"What is it?" she repeated.
"That Panna Skibianka is a peasant woman from Zarnow!"
"That is untrue!"
"As I love God."
And, saying this, he suddenly smacked her ear with a broad kiss.
IV
Miss Anney's letter bore the impress of extraordinary simplicity. At the beginning she said that from the moment when he proposed for her hand she was compelled to reveal her former name; while in the continuation it contained an equally simple account of herself and her family from the time of their departure from Rzeslewo. This sad course of events she related in the following words:
"My father came from Galicia and had in America relatives of whom he heard that through labor they had amassed fortunes. Learning of this, he decided to settle there also and seek his fortune beyond the ocean. We left Rzeslewo at a time when you were in Warsaw. I knew how to write as I was taught that in the manor-house, and would have informed you about this if I had known your address. We went, not saying anything to anybody, to Hamburg, and at that place there occurred what often happens to peasant emigrants. The agent tricked us, defrauded us of our money, and placed us on a vessel bound not for America but for England. Thrown upon the pavements of London, we soon fell into dire want. For the passage to America there now was no means. My mother died of typhoid fever in a hospital and father, from despair and nostalgia, declined rapidly in health. Under these circumstances we were found by Mr. Anney, one of the best and noblest men in the world, a friend and patron of the Poles, who gave us employment. But the succor came too late, and my father died in the course of a year. I remained in the factory and worked in it until the accident which changed my status entirely. The Anney family had only one child, a daughter, whom they loved beyond everything in the world and surrounded with a solicitude all the greater because she was threatened by a pulmonary ailment. Once it happened that Miss Anney, while visiting the factory, was almost carried away by the driving-wheel of the machinery. I rushed to her assistance, imperilling a little my own life, and from that time the gratitude of the Anney family for me had no bounds. They took me from the factory to themselves, and in this manner I became the companion and afterwards the bosom friend of their daughter. A Pole, an emigrant of the year '63, a friend of Mr. Anney and a man well educated, taught us both, and me, separately, in Polish. I endeavored to benefit, as much as lay in my power, from these lessons, and after two years was able to approach a little the intellectual plane of my friend and my environment. But Agnes--for such was the Christian name of Miss Anney--began to fail in her health. Then Mr. Anney sold his factory and we all, including our instructor, removed to Italy. There about three years were passed in a search for the best climate for our dearest patient. All efforts proved unavailing, however, as God took His angel unto Himself. After Agnes' death, the Anneys, remembering that I loved with my whole soul our dead one, adopted me as their own child and gave me not only their family name, but desiring to overcome their despair, suffering, and sorrow, even the Christian name of the deceased. Nevertheless, the sorrow could not be overcome, and though I tried with my whole heart to be to them some sort of comfort in life, in the course of two years both followed their greatest love.
"And this is the end of my history. And after that came those events which brought me nearer to you; therefore I desire to justify my conduct in your eyes. I have a right to the name which I bear, and my life from the time of the departure from Rzeslewo has been pure. Conscience reproaches me with only one new error. This was that I did not confess to the Anneys that I already was unworthy of their care. But for such a confession I lacked strength. I loved too much my Agnes and feared that they would separate me from her. Later I did not want to add to their affliction. I did not have the strength. At times, also, I think that now when they look upon me from heaven and see everything, they forgive me for keeping that secret. Beyond this I once more repeat and swear that my life has been pure. But in my memory I have only coffins and coffins, and of my Rzeslewo days there remains to me only the recollection of you. I could not forget either my sin or my happiness. Often during the life of my adopted sister, while gazing into her chaste eyes, I struggled with remorse, and at the same time I wept from intense longing. After that, being left alone in the world, I had nothing to cherish in my heart, and I began to yearn yet more. When, after the death of the Anneys, I became acquainted and grew intimate with Zosia Otocka in Brussels, I accidentally learned from a conversation that she was your relative. Then I related to her my entire life, not concealing anything, and she not only did not spurn me, but loved me yet more. Emboldened by her goodness, I confessed to her my longing for the old days and Rzeslewo. Perhaps it may be a new fault on my part that I confided to Zosia my insurmountable desire of seeing yet once more in my life, Jastrzeb, Rzeslewo, and--why should I not state the whole truth?--and you. Then Zosia said to me: 'I understand you; ride with me to Jastrzeb as Miss Anney, as you cannot do otherwise. Nobody will recognize you and you will take a reckoning with your own heart. Perhaps reality may extinguish the rainbow of recollections. If they are assuaged forever, so much the better for you; if he should fall in love with you, so much the worse for him; if your former echoes reawaken, then we will assume that this was predestination.' Such was Zosia's advice, and for that reason, when your mother invited her and Marynia, I also accompanied them to Jastrzeb. But I do not wish to pass for any better than I am. I confess that on the road I always had in mind Zosia's words: 'If he falls in love with you, so much the worse for him,' and I wished that to happen. I was certain that you had entirely forgotten me, and I thought that if now you fell in love with me without any requital, that it would be a sort of condign punishment for your forgetfulness and a kind of triumph for myself and--if not such a womanly revenge as books tell of,--at least a great solace to my self-love. But it happened otherwise, for I forgot to take into account that I had a heart, not of foreign books, but of a Polish village--simple and faithful. When I saw Rzeslewo, Jastrzeb, and you, I wanted only to weep and weep, as I wept at Pan Zarnowski's funeral, and I discovered within me that Hanka, who years before loved you with her first childish love and afterwards with such affection, did not love any one else. You know, sir, what happened further. If you do not return, I will not bear any resentment towards you, but do not harbor any ill-will against me. I, too, merely skirted along the rim of happiness."
The signature was "Hanka." Ladislaus' chin quivered from time to time while he was reading the letter and his eyes grew dim. He began to repeat the signature "Hanka, Hanka." He rose abruptly and paced over the room with big steps. His thoughts rolled into a ball in his head like clouds in the heavens; they collected and scattered in all directions like a startled stud of horses on the wild steppes of the Ukraine. He read the letter a second and third time, and under its influence there began to glide before his eyes pictures of the past as distinct as if all that which occurred some time ago had happened but yesterday. He recalled those bright moonlight nights when he stole away to the mill, and that village girl, fragrant with the hay, who, to the question of whether she loved him, whispered in reply, "Of course," and threw her yet half-childish arms around his neck and hugged him to her breast with such strength that no other love could make a sincerer avowal. He recollected that he nevertheless loved her at that time, and when he missed her, longed for her, and even inquired of the people about the blacksmith's family--but with reserve and faint-heartedly, as fear closed his lips.