Генрик Сенкевич
In Vain
"Well, gentlemen," began Vasilkevich, "the hour is late, and sleep is not awaiting all of us after leaving this meeting-place. One more song, and then whoso wishes may say his good-night."
He of the maiden face who sat at the piano struck some well-known notes, then a few youthful voices sounded, but afterward a whole chorus of them raised the song dear to students, "Gaudeamus" (Let us rejoice).
Yosef went nearer the piano than others. He stood with his side face turned to the widow, under the light; but the lamp hanging near the wall cast his profile in one line of light. After a while the widow's eyes fell on that line, connecting it unquietly with her own thoughts. On a sudden she rose, as pale as marble, with a feverish gleam in her eyes, stretched forth her arms, and cried, —
"My Kazimir, I have found thee!"
In her voice were heard hope, alarm, joy, and awakening. All were silent. Every eye turned toward Yosef, and a quiver ran through those who had known Potkanski. In the light and shade that tall, strong figure seemed a repetition of the dead man.
"I was not careful," muttered Gustav, on his way home about daybreak. "H'm! well, her trouble has passed, but she was excited! He is really like him – The devils take it! But the cursed asthma stifles me to-day."
CHAPTER II
Yosef meditated long over the choice of his course. "I have given my clear word of honor not to waste myself in life, therefore I meditate," said he to Vasilkevich.
And here it must be confessed that the University roused him in no common manner. From various points of the world youth journeyed thither, like lines of storks. Some were entering to satisfy their mental thirst, others were going away. Some hurried in to gain knowledge as bees gather honey. They assembled, they scattered, they went in crowds, they drew from science, they drew from themselves, they drew from life. They gave animation and they received it, they spared life or they squandered it, they pressed forward, they halted, they fell, they conquered, and they were broken with their lives. Bathing in that sea, some of them were drowned, others swam to shore. Movement, uproar, activity dominated immensely.
The University was like a general ovarium where brains were to be propagated. It opened every year, giving forth ripe fruits, and taking in straightway new nurslings. Men were born there a second time. It was beautiful to see how youth, like waves of water, rolled forth to the world yearly, bearing light to the ignorant, as it were provisions to the human field. To such a sea the boat of life brought Yosef. Where was he to attach himself? Various courses of study, like harbors, enticed him. Whither was he to turn? He meditated long; at last he sailed in.
He chose the medical course.
"Happen what may, I must be rich," said he, deciding the question of choice.
But this decision was only because Yosef, with his open mind, had immense regard for the secrets of science. Both literature and law attracted him, but natural sciences he looked on as the triumph of human thought. He had brought even from school this opinion of those sciences. In his school there had been a young teacher of chemistry, a great enthusiast, who, placing his hand on his heart, spoke thus one day to those of his pupils who were finishing their course, —
"Believe me, my boys, except natural science there is nothing but guesswork."
It is true that the prefect of the school while closing religious exercises, affirmed that only the science of the Church can bring man to everlasting happiness. At this Yosef, whom the prefect had already called a "vile heretic," made such an ugly grimace that he roused the laughter of all who were present, but he drew down on his own head thunders partly deserved.
So he chose the medical course.
Vasilkevich influenced him in this regard. Vasilkevich, a student himself, had, rightly or wrongly, an immense influence on his comrades. It happened that at a students' talk a certain grammarian, a philologist, showed with less truth than hypocrisy that a man given to science should devote himself to it exclusively, forget the world, forget happiness, and incarnate himself in science, – be simply its expression, its basis, its word. In this deduction there was more of false enthusiasm and stiltedness than sincerity. "People tell us," continued the speaker, "that an Icelandic fisherman, who had forgotten himself in gazing at the aurora borealis, did not guard against currents. The waters bore him away to deep places, and he, with eyes fixed on those northern lights, became entirely ruddy in their gleams, till at last the spirit of the abyss bore him away and confined him under the glassy wave, but in the fisherman's eyes the lights remained pictured.
"There is science and life!" added he. "The man who has once inclined his forehead before science may let the waves of life bear him to any depth, the light will remain with him."
