Part 34 (1/2)

The bell ceased. But the men had not yet had time to get their breath before the news spread from the village that the policeman had escaped. The peasants came running one after the other, talking and shouting:

”The policeman has made off! We went into his room when the bell began to ring, and he had gone.”

”He escaped through the larder. The miller's daughter had warned him.”

”Of course; we saw her go in! She gave him the tip. It was she!”

”That's a lie!” the miller bawled, springing towards them and threatening them with his fists.

”We all know that she got herself into trouble with the policeman--all of us!” the women cried; and everyone suddenly knew something about the matter, and put in his word.

Then Jedrzej began to speak again: ”You people, listen! Brothers! We have punished only these; but the biggest thief has run away. We must catch him.... For that is how we will punish everyone who does wrong to the people, steals, and is a traitor. Jump on your horses and hunt him down! Quick! Get on your horses, you fellows! He has made off to the town; catch him! Alive or dead, we must get him! Hurry up there, or else he may play us a dirty trick! Look sharp!”

They poured out of the churchyard and ran hurriedly towards the village. In no time a number of peasants were tearing towards the town at full speed, their horses scattering the mud from under their feet.

The village became almost deserted, except for a few women in the churchyard, who were crying bitterly.

Keeping to the middle of the road, and heedless of the sleet beating into his face, the miller dragged himself homewards. He breathed with difficulty, and often paused, sighing heavily. At times he staggered, at times he stopped short, as though petrified; and now and then a low, pained whisper broke from the depth of his tortured heart.

”You--my daughter! So that's what you are!--With the policeman!” he repeated involuntarily.

And he clenched his fist in his bitterness; but he was trembling as in a fever, and heavy tears rolled fast down his face.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] The greeting usual among peasants.

[19] The colloquial name for policeman.

[20] The Uniats are forbidden by the Russian Government to be baptized, married, etc., by their own or Roman Catholic priests.

[21] Children are only allowed to attend specially licensed schools--one of the measures taken by the Russian Government to prevent Polish subjects from being taught.

THE STRONGER s.e.x

By STEFAN ZEROMSKI

DR. PAWEL OBARECKI returned home in rather a bad temper from a whist-party, where he had been paying his respects to the priest, in company with the chemist, the postmaster and the magistrate, for sixteen successive hours, beginning the previous evening. He carefully locked the door of his study so that no one, not even his housekeeper, aged twenty-four, should disturb him. He sat down at the table, glared angrily at the window without knowing why, and drummed on the table with his fingers. He realized that he was in for another fit of his ”metaphysics.”

It is a well-established fact that a man of culture who has been cast out by the irresistible force of poverty from the centres of intellectual life into a small provincial town succ.u.mbs in time to the deadening effects of wet autumn, lack of means of communication, and the absolute impossibility of sensible conversation for days together.

He develops into a carnivorous and vegetable-eating animal, drinks an excessive quant.i.ty of bottled beer, and becomes subject to fits of weariness resembling the weakness that precedes physical sickness. He swallows the boredom of a small town unconsciously, as a dog swallows dirt with his food. The actual process of decay begins at the moment when the thought ”Nothing matters” takes hold of the organism. This was the case with Dr. Obarecki of Obrzydlwek. At the period of his life when this story begins, he had already come to the end of the resources of Obrzydlwek as regards his brain, his heart, and his energy.

He had an unconquerable horror of intellectual effort, could walk up and down his study for hours together, or lie on the couch with an unlighted cigar in his mouth, straining his ear to catch a sound which would foretell an interruption of the oppressive silence, anxiously longing for something to happen: if only someone would come and say something, or even turn somersaults! The autumn usually oppressed him specially; there was something painful in the silence brooding over Obrzydlwek from end to end on a late autumn afternoon--something despairing that roused one to an inward cry for help. As though a fine cobweb were being spun across it, his brain elaborated ideas which were sometimes coa.r.s.e and occasionally positively absurd.

His only diversion was whistling and his conversations with his housekeeper. They turned on the remarkable superiority of roast pork stuffed with buckwheat to pork with any other kind of stuffing; but at times they became very improper.

The sky was frequently half covered by a cloud resembling enormous bays and promontories; unable to disperse, it would lie motionless, threatening to burst suddenly over Obrzydlwek and the distant lonely fields. The fine snow from this cloud would fasten in crystals on the window-panes, while the wind made weird penetrating sounds like an exhausted baby crying out its last sobs close by at a corner of the house. Stripped of their leaves and lashed by the driving snow, wild pear trees swayed their branches over the distant field paths....

There was something of a catarrhal melancholy in this landscape, which unconsciously induced sadness and restless fear. The same chronic melancholy lasted in a diminis.h.i.+ng degree through the spring and summer. Without any tangible cause, a malignant sadness had settled in the doctor's heart. He had fallen into a fatal state of idleness, so that it had even become too much effort to read Alexis' novels.

Dr. Pawel's ”metaphysics,” with which he was seized from time to time, consisted in a few hours' severe self-examination. This was followed by a violent inflowing of memories, a hasty ama.s.sing of shreds of knowledge, and a furious struggle of all his n.o.bler instincts against the stifling inactivity; he indulged in reflections, outbursts of bitterness, firm resolutions, and projects. Naturally all this led to nothing, and pa.s.sed in time like any other more or less acute illness.