The Argonauts

E >> Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa) >> The Argonauts

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Some minutes later, in a Turkish dressing-gown with patched
lining and mended sleeves, Kranitski lay on his long chair,
opposite his collection of pipes, and, in deep thought, twirled
his golden cigarette-case. In vain did Mother Clemens urge him to
eat a little of that Arabian pate and drink a glass of liqueur;
he tried, but could swallow nothing. Sorrow had closed his
throat; he was sunk in reminiscences. He felt with perfect
tangibleness that breath of cold air which was blowing around
him. In this manner did Time blow on the man--Time, that
merciless jester, who had always circled about playing various
pranks on him; but Kranitski had never looked into the face of
that jester, with attention. Occasionally, sorrow and grief had
come to him in company with the trickster, but they were
transient, not of the kind which go into the depth of the heart,
but such as slip along over the surface. He grew gloomy; was
sorry for having lost someone, or having missed something, and
passed on with springy, lightly swaying gait, with his long
continued youth, humming some fashionable ditty; or, with tender
smile on his lips, living easily and joyously in endless pursuit
of agreeable trifles. But, now, he has the first look at Time,
face to face and near by. The current has borne away; the abyss
has swallowed; people, houses, relations, feelings, and nothing
comes back from them but one word in a ceaseless murmur: "Gone!
gone! gone!" That which is ended to-day calls to the man's mind
all things that have been. That past is to him something in the
form of a mighty grave, or rather a catacomb, composed of a host
of graves, through the openings of which are visible the absent;
not only those snatched away by death, but also those gone
through separation, removal, oblivion. Dead were faces once dear;
faded were moments once precious; portions of life had dropped
into dust; and Time, standing before the catacomb, his cheeks
swollen in jeering, puffs his cold breath of the grave on that
man who is calling up the past.

Kranitski wrapped himself closely in his dressing-gown; hung his
head so low that the bald spot, whitening on his crown, became
visible; his lower lip dropped; red furrows came out above his
black brow. Mother Clemens stood in the kitchen doorway.

"Wilt thou eat dinner now?" inquired she.

He made no answer. She withdrew, but returned in half an hour
bringing a cup of black coffee.

"Drink," said she, "perhaps thou wilt grow cheerful, and I will
tell the news from Lipovka."

She pushed a small table to the long chair, sat down with hands
on her knees, and with immense attention in the expression of her
quick and shining eyes, fell to repeating the substance of a
letter just received from her godson, the tenant of Lipovka. He
wrote that he had repaired the dwelling; that he was living
himself in a building outside; that he had put the place in order
most neatly, as if for the arrival of the owner. The furniture
was the same as in the time of the former master; though old, it
was sound yet, and beautiful, because repaired and cleaned. The
garden was larger than of old, for many fruit-trees had been
added. The bees, brought in recently, were thriving. It was quiet
there; calm, green in summer; white in winter; not as in that
cursed city of throngs and shouting--

She laughed.

"And there is no Berek Shyldman there."

Then she added:

"Be at rest about debts. Thou wilt sell thy pipes and cupids, and
if they do not bring enough, I will give all my own things. All
that I have I will give, and I will drag thee out of this hell.
Oh, Arabian adventure! If this lasts longer, thou wilt lose the
last of thy health; thou wilt go deeper in debt, and die in a
hospital. Tulek, dost thou hear what I say? Why not answer?"

And since he made no answer even then, she continued:

"But rememberest thou that Lipovka grove beyond the yard? It is
there yet. Stefan has not cut it down; God forbid! And dost thou
remember how beautifully the sun sets behind that grove?"

When the sun had gone down in the world it began to grow dark in
Kranitski's room. And Mother Clemens continued in the thickening
twilight:

"And rememberest thou how quiet the evenings are there? In
summer, the nightingales sing; in autumn, the bagpipes play; in
winter, God's winds rush outside the wall and roar; but, inside,
it is honest, and quiet, and safe."

