"Thou didst know that he was standing there," said the elder, "for the floor squeaks outside the door, and there is a noise when any one stands near it; but to thee, as is clear, his presence was agreeable."
"Bah! he licked his lips before dainties, and she did not hide them," interrupted Agneshka. "Hast thou no fear of God, shameless creature?"
"Such a one should be put before the church at a pillory."
"And expelled from the mansion."
"Sodom and Gomorrah!"
"Tfu!"
"And when will the need be to send to Radom for a woman?"
"What sort of a name wilt thou give it?"
"Tfu! thou dish-rag!"
And they spat on her.
The heart stormed up in the hapless maiden, for the measure was passed then.
"Be off!" cried she, pointing to the door.
But her face grew pale as linen, and darkness fell on her eyes; for a moment it seemed to her that she was flying into some gulf without bottom, then she lost consciousness, feeling, and memory. On recovering she found herself wet from water which had been poured on her, and her breast pinched in places. The faces of the old maids bending over her showed fear, but after a while they felt reassured when they saw that she was conscious.
"Complain, complain!" said Johanna. "Thy paramour will defend thee."
"And thou wilt thank him in thy own way."
Setting her teeth Anulka answered no syllable.
But Martsian divined all that must have happened upstairs, for some hours later from the chancellery, where he had shut himself in with his sisters, came howls from which the whole mansion was terrified.
In the afternoon, when old Krepetski came, the two sisters fell with a scream to his knees imploring him to remove them from that den of profligacy and torture. But he to the same degree that he loved his youngest daughter hated the elder ones; so he not only took no pity on the ill-fated hags, but he called for sticks, and compelled them to stay there.
The only being in that terrible house in whom Johanna and Agneshka, if they had wished to be friendly and kind, might have found compassion, sympathy, and even protection, was Panna Anulka. But they preferred to torment the poor girl, and gloat over her, for, with the exception of Tekla, that was a family in which each member did all in his or her power to poison the life and increase the misfortune of the others.
But Panna Anulka feared the love of Martsian more than the hatred of his sisters. And he thrust himself more and more on her, pushed himself forward more and more shamelessly, was more and more insistent, and gazed at her more and more greedily. It had become clear that he was ceasing to command himself, that wild desire was tearing him as a whirlwind tears a tree, and that he might give way at any moment.
In fact that moment came soon.
Once, after warm weather had grown settled, Anulka went at daybreak to bathe in the shady river; before undressing she saw Martsian's face on the opposite bank sticking out from thick bushes. That instant she rushed away breathlessly. He pursued her, but trying to spring over the water he failed and fell into it; he was barely able to climb out, and went home drenched to the very last thread of his clothing. Before dinner he had beaten a number of servants till the blood came; during dinner he said not a word to any person. Only at the end of the meal did he turn to his sisters, -
"Leave me alone," said he, "with Panna Anulka; I have to talk with her on matters of importance."
The sisters, on hearing this, looked at each other significantly, and the young lady grew pale from amazement; though he had long tried to seize every moment in which he might be alone with her, he had never let himself ask for such a moment openly.
When the sisters had gone he rose, looked beyond one door and another, to convince himself that no one was listening, then he drew up to Anulka.
"Give me your hand," said he, "and be reconciled."
She drew back both hands unconsciously, and pushed away from him.
Martsian's wish for calmness was evident, but he sprang forward twice on his bow-legs, for he could never abandon that habit, and said, with a voice full of effort, -
"You are unwilling! But to-day I came very near drowning for your sake. I beg your pardon for that fright, but it was not caused by any bad reason. Mad dogs began yesterday to run between Vyrambki and this mansion, and I took a gun to make sure of your safety."
Anulka's knees trembled under her a little, but she said with good presence of mind and with calmness, -
"I want no protection which would bring only shame to me."
"I should like to defend you, not merely now, but till death and at all times! Not offending God, but with His blessing. Dost understand me?"
A moment of silence followed this question. Through the open window came the sound of cutting wood, made by an old lame man attached to the kitchen.
"I do not understand."
