Three Stories/Poldik the Scavenger/Chapter 4

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER IV.

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FTER this scene Malka took her way to the water’s side, even when Poldik so pitilessly drove her away from him. She went with a faint notion that perhaps Poldik would soon follow her there himself, and that it would be easier to come to an understanding by the water side than in the ale-house. But Poldik and cart never appeared, at least they did not appear so quickly as Malka thought they would. And when they did appear nothing more was to be seen of Malka, she was already with Francis in the skiff, and the skiff was—the Lord knows where.

For they had not by any means done with one another.

And we must say that Malka on the water recovered her spirits surprisingly soon. On the whole she liked life on the water far better than life in the street. Also, hitherto life with Francis had been far more agreeable to her than life with Poldik.

In the streets went on a monotonous, unexciting, sluggish, clattering carting of sand. Here on the water life actually acquired wings, and was swift, bird-like, and diversified. And such as the street was Poldik, and such as the water was Francis. With Poldik, before a thought got clothed in words, no brief interval of time was needed. With Francis a word was like a look. He could speak without let or stay, and never was in want of a topic. What a perfect convulsion of nature took ace before Poldik managed to say that he loved her. Francis had said it to her at once without any embarrassment; he said it every moment, and repeated it continually. Compliments, which almost gave Poldik the cramp to pronounce, Francis turned off as easily as a tennis ball. What a piece of work there was before Poldik had said “He hoped they would make a pair.” And lo! here the jolly waterman had said it the first time she sat in his boat, “What a pity Poldik anticipated me, else we might have made a pair.”

And Francis repeated it to-day when Malka stepped into the skiff.

“But, of course, now we shall not make a pair,” Malka answered, meaning, however, by this that she and Poldik would not make a pair.

“Is it possible?” looked Francis.

And thereupon Malka recounted what had taken place in the alehouse.

Francis, however, in place of one consolation had ten at least, and each one was such that it would have been sufficient by its unaided self. When Francis and Malka parted to-day they clasped hands, and Malka must consent to be on the beach early next Sunday morning. Malka gave her consent, looked forward to Sunday morning with intense longing, and when Sunday came, was standing on the beach at the trysting place, long before the appointed hour.

And then Francis came, light hearted and versatile—like his own skiff, full of smiles and bedizened in the style of our Prague dandies which everyone recognizes at the first glance. And to-day his skiff was much the same as he. Light and pliant and bedizened—with pennons and ribbons streaming—dressed out in silken kerchiefs and divers garlands—the skiff was a dandy like its owner. Malka must have been without eyes and with little good taste, if she had not been at once captivated by the whole affair. For, for whose sake was all this ornamentation? Malka was not one of those who would be unaffected by these considerations.

Fair dames and gentlemen! If any of you have already passed judgment upon Francis as a dangerous and fickle fellow, perhaps, even a Don Juan, and in like manner upon Malka as perhaps little better than his victim, I pray you be not too hasty in your decision.

Surely it was past all conception natural that Malka should at once prefer the lively eddying Moldau to the long monotonous streets of Prague. And Poldik was an embodiment of those streets of Prague, and Francis was an embodiment of the water of the Moldau. So then, two almost radically different forms of life were here opposed to one another the regular, measured, settled streets along which with loutish steps tramped Poldik beside his cart with its raw-boned horses, Poldik heavy like his sand, from which the water fell drip, drip: and here light-heartedness and elasticity, just like the smooth and marbled surface of the Moldau over which like thought itself skimmed Francis, light hearted, transparently gay, gentle and blithesome like that water which here plashed over the yellow sand.

So that Malka’s sudden desertion of Poldik and her subsequent predilection for Francis was so natural an occurrence, that I know not how many young ladies would have given proof of their constancy by not following in Malka’s footsteps. The female/heart, according to popular ideas, flies on wings to meet a sailor lover; if the lover be not a sailor, it goes to meet him indeed, but at a perfectly Platonic pace. And we may consider Francis more or less a sailor, at least, in so far as our Moldau justifies the comparison. No doubt a facility to captivate the female heart has also its weak side; for a heart soon won, is also soon lost. But even that awkward landlubber Rectitude has also his weak side, for being ill-adapted to charm the mind of woman, he is too frequently left in the lurch without a wife, in spite of all his constancy of character and his devotion to business.