CHAPTER X

What Maryan had told Kranitski about Darvid was true. The man was
engaged in real orgies of labor. His assistants and associates
were bending beneath it, and losing breath; he seemed more
untiring than ever: Counsels, meetings, accounts, balances,
correspondence, discussions with functionaries of the government,
of finance, and of industries, banks, bureaus, exchanges,
auctions, etc. And in all this appeared order, sequence,
punctuality, logic, lending to the course of these gigantic
interests the seeming of a machine with multitudes of wheels
moved by a force elemental, invincible. For even those who had
known him longest and most intimately, Darvid had become this
time a surprise; he had surpassed himself. The number of men was
continually increasing who began to look on him as on a rare
phenomenon of nature. Whence did the man get such uncommon mental
and physical vigor? From mid-day till hours which were far beyond
midnight he was unceasingly active. When has he time to sleep and
take rest? What is he seeking to reach? What will he reach? This
last question brought out before the imagination of men certain
summits of financial might, to be reared to such dizzy heights
for the first time in the history of the country. A giant of
mentality and energy. Some said: He is superhuman.

But in the immense number of men connected with Darvid by a net
of most varied relations there were some to whom he seemed a
curious enigma, representing a certain inveterate struggle, the
motives of which rested on the mysterious bases of his being.
That hurling of himself with greater force than at any time
hitherto into the whirl of occupations and business; that
exertion to the remotest limits of the possible, directed toward
one object of thought and energy, seemed to penetrating eyes, not
merely a thirst for acquisition and profit, but a desperate
conflict with something undiscovered and invisible. At that
moment of his life it seemed to some that Darvid was like a man
running straight forward and with all his might, because he felt
that were he to halt, something awful would seize him. Others
said, that he called to mind a man into whose ear some buzzing
insect had crept, and who was hiding in a factory filled with
uproar which was to drown the unendurable buzzing of the insect.

The truth was, that Darvid was building at that time, and with
iron labor, a wall between himself and the giantess whom, for the
first time in life, he had seen face to face, and very closely.
It was clear enough that he had always known, not merely of her
existence, but of this, that there was no power in the world more
familiar than that giantess; still, this knowledge of his had
been in a comatose condition, something separated altogether from
the every-day substance of life, and touching which there had
never been any need of thinking. Someone dies--a certain
acquaintance; a comrade in amusement; a famous, or unknown power
in the world--what do people say? A pity that he is gone! or, no
help for it! Well, what influence can the disappearance of that
man exercise on a given sphere of human action; on the course of
men's relations and interests? Life, like a rushing river, tears
all living men forward, and behind them, ever more distant,
remains that misty region, which is filled with the vanished and
forgotten. Who are they who, at any time, think of that misty
region, and look at the face of the giantess who reigns in it?
Priests, perhaps, devotees it may be; a few poets at times; or
people who sail on a slow and sad stream in life. Darvid had
never had time for such thoughts. The stream which bore him on
was rushing and roaring, glittering and turbulent.

But the giantess, because of her power, sprang over all golden
mountains--and came! He was thinking of this at the moment when
Kranitski saw him standing at the wall and squeezing into its
snowy drapery, just as a frightened insect might squeeze itself
into a cranny. That was a cranny in one more of his golden
mountains. In the great city, people had spoken with amazement of
the cost, well-nigh fabulous, of that last chamber of the
millionnaire's little daughter. He had means to do that and much
more. What are those means to him? He had vanquished enormously
great things in life, and he had immense power at that moment.
But of what use is that power to him, since something has come
which he cannot overthrow; something against which he can do
nothing, and which has struck him doubly--struck his heart with
pain, and his head with anxiety? What virtue is there in power
which cannot shield a man from suffering? And even suffering is
not important, since man can battle with it; but to shield
against annihilation! That, at which he was looking then so
nearly, was a sudden and merciless annihilation of life, blooming
in all its charm and with great fullness. Something out of the
air, something out of space, and from beyond boundaries
attainable by human thought, had rushed in and trampled down that
life fresh and beautiful. A power invincible--not to be bribed by
wealth, persuaded by reason, or vanquished by energy. A
mysterious power--the beginning and object of which were unknown,
which had flown in on silent wings and swept from the earth
everything that it wished to take; and, against this, there were
no means of resistance, or rescue. It seemed to him that the
gloomy rustle of giant wings was filling that snowy chamber of
the dead from edge to edge; and, for the first time in life, he
felt things beyond mankind and the senses. His breast, which had
breathed with pride; his head, which held one faith, the might of
reason, and that which reason can accomplish, were struck now by
an incomprehensible secret, which roused in him for the first
time a feeling of his own inconceivable insignificance. He felt
as small as an earth-worm must feel when on the grass along which
it is crawling--the shadow of a vulture falls as it sweeps
through the azure sky--and as the worm hides in the crack of a
stone, so he sank into the snowy folds of crape and muslin which
veiled the walls of that chamber. He felt as weak as if he were
not a man of strong will and splendid labor, but a little child
which is unable to push aside with its tiny fingers the terror
which is standing out in front of it. With his shoulders and one
half of his head sunk in the snowy folds, with his glance fixed
on the sleeping face of Cara, which was visible among the white
flowers, he said to her, mentally: "I can do nothing, nothing for
thee, little one! I can do much, almost anything; but for thee I
can do nothing!" Slender, grayish bits of smoke passed above her
sleeping face, and, impelled by invisible movements of air,
stretched in waving threads from her to him. Just at that moment
he saw Kranitski come from an inner apartment of the house and
kneel at the steps strewn with flowers. He looked; he recognized
the man, and felt none of those emotions which his name alone had
roused in him previously. What were human anger, hatred,
disagreement in presence of that immense something into whose
face he was gazing at that moment? What could Kranitski, hitherto
hateful to Darvid, be to him now, when he said to himself: "I
know not; I understand not; it is impossible to comprehend this;
and still it is real; since I--I can do nothing for thee, my
little daughter."

