"Heavens!"/Chapter 6
VI.
“For eighteen long years Father Cvok was only a curate on the estate before he obtained the meagre living of Záluz̓í. He had not the honour of pleasing her ladyship the baroness, because he is no sycophant, but a man who neither forgets his own dignity nor that of his office, even when in the presence of the gracious patroness herself. For this reason her ladyship purposely overlooked him twice when two lucrative livings were vacant, which he in all right and justice fully deserved. But how could he expect to get either of them? For on one occasion, about ten years ago, when he went to the castle to solicit the living of Rades̓ín, he forgot himself so far as to offer to shake hands with the baroness! Imagine such unheard of presumption! Of course, there was no hope for him after that; the living was given to another, and poor Father Cvok had to hang his head, and go back to his curacy.”
“I can see it all before me,” observed Jenny, deeply interested.
“Now, when Suchdol was vacant, it was the old story all over again, though Heavens was more cautious that time. Before going to the castle on this occasion, he consulted the priest of Radesín as to how he should best manage his application to the baroness, so that he might not again meet with a failure. His friend gave him many excellent hints—namely, to get himself nicely ‘shaven and shorn,’ to put on white gloves, to be careful not to have a particle of dust on his clothes, and to hold his hat in his hand all the time. It would also do no harm, he said, to have his coat a little perfumed with eau-de-Cologne, because an applicant must be careful not to offend even the nose of his gracious patroness. He must also on no account sit down, unless the baroness invited him to do so, and—nota bene—not to attempt to shake hands with her, but to kiss her hand should she offer it to him.
“‘What!’ exclaimed Cvok, angrily. ‘I am a man and a priest, and am I even to kiss the hand of this unjust, puffed-up peahen?’
“‘Well,’ replied the Rades̓ín priest, ‘you know one can’t always do just what one thinks or likes;’ and wound up his counsel by adding, ‘If you drop the least hint that you have any right to the living, you’ll be surely done for.’
“One fine afternoon Heavens went to the audience, all duly prepared; and when he entered the ‘presence’ such an odour exhaled from him that the baroness was almost seized with a fit of sneezing. You know, I suppose, that she cannot bear perfumes of any sort; so poor Cvok was done for even before he opened his lips to deliver his well-prepared speech, which he had learned by heart before setting out. Moreover, when the baroness scrutinized the applicant a little, she remarked (1) that he had a patch on his left boot; (2) that his white cotton gloves were not well washed, and that there was a hole in the second finger of the one on his right hand; (3) that from the sleeve of his right arm protruded a cuff—cleanly washed, it is true, but all frayed out and ragged at the edge; and to crown all, (4) that the heel of his right boot was a good deal trodden down. That finished him! If he had been more saintly than St. Anthony himself, he was not fit for Suchdol—not at all fit; and so Ledecký was the one who got it.”
“And yet, I hear, he and Ledecký are the best of friends, and that Heavens often goes to Suchdol,” observed Jenny.
“There you have a proof of his heavenly disposition,” the doctor’s wife went on. “He cannot be angry with anybody, and never returns evil for evil. Once he said here at this very table: ‘Whenever anybody wrongs me, he does it either intentionally or the contrary. Now, if he wrongs me purposely, it is a fault and weakness of him, and it behoves me, as a man and a Christian, to shut perhaps even both eyes to my brother’s weakness; while, on the other hand, if the wrong is done unintenionally, I have no more right to be angry with him than to abuse the wind when it blows my hat off!’”
“He must be a most uncommon man,” said Jenny, warmly.
“Ledecký is a very good sort of fellow, too,” continued the doctor’s wife. “His principle certainly is, ‘Charity begins at home;’ or, in other words, I in the first place, you in the second; but, for the rest, every one gets on very well with him. And he is not wanting in wit either.”
“And how did Heavens get to Záluz̓í?” inquired Jenny.
“Oh, nobody wore out his boots going to Labutín to ask for Záluz̓í; in fact, there were no applicants for it, and even the gracious lady herself calculated, ‘For Záluží Cvok is good enough.’ And so, on St. Václav’s Day, three years ago, Heavens was installed in that forlorn nest, and lives there, fearing God, and sharing his very poor table with his venerable companion and housekeeper, spinster Naninka. I only wonder where he gets the money for books, for there is a far greater plenty of them in his house than of bread or potatoes.”
“And is Miss Naninka still young?”
“Well, she must have been so once upon a time, I suppose,” replied the doctor’s wife with a smile. “Now, however, she has more than reached the canonical age.”
“And how did friend Cvok come by her?”
