Janina thought about Bukowiec.
"I have no home," she thought, even without bitterness. "The whole wide world is my home," she added, but suddenly remembered what Grzesikiewicz had told her about her father and stirred as though some hidden pain had awakened in her. An uneasiness, not such as besets one on the eve of some event, but such as one feels on remembering some good that one has lost forever, filled Janina's heart. It was the pain of the past like the quiet remembrance of the dead.
But those memories of Bukowiec and those lonely nights when she dreamed, forgetting about everything, and created for herself such wondrous worlds, now flashed upon her mind in all their vividness. Only the memory of that exuberant and majestic nature, those vast fields, and those silent glens full of murmurs and bird songs, verdure, and wild grandeur swathed Janina in melancholy and lulled her weary soul with its charms.
The woods in which she was reared, those dim depths full of unspeakable wonders, those gigantic trees to which she was united by a thousand affinities, outlined themselves in her mind ever more powerfully. Janina longed for them now and listened through the nights, for it seemed to her that she heard the grave autumnal murmur of the forest, the somnolent rustling of its branches. It seemed that she felt within herself the slow, endless swaying of those giant trees, the soft motions of the verdure bathed in golden sunlight, the joyous cry of the birds, the fragrance of the young pine saplings and juniper bushes the whole leisurely life of nature.
Janina lay for whole hours at a time, without a word, thought, or motion, for her soul was there in those verdant woods. She wandered over the meadows covered with wild raspberries and waving grass, strayed across the fields where the rye grew high like a wood, swaying and murmuring in the breeze and gleaming with dew in the sunlight, penetrated the groves full of the pungent smell of the resin. She followed each road, each boundary, each wood path, greeted everything that lived there and cried out to the fields, woods, the hills, and the sky: "I have come! I have come!" smiling as though she had found a lost happiness.
These invigorating memories restored Janina's health almost entirely. On the eighth day she felt strong enough for a walk. She was longing for the fresh air, the verdure unsoiled by city dust, the sunlight, and the vast open spaces. She felt that the city was stifling her, that here, at every step, she had to limit her own ego and continually struggle against all the barriers of custom and dependence.
Janina passed through the Place of Arms and, going beyond the
Citadel, she walked along the damp sand dunes to Bielany.
An unbroken silence enveloped her on all sides. The sun shone brightly and warmly, but from the water there blew a brisk, invigorating breeze.
She gazed at the quiet river flecked with spots of white foam and at the indistinct silhouettes of boats trailing along in midstream. She breathed in deeply the calm that surrounded her and felt a resurgence of her wasted strength.
Janina lay down upon the yellowish sand of the bank and, gazing at the gleaming expanse of waters, forgot everything. It seemed to her as though she were flowing on with the current of the river, passing the shores, houses, and woods and hurrying on continually into a blue and boundless distance like the illimitable expanse of heaven that hung over her. It seemed to her as though she no longer remembered anything, but felt only the ineffable delight of rocking with the waves.