But this was not the only discovery which he was to make on that
occasion. He knew not how many hours he had passed in that
chamber, but he saw the dawn, which drew a blue lining beyond the
snowy folds which covered the windows, and then he saw the sun
which flooded it with molten gold; he heard clocks striking a
number of times in a chamber; one of these clocks was bass, and
announced the hours slowly somewhere behind him, while another
before him answered in a thinner and more hurried voice, till,
all at once, beyond the closed doors, in one of the
drawing-rooms, music was heard. Darvid knew what the meaning of
that was: another golden mountain which he had reared for the
"little one."

Much gold had been poured out in bringing those voices, the
chorus of which raised a hymn of prayer and sorrow above his dead
daughter. But previously the door was opened, and the white
chamber was half filled with the highest of the most brilliant
society in that city, showing signs of profound respect and
sympathy. Prince Zeno escorted Malvina Darvid, who was all in
tears and black crape. Maryan brought in the princess. Irene
entered, leaning on the arm of a young prince, celebrated for
beauty; next came stars of these three powers: birth, money, and
reputation. They were not many, since summits are always few in
number; slight sounds were heard of bringing, giving, and moving
chairs; there were whispers and the rustle of silk garments.

Black silks, laces, and crape; the black dress of men mixed with
glittering white; hands folded sadly on knees, or crossed on
breasts, with seriousness; faces sunk in thought--solemn
stillness. Meanwhile, out of silence in the adjoining chamber, to
the accompaniment of instrumental music, rose a grand funeral
hymn, given by a chorus of the most famous artists in the city.
The solemnity of the mourning, with its character of high life
and unusualness, roused admiration for the man who had given such
magnificent homage to his departed daughter. From out the
mountain of gold gushed a fountain of enchanting music, on which
that child sailed away beyond the boundaries of earthly
existence.

Darvid did not greet those who entered; and, for the first time
in life, perhaps, failed to meet the demands of society; they
also, respecting a frame of mind which they divined in him,
troubled the man in no way. He remained resting against the wall,
and, from a distance, resembled a silhouette outlined on it
darkly, as on a background. He looked on the brilliant assembly,
from which he was separated by half the chamber, and felt that he
was divided from those people by a space as great as if they were
at one end of the world and he at the other end. Those shadows
there whose names he knew, but who were nothing to him, and he
nothing to them. They might exist, or not; that was all one to
Darvid. Why had they come? Why were they there? Never mind, he
knew only this, that they did not exist for him, as he did not
for them. He was struck by the feeling of an immense vacuum,
which divided him from men. This vacuum was something like a
space which the eye could not take in, a space with two edges, on
one of which he was found, and they on the other. They were by
themselves, he was by himself.