There are principles in the world which one does not recognize, but to come out against them a man needs no small share of courage. So among students one and another were silent, but Vasilkevich panted angrily and rose from his seat; at last he burst out, —
"Tfu! empty words! Let a German consort himself in that way with science, not us! In my mind science is for men, not men for science. Let the German turn himself into a parchment. Thy fisherman was a fool. If he had worked with his oar, he might have seen the lights and brought fish to his children. But again look at the question in this way: Poor people suffer and perish from hunger and cold, and wilt thou tear thyself free of the world and be for men a burden instead of an assistance?
"Oi, Tetvin, Tetvin!" This was the name of the previous speaker. "Consider the sense, not the sound of thy words. Thou art able to unite folly with reason! To-day it seems to thee that thou wilt predict luck from a few faded cards. Not true! When the moment comes and thy breast aches about the heart, thou wilt yearn honestly for happiness in love. For example, in Lithuania, I have a pair of old people in a cottage, my father and mother, as white as doves, and one of them says to the other things of me which are beyond my merits, things which might be told of a golden king's son. What would my worth be were I to shut myself up in a book, not think of them, and neglect them in their old age? None whatever. – Well, I come here and I forget neither science nor them nor myself. And I am not alone. Every man who tills a field has the right to eat bread from it. That to begin with! Science is science; let not a scholar tear himself loose from life, let him not be an incompetent. A scholar is a scholar; but if he cannot button his shirt, if he does not support his own children, and has no care for his wife? Why not reconcile the practice of life with science? Why not bring science into one's career and enliven science itself with life?"
Thus spoke Vasilkevich. He spoke and panted with excitement.
The point is not in this whether he spoke truth or falsehood; we have repeated the conversation because Yosef, by nature inclined to be practical, took it to heart; he considered, meditated, thought, and chose the medical course.
Happen what may, a man brings to the world certain tendencies.
Yosef's mind was realistic by nature, in some way he clung rather to things than ideas – he had therefore no love for dialectics of any sort. He preferred greatly to see an object as it was, and had no wish to have it seem better than it was. The movement of mind in men's heads is of two sorts: one starts eternally from the centre of existence, the other refers each object to some other. Men of the first kind enter into things already investigated, and give them life by connecting them with the main source of existence by a very slender thread of knowledge. The first are the so-called creative capacities; the second grasp things in some fashion, compare them, classify them, and understand them only through arranging and bringing them into classes, – those are the scientific capacities. The first men are born to create, the second to investigate. The difference between them is like that between a spendthrift and a miser, between exhaling and inhaling. It is difficult to tell which is the better: the first have the gift of creating; the second of developing, and above all of digesting. In the second this is active; true, the stomach has that power also. A perfect balance between these powers constitutes genius. In such a case there is a natural need of broad movements.
Yosef had the second capacity, the classifying. He not only had it, but he knew that he had it; this conviction preserved him in life from many mistakes, and gave a certain balance to his wishes and capacities. He never undertook a thing that for him was impossible. He calculated with himself. And, finally, he had much enthusiasm, which in his case might have been called persistence in science. Having a mind which was fond of examining everything soberly, he wanted to see everything well; but to see well one must know thoroughly. He was unable to guess, he wished to know.
This was why he never learned anything half-way. As a spider surrounds a fly, he surrounded his subject of investigation diligently with a network of thought, he drew it into himself; it might be said that he sucked it out of the place where it was and finally digested it. His thoughts had also a high degree of activity. He desired, a natural attribute of youth. He was free of conceit. Frequently he rejected an opinion accepted by all, specially for this reason, that it had importance behind it. It must be confessed, however, that in this case he endeavored to find everything that was against it; when he did not find enough, he yielded. He had, besides, no little energy in thinking and doing.
All this composed his strength, his weapon, partly acquired, partly natural. We forgot to say that he had in addition two thousand rubles.
