In Vain/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Yosef, according to his promise given Gustav, visited Helena, and after the second visit went away in love. He returned late at night. The stars were twinkling on a serene sky; from the Dnieper came the cool, but bracing breath of water. Light streaks of mist wound in a long line on the east. There was music in the air and music in Yosef's breast. He was in love! It seemed to him that the serene night had visited his betrothal with happiness. Full happiness is both a remembrance and a hope. Yosef felt yet in his palms the small hands of Helena; he remembered that moment, thought of the tenderness of the morrow, looked forward to that moment. A wonderful thing! She took farewell of him with the word, "Remember;" but who could forget happiness, especially when the future is smiling with it?
He loved! Pressed by the power and the charm of the night, the trembling of the stars and the majesty of dark expanses, he cast a look full of fire to the remotest borders of heavenly loneliness, and whispered with quivering lips,—
"If Thou exist! Thou art great and good."
Notwithstanding the condition set up before this statement, that for Yosef was very much.
He recognized greatness and goodness. He said, "If Thou art." If those words had been spoken about some being, they would be conditional; spoken to some being they were an affirmation of existence: "Thou art."
In spite of all his realism let us not wonder so much at these words. The lips which pronounced them had drunk freshly from the cup of ecstasy.
When Yosef reached home, Augustinovich was sleeping in the best fashion possible; his snoring was heard even on the stairway. He drew out the song of slumber, now short, now long, now lower, now higher, now puffing, now blowing, now whistling.
Yosef roused him.
He determined finally to embrace him.
Augustinovich stared at him with astonished eyes, and at the first moment cried,—
"Go to the—"
Yosef laughed joyously.
"Good-night!" said Augustinovich. "I will tell thee to-morrow where thou art coming from now—I wish to sleep—good-night."
The next day was Sunday. In the morning Yosef poured the tea; Augustinovich, lying in bed yet, and looking at the ceiling, was smoking a pipe. Both were thinking of the day previous.
Finally Augustinovich was the first to speak,—
"Dost thou know what has come to my head?"
"No."
"Then I will tell thee. I will tell thee that it is not worth while to attach one's life to the first woman that comes along; as I wish well to Jove, it is not! There are better things in this world."
"Whence did those ideas come to thee?"
"Straight from the pipe. A man so binds himself to an idea, grows one with it completely, and then something comes and, behold! of those palaces as much remains as of the smoke which I blow out at this moment."
An immense roll of smoke rose up from Augustinovich's lips, and striking the ceiling was scattered on all sides.
The conversation was stopped for a while.
"Yosef, hadst thou been in love before knowing Gustav and Pani Helena?"
"Had I lo-v-ed?" drawled Yosef, looking at the light through his glass of tea. "What? had I loved? Yes, I turned my head for a moment, but that did not push me out of life's ordinary conditions, it did not lead me out of the order of the day. I will say sincerely, though, that I have not been in love."
Augustinovich, raising the stem of his pipe, began to declaim with solemnity,—
"O woman! helpless down! O giddy creature!"
"Well, what is it?" asked Yosef, laughing.
"Nothing, my reminiscences. Ei, it was different with me. I was as mad as a maniac a couple of times. Once, even in spite of misery, I tried to be an orderly person; it was difficult, but I tried."
"And how did it end?"
"Prosaically. I was giving lessons in a certain house. There were two children, a little son and a grown-up daughter. I taught the son and fell in love with the daughter. I told her this one evening, and tears came to my eyes. She was confused a little, and then she laughed. Thou wilt not believe, Yosef, what an ugly laugh that was, for she saw how much the confession had cost me, and besides she had enticed me on, to begin with. She went at once with a complaint to her 'mamma.'"
"Well, what did the mamma do?"
"The 'mamma' told me first that I was a scrub, whereupon I bowed to her; second she told me to go my way, and third she threw a five-ruble note on the floor before me. I picked up the note, for it belonged to me, and from it I got drunk that evening and next morning also."
"And then?"
"Then the next evening and the third morning."
"And so on?"
"No. On the fourth day I had an immense cry, and later, when I had cured myself a little, not of drinking, but of love, I tried to fall in love with the first woman I met; but I could not love any more, I give thee my word of honor."
