Part 28 (1/2)

I set out about five o'clock, relying on the kindness--or unkindness--of the frost, which, if it had sent out its murderous ”chijus,” could have completely upset my plans by driving me to the nearest acquaintance's house. But, fortunately for me, although the frost was fiendish, it was as silent as the grave. The terrible ”chijus” had not yet left its Polar hiding-place, and the air was absolutely still. Thanks to this circ.u.mstance, I reached the place unharmed.

The echo of my footsteps, with the creaking snow under my boots, played sharply and shrilly round the two unheated rooms through which I was obliged to pa.s.s in order to reach the inhabited part of the house. It seemed to be even colder here than out of doors. The windows were boarded up. But although in the impenetrable darkness I hit against fragments of pots and other useless lumber at every turn, and they tumbled about or broke with a crash, though the door grated on its rusty hinges, none of the people living there even looked out or paid any attention to it. At last I came into the inhabited part of the house.

It was not much lighter in the large room than in those through which I had just pa.s.sed. A thin tallow candle on a shoemaker's low bench barely lighted one corner of the room. Two people were working at the bench.

The one sitting nearer me, a tall thin man, unmistakably a born shoemaker, was knocking wooden pegs into a sole with an expert and sure hand. He had not been long in the town, but he already had plenty of work, and would be certain not to remain long in this solitude.

The second, sitting farther off, a handsome man, was considerably shorter than Pan Jzef. He was planing and polis.h.i.+ng a heel, but slowly, without that deftness with which Pan Jzef worked. One glance at the short shoemaker's face would have been enough to convince the most ardent opponent of all theories on heredity that this man had not always sat at a cobbler's bench.

As a matter of fact, Pan Jan Horodelski had once been a medical student; later ... but what he was later could not be told in two evenings. He had now been a shoemaker for five years, and, to speak the candid truth, a drunken shoemaker. His bad habit did not allow him even to think of carrying on business for himself; he therefore wandered round to all the local workshops, using other people's tools, and finding life very hard. Each master took a large percentage for the tools, and it is probable that Pan Jzef charged him no less than other masters did.

His spirit had once been proud and audacious, but life had bruised it and trodden it into the dust. Some souls emerge thence not only beautiful and n.o.ble, but even strong. Horodelski had not that strength which braves all storms, and was now a permanent inhabitant of this solitude. His days were numbered; the intellect and knowledge he once possessed made him now fully conscious of his condition and filled up his cup of bitterness, the depth of which was known only to himself.

It was either the seal of death on his forehead, or possibly other and deeper reasons, which gave his face its particular expression. I said before that it was the face of a very handsome man, and I ought to add that it also expressed that gentleness and tenderness which belongs essentially to feminine beauty, and that it was stamped with indescribable sadness. He varied a good deal in his behaviour; his way of expressing himself and his manners frequently betrayed the influence of the surroundings in which he had been living for long past. Frequently--though not always--he could control himself, however, and then there appeared on his face a new sign of the manhood not yet completely crushed--namely, a blush of shame at his present position.

The shoemakers, as became busy men, did not even move on their stools when I entered. I therefore took off my things and brushed away the h.o.a.r-frost in silence, and it was only when I went up nearer to them that they both raised their bent heads, welcoming me with a friendly smile. As he was holding his pegs in his teeth, Pan Jzef was able to offer me his hand, dropping it again immediately with a mechanical movement, and murmuring something indistinctly. Horodelski, after giving his greeting, looked at the heel, still unfinished, and, setting the boot on the ground, exclaimed with a sigh: ”Well, that's finished!”

This was his favourite expression.

”What's finished?” I asked, however.

”Everything,” came the equally stereotyped answer.

”Except the heel,” Pan Jzef muttered, taking the last peg from his teeth.

”It's possible the heel may get done too--that is, of course, if I don't leave this cursed ruin and go back to the church clerk,”

Horodelski answered quickly.

”Are you uncomfortable here, or what's up?” chaffed Pan Jzef. ”The Lord be praised, it's a good workshop, there are enough tools--and rooms, too; if you like, you can dance a quadrille.”

But Horodelski did not listen, and continued:

”Yes, it may very possibly be that I shall give up shoemaking, if only for as long as I stay with the clerk. I shall leave it just because this shoemaker has made it as clear as day to me that I am no good at my trade, and can only be a.s.sistant to a bungling clerk.”

Pan Jzef t.i.ttered, highly pleased, and was just preparing to answer suitably, when a grave ba.s.s voice interrupted him.

”You may go to the clerk or not, but you'll never be a shoemaker.”

The ba.s.s voice came from a dark corner of the same room. I therefore looked more attentively in that direction.

On a low plank bed, with his head bent forward, and emptying his pipe, sat a stalwart peasant, known as Bartek the Shepherd.

”Why not?” I asked, greeting the speaker.

”Why not?” Bartek answered. ”Because no one can escape his destiny. A dog can't become a b.i.t.c.h, nor a woman a man.”

”That is quite a different matter.”

”So you'd think; but it's really all the same. Take me, for example.