Malka enjoyed herself on the water beyond measure. Wherever the light craft sped its way, people on the bank paused to gaze upon the bespangled shallop, and asked each other whoever that couple could be. It was clear in the sky above them and in the water below them, the banks were carpeted with brilliant green, and by the river side lads and lasses promenaded in their Sunday attire, and in all the innocent delights of the Sabbath. Where Malka wished, the skiff stopped; where she wished, it flew forward.

They dined together in a garden, under the broad blue sky; and here Malka already confessed to herself that there was more life in one afternoon with Francis than in all the time she had spent with Poldik.

And this afternoon delighted her more and more They urged the boat forward against the stream, and the smiles of the whole world seemed concentrated upon them. In the villages by the river side bands of music were playing, and the tones were wafted to them lightly over the water. The boys who trooped along the banks of the river recognized Francis, who was indeed a general favourite among them, shouted to him their salutations from a distance, and waved their caps and handkerchiefs in sign of recognition.

At one river side village they finally moored the skiff, came in a body to meet him, invited him to their village, and threatened to bar his further progress unless he stepped out among them and allowed them to dance at least one round with “that bonny lass of his.”

Francis and Malka were agreeable, stepped out on to the beach and proceeded to where the band was playing, accompanied by the young men of the village. As soon as Francis made his appearance, the musicians greeted him with a flourish of trumpets, the rest of the company turned and bowed to him and danced with Malka, and unusual tokens of respect were bestowed on both. Then the music accompanied them to their shallop, and the boys sang a merry roundelay. And as they floated along, Francis lighted various coloured lanterns in the boat so that it looked like a bed of roses, flashing out into the blue mysterious depths of evening. And amid the roses dallied Francis and Malka, crowned with smiles. Above them bent the boundless star-wrought heaven, and before them in smiling eddies flowed the clear and marbled surface of the Moldau.

Francis who rowed, because they floated with the stream, had no need to stir an oar; the water itself carried them along, he and Malka might hold each other’s hands, and might look at one another and at one another’s smiles.

Malka thought that never in all her life had she experienced anything so delightful as that lovely evening on the water; and in whispers she declared what she could not venture to express aloud—that she would like to linger on the water as long as the moon was shining in the heavens. And the moon shone so to speak in duplicate: it was visible high above them, and it was reflected in the Moldau, and on the water its lustre lay like molten silver. And where Francis dipped his oar, the lustre was splintered into a thousand silvery flakes and fell in sparks and silvery drops, and all the while the ripples pattered on the shore in half murmured music that yet was touchingly distinct.

If the river banks had many a charm for Malka by daylight, they had many more on such an evening as this. The margin of the river was half lost in twilight, from which emerged houses, hillocks, and in general all objects bathed in glittering whiteness. The gaze could not penetrate that mysterious twilight, and yet the eye was loath to wander from it, as though within its depths lay all that ever drew the soul and spirit to itself.

This day and this evening had such an effect upon Malka that they easily and completely expelled from her soul the image of her previous lover which, as we have observed, hung there more from habit than from any deep spiritual necessity which would have held it there so long as life lasted. Aye! there needed but a few such days and evenings and Malka turned away from Poldik as from an uncouth scare-crow, and as though she were flying from a ruined vault whose ceiling was overhung with spider webs; and she turned to Francis as to some sunny spot of earth which would free her from the dismal gloom of the other.

I cannot disguise the fact that the relation of Malka to Francis was a very dangerous one, and that I might here fall into the temptation to weave a romantic story. For threads which entwine so lightly as the inclination towards one another entertained by Malka and Francis, generally are just as lightly blown asunder; only that on one side follows merely a sentiment of vexation, on the other complete disenchantment, if not an utter dissipation of all the hopes which make a girl cling to life.

