Three Stories/Poldik