The singing of the chorus rose in power, in thunders, then became
like nightingale voices heard in space, with notes clear and
resonant. Invisible movements of air passed along the crapes, and
the immense number of tapers, causing the flames on them to
quiver.

Darvid had not paid attention to music; he had never had time to
learn and to love it; but he felt that those tones were passing
into his vitals, moving the secret strata of his being, and
bringing them into movements unknown to him till that moment. He
looked at Cara's face, rising up among the white blossoms, and he
thought, or rather felt that, while those others seemed removed
by boundless space, she alone was very near to him. "Mine!" he
whispered. She alone. He did not know precisely how that could
happen, but mentally he placed that little head with golden hair
upon his shoulders, and said to it:

"Let us flee, little one! Thou didst ask me once what those
people were to me. Now I will tell thee that they are nothing. I
do not need them; they are strangers to me; with me they have no
relations whatever; thou alone art needful to me; thou alone,
such a sunray as I once saw on a journey and forgot, bright and
warm. Thou alone art mine! Let us go; let us flee together from
all and from everyone, for everything and all people are nothing
to you and me; they are strange, and distant."

Here he remembered that never and nowhere would he be able to go
with her, or to flee with her. He was joint possessor of a number
of railroads; he had the power to employ for himself alone a
number of trains passing over those roads; in the East, on a
gigantic river, his own vessels were sailing, in clouds of steam;
in one capital and another, and in this great city, swarms of
people inhabited his houses--still he could not take that
sleeping girl by land or by water, to any city, or to any house.
To his eyes, which were raised toward her, a biting moisture
began to come, and gathered into drops, a number of which flowed
down his cheeks, and were shaken in every direction by quiverings
of the skin.

But at that moment appeared on his lips the smile, which, as
people said, was bristling with pin-points.

"What is this? Is it exaltation?"

He discovered exaltation in himself. A few days before, nay, down
to that very night, he would have laughed at the supposition that
in him it could darken judgment and clear vision. He thought,
however, that a man is at times to himself the most marvellous of
all surprises. Under various influences forces spring up in him,
the presence of which he is farthest from suspecting. Darvid
discovered, now in himself, the thing most unexpected:
exaltation. The habit of a life-time; that which he had always
considered as an unshaken conviction, rose now with loud laughter
at itself. Will he begin now as a poet to write a threnody over
his dead daughter, or like a monk yield himself to thoughts about
death? Misery! Earlier, that word had occurred more than once to
him, but only now does it career through his head freely. Still,
he will not let exaltation master him. He must stand erect and
look at things soberly.

He straightened himself; removed his shoulders from the wall;
calmed his face and glance; by strength of will brought a
greeting smile to his lips; and moved toward his guests. The
moment the hymn stopped he gave his hand to those present, in
very polite welcome, and thanked them with a few, but pleasant
phrases. This was the beginning of one of those herculean
struggles, the like of which he had fought many times in the
past. This, in its farther course, had an orgie of labor, which
he continued for a number of weeks, and which roused admiration,
or curiosity, in every on-looker.

One day, between his return from the city and the hour of
reception, he was standing in the blue drawing-room at the
window, thinking: What that peculiar movement was which on
returning from the city he noted while walking up the stairway.
Porters were bearing out articles of some sort, which he did not
examine, but which seemed to him pictures, and other things also.
Was Maryan leaving the house? Perhaps. It was impossible to
foresee what that self-sufficient and stubborn youth was capable
of doing. But whatever happened he would not yield, and he would
permit no longer that vain method of life, with its mad excesses,
excesses which are costly. But in those recent hours everything,
not excepting Maryan, had concerned him considerably less than
before. Why was this? He did not answer that question, for he
heard a noise of steps, and a whisper:

"Aloysius!"

He looked around. It was Malvina greatly changed. Beneath her
hair, dressed with stern simplicity, her forehead was furrowed
with a dark, deep wrinkle; the corners of her pale mouth were
drooping; on the back of her head a heavy roll of hair, coiled
carelessly, dropped to her dress of black material, which was
almost like the robe of a religious. She stood in the descending
darkness, some steps from him. She had pronounced his name, but
was unable to go further. Her white hand, resting on a small
table, trembled; her head was inclined, and she raised to him
eyes which were dim but had a painfully timid and anxious
expression. They looked at each other for a moment, and then he
inquired:

"In what can I serve?"