When he had estimated these supplies, he betook himself to medicine. But the greater the enthusiasm with which he betook himself to his specialty the more was he disenchanted at first. He wanted to know, but now only memory was required. In that case any man might succeed; at least it was a question of memory and will, not of reason. One needed a memory of the eyes, a memory of the hands; one had to put into the head seriously the first and second and tenth, from time to time like grain into a storehouse. That was well-nigh the work of a handicraftsman; the mental organism gained no profit from these supplies, for it did not digest nor work them over. Nutrition was lacking there. The philosophy of the physical structure of organisms may be compared in subtlety and in immensity of result with all others; but Yosef was only beginning to become acquainted with the organism itself; indications as to whether there existed any philosophy of those sciences were not given him thus far.
But having once begun he had to wade farther. He waded. But the technical side of scientific labor was disagreeable, thankless, full of hidden difficulties and unexpected secrets, frequently obscure, often barely visible, most frequently repelling, always costing labor. One might have said that nature had declared war against the human mind at this stage. Yosef struggled with these moral difficulties, but he advanced. That technic had a gloomy side also in his eye: it had an evil effect morally.
It disclosed the end of life without indicating whether a continuation existed. The veil was removed from death without the least hesitation. All the deformity of that subterranean toiler was exhibited with unconcealed insolence. That which remained of the dead was also a cynical promise to the living. Death appeared to say in open daylight, "Till we meet in the darkness!" This seemed an announcement bearing terrible proofs of the helplessness of man before an implacable, malicious, loathsome, and shameless power. This power when seen face to face, roused in young minds a violent reaction, – a reaction expressed in the following manner: "Let us lose no time, let us make use of life, for sooner or later the devils will take everything!"
In such occupations delicacy of feeling was dimmed by degrees; indifference was degraded to coarseness, ambition to envy, love passed into passion, passion into impulse. Love was like the sun seen through a smoked glass; one felt the heat, but saw not the radiance.
Yosef warded off these impressions; he shook himself free of them, he cast them away, and went forward.
Finally, he had to be true to his principle. He who has confidence in one career has not in another; that which he has chosen seems best to him. In that which Yosef had chosen everything from the time of Hippocrates downward reposed on experience. Seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, and feeling are the only criteria on which the whole immense structure stands even in our day.
So men believe, especially young men, as the most different in everything from their elders. All that has come to science by ways aside from experience, is doubtful. Each man judges according to his own thought the ideas of others. The hypothesis of anything existing outside of experience, even if true, seems through such a glass frivolous. "Only investigated things have existence. The connection between cause and effect is a necessity of thought, but only in man. History is a chronicle more or less scandalous; law rests on experience of modes of living in society, speculation is a disease of the mind."
Yosef did not ward off these thoughts, since they did not hinder him in advancing.
As to the rest he worked on.
CHAPTER III
A month passed.
The evening was fair, autumnal; the sun was quenching slowly on the towers of Kieff and on the distant grave-mounds of the steppe. Its light was still visible on the roof above Yosef and Gustav. Both were bent over their work and, sitting in silence, used the last rays of evening with eagerness. Gustav had returned from the city not long before; he was suffering and pale, he panted more than usual. On his face a certain uneasiness was manifest, vexation, even pain; this he strove to conceal, but still it was evident from the fever of his eyes. Both men were silent. It was clear, however, that Gustav wished to break the silence, for he turned to Yosef frequently; but since it seemed as though the first word could be spoken only with difficulty, he sank back to his book again. At last evident impatience was expressed on his face; he seized his cap from the table, and rose.
"What o'clock is it now?" asked he.
"Six."
"Why art thou not going to the widow's? Thou goest every day to visit her."
Yosef turned toward Gustav, —
"It was at her request that I went with thee to her lodgings the first time. Let us not mention the subject. I do not care to speak of that which would be disagreeable to both of us; for that matter, we understand each other perfectly. I will not see the widow to-day, or to-morrow, or any day. Thou hast my word and hand on that."
They stood then in silence, Yosef with extended hand. Gustav, hesitating and disturbed by the awkward position, finally pressed the palm of his comrade.
Evidently words came to both with difficulty; one did not wish to use heartfelt expressions, the other heartfelt thanks. After a while they parted.
