"Well, let there be a peasants' school, if only our Jastrzeb peasants will be permitted to send their sons to it."
"That does not admit of any doubt," explained Gronski. "There will be as many pupils as accommodations can be provided for. They may come from all parts, though preference is to be given to Rzeslewo peasants."
"What do they say about the bequest?"
"There were more than a dozen of them at the opening of the will, as they expected a direct gift of all the manor lands to them. Somebody had persuaded them that the deceased left everything to them to be equally divided. So they left very much displeased. We heard them say that this was not the genuine will and that they do not need any schools."
"Most fully do I share their opinion," said Dolhanski, "and in this instance, contrary to my nature, I will speak seriously. For at present there is raging an epidemic of founding schools and no one asks for whom, for what, how are they to be taught in them, and what is the end to be attained. I belong to that species of birds who do not toil, but look at everything, if not from the top, then from the side, and, perhaps for that very reason, see things which others do not observe. So, at times, I have an impression that we are like those children, for instance, at Ostend, who build on the sea-shore forts with the sand. Every day on the beach they erect them and every day the waves wash them away until not a trace of them remains."
"In a way you are right," said Gronski; "but there, however, is this difference: the children build joyfully and we do not."
Afterwards he meditated and added:
"However, the law of nature is such that children grow while the adults rear dykes, not of sand, but of stone upon which the weaves dash to pieces."
"Let them be dashed to pieces as quickly as possible," exclaimed Ladislaus.
But Dolhanski would not concede defeat.