"Because thou hast no wish to understand," replied Martsian. "Thou seest this long time that I cannot live without thee. Thou art as needful to me as this air is for breathing. To me thou art wonderful, and dear above all things. I cannot exist-without thee I shall burn up and vanish! If I had not restrained myself I should have grabbed thee long ago as a hawk grabs a dove. It grows dry in my throat without thee, as it does without water-everything in me quivers toward thee. I cannot sleep, I cannot live-see here even now-"
And he stopped, for his teeth were chattering as if in a fever. He had a spasm, he caught at the arms of the chair with his bony fingers, as if fearing to fall, and panted some time very loudly. Then he continued, -
"Thou lackest fortune-that is nothing! I have enough. I need not fortune, but thee. Dost thou wish to be mistress in this mansion? Thou wert to marry Pan Gideon; I am not worse, as I think, than Pan Gideon. But do not say no! do not, by the living God, do not say it, for I cannot tell what will happen. Thou art wonderful! thou, my-!"
He knelt quickly, embraced her knees with his two hands, and pressed them toward his bosom. But, beyond even her own expectation, Anulka's fear vanished without a trace in that terrible moment. The knightly blood began to act in her; readiness for battle to the last breath was roused in the woman. Her hands pushed back with all force his sweat-covered forehead, which was nestling up toward her knees at that moment.
"No! no! I would rather die a thousand deaths! No!"
He rose up, pallid, his hair erect, his mustache quivering. Beneath the mustache were glittering his long decayed teeth, and for a time he was filled with cold rage as he stood there; but still he controlled himself, still presence of mind did not desert him entirely. But when Anulka pushed toward the door on a sudden, he stopped the way to her.
"Is this true?" inquired he, with a hoarse voice. "Thou wilt not have me? Wilt thou repeat that once more to me, to my eyes? Wilt thou not have me?"
"I will not! And do not threaten, for I feel no fear."
"I do not threaten thee, but I want to take thee as wife, nay more, I beg thee bethink thyself! By the living God, bethink thyself!"
"In what am I to bethink myself? I am free, I have my will, and I say before your eyes: Never!"
He approached her, so nearly that his face pushed up to hers, and he continued, -
"Then perhaps instead of being mistress, thou dost choose to carry wood to the kitchen? Or dost thou not wish it? How will it be, O noble lady! To which of thy estates wilt thou go from this mansion? And if thou stay, whose bread wilt thou eat here; on whose kindness wilt thou live? In whose power wilt thou find thyself? Whose bed, whose chamber is that in which thou art sleeping? What will happen if I command to remove the door fastenings? And dost thou ask in what thou art to bethink thyself? In this: which thou art to choose! – marriage, or no marriage!"
"Ruffian!" screamed Panna Anulka.
But now happened something unheard of. Seized with sudden fury, Krepetski bellowed with a voice that was not human, and seizing the girl by the hair he began with a certain wild and beastly relish to beat her without mercy or memory. The longer he had mastered himself up to that time, the more did his madness seem wild then, and terrible; at that moment beyond doubt he would have killed the young lady had it not been that to her cries for assistance servants burst into the chamber. First that man cutting wood at the kitchen broke in with an axe through the window, after him came kitchen servants, the two sisters, the butler, and two of Pan Gideon's old servitors.
The butler was a noble from a distant village in Mazovia, moreover, a man of rare strength, though rather aged; he caught Martsian's arms from behind, and drew them so mightily that the elbows almost met at his shoulders.
"This is not permitted, your grace!" exclaimed he. "It is infamous!"
"Let me go!" roared Krepetski.
But the iron hands held him as in vices, and a serious, low voice was heard near his ear, -
"I will break your bones unless you restrain yourself!"
Meanwhile the sisters led, or rather carried the young lady from the chamber.
"Come to the chancellery to rest," said the butler. "I advise your grace earnestly."
And he pushed the man before him as he would a child, while Martsian, with chattering teeth, moved on with his short legs, crying for a halter and the hangman; but he could not resist, for a moment later he had grown so weak all at once, from the outburst, that he was unable even to stand unassisted. So, when the butler in the chancellery threw him on the horse skin with which the bed was covered, Martsian did not even try to rise; he lay there panting with heaving sides, like a horse after over-exertion.
"Something to drink!" shouted he.
The butler opened the door, called a boy, and, whispering some words, gave him keys: the lad returned with a pint glass and a demijohn of brandy.
The butler filled the glass to the brim, sniffed at it, and said approaching Martsian, -
"Drink, your grace."