Men's feelings are strange sometimes, and the opposite of those which would seem the reward of noble deeds. Yosef promised Gustav not to see Pani Helena, the widow. Whether he loved her or not, that was a sacrifice on his part, for in his toilsome and monotonous existence she was the only bright point around which his thought loved to circle. Though thinking about her was only the occupation of moments snatched from hard labor and devoted to rest and mental freedom, to renounce such moments was to deprive rest of its charm, it was to remove a motive from life at a place where feeling might bud out and blossom.
Yosef, after thinking a little, did this without hesitation. He made a sacrifice.
Still, when Gustav had gone from the room, there was on Yosef's face an expression of distaste, even anger. Was that regret for the past, or for the deed done a moment before?
No.
When he extended his hand to Gustav, the latter hesitated in taking it. Not to accept a sacrifice given by an energetic soul is to cover the deed of sacrifice itself with a shadow of ridicule; and this in the mind of him who makes the sacrifice is to be ungrateful, and to cast a grain of deep hatred into the rich field of vanity.
But to accept a rival's sacrifice is for a soul rich in pride to place one's own "I" under the feet of some other man morally; it is to receive small coppers of alms thrust hastily into a hand which had not been stretched forth for anything.
Pride prefers to be a creditor rather than a debtor.
Therefore Gustav when on the street twisted his mouth in bitter irony, and muttered through his pressed lips.
Better and better. Favor, favor! Bow down now to Pan Yosef daily, and thank him. A pleasant life for thee, Gustav!
And he fell into bitter, deep meditation. He ceased even to think of himself, he was merely dreaming painfully. He felt a kind of gloomy echo in his soul, while striving to summon up the remembrance of even one happy moment. That echo sounded in him like a broken chord. The mind and soul in the man were divided. One tortured half cried hurriedly for rest; the other half, energetic and gloomy, strove toward life yet. One half of his mind saw light and an object; the other turned moodily toward night and nothingness. To finish all, there was something besides in this sorrowing man which made sport of its own suffering; something like a malicious demon which with one hand indicated his own figure to him, pale, ugly, bent, and pointed out with the other, as it were in the clouds in the brightness of morning, Helena Potkanski, in marble repose, in splendid beauty.
Torn apart with the tumult of this internal battle, he went forward alone, almost without knowing whither. Suddenly he heard behind a well-known voice singing in bass the glad song: —
"Hop! hop! hop! hop!
And the horseshoe firmly fastened."
He looked around – it was Vasilkevich and Augustinovich.
"Whither art thou hastening, Gustav?" asked the first.
"I? Ha! whither – " He looked at his watch. "It is too early to visit Pani Helena. I am going at present to the club."
"Well, go straight to the widow."
"What? Why?"
"Woe!" exclaimed Augustinovich, raising his hand toward heaven; and without noticing passers-by, he fell to declaiming loudly: —
"The castle where joyousness sounded
Is shrouded in mourning to-day;
On its wall the wild weeds are growing,
At its gate the faithful dog howls."
"Thou hast no reason to visit the club," added Vasilkevich.
"What has happened?"
"Gloom is there now incubating a tempest," replied Augustinovich.
"But say what has happened."
"Misfortune."
"Of what sort?"
"Ghastly!"
"Vasilkevich, speak in human fashion!"
"The University government has closed our club. Some one declared that students assemble there."
"When did this happen?"
"Two hours since."
"We must go there and learn on the spot."
"I do not advise thee to do so. They will put thee in prison."
"They will bind thy white palms with a rope – "
"Augustinovich, be quiet! Why did they not do this in the evening? They might have caught us all like fish in a net."
"Well, they cared more for closing the club than for seizing us; but were a man to go now, beyond doubt they would seize him."
"But whither are ye going?"
"We are going with a watchword of alarm; the clans send a fiery cross – "
"Speak low, I beg thee!"
"Yes, valiant Roderic."
"True, true," interrupted Vasilkevich; "we are on the way to warn others, so farewell, or go with us."
"I cannot."
"Where wilt thou go?"