“There you have again a piece of his saintly character. After his appointment to Záluz̓í, it came into his mind, ‘Now you must also get a housekeeper. ’ One of the farmers lent him his horses, for a good word, and he drove with them to the town. There he first went to the monastery to see the prior, who knew him from his boyhood, and whom he was in the habit of meeting at Church festivals and on other occasions. The prior congratulated him on his promotion, and asked him very knowingly—
“‘Have you got a housekeeper yet, my reverend brother?’
“‘I am just on the look-out for one,’ Cvok answered, and have come to the town for that very purpose.’
“The prior gave a little smile, and added, ‘Have you any one in particular in view?’
“‘No, I don’t know of any person as yet,’ replied Cvok; and I am, in fact, come to you for advice.’
“The prior gave a start. They had an old cook in the monastery, whom they would gladly have made a present of to any one who would take her; but though they wished to get rid of her, they could not dismiss her without providing for her in some way. So, after a while, the prior said—
“‘For you I would be glad to do something—but only for you, because I know you are so worthy of it. We have a cook in the house—Naninka—who, it’s true, is no longer young; but she knows how to cook perfectly, and is a very proper, honest person altogether. The care of our large household is a little too much for her already; but for you alone she’d be the very thing, and would suit you just as one eye does another. She is a very pious, good soul, and I think if I asked her she’d go with you, perhaps on the spot. Stay with us to dinner, my dear fellow, and after that we can speak to her. I think you’ll have reason to thank me for her.’
“Cvok knew Naninka by sight, and thought to himself, ‘She is an experienced, reliable person, and that is certainly worth something. Then he asked, merely for talk’s sake, ‘Has Naninka any relations?’
“‘She is as lonely as a pole in a hedge,’ the prior answered.
“‘After dinner, then, we will speak to her,’ said Cvok.
“And so they did. The result was that to please the prior she consented to go; and the same evening Father Cvok brought away spinster Naninka with her trunk and bedding to Záluz̓í. Since that time they keep house together faithfully. But you may be sure the housekeeping, such as it is at poor Father Cvok’s, will never cost Naninka either a headache or heartache. In any other place she would not do, of course; but at Záluz̓í no stray guest ever drops in to table.”
“Is Cvok so miserly, then?”
“Oh no; anything but that. He’d give himself and all he has in the world to any one that wanted it. But there is another reason for their having no guests. My husband is coming home; I hear him whistling, which is a sure sign that he is in good humour. He must tell you about Naninka. I won’t let him alone to-day till he does.”
The doctor’s wife jumped up from her seat at the window, slipped to the door of the next room, which she opened a little, and putting in her head, said playfully—
“Do come here, love, for a minute, just for a little word. Here is Miss Jenny from the castle asking you through my sweet mouth to come and tell us what happened at Father Cvok’s house one day.”
The doctor hemmed and cleared his throat, and, entering the room, kissed his wife, without minding the presence of the stranger. He was a man a good deal past thirty, with a slight stoop already. His life as a student had been a very hard one, and even now he was not exactly in clover at Labutín Castle. He saluted Jenny simply, and standing in the middle of the room, said in a voice which did not sound very harmonious—
“Indeed, so you must needs trouble a good-natured fellow! And all the world knows that, as far as telling a story is concerned, I am about as agreeable to listen to as a German hexameter.”
“Oh, never mind that; we have not got silken ears,” said Jenny, encouragingly.
“Well, then, Chaplain Štambera came one day to Father Cvok’s house at Záluz̓í; it was about ten o’clock in the forenoon. I am only telling you what Štambera himself said; but he cannot be trusted as to every word, for he is sometimes, and even pretty often, rather foul But I beg your pardon! I told you, however, that I am as rough as a German hexameter.”
“No harm in that. Go on, please,” urged the companion once more.
“Well, in the priest’s parlour there were present Štambera, Heavens, and spinster Naninka. It was the delightful season of plum-dumplings. Naninka stood at the pastry-board and made ‘nudels.’”
Here the doctor’s wife burst out laughing, till the tears stood in her eyes. The doctor, seeing that he made such an effect, stroked his thick beard complacently, and went on.
“Well, as I said, Naninka was making nudels.” He spoke like an epic poet, quietly and seriously. “Heavens said to Štambera, ‘My dear fellow, stay with us to dinner. You have come a good step on foot, and must be hungry. We have nudel-soup and plum-dumplings to-day.’
“Štambera did not answer immediately, but kept staring at Naninka. You must know that this worthy spinster is very fond of an odorous pinch of snuff.
