Eveline made him no answer. Her thoughts were with the good, kind prince, her best friend. To him she owed her engagement at the Opera-house in Paris, the wreaths that were thrown to her on her first appearance, the carriage she drove in every day. All was due to the paternal interest of Prince Theobald, who, from the day he called her his daughter, had never ceased to care for her as his child.
CHAPTER XXVI
DIES IRÆ
One gloomy day in late autumn Ivan went from the forge to his mine, and upon the way his thoughts ran in a sad groove. "What a curious world we live in; everything goes wrong—at least, for most people. Bread is not for the wise man, nor success for the strong; it was so in the days of Solomon. One bad year follows the other, for even nature acts like a step-mother to men. The poor are hungry and beg for bread, and when they have eaten they forget from whom they received nourishment. All the great proprietors go to their graves without doing, either for their country or their neighbor, anything worth mentioning; all the burden of the present and the future seems to fall upon the less numerous and more exhausted class. The patriots are all hollow; they weep when they are in their cups; they show their fists, but no one dares to strike a blow. All manly strength is gone; there is not a man worth the name in the whole country. And the women—they are all the same, from the high-born dame to the peasant girl—false and heartless. Even in the bowels of the earth it is no better. For the last two days there has been choke-damp in the mine; the escape of gas has been so great that the men cannot work; it is as likely as not that there will be an explosion while I am in the pit."
You see, Ivan's thoughts were as black as the landscape, and suited to its gloom. His road from the forge to the mine led him past the workmen's houses, and as he passed one of these a miner came stumbling out of the door. The house was a wine-shop. The miner had his back towards Ivan, who did not recognize him, but he noticed that the man had great difficulty in walking straight.
"I wonder who it is that has got drunk so early in the day?" thought Ivan, and hastened after the man to find out who he was. When he got up with him he saw, to his surprise, that it was Peter Saffran. This struck Ivan unpleasantly; he recalled how, on the day when Evila had eloped, Saffran had sworn never again to touch brandy; he knew also that Peter had kept this oath. He recollected also, but imperfectly, that when he said that he wouldn't drink any more he had let fall some threat. Well, it didn't much matter; if he got drunk, that was his affair. But why did he come to Ivan's village to get drunk? Why didn't he go to the tavern in his own colony?
Ivan hailed the man. "Good-morning, Peter."
Peter did not return the greeting; he stared like a stupid dog who doesn't know his own master. He looked at Ivan with a wild eye, he pressed his lips together, and his nostrils extended. He drew his cap down over his eyes.
Ivan asked him, "Has the choke-damp got into your pit?"
No answer from Peter. He shoved his cap from off his forehead, and, opening his mouth to its full extent, bent his face to that of Ivan, and let his hot, spirit-laden breath blow over him. Then, without saying a syllable, he turned away, and set off running in the direction of the company's mine.