But, indeed, we have no need of any such a romance, and in the present instance it would not be true. Francis had already repeated to Malka a hundred times that they should live together as a happy couple, man and wife, and Malka, when he said it, had a hundred times pressed his hand, as if in token of her consent. And then they had said it to each other in looks and kisses, and then a time came when neither looks nor kisses were needed to express it, for it was so firmly fixed and settled between them that they saw it as clearly as they saw the path along which they paced together.

Thus then it came to pass that in Podskali the sandsmen and the boatmen prepared for the nuptial day of Francis and Malka. They discussed it a whole week beforehand on the quay, and were planning for a whole week how to celebrate the happy event. For Francis had always been to them like their own soul; in summer on the skiffs and on the boats, in the winter on the ice where he selected and set in order and superintended the skating rinks over which he himself sped along like the fickle wind over field and fish pond. For this reason people had prophesied but last summer that all his life long he would never marry, for that he was too free and joyous-hearted, too like the wind and too inconstant, and that any woman who was his wife would doom herself to a truly thorny path. And now Francis was to marry.

Thus then, all the sandsmen and boatmen clubbed together and agreed as to the manner in which they were to spend the festive evening. The preparations for that evening might be heard discussed on the river bank, on the water, and wherever people were engaged at their work. Only when Francis came to the quay these discussions about the preparation for the day tacitly dropped.

But still Poldik heard all that was being prepared. However, he already treated the matter, or affected to treat it as something wholly alien from himself, but none the less it stung him to the heart, and in his heart he felt as though a red hot iron was piercing his very bosom. According to his own maxim, however, he would not have given a pipe of tobacco for Francis; but yet none but Francis was with her; somehow or other he managed to hold his own with Malka and to retain her always by his side. And the superior ability displayed by Francis in these respects was perhaps the most galling thing of all.

Thus the day drew near when Francis and Malka were to be plighted, and the evening drew near when in their honour was prepared on the upper Moldau a festival of unusual splendour and seldom seen thereon.

Just as on that eventful Sunday morning when Malka and Francis first sailed out together, his boat was tricked out like a dandy, and in the evening glittered with divers lanterns that looked like roses; so, to-day, all the skiffs which were in Podskali were gaily bedizened and awaited in thick array until evening brought the happy pair among them. Scarcely had the first shadows descended upon the water, when all the skiffs glowed as it were with one single fire, distributed in a thousand different fragments. The glow broadened far over the river banks, spanned the whole smooth surface of the Moldau, and shot its varied streams of light far into the star bespangled skies.

And in the midst of it all sat Francis and Malka, a newly married couple.

The skiffs—as though they had been a single large vessel—crept slowly against the stream until they reached Vysehrad, until even those ancient walls and that ancient crag were tinged by the glow from the water, and looked like a stern face with a young smile on it. Immediately after this the compact body of boats fell to pieces, each skiff rode over the water by itself, and all circled round the exquisitely adorned skiff of the young married couple. On some of the skiffs music burst forth, on others singing and music succeeded one another, on all reigned mirth and jollity, on all the crews shouted with delight, kindled torches and waved them in the air. The Moldau was so animated and bedizened that it was no longer like itself. And it was all because Francis had married Malka.

The banks were well nigh trodden down by the crowds of townsfolk who had come to feast their eyes on the agreeable spectacle. Even Poldik was amongst them, lost in the throng and unobserved. And at times it seemed to him that it would be best if he were to stab himself to the heart with something, then again if he were to stab to the heart all those yonder who made merry, and then finally it appeared to him that he deserved that taunting laughter in which accorded the people, the Moldau, and the heavens that bent above them, and then finally it seemed to him that he had deserved yet worse things than that taunting laughter in which the festival found tongue and that all together ought to lift him above their heads and point the finger at him, and shout “Pelt him! because he does not know what life is! Pelt him! for he does not deserve to live.” And then again he seemed to see the cause of it all in that jostling mob, and home he reeled like one half crazed.