Krepetski seized it with both hands, but they trembled so that liquor dropped on his breast; then the butler raised him, put the glass to his lips, and inclined it.
He drank and drank, holding the glass greedily when the butler tried to remove it from his mouth. At last he drank all, and fell backward.
"It may be too much," said the butler, "but you had become very weak when I gave it."
Though Martsian wished to say something, he merely hissed in the air, like a man who has burnt his mouth with too hot a liquid.
"Eh," said the butler, "you owe me a good gift, for I have shown no petty service. God preserve us, if anything is done-in such an affair it is the axe and the executioner, not to mention this, that misfortune might happen here any minute. The people love that young lady beyond measure. And it will be difficult to hide what has been done from the prelate, though I will tell all to be silent. How do you feel?"
Martsian looked at him with staring eyes and open mouth as he panted. Once and a second time he tried to say something, then hiccoughing seized him, his eyes grew expressionless, he closed his lids on a sudden, and then began a rattling in his throat as if the man were dying.
"Sleep, or die, dirty dog!" growled the butler as he looked at him. And he went from the room to the outbuildings. Half an hour later he returned and knocked at the young lady's chamber. Finding the two sisters with her he said to them, -
"Ladies, perhaps you would look in a moment at the chancellery, for the young lord has grown very feeble. But if he sleeps it is better not to wake him."
Then when alone with Panna Anulka he inclined to her knees, and said, -
"Young lady, there is need to flee from this mansion. All is ready."
And she, though broken and barely able to stand on her feet, sprang up in one instant.
"It is well, and I am ready! Save me!"
"I will conduct you to a wagon which is waiting beyond the river. To-night I will bring your clothing. Pan Krepetski is as drunk as Bela, and will lie like a dead man till morning. Only take a cloak, and let us go. No one will stop us; have no fear on that point."
"God reward! God reward!" repeated she, feverishly.
They went out through the garden to that gate by which Yatsek used to enter from Vyrambki. On the way the butler said to her, -
"Long ago Vilchopolski arranged with the servants that if an attack upon you were attempted, they would set fire to the granary. Pan Krepetski would be forced to the fire, and you would have time to escape through the garden to a place beyond the river, where a man was to wait with a wagon. But it is better not to burn anything. To set fire is a crime, no matter what happens. Krepetski will be like a stone until morning, so no pursuit threatens you."
"Where are we going?"
"To Pan Serafin's; defence there is easy. Vilchopolski is there. So are the Bukoyemskis and other foresters. Krepetski will try to take you back, but will fail. And later on Pan Serafin will conduct you to Radom, or farther. That will be settled with the priests. Here is the wagon! Fear no pursuit. It is not far to Yedlinka, and God gives a wonderful evening. I will bring your clothing to-night. If they try to stop me I will not mind them. May the Most Holy Mother, the guardian and protectress of orphans conduct you!"
And taking her by the hand like a child, he seated her in the wagon.
"Move on!" cried he to the driver.
It was growing dark in the world, and the twilight of evening was quenching, but from the remnant of its rays the stars in the clear sky were rosy. The calm evening was filled with the odors of the earth, of leaves, and of blossoming alders, while nightingales were filling with their song, as with a warm rain of spring, the garden, the trees, and the whole region.
CHAPTER XVII
That evening Pan Serafin was sitting on a bench in the front of his mansion, entertaining Father Voynovski, who had come after evening prayers to see him, and the four Bukoyemskis, who were stopping then permanently at Yedlinka. Before them on a table, with legs crossed like the letter X, stood a pitcher of mead and some glasses. They, while listening to the murmur of the forest, were drinking from time to time and conversing of the war, raising their eyes to the heavens in which the sickle of the moon was shining clearly.
"Thanks to your grace, our benefactor, we shall be ready soon for the road," said Mateush Bukoyemski. "What has happened is passed. Even saints have their failings; then how must it be with frail men, who without the grace of God can do nothing? But when I look at that moon, which forms the Turkish standard, my fist is stung as if mosquitoes were biting. Well, God grant a man to gratify his hands at the earliest."
The youngest Bukoyemski fell to thinking.
"Why is it, my reverend benefactor," asked he at last, "that Turks cherish some kind of worship for the moon, and bear it on their standards?"
"But have not dogs some devotion toward the moon also?" asked the priest.
"Of course, but why should the Turks have it?"