"To Pani Helena's."
"Farewell."
"Till we meet again!"
When he was alone, Gustav rubbed his hands, a smile of satisfaction lighted up his gloomy face for a moment. He was pleased with the closing of the club, for he ceased to fear that Helena, on learning of Yosef's decision, might wish to visit the club to see him there. His fears were well founded. Gustav remembered that despite prayers and arguments he had barely, by the promise of bringing Yosef to her lodgings, been able to restrain her from this improper step. Now he had no cause for fear.
After a while he pulled the bell at the widow's dwelling.
"How is thy mistress?" asked he of the servant girl.
"She is well, but walking in the room and talking to herself."
Gustav entered.
Pani Helena's dwelling was composed of two narrow chambers, with windows looking out on a garden; the first chamber was a small drawing-room, the second she used as a bed-chamber, which Gustav now entered. The upper part of the window in the bed-chamber was divided by a narrow strip of wood from the lower part, and had colored panes arranged in the form of a flower, blue and red alternately. In one corner stood a small mahogany table covered with a soft velvet spread. On the table stood two portraits; one in an inlaid wooden frame represented a young man with a high forehead, blond hair, and handsome aristocratic features, – that was Potkanski; the other was Pani Helena. On her knees was her little daughter dressed in white. Before the portraits lay a garland of immortelles entwined with crape and with a sprig of dry myrtle.
At the opposite end of the room, between two beds divided by a narrow space, was a small cradle, now empty, once filled with the twittering and noise of an infant. Its cover, colored green by the light of the panes, seemed to move slightly. One might have thought that a little hand would be thrust out any moment, and a joyous head look at its mother.
Silent sadness was in the atmosphere of the place. The leaves of the acacia which looked in through the window were outlined darkly on the floor, and, moved by the wind, yielded to the quivering light and returned again. Near the door was a small statuette, representing the angel of baptism with hands extended as if to bless; at its feet was a holy-water pot.
At the moment of which we are speaking the head of the angel was bright in colored gleams, as if with a mild glory of sweetness, of repose and innocence. There was, moreover, great silence in the chamber. The sorrow of that day equalled former gladness. What delight and prattling when Potkanski, returning in the evening tired with toil, embraced his wife with one arm, and putting back her golden hair, kissed her forehead, which at that time was calm and serene. How much quiet, deep joy when they stood in silence breast to breast and eye to eye, like statues of Love! Afterward they ran to the cradle where the little one, twittering with itself in various ways, and raising its tiny feet, laughed at the happy parents.
Now the cradle was empty. Marvellously affecting was that cradle. It seemed that the child was there.
More than once, in the first period of her misfortune, the widow, when she woke in the night, put her hand carefully into the cradle with the conviction that God must have pitied her, and, removing the child from the coffin, placed it back in the cradle.
In a word, those walls had seen much joy, lulled by the happiness of serene love, then tears as large as pearls, then despair, which was silent, deathlike, and finally stubborn, mad.
Such was the sleeping-room of that widow, and such were the thoughts which were roused at sight of the apartment. The little drawing-room, like all of its kind, had a sort of slight elegance and much emptiness. In that chamber, too, the echoes of past moments seemed to wander. It was well lighted, clean, but common; the room of the servant adjoined it, – a small dark closet with an entrance on the stairway and a wooden partition.
Such was the former residence of Potkanski. After his death it was difficult to understand whence the means came to keep up such lodgings; this, however, pertained to Gustav, he knew what he was doing. There were no claims on the part of the owner; how this was managed we shall explain somewhat later.
As often as Gustav entered that dwelling he trembled.
In a place which was full of her presence, where everything that was not she was for her, he felt always a kind of weight on his breast, as if some hand were pressing his heart down more deeply. But that pressure was for him delightful. It was a contraction of his breast as if to inhale more air. To be pressed down by a feeling of happiness is almost to be happy, except that beyond it lies an immense shoreless space of desires. It inundates the whole man then, enters into his blood, manifests itself in the trembling of his words, in the glitter of his eyes. That desire itself does not know what it wants. Between too little and too much there is no boundary in the present case. This is the bashful desire of everything. A man is more daring externally than internally; his own words frighten him; it seems to him that some one else is saying something, he guards his own glances, he wants to laugh spasmodically or to burst out sobbing. He loves, he honors, he makes an angel of a woman, and then desires that same angel as a woman.