The question was polite and formal. After a moment of hesitation,
or of collecting her strength, she began:

"Irene and I are to leave here in a few days. It is impossible
for me to do this without speaking to thee, Aloysius. I have
waited for a convenient moment, and seeing thee here, I have
come."

She was silent again. She breathed quickly, and was excited.
Standing toward her in profile, the definite and sharp outline of
his face was fixed on the background of the window, beyond which
was darkness; he inquired:

"What is the question?"

She answered in a whisper:

"Be patient--this is hard for me--"

And as if fearing to exhaust that patience for which she was
begging, the woman began hurriedly, and therefore without order,
to say:

"A common misfortune has struck us--thou hast been, Aloysius, so
kind, so immensely loving to our poor Cara--when I go from here
with, thou wilt be so much alone--Maryan has some project of
travel--so perhaps--if it were possible--if thou couldst forget
the past--I do not know even--forgive--if thou shouldst wish, I
and Irene would remain--"

While speaking she gained some courage; some internal motive was
to be felt in her, which forced her to speak.

"I will not try to justify myself before thee, Aloysius, nor to
deny that I am guilty--I will say only this, that I, too, was
unhappy, and that my fault has caused me dreadful suffering. I
wished to say to thee, Aloysius, that, perhaps, even on thy part
also, for thou didst not know me--that is, thou didst know my
face, my eyes, my hair, the sound of my voice, and they pleased
thee, hence thou didst make me thy wife, but thou didst not know
my soul, and didst not wish to be its confidant, or its defender.
This soul was not devoid of good desires; not without some small
beginning of heartfelt happiness--though it was the unfortunate
soul of a woman attacked by wealth and idleness. But thou,
Aloysius, didst make a rich woman of a girl who, though poor and
a toiler, held her head high--thou didst make her a rich and
unoccupied woman, who--was left to herself at all times. Still,
it was thy wish and demand that I should represent thy name in
society with the utmost effect; thy name; thy firm, as thou didst
call it."

She was silent, for her eyes met his smile which was bristling
with pin-points.

"It seems to me," said he, "that in this tragic piece which it
pleases thee to play, the role of villain will fall to me."

"Oh, no!" cried she, clasping her hands. "Oh, no! I did not wish
to complain of thee in any way, or to make reproaches--I have not
the right--but--I think that since all of us in this world are
guilty in some way, and life is so sad, and all is so--poor, it
would perhaps be better to forgive each other--to yield, to
renounce. This is what I think, and though my pride is wounded
this long time because all that I must use is thine, I yield, and
I will use it, though my only wish is to go from here, to
withdraw from the world, to vanish forever in some lonely
corner--"

Her voice quivered, shaken by sobbing, but she restrained herself
and finished:

"I will renounce this desire, and remain, if--only thou wish--if
only thou wilt not despise me--"

With his profile outlined more and more sharply on the
window-pane, which grew darker from the gloom, he answered, after
a moment of silence:

"I have not the strength for it. I am very sorry; but in me is
not stuff to make the hero of a Christian romance. Thou hast
perfect freedom of movement; Krynichna belongs to thy daughter.
Thou mayst vanish with her in that 'lonely corner,' in which I
cannot wish pleasant lives to you, or remain and live here as
hitherto, which I could understand better; but in no case--"

He stopped suddenly, and was silent.

While speaking with that woman he had felt beneath his throat a
coil of snakes stifling him, but in his brain certain memories
were sounding, as it were voices, the echo of something distant.
This echo issued from that woman's features, changed and faded,
though the same in which on a time he had fixed his eyes with
rapture, from the sound of her voice, which, at all times, had
possessed for him a charm beyond description. His head, as if
pressed by something above him and invisible, dropped with an
almost indiscernible movement. Shall he forgive? And what would
the result be? An idyl? Harmony? A return to family happiness?
Folly!

That can never be. Only one thing in this world is undoubted and
indestructible: a fact. A fact has taken place, and there is no
power in existence to cause that fact not to be. All views except
this are exaltation! After a moment of silence he finished coldly
and with deliberation:

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