“Good-natured Father Cvok insisted upon the visitor’s staying to dinner by all means. Štambera, never taking his eyes off Naninka, suddenly started up and said, ‘If you tore my coat off me, I cannot possibly stay to dinner.’
“Heavens, not having the least idea of his real reason for not staying, answered almost crossly, Well, if you must go, go then, by all means!’
“Štambera did go, and what he saw in Záluz̓í that day he did not consider exactly in the light of a confessional secret.”
Both ladies laughed heartily, and the doctor, satisfied with the result of his story, made himself scarce, and disappeared into his own room.
One day, about three weeks later, Jenny came again to pay a visit at the doctor’s, and there made the personal acquaintance of Heavens himself for the first time. The doctor was not at home, being just then out on his professional rounds; and when Jenny entered the parlour she found a priest she had never seen before sitting near the sewing-table of the lady of the house, and engaged in a lively conversation with her.
The doctor’s wife was turning over the leaves of a new book that Cvok had brought her. Jenny knew at the first glance that it must be Father Heavens, and she could not help feeling her heart immediately drawn to him. Half an hour later they understood each other as well as if they had been acquainted all their lives. Cvok spoke freely, without any constraint, but at the same time with the wisdom of a Socrates. During the conversation he called the gracious mistress of Labutín “an over-bearing old hag”— words that Jenny in her heart considered to be well deserved, and quite an objective, truthful criticism; the harshness of which Heavens softened, however, by adding, “The baroness would be, doubtless, a better woman and more humane, if she had only had a more natural education, if the late baron had been a wiser and more energetic man, and if she were not surrounded by a set of mere puppets and sycophants, who, from want of character and for fear of losing their bread, flatter and pamper all her whims, and confirm her in her faults.”
Jenny blushed slightly at the last words; but good Father Cvok did not even remark it, and immediately turned the conversation to another person.
“Baron Mundy is essentially better than his mother. For a man of his age he submits only too patiently, perhaps, to her leading-strings; though I must say I do not think the worse of him for that, because a dutiful son is, at any age, to a certain degree, a pleasant sight; and am inclined to think that when he is once his own master he will turn out a better and a more useful man than his late father ever was. Of course, a great deal will depend on what his own future experience may do for him. Should he meet with what I call real men—men of independent minds and sterling principles, with enlarged ideas of life and its aims—intercourse with such persons will doubtless elevate his own character and widen his views. For I doubt very much if a man who has been brought up in aristocratic fashion, with all the narrow-minded, exclusive prejudices of that class, can develope of himself into a really large-hearted, manly character.”
Again at these words a slight blush passed over Jenny’s cheeks; Cvok’s opinion of Baron Mundy often returned to her mind, and caused her thoughts to be still more frequently occupied with the young nobleman.
When our friend Cvok left the doctor’s house, a good portion of Jenny’s heart and sympathy went with him; and she promised very readily, when taking leave of him, that she would come to see him at Záluz̓í; and, as far as her circumstances at Labutín permitted, she kept her word to the full. People began to remark her frequent visits, and some good gossips privately shook their heads about it. Still more than the people in general, did the old baroness take notice of the fact; but the companion and lady’s maid did her duty so diligently, and acted altogether so openly, that the baroness could not find any handle against her. Even what she heard under cover of secrecy through old Ferdinand did not cast the least shadow upon Jenny’s behaviour, who never went to Záluz̓í without her knowledge and consent , and then only at entirely leisure times.
When the baroness asked her what drew her so much to Záluz̓í, the young lady replied that she found in Father Cvok a man of great piety and excellence, who had , it was true, a rough exterior, but a truly Christian heart and mind; and that she derived much spiritual comfort from his conversation.
The baroness, who always pretended to be a very pious woman, could not openly object to this; and though she was never inclined to think well of anybody, still she could not admit the idea that a man of fifty, without any obvious attractions, and with a very neglected exterior, could in any other way interest the mind of a young girl except in his clerical capacity. And in this respect Father Cvok stood in very good repute with her ladyship, because, during all the many years he had been a priest on her estate, she had never—even in his younger days—heard the slightest word whispered against him. The suspicion also arose in her mind that Jenny might only be making use of simple Father Cvok as a blind, while she was perhaps all the time carrying on a flirtation with somebody else; but, even in this matter, the reports of her secret police satisfied and convinced her completely that it was not the case.
So the baroness came at last to the conclusion that the companion only made a pretence of piety and need of spiritual comfort for show, but in reality went to Záluz̓í to philosophize with the eccentric and overwise Cvok. Such an amusement she, of course, considered altogether useless and incomprehensible, but as it seemed at the same time to be harmless, she did not forbid Jenny’s going occasionally to see her clerical friend.