The funeral took place with great solemnity. The whole University in a body was present around the coffin. Then they spoke for the first time of the accurate knowledge, the toil and sacrifices of the deceased. It appeared from the accounts which Yosef examined that Gustav had earned about four thousand zlotys ($500) yearly. All of this went to the widow; he lived himself like a dog. This voluntary but silent heroism made for him an enduring monument in the hearts of the young men. They discovered also various labors of the deceased which indicated solid acquirements, nay, talent. They found his diary, which was a confession in simple and even blunt words of all the dark side of his life of privation, a kind of apology for the passionate outbreaks of youth, those imaginary but still real sufferings, those struggles, those pains, those internal storms, and conversations held with self. The inner life of enthusiastic natures was unveiled there in all its dark solemnity. It was a terror to look into that chaos which is not to be known in every-day life, in that "so devilishly gilded world," as the poetess calls it.
The memoirs were read at Vasilkevich's rooms; there was even a proposition to print them, though it was not brought into effect somehow. But Augustinovich wrote a paper after Gustav's death. Very eloquently did he describe the man's career. He showed him from years of childhood, when he was still happy. The charm of the description of those spring moments of life was so great that it seemed as though the sun of May had shone upon the writer. Then the picture grew sombre. It was seen how the deceased had left his native cottage; how the dog, the old servant, ran after him howling. Then still darker: life hurled him about, tossed him, rent him. Again a ray shone as if on a cloud. In rainbow form Pani Helena appeared to him—he stretched his arms toward that light. "The rest you know," wrote Augustinovich. "Let him sleep now, and dream of her. The field swallow will sing her name above his grave. Let him rest in peace. The spark is quenched, the bowl is broken—that is Gustav."
But it happens usually that people after his death speak much of a man whom during life they almost buffeted. Let us give peace then to Gustav, and follow the further fortune of our acquaintances, and especially of Yosef, the hero of this volume.
With him nothing had changed, but he himself from the time of his first visit to Pani Helena went about as if in meditation and was silent.
Augustinovich accustomed himself more and more to the new condition.
At the general's the guests danced as before. At the engineer's they pounded on the piano. The countess sang in the evening. Gustav's room was occupied by a shoemaker who had two scrofulous descendants and a wife with a third misery. In the place where thoughts from a noble head had circled and words of warmth had dropped, were now heard the thread and the shoemaker's stirrup.
The widow did not hear of Gustav's death immediately; Yosef concealed it, fearing too violent an impression. Later he was astonished to find that she received the news with sadness, it is true, but with no sign of despair. We have much to tell of those new relations; in the succeeding part we shall pass to them directly.
CHAPTER VII
Yosef, according to his promise given Gustav, visited Helena, and after the second visit went away in love. He returned late at night. The stars were twinkling on a serene sky; from the Dnieper came the cool, but bracing breath of water. Light streaks of mist wound in a long line on the east. There was music in the air and music in Yosef's breast. He was in love! It seemed to him that the serene night had visited his betrothal with happiness. Full happiness is both a remembrance and a hope. Yosef felt yet in his palms the small hands of Helena; he remembered that moment, thought of the tenderness of the morrow, looked forward to that moment. A wonderful thing! She took farewell of him with the word, "Remember;" but who could forget happiness, especially when the future is smiling with it?
He loved! Pressed by the power and the charm of the night, the trembling of the stars and the majesty of dark expanses, he cast a look full of fire to the remotest borders of heavenly loneliness, and whispered with quivering lips,—