Eva herself says that she has never seen such a child.

Uncommon.

CHAPTER XXII.

For some months we are in Warsaw.

I have fitted up a splendid studio. We visit the Ostrynskis rather frequently. He has sold "The Kite," and is now "President of the Society for Distributing Barley Grits to Laborers out of Employment." Nothing can give an idea of his lordliness or the gratitude with which he is surrounded. He pats me on the shoulder and says to me: "Well, benefactor!" He patronizes literary talents also, and receives on Wednesdays.

She is as beautiful as a dream. They have no children.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Oh, save me or I die of laughter. Antek and his wife have come home from Paris. She poses as the wife of an artist of golden Bohemia; he wears silk shirts, has a forelock, and wears his beard wedge-form. I understand all; I understand that she could overcome his habits, his character; but how did she conquer his hair?--that remains for me an endless puzzle.

Antek has not stopped painting "corpses;" but he paints also genre pictures of village life. He has great success. He paints portraits too; these, however, with less result, for the carnation always recalls the "corpse."

I asked him, through old friendship, if he is happy with his wife. He told me that he had never dreamed of such happiness. I confess that Kazia has disappointed me in a favorable sense.

I too should be perfectly happy, were it not that Eva begins to be a little weak, and, besides, the poor thing becomes peevish. I heard her crying once in the night. I know what that means. She is pining for the theatre. She says nothing, but she pines.

I have begun a portrait of Pani Ostrynski. She is simply an incomparable woman! Regard for Ostrynski would not restrain me, of course, and were it not that to this hour I love Eva immensely, I know not--

But I love Eva immensely, immensely!

THE END.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES.

Charcoal Sketches were written in the Pico House, Los Angeles, California, in 1878. Perhaps the hotel is in existence yet; in that case the register for the above year contains the signature of Sienkiewicz and the number of his room. These Charcoal Sketches, as the author informed me, are founded on facts observed by him, and give a picture of life in the district where he was born and where he spent his youth.

Ignorance, selfish class isolation, and resultant social helplessness, are depicted in remarkable relief and unsparingly. There is not collective intelligence and strength enough in Barania-Glova to save Repa's wife from ruin and murder. Pan Floss is driven from his land of "Little Progress" and has to pay for Sroda's oxen, which the owner himself turned in on his neighbor's clover; since Pan Floss is a noble and Sroda a peasant, the latter thinks himself justified in taking what he can from the noble in the night or the daytime, by fair means or foul. Pan Skorabevski has no wish to annoy himself in aiding peasants; if he wants anything from them, or wishes to defend himself against them, he calls in Pan Zolzik. The great public forces of Barania-Glova are the vile Zolzik, and Shmul without conscience. Father Chyzik, the priest, considering that his whole business is with another world, has no thought for the temporal welfare of Repa's wife.

The following is a translation of most of the names in Charcoal Sketches:--

_Barania-Glova_ Sheep's Head.

_Burak_ Beet.

_Krucha Wola_ Brittle will.

_Kruchek_ A small raven, or rather a rook.

It is a name given frequently to a dog.

_Lipa_ Basswood.

_Maly Postempovitsi_ Little Progress.

_Oslovitsi_ Asstown.

_Repa_ Turnip.

_Shmul_ Samuel.

_Sroda_ Wednesday.

_White Crawfish_ A phrase meaning eggs.

_Zolzik_ Strangler.

_Zweinos_ Two noses.

Tartar Captivity is a sketch preliminary to "With Fire and Sword."

Though it appears as a fragment of a memoir, it is an original production written by Sienkiewicz in the style of the seventeenth century. Here the author uses for the first time the two main historical elements of Polish society: nobility and the Church. These two elements were raised to an ideal height in the Polish mind. Zdaniborski was a noble sincere and nave, who considered the position and privileges of the nobility to be as sacred and inviolable as those of the Church; both he believed to be the direct product of God's will.

Mayors of the air, referred to in Chapter V., were men appointed to keep alive fires which would fill the air with a smoke disagreeable to the plague or pest, and prevent it, or rather her, from approaching. The plague or pest in the popular mind was represented as a female who went around killing people.

On the Bright Shore. All persons who have read "Children of the Soil"

will remember Svirski, the sympathetic artist in that book; this same Svirski is the hero of the present narrative.

That Third Woman. In this narrative the only character needing explanation is, I believe, the minstrel. In Little Russia and the Ukraine the minstrel called "Kobzar," from kobza, the instrument on which he plays, and also "Did" (grandfather), because he is generally old and sometimes blind, is a prominent figure to this day. In centuries past he played a great part by rousing popular feeling and carrying intelligence from place to place. At present his role is to entertain people who wish to hear either what the minstrel himself improvises, or the ballads of that region. The Duma, or ballad of the Ukraine, is famous.

Let Us Follow Him was written somewhat earlier than "Quo Vadis," and was a tentative sketch in a new field, as was Tartar Captivity, which preceded "With Fire and Sword."