Part 23 (2/2)

We began to read the letters. The letter from his wife contained the usual account of daily worries, interspersed with wishes for his return and the hope of yet seeing him. The letter from his son, who had finished his apprentices.h.i.+p as journeyman joiner half a year ago, was sufficiently frivolous. After telling his father that he was now free, he wrote that, as he could not always get work, he was unable to make the necessary amount of money to buy himself a watch, and he begged his father to send him thirteen roubles or more for this purpose. I finished reading this, and looked at the shoemaker, who was carefully watching the impression the letter was making on me. I tried to look quite indifferent; whether I succeeded to any extent I do not know, for I did not look straight at him. But I was convinced after a moment that my efforts had been vain, for I heard the anxious question: ”Well, and what else, sir?” It was clear that his son's letter was very painful to him, even more so than I had supposed.

”Here am I, trying and working all I can, so that in case I return there may be something to live upon and I mayn't have to beg in my old age, and that fool----”

We both began to remonstrate with him that it was unnecessary to take this to heart, and that his son was probably--in fact, certainly--a very good lad, only perhaps a little spoilt, especially if he was the only child.

”Of course he is the only one, for I have never even seen him.”

”How--never?”

”Yes, really never; because--I remember it as if it were to-day--it was five o'clock in the evening. I was doing something in the backyard, when my neighbour, Kwiatkowski, called out to me from behind the wooden fence: 'G.o.d help you, Stanislaw, for they are coming after you!' I only had time to run up to the window and call out: 'Good-bye, Basia; remember St. Stanislaw will be his patron!' That's all I said.

Basia was confined shortly after, but I didn't see her again. So it was a good thing I said it, for now there'll always be something to remember me by.”

”G.o.d be praised that it's so! but if it hadn't been a son----”

Maciej did not finish his sentence, however, for the offended shoemaker began to reprimand him sternly.

”You are talking nonsense, Maciej, and it is not for the first time!

Does not the Church also give the name of St. Stanislawa? Besides, though I am a sinner as every man is, couldn't I guess that a word spoken at a moment like that would carry weight with the Almighty?

Isn't everything in G.o.d's hand?”

Maciej looked down, and a deep sigh was the only testimony to the shoemaker's eloquence.

Stanislaw's explanation of the circ.u.mstances lightened our task very much, and when he had remembered that the mother never complained of her son--on the contrary, was always satisfied with him--we succeeded in calming his excessive anxiety concerning the fate of his only child. In order to settle the matter thoroughly, it was decided to ask some responsible and enlightened person to examine the lad as he should think fit and to keep an eye on him in future, reporting the result of the examination to the father. This was arranged because the mother, being a simple and uneducated woman, was thought to be possibly much too fond of her only son, and an over-indulgent and blind judge. The only question was the choice of the individual--a sufficiently difficult matter; this one had died, that one had grown rich, the other had lately taken to drink. We meditated long, and would have meditated still longer, if finally the shoemaker had not said firmly, with the air of a man persuaded that he is speaking to the point:

”We will write to the priest!” And when Maciej, glad that the troublesome deliberation was over--possibly, also, in order to regain his position after having just said a stupid thing--hastily supported this with, ”Yes, the priest will be best,” I conceded to the majority.

Certain difficulties arose from the fact that the priest was not personally known to Swiatelki, and that, as Maciej put it, ”the priest couldn't be approached just anyhow.” These difficulties were overcome by the business-like shoemaker, who began by ordering a solemn Requiem Ma.s.s for the souls of his parents, for which he sent the priest ten roubles, and in this way commended his son to the kind consideration of his benefactor.

I began to write the letters, of which there were to be three: to his wife, to his son, and to the priest. In the course of my stay in Siberia I had written so many similar letters that I had gained no little facility in this kind of composition. I therefore wrote quickly, only asking for a few particulars. The shoemaker crept from the bed, on which he had hitherto been sitting, to the chair standing by the table, and bending over this followed the movement of my pen attentively, ready to answer any questions. Maciej cleaned out his pipe in silence. I finished the letters, and proceeded to read them.