"And hast thou no hope for the future?
"Augustinovich thought a moment, and answered,—"
No, I have no respect now for women. As much as I believed in them before, as much as I honored and loved them as the highest reward of toil and effort, that much do I like them now, dost understand? That excludes love."
"But happiness."
"Not a word about happiness. So to-day I whistle when I want to cry, and therefore envy thee."
Yosef looked quickly at Augustinovich.
"What dost thou envy me?"
"Thy relation with Pani Helena. Do not frown, and do not wonder that I know those things well. Ho, ho! we have had a little experience. For that matter I will tell thee that I wanted myself to fall in love with Pani Helena. I prefer such women. Though, on the other hand But do I know that thou wilt not be angry?"
"Talk on."
"I was afraid to fall in love with her. There is no denying that she is an unhappy woman, but, by the beard of the Prophet! what is that to me? I know only that the inheritance goes from hand to hand, and that whoso approaches her is happy for the ages. B-r-r! By my honor I should not wish to be the heir to such a legacy, even for a friend."
Yosef put the glass of partly drunk tea on the table, and turning to Augustinovich said coldly,—
"Yes; but since I am the executor of the will, be so kind as to speak of the inheritance more considerately."
"Well, I will tell thee in perfect seriousness not this, who or what the widow is, but what thou shouldst do. I speak disinterestedly. I speak even to my own harm. The affair is of this kind." Augustinovich sat up in bed. "I know thee, I know her; she will rush into thy arms herself. Initiative on the part of a woman—Ho! that is not good! Love must be a conquest. In a month thou wilt be sick of her, thou wilt be tortured and throw her to the devil. Yosef, I wish thee well—marry Helena while there is time."
Yosef frowned more than before, and answered abruptly,—
"I will do what I think is proper."
And really that little word "marry" had not come to his head yet. While kissing the widow's hands he had not thought of the consequences of the kisses. He was angry at himself, and at this more especially, that some one had reminded him of duties of conscience. A day later, two days later, he would have reminded himself of them beyond fail. The reminder coming from another took away from this thought the charm of spontaneous action which flows from love and made it constraint.
The evening of that day Augustinovich met Vasilkevich.
"Knowest thou that Yosef visits the widow now?" asked he.
"What wonder?"
"The woman is in love with him to distraction. Think what will come of that, and judge what Yosef ought to do."
"He ought to love her too," answered Vasilkevich, with his usual decision.
"Yes; and then?"
"Then let them marry."
Augustinovich waved his hand impatiently.
"One other question. How wouldst thou act with Pani Helena?"
"If I loved her?"
"Yes."
"I should marry her without hesitation."
Augustinovich stopped him, and with his hand on his heart began to speak in a tone of deep conviction,—
"Seest thou, I am much indebted to Yosef, for that matter thou knowest this best of all, I should like then to pay him honestly,—yes, to pay him with advice. He is in a strange position, and still, dost understand, there are certain laws of honor which we are not permitted to break. I should not wish that any man at any time could say to Yosef, 'Thou hast acted dishonorably.' I say openly I should not wish that. Thou canst do much, thou hast influence over him."
Vasilkevich, instead of letting himself be persuaded, grew angry.
"But why push into affairs which are not thine? Leave him freedom. It is only a little while since he began to visit her. Ei! Augustinovich, does this come from thy heart? If Helena is anything to thee, then may I—But this is interfering thou lovest to pose and speak well-sounding words. Play no comedy! Thou art making a sacrifice as it were by losing lodgings through Yosef's marriage, but that is mere levity. Thou art deceiving thyself without knowing it Have no fear as to Yosef; if thou wert like him, no more would be needed. What hast thou to do with this matter? Thou hast not tact to the value of a copper."
"Keep these lessons for thy own use! Then thou wilt not interfere between them?"
"If this undefined relation were to last long f I should be the first to try and persuade, and finally to force Yosef to marry her; but to interfere to-day would be stupid."
Augustinovich went home, greatly confused; a feeling of truth told him, however, that the Lithuanian was right, and that on his part it would be really meddling and a desire for posing, nothing more.