"Just because they are dog-brothers."
"Well, as God is dear to me, that explains all," said the young man, looking at the moon then in wonderment.
"But the moon is not to blame," said the host, "and it is delightful to gaze at it when in the calm of night it paints all the trees with its beams, as if some one had coated them with silver. I love greatly to sit by myself on such a night, gaze at the sky, and marvel at the Lord God's almightiness."
"Yes, at such times the soul flies on wings, as it were, to its Creator," said Father Voynovski. "God in his mercy created the moon as well as the sun, and what an immense benefaction. As to the sun, well, everything is visible in the daytime, but if there were no moon people would break their necks in the night if they travelled, not to mention this, that in perfect darkness devilish wickedness would be greater by far than it is at the present."
They were silent for a while and passed over the peaceful sky with their eyes; the priest took a pinch of snuff then, and added, -
"Fix this in your memories, gentlemen, that a kind Providence thinks not only of the needs, but the comfort of people."
The rattle of wheels, which in the night stillness reached their ears very clearly, interrupted the conversation. Pan Serafin rose from his seat.
"God is bringing some guest," said he, "for the whole household is here. I am curious to know who it may be."
"Surely some one with news from our lads," added Father Voynovski.
All rose, and thereupon a wagon drawn by two horses entered in through the gateway.
"Some woman is on the seat," called out Lukash.
"That is true."
The wagon passed through half the courtyard and stopped at the entrance. Pan Serafin looked at the face of the woman, recognized it in the wonderful moonlight, and cried, -
"Panna Anulka!"
And he almost lifted her in his arms from the wagon, then she bent at once to his knees, and burst into weeping.
"An orphan!" cried she, "who begs for rescue and a refuge!"
Then she nestled up to his knees, embraced them with still greater vigor, and sobbed more complainingly. Such great astonishment seized every man there, that for a time no one uttered a syllable; at last Pan Serafin raised the orphan and pressed her to his heart.
"While there is breath in my nostrils," cried he, "I will be to thee a father. But tell me what has happened? Have they driven thee from Belchantska?"
"Krepetski has beaten me, and threatened me with infamy," answered she, in a voice barely audible.
Father Voynovski, who was there very near her, heard this answer.
"Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews!" exclaimed he, seizing his white hair with both hands.
The four Bukoyemskis gazed with open mouths, and eyes bursting from their sockets, but understood nothing. Their hearts were moved at once, it is true, by the weeping of the orphan, but they considered that Panna Anulka had wrought foul injustice on Yatsek. They remembered also the teaching of Father Voynovski, that woman is the cause of all evil. So they looked at one another inquiringly, as if hoping that some clear idea would come, if not to one, to another of them. At last words came to Marek.
"Well, now, here is Krepetski for you. But in every case that Martsian will get from us a-, or won't he?"
And he seized at his left side, and, following his example, the other three brothers began to feel for the hilts of their sabres.
Meanwhile, Pan Serafin had led in the young lady and committed her to Pani Dzvonkovski, his housekeeper, a woman of sensitive heart and irrepressible eloquence, and explained to her that she was to concern herself with this the most notable guest that had come to them. He said that the housekeeper was to yield up her own bedroom to the lady, light the house, make a fire in the kitchen, find calming medicines and plasters for the blue spots, prepare heated wine and various dainties. He advised the young lady herself to lie down in bed until all was given her, and to rest, deferring detailed discourse till the morrow.
But she desired to open her heart straightway to those gentlemen with whom she had sought rescue. She wanted to cast out immediately from her soul all that anguish which had been collecting so long in it, and that misfortune, shame, humiliation, and torture in which she had been living at Belchantska. So, shutting herself up with Father Voynovski and Pan Serafin, she spoke as if to a confessor and a father. She told them everything, both her sorrow for Yatsek, and that she had consented to marry her guardian only because she thought Yatsek had contemned her, and because she had heard from the Bukoyemskis that Yatsek was to marry Parma Zbierhovski. Finally, she explained what her life had been in Belchantska, – or rather, what her sufferings had been there; she explained the torturing malice of the two sisters, the ghastly advances of Martsian, and the happenings of that day which were the cause of her flight from the mansion.