Stanislaw sent his wife fifty roubles. As he retained a most affectionate remembrance of his faithful Basia, loved her possibly more now than twenty years ago, and could never speak of her without deep emotion, the letter to her corresponded to the feelings of his youth. He was paler than usual as he listened to it, and he tried to say something, but his lips trembled and the words caught in his throat. When the reading was finished, however, Stanislaw wriggled in the way peculiar to him, and, after blowing his nose several times, finally articulated: ”Now I will sign.” Having discovered his spectacles in the table drawer and duly fixed them on his nose, the shoemaker pointed to the place where the signature was to be put, and began:

”Es, tee.” He had already opened his mouth to p.r.o.nounce the third letter, when the incautious Maciej, who had behaved most properly while I was writing, unexpectedly interrupted with:

”If you would also----”

He burst in with this, but of course did not finish. The shoemaker laid down the pen, lifted his head high, so as to look through his spectacles at Maciej--who without doubt was already regretting his ill-timed remark--and said drily:

”Maciej, you are hindering me.”

Maciej grew very red, and, naturally, did not utter another word. The shoemaker finished writing his name without further interruption, and took out the money. In order to avoid mistakes, he at once enclosed it with the letter in an addressed envelope.

However much Stanislaw had wished during our consultation to ”pull the silly fellow's ears,” the letter to his son was indulgent rather than stern. It was easy to guess what that yet unseen son, the one hope of the old burgher family, was to Swiatelki. He had worked perseveringly and honestly for so many years, and had overcome all kinds of difficulties; lonely and neglected, he had pa.s.sed victoriously through the temptations to enrich himself easily with which Siberia beguiles the unsuspecting novice. Doubtless he owed all this in a certain degree to the honest principles he had brought from his home and country, as well as to his character, but, without any doubt, equally to that son in whose very birth he saw the Hand of G.o.d. It was clear that the poor fellow dreamt of standing before his beloved child as an ascetic dreams of appearing at the Judgment-Seat. The thought that he would be able to tell him--openly and fearlessly--”I have nothing to bring you, my son, but a name unstained by a past full of the gravest temptations,” was the lodestar of his life. Taking this into consideration, therefore, I did not scold the ”silly fool,” but explained to him in an affectionate way what the money was the father was sending to the family--money he had earned by working extremely hard, and frequently by pinching himself. I told the lad what he ought to be and might become, being strong and healthy, and that on this account his wish for money to spend on trifles gave his father pain. I wrote large and distinctly, adapting myself to the young joiner's powers of comprehension, and at the end fervently blessed him in his new walk in life.

The reading of this letter was carried on with constant interruptions, as I stopped to ascertain if I had interpreted the father's feelings and wishes rightly. From the beginning I was sure that this was the case, and became all the more certain of it as I read on. Each time I looked at him inquiringly, Stanislaw answered me hastily: ”Yes, yes, yes, that's just as I wanted it!” But the farther I read the shorter and quicker became the ”Yes, yes.” In the middle of the letter, it is true, he opened his lips once more, but I only saw that they were moving, for they did not utter a sound. I looked up again: his chin was resting on the table, and the tears were flowing down his pale cheeks. He did not make the restless movements peculiar to him when his feelings overflowed. He did not sc.r.a.pe his throat or blow his nose. He merely rested his chin on the table, and, sitting near me by the candle, with its light falling upon him, he quietly cried before us. He did not quiver or sob, but the tears, which had certainly not flowed from those hollow eyes for a long time, streamed from them now.

When he was calm he looked at me with his large, intelligent eyes, and thanked me without raising his head. ”May the Lord repay you--may the Lord repay you!” But Maciej, having already expressed his satisfaction by e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns and indistinct mumbling, now took courage at a longer pause to make quite a speech.

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