Part 25 (1/2)
Here he struck the letter with the back of his hand, and said,--
”You will observe, gentlemen, that I do not call him 'my very gracious,' but 'my very dear.'”
”He will have enough!” said Pan Serafin, ”read on, my benefactor.”
”Then listen: 'It is known to all citizens of our Commonwealth that only those people know how to observe due politeness in every position who have lived from youth upward among polite people, or who, coming of great blood, have brought politeness into the world with them. Neither the one nor the other has come to your grace as a portion, while on the contrary the Mighty Lord Pan Yatsek Tachevski inherited from renowned ancestors both blood and a lordly spirit. He forgives you your peasant expressions and sends back your peasant gifts. Rustics keep inns in cities and also eating-houses on country roads for the entertainment of people. If you will send to the great Lord Pan Yatsek Tachevski the bill for such entertainment as he received at your house he will pay it, and add such gratuity as seems proper to his generous nature.'”
”Oh, as G.o.d is dear to me!” exclaimed Pan Serafin, ”Pan Gideon will have a rush of blood!”
”Ha! it was necessary to bring down his pride, and at the same time to burn the bridges. Yatsek himself wanted that-- Now listen to what I write from myself to him: 'I have inclined Pan Tachevski to see that though the bow is yours, the poisoned arrow with which you wished to strike that worthy young gentleman was not in your own quiver. Since reason in men, and strength in their bones, weaken with years, and senile old age yields easily to suggestions from others, it deserves more indulgence. With this I end, adding as a priest and a servant of G.o.d, this: that the greater the age, the nearer life's end, the less should a man be a servant of hatred and haughtiness. On the contrary, he should think all the more of the salvation of his soul, a thing which I wish your grace. Amen. Herewith remaining, etc. I subscribe myself, etc.'”
”All is written out accurately,” said Pan Serafin; ”nothing to be added, nothing taken away.”
”Ha!” said the priest, ”do you think that he gets what he deserves?”
”Oi! certain words burnt me.”
”And me,” added Lukash. ”It is sure that when a man hears such speeches he wants to drink, just as on a hot day.”
”Yatsek, attend to those gentlemen. I will seal the letter and send it away.”
So saying he took the ring from his finger and went to the alcove. But while sealing the letter some other thought came to his head, as it happened, for when he returned, he said,--
”It is done. The affair is over. But do you not think it too cutting?
The man is old, it may cost him his health. Wounds given by the pen are no less effective than those by the sword or the bullet.”
”True! true!” said Yatsek, and he gritted his teeth.
But just this exclamation of pain decided the matter. Pan Serafin added,--
”My revered benefactor, your scruples are honorable, but Pan Gideon had no scruples whatever; his letter struck straight at the heart, while yours strikes only at malice and pride. I think, therefore, that it ought to be sent.”
And the letter was sent. After that still more hurried preparations were made for Yatsek's departure.
CHAPTER VIII
But Tachevski's friends did not foresee that the priest's letter would be in a certain sense useful to Pan Gideon, and serve his home policy.
He did not indeed receive it without anger. Yatsek, who so far had been merely an obstacle, became thenceforth, though not the author of the letter, an object of hatred. That hatred in the stubborn old heart of Pan Gideon bloomed like a poison flower, but his ingenious mind determined to use the priest's letter. In view of this he restrained his fierce rage, his face a.s.sumed a look of contemptuous pity, and he went with the answer to Anulka.
”Thou hast paid toll, and art a.s.saulted for doing so,” said he. ”I did not wish this, for I am a man of experience, and I know people; but when thou didst clasp thy hands and say that injustice had been done, that I had exceeded in sternness, and thou hadst been too severe to him, that he ought not to leave us in anger, I yielded. I sent him a.s.sistance in money. I sent him a horse. I wrote him a nice letter also. I thought he would come and bow down, give us thanks, take farewell as became a man who had spent so much time in this mansion; but see what he has sent me in answer!”
At these words he drew the priest's letter from his girdle and gave it to the young lady. She began to read, and soon her dark brows met in anger, but when she reached the place where the priest declared that Pan Gideon wished to humiliate Yatsek, thanks to the suggestions of another, her hands trembled, her face became scarlet, then grew as pale as linen, and remained pale.
Though Pan Gideon saw all this he feigned not to see it.
”May G.o.d forgive them for what they attribute to me,” said he, after a moment of silence. ”He alone knows whether my ancestors are much below the Tachevskis, of whose greatness more fables than truth are related.
What I cannot forgive is this: that they pay thee, my poor dear, for thy kindness of an angel, with such ingrat.i.tude.”
”It was not Pan Yatsek who wrote this, but Father Voynovski,” answered Anulka, seizing, as it were, the last plank of salvation.