Part 20 (1/2)
At last the father aroused from the momentary state of stupefaction into which his wife's words had thrown him; he sighed, and going up to his wife, spoke to her for a moment in a low voice.
”Whether you are willing or not,” said he, aloud, in a stern voice, ”you will be obliged to give the child up to us; he is ours, and we have witnesses of the fact. But you may ask anything you desire in exchange.”
Iermola trembled and rose quickly to his feet.
”The child does not know you,” he cried; ”you will be obliged to take him by force. I will not give him up to you of my own free will, for he is not your child. I will bring witnesses to contradict yours. This is not the child of a gentleman; he is a villager, a working boy, an orphan. Call him; you do not even know his name; and he will not listen to you, for he does not know your voice.”
”Why, the old man is insane,” cried Jan Druzyna, trembling with rage.
”Very well; we shall be compelled to resort to other means,--to those which our rights grant us. Do you, then, wish to deprive the child of the advantages and benefits of the position to which he was destined?”
”What position? What destiny?” replied the old man, proudly. ”Ask him if he has ever been unhappy with me,--if he wants anything more, if he needs anything. I know the sort of life which is lived in the _dwors_ where I have been. Do not destroy my peace; do not desolate my old age; do not take away my child.”
The young mother then drew near him and took him by the hand.
”My father, my brother,” said she; ”I understand your grief, I know what you lose in losing this child; but I, have I not swallowed my tears for twelve long years? Would you have the heart to refuse an unfortunate mother her dearest joy, her only treasure? Would you be so cruel as to force us to be ungrateful? No, you will come with us; you will rejoice when you see the child's happiness, and you will share ours.”
These words of the mother went deeper into Iermola's heart; he became more like himself, dried his tears, and said in a low voice,--
”Oh, the hour has come before which I would rather have died! For so many years I have seen it in my dreams, I feared every shadow, I dreaded each stranger, thinking he came to take away from me the child of my old age. I trembled; I prayed G.o.d that He would let me die first, but He has purposely prolonged my days. May He receive the present hour as an expiation for all my sins!”
During this conversation, Radionek, agitated, troubled, and not knowing what to do, looked first at the old man and then at his parents. His father's eyes expressed great impatience, mingled with tenderness and a certain irritation; his mother wore a more quiet expression, more compa.s.sionate and gentle. Iermola felt his strength forsake him again; he once more fell into his seat, his head bent down, his hands clasped.
The conversation, thus abruptly disturbed, was resumed, but in a more peaceful and ordinary tone. Druzyna had evidently intended to take his son away at once; but an hour pa.s.sed, night came on, and he still did not know what to do. Iermola, overcome, no longer offered any resistance; he kept silence, exhausted, and only questioned the child with his eyes.
”Come, let us go,” said the young man at last, as he turned toward his wife. ”We will come back to see him to-morrow.”
”But the child?”
Radionek heard the words; frightened, he threw himself into the arms of his adoptive father, and Iermola, touched and grateful, pressed him to his breast.
”You are a good dear child,” he cried. ”You will not go away from me; you will not leave me alone; you will not forget your old father. You know I should die without you; you can do as you like when you have closed my eyes. And may G.o.d's eternal blessings follow you then!”
Druzyna, who was gazing in silence upon this scene, led, or rather dragged his wife away by force, carried her to the carriage, and ordered the coachman to return home. Chwedko set off for the village, where he spread this important piece of news.
After Druzyna's departure, there was no visible change in the old inn, but the peace and happiness which the day before had reigned beneath that thatched roof had flown away. Iermola, silent and motionless, remained seated on the door-sill; Radionek at times wept quietly, and at others gave himself up to dreamy meditation. Then they drew near each other and spoke a few sad, tender words in a low voice. The morning found them still in the door-sill, half asleep, and cowering in each other's arms as though they feared some one would come to separate them.
The broad daylight, as it opened their eyes to the sun, which dispels the terrors of night and revives the forces of life, brought back to them the remembrance of the events of the day before; but it presented them in another light, and awoke in them other sentiments, which gathered about each event, each serious thought, like mercenary servants grouped around a coffin. A thousand ideas, a thousand confused impressions crowded upon their minds, each struggling with the other to clear away the difficulty.
Neither the old man nor Radionek felt himself capable of working that morning. The ordinary course of their life had been interrupted; they did not know what to do with themselves. In the child's mind arose, now a thousand images of a brilliant, an unknown future, now regret for past days filled with so much happiness, and which would never return.
He tried to recall the features of his mother, those of his young father whom he had seen only in the dim twilight. Sometimes his heart leaned toward them; sometimes he trembled, agitated by a feeling of fear. What would become of him near them? Would he be better or worse than here? And in either case, he would be obliged to begin a new life, to leave his peaceful corner, go to a strange house, renounce all his old happiness, and bid adieu to what he had loved so well.
Iermola dreamed also; the new day had brought him new thoughts.
According to his custom, he went to see the widow, as he always did when he felt in need of some one to talk to.
”Are you crazy?” cried the old woman as she saw him. ”How could you yesterday evening have been so obstinate as to keep the child, just as if you had any sort of prospects for him? And besides, he is the son of a lord; he has his position already given him. And could it have done you any harm to go to the _dwor_ with Radionek and live peacefully, enjoying his good fortune?”
”Yes, yes! but how could I be to him there what I have been to him up to this hour? I should no longer be his father; I should become his serving-man. They would take his heart away from me little by little; they would spoil and ruin my child. Do I not know something about the life of lords and rich people? Food a little more delicate, clothes a little finer, words a little smoother; but are they happier? G.o.d knows we cannot tell anything about it. Ask them if they do not weep in secret, if there are no sad moments spent under their roofs, if their happiness is as great, as pure, as it appears from a distance.”
”It is doubtless your great grief which causes you to talk in this way,” cried the widow, shrugging her shoulders. ”Their life is not like ours, that is certain. If our fate is the better of the two, why is it that all do not wish to live as we do? It is indeed a rare thing that a great lord is willing of his own accord to live as we do; while each one of us, on the contrary, would like to taste their bread. But the truth must be told.”