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.

The old n.o.ble sighed.

"Dost thou believe, girl," inquired he, "that I love thee?"

"I believe," answered she, bending and kissing his hand.

"Though thou believe," said he, stroking her bright head with great tenderness, "thou knowest not clearly that thou art my whole consolation. Rarely do I permit myself words such as these, and rarely do I tell that which my heart feels, since former suffering is concealed in it. But thou shouldst understand that I have only thee in the world. I would increase hourly, not thy disappointment, pain, and trouble, but thy joy and happiness. I do not ask what began to bud in thy heart, but I will say this to thee: whether that was, as I think, a pure, sisterly feeling, or something more, that young man was unworthy.

He has heaped on us ingrat.i.tude in return for our sincere friendship.

My Anulka, thou wouldst deceive thyself wert thou to think that the priest wrote this letter without Yatsek's knowledge. They wrote it together and knowest why they replied with such insolence? As I have heard, Tachevski got money from that Armenian in Yedlinka. That is what he needs, and now since he has it he cares for naught else, and for no one any longer. This is the truth, and in thy soul thou must acknowledge that to think otherwise would be willing self-deception."

"I see," answered Anulka.

Pan Gideon meditated awhile as if he were dwelling on something.

"People say," added he finally, "that it is a vice of old people to praise past times and lay blame on the present. But no, this is not a vice. The world is growing worse, people are becoming worse. In my day no man would have acted as has Tachevski. Dost thou know the first cause of this? That night on the tree, which exposed this lord cavalier to the ridicule of people. To hurry, as it were, to help some one and then climb a tree out of terror, may happen, but in such a case it is better not to boast of it, for the thing is ridiculous, ridiculous! I do not hold up the Bukoyemskis or Pan Stanislav as heroes: they are drunkards, road-blockers, gamblers--I know them! Our lives were less in their minds than were wolf skins. But there is lurking in this Yatsek such envy that he could not forgive them that chance aid which they gave us. Out of that rose the duel. May G.o.d punish me if I had not reason to be angry. Ha, they made friends after the duel, for it is clear that our cavalier understood that he could get money from Pan Serafin, so he preferred to turn his malice against this mansion.

Pride, animosity, ingrat.i.tude, and greed, those are the things which he has manifested, and nothing better. He has injured me. Never mind. G.o.d forgive him! But why should he attack thee, my dear flower? A neighbor for long years, a guest for long years--daily visits. A gypsy in such a position would become faithful; a swallow grows used to its roof; a stork returns to its nest; but he spat on our house as soon as he felt in his purse the coin of the Armenian. No! No! No man in my day would have acted in that style."

Anulka listened with her palms on her temples, and with eyes looking out before her in fixedness, so Pan Gideon stopped and looked at her once, and a second time.

"Why dost thou forget thyself?" asked he.

"I have not forgotten myself, but I am so sad that words have deserted me."

And not finding words she found tears.

Pan Gideon let her cry till she had finished.

"It is better," said he at last, "to let that sadness pa.s.s off with tears than let it stay in the heart and be petrified. Ah, it is hard!

Let him go, let him clink other men's coin, let him touch the mud with his saddle-cloth, let him strut as a lord, and court Warsaw harlots.

But we will remain here, my girl. That is no great delight, it is true, but still it is a delight, if thou remember that no one in this house will deceive thee, no one here will offend thee, no one will break thy heart; that here thou wilt be always as an eye in the head of each person, that thy happiness will be the first question always, and also the last question of my life. Come--"

He stretched his arms toward her, and she fell on his breast with emotion and grat.i.tude, as she would on the breast of a father who was comforting her in a moment of suffering.

Pan Gideon fell to stroking her bright head with the one hand that remained to him, and long did they sit there in silence. Meanwhile it was growing dark, the frosty window-panes glittered in the moonlight, and dogs made themselves heard here and there with prolonged barking.

The warmth of the maiden's body penetrated to the heart of Pan Gideon which began to beat with more vigor, and since he feared to make a declaration too early, he would not expose himself then to temptation.

"Stand up, child," said he. "Thou wilt not weep now?"

"I will not," answered she, kissing his hand.

"Seest thou! Ah, this is it! Remember always the place where thou hast a sure refuge, and where it will be calm for thee, and pleasant. Every young man is glad to race over the world like a tempest, but for me thou art the only one. Fix this well in mind. More than once, perhaps, hast thou thought, 'My guardian seems a savage wolf; he is glad to find some one to shout at, and he has no understanding of my young ideas;'

but knowest thou of what this guardian has thought and is thinking at present? Often of his past happiness, often of that pain, which like an arrow is fixed in his heart--that is true, but besides that only of thee and thy future, only of this: to secure every good thing for thee.

Pan Grothus and I talked whole hours of this. He laughed because, as he said, one thought alone remained with me. My one point was to secure to thee after my death even a sufficient and quiet morsel."