And they seized their own heads while they listened. The hand of Father Voynovski, an old soldier, went to his left side involuntarily, in the manner of the Bukoyemskis, though for many a day he had not carried a weapon; but the worthy Pan Serafin put his palms on the temples of the maiden, and said to her, -
"Let him try to take thee. I had an only son, but now God has given me a daughter."
Father Voynovski, who had been struck most by what she had said touching Yatsek, remembering all that had happened, could not take in the position immediately. Hence he thought and thought, smoothed with his palm the whole length of his crown which was milk-white, and then he asked finally, -
"Didst thou know of that letter which Pan Gideon wrote to Yatsek?"
"I begged him to write it."
"Then I understand nothing. Why didst thou do so?"
"Because I wanted Yatsek to return to us."
"How return?" cried the priest, with real anger. "The letter was such that just because of it Yatsek went away to the ends of the earth broken-hearted, to forget, and cast out of him that love which thou, my young lady, didst trample."
Her eyes blinked from amazement, and she put her hands together, as if praying.
"My guardian told me that he had written the letter of a father. O Holy Mother! What was there in it?"
"Insults, contempt, a trampling upon the man's poverty and his honor. Dost understand?"
Then from the gill's breast was rent a shriek of such pain and sincerity that the honest heart of the priest quivered in him. He approached her, removed the hands with which she had covered her face, and asked, -
"Then didst thou not know of this?"
"I did not-I did not!"
"And thou didst wish Yatsek to return to thee?
"I did!"
"In God's name! Why was that?"
Tears as large as pearls began again to drop from her closed lashes in abundance, and quickly; her face was red from maiden shame, she caught for air with her open lips, the heart was throbbing in her as in a captured bird, and at last after great effort, she whispered, -
"Because-I love him!"
"My child, is that possible!" cried out Father Voynovski.
But the voice broke in his breast, for tears were choking him also. He was seized at the same instant by delight and immense compassion for the girl, and astonishment that "a woman" in this case was not the cause of all evil, but an innocent lamb on which so much suffering had fallen God knew for what reason. He caught her in his arms, pressed her to his heart. "My child! my child!" repeated he, time after time.
The Bukoyemskis, meanwhile, had betaken themselves, with the glasses and pitcher, to the dining-room; had emptied the pitcher conscientiously to the bottom, and were waiting for the priest and Pan Serafin, in the hope that with their coming supper would be put on the table.
They returned at last with moistened eyes and with emotion on their faces. Pan Serafin breathed deeply once, and a second time, then he said, -
"Pani Dzvonkovski is putting the poor thing to bed. Indeed, a man is unwilling to believe his own ears. We too, are to blame; but Krepetski, – what he has done is simply infamous and disgraceful. We may not let him go without punishment."
"On the contrary," answered Marek, "we will talk about this with that 'stump.' Oh-ho!"
Then he turned to Father Voynovski, -
"I am very sorry for her, but still, I think that God punished her for Yatsek. Is that not true?"
"Thou art a fool!" called out Father Voynovski.
"But how is that? Why?"
The old man, whose breast was full of pity, fell to talking quickly and passionately of the innocence and suffering of the girl, as if wishing in that way to make up for the injustice which he had permitted regarding her; but after a time all discussion was interrupted by the coming of Pani Dzvonkovski, who burst into the room like a bomb into a fortress.
Her face was as flooded with tears as if it had been dipped in a full bucket, and right on the threshold she fell to crying, with arms stretched out before her, -
"People, whoso believes in God! Vengeance, justice! As God lives! her dear shoulders are all in blue lumps, those shoulders once white as wafers-hair torn out by the handful, golden hair! my dearest dove! my innocent lamb! my precious little flower!"
On hearing this, Mateush Bukoyemski, already excited by the narrative of Father Voynovski, bellowed out at one moment, the next he was accompanied by Marek, Lukash, and Yan till the servants rushed into the dining-hall and the dogs began to bark at the entrance. But Vilchopolski, who a moment later returned from his night review of haystacks, met now another humor of the brothers. Their hair was on end, their eyes were staring with rage, their right hands were grasping at their sabre hilts.
"Blood!" shouted Lukash.
"Give him hither, the son of a such a one!"
"Kill him!"
"On sabres with him!"
And they moved toward the door as one man; but Pan Serafin sprang to the entrance and stopped them.
"Halt!" cried he. "Martsian deserves not the sabre, but the headsman!"