Gustav experienced this when he entered the widow's apartments. Every kind of desire which spirit and blood joined together can summon, flew to him from all sides, like flocks of winged creatures.
She stood before him. She was pale; on her lips appeared a slight trace of ruddiness. Her delicate profile was outlined on the background of the window like a silhouette. She held a comb in her hand, and, standing before the small silver-framed mirror, was combing her hair. Luxuriant tresses wound like waves around her pale forehead. That golden mass flowed down over her shoulders and breast, and seemed to drop like amber.
Seeing Gustav, she greeted him with her hand and with a barely perceptible smile.
The widow had emerged from her former lethargy. That sudden and violent shock which the sight of Yosef at the restaurant had called forth roused her, enlivened her. She began to think. One thing alone was she unable at first to explain. Yosef's form was so confounded in her mind with that of Potkanski that she did not know herself which was her former husband. That was the remnant of her insanity. But soon a ray of light returned to that beclouded mind. She begged Gustav to let her see Yosef. Gustav, though unwilling, agreed to this. With yearning did she wait for the evening when she was to look at that reminder of her former happiness. Not Yosef was she seeking, but the reminder; hence he was for her an absolute necessity.
Then gradually and quite imperceptibly the past changed into the present, the dream into a reality. Yosef, noting this, had promised Gustav not to visit her; to prepare Helena and announce this news to her pertained to Gustav.
It was easy to foresee the impression which this would make. She clasped her hands and threw back her head. A torrent of hair covered her shoulders with a rustle.
"Where shall I see him?" asked she, insistently.
Gustav was silent.
"I must see him here or elsewhere. He is so like Kazimir – My God, I live entirely by that memory, Pan Gustav."
Gustav was silent. He was made almost indignant by that blind egotism of Pani Helena. The drama began to play in him again. She begged him to do everything to undermine his own happiness. No! to act thus he would have to be a fool. But on the other hand – it was Helena who made the prayer. He bit his lips till the blood came, and was silent. Moreover, something belongs to him even from life. Everything that in him made up the man opposed her prayers with desperate energy. Meanwhile she continued to urge, —
"Pan Gustav, you will arrange so that I shall see him? I wish to see him. Why do you do me such an injustice?"
Cold sweat covered Gustav's forehead; he stretched his hands to his face, and in a gloomy voice answered, —
"I do you no injustice, but" – here his voice quivered, he made an effort not to fall at her feet and cry out, "But I love thee, do not torture me!" – "he does not wish to come here," concluded he, almost inaudibly.
He would have given much to avoid this moment. Helena covered her face with her hands and dropped into the armchair. Silence continued for a while, and the rustling of leaves was heard outside the window; inside the soul of a man was writhing in a conflict with itself. To bring Yosef, to take Helena from him, was for Gustav to unbridle misfortune.
The struggle was brief; he knelt before Helena, and putting his lips to her hand, said in a broken voice, —
"I shall do what I can. He will come here. What am I to any one? He will come, but I cannot tell when – I will bring him myself."
Soon after, in leaving the widow's lodgings, he muttered through his set teeth, —
"Yes, he will come; but it is not I who will bring him – he will come in a month – in two months – perhaps I shall be at rest."
An attack of coughing interrupted further meditation. Gustav wandered through the streets for a long time; when he returned home, it struck two in the church belfry.
Yosef was sleeping; he was breathing uniformly, quietly; the light of the lamp fell on his high forehead and open breast. Gustav looked feverishly at that breast. His eyes gleamed with hatred. He sat thus about an hour. All at once he trembled, he came to himself. A sensation was roused in him entirely opposite to any which he had felt up to that moment, a sensation of hunger; he went to the book-shelves, and taking a piece of brown bread, fell to eating it hastily.
