Part 22 (1/2)
said Radionek. ”Let me wait upon you as I used to do.”
”Ah, no, no, my child! sit down beside me; tomorrow they will take you away again. Do not leave me, I beg you. But you are cold out here; the dew is falling. Come inside, my child.”
When the fire kindled by Huluk began to light up the room with its bright red flames, the old man, as he looked at Radionek, perceived that his parents, although they had not had time to change his dress entirely, had nevertheless considerably altered his costume. His mother had found for him in her closet a fine white s.h.i.+rt, had tied a pretty cravat around his neck, had washed, combed, and curled his beautiful golden hair, had fastened a girdle round his waist, put one of his father's caps on his head, and poured over his clothing a perfumed essence. These changes in the child's dress seemed to Iermola so many signs of abjuration, of bondage, so many new fetters belonging to his new position; he sighed as he examined them, though the child was charming to look at in this half-altered costume. They were silent for a moment, for the old man had grown sad again; he gazed at the child, and was troubled as he thought of the future.
”To-morrow,” said he to himself, ”they will come for him, and take him away again; the poor child will not be able to come back to me any more,--they will keep a strict watch over him. Who knows, perhaps they may punish him for having returned to comfort his old father.--Are you happier with them?” he asked after a moment. ”Give me at least the comfort of knowing that you are happy.”
”I was comfortable; but I was sad,” answered the boy. ”My grandfather's body is laid out on a bed; the priests are chanting in the great hall.
My mother kept me by her side all day and asked me all about what I did here. She made me tell her all about our life; she clasped her hands and cried, and every moment she thanked you and thanked G.o.d. They gave me something to eat, petted me, and kissed me. They wanted to change my clothes entirely, but I begged them so hard not to do it that at last they let me alone; but they have sent for a tailor to make me some new clothes. My father said”--that name, given by Radionek to the lord Jan Druzyna, struck sadly on the poor man's ears--”my father said that he should get a tutor to instruct me; and he has given me a pretty horse.”
”G.o.d grant that you may always be happy there!” sighed the old man. ”I am sure they will love you; but I am also sure that you will more than once long for our cabin and the peaceful days you spent in it.”
They would thus have pa.s.sed the rest of the night, talking and without sleeping, if Iermola, fearing Radionek might be sick, had not made him go to bed; he then sat down beside him to watch over him and see him sleep. In the morning the anxious father came; and though he did not scold the child, he told him in a gentle voice of the dreadful fright his imprudence had caused his mother. This made Radionek sad; he looked down and made no reply.
”To prevent the recurrence of such an adventure,” said Druzyna, ”we will take Iermola to Malyczki; there is a vacant room in the house, and we will care for him as he has cared for you.”
”No, no!” answered the old man, shaking his head, ”I will not go to live with you; I love my child dearly, but I will not go. I am now accustomed to being my own master; it would be hard for me to eat the bread of dependence in my old age. I should soon repent of the change and get tired of it. Some one or other would laugh at me, would say something to wound me; that would cause me suffering, and trouble the child too. Your servants have no respect for strangers; they would think they were doing me a favour. No, a thousand times no! I will stay here.”
It was in vain that Radionek's father begged, supplicated, and endeavoured to persuade the old man. Iermola kissed his child and pressed him in his arms, kept him by his side, wept over him, blessed him, and at last sat down on the door-sill as though awaiting death.
Very strange indeed are often the destinies of men and the decrees of G.o.d. In some cases the thread of life breaks, though spun of pure gold and s.h.i.+ning silk; in others, neither pain nor sorrow can succeed in breaking the black, shadowy thread which they shake with their cruel hands. Iermola survived the separation, and could not die. He was sick; he grew old again; he stooped, and became gloomy and taciturn; he entered upon another phase of life; but his vital forces, which he had not squandered, still sustained him. Fate had deprived him of everything but seeing the child at a distance, the power of tormenting himself, of longing, and of comforting himself with memories.
After Radionek was gone, he gave up his trade of potter, giving up all his implements and materials to Huluk, who had learned something from watching him work. For his part, he contented himself henceforth in his garden and in the little home he had made for himself, spending his days sometimes dreaming and musing in the room where he had reared his child, sometimes in making long visits and holding long talks with his friend, the widow.
She was the only person, in fact, who really understood him and would listen to him patiently. The similarity of their positions had established a real sympathy between them. He was filled with compa.s.sion for her, because she was deprived of the presence of Horpyna, who since she had become a great lady no longer came to see her mother; and she mourned and longed for Radionek almost as much as he did himself.
They spent long hours talking together before the fire, recalling happy times, and though they had a hundred times repeated the same story, each of them knew how to listen patiently when the same chain of remembrances fell again from their lips.
”Do you remember how pretty my Horpyna was when she dressed herself on Sunday to go to the _cerkiew?_ You would not recognize her now, since she has nursed her five children, she is so thin and changed, though she eats fine white bread and leads the life of a great lady. Oh, it is not a healthy life; the body and the soul perish together.”
”And my Radionek,” answered the old man, ”wasn't he much prettier with his little _sukmane_ and his shaved head, than in the fine clothes they make him wear now?”
At first Radionek came every day to see his foster-father, sometimes alone, sometimes with a servant, or with either his father or mother; after a while he only came to Popielnia in a carriage on Sunday. At last he came no longer; and the old man about once a month, when his desire to see his child became insupportable, would drag himself along with the aid of his stick to the places frequented by his beloved charge, hoping to see him, if only for a moment at a distance.
At first also, Radionek would rush to the old man as soon as he saw him; no one could stop him, so intense was his feeling and so swift his motion.
Then when Iermola would send in his name, he would be obliged to wait a moment; gradually he would have to wait sometimes an hour; and it happened once that after having waited all day long at the door, he did not see his child, and went away in tears.
They took him to the farm and gave him something to eat; but it was not bodily nourishment which the old man needed, it was the pleasure of seeing and having his child once more, of feasting and living in his presence, which alone could satisfy him and restore peace and comfort to his home.
Iermola did not complain; he knew very well that his child, his dear child, was not to blame for this neglect and desertion; that Radionek's parents and tutors endeavoured by every means in their power to make him forget the existence of his adoptive father; and that the child, whenever he could see him, would whisper to him with tears that he would like to run away and go back to Popielnia.
XVII.
IN BONDAGE.
Iermola's pupil was soon scarcely to be recognized; the hearty village child when dressed in the costume of the n.o.bility, fed on choice and delicate food, and shut up between four walls quickly began to grow pale and dwindle away.
And although he had grown rapidly tall and slender, he was like a tall frail plant which the least breath of wind could overturn.