable property were mistaken. In truth, Kamionka was poor; for all that he owned he had spent on engravings of which he had whole portfolios at the bottom of his bureau; these, from time to time, he counted with the greed and the care of a usurer counting his money. He concealed this taste the more carefully, perhaps, because it had grown on the basis of great misfortune and deep feeling.

On a time, a year more or less after the death of his wife, he saw in an antiquarian's collection an old engraving, representing Armida. In the face of this Armida he detected a likeness to the face of his dead one. He bought the engraving immediately, and from that time on he sought copperplates, those at first representing only Armida, then, as the fancy increased, every other.

Those who have lost persons much loved by them are forced to attach life to something, or they could not exist. As to Kamionka, no one would have thought that this rather aged original and egotist had ever loved his wife more than he loved his existence. It is likely, moreover, that had she not died, life would have flowed on for him more broadly, more calmly, and more in human fashion. Be that as it may, love in Kamionka survived his happy days, his youth, and even his talent.

His piety, which in the course of years turned into a custom resting on the preservation of external forms, flowed from this love of his also. Kamionka, without being a man of deep faith, began after the death of his wife to pray for the dead one, since this seemed to him the only thing he could do for her, and thus a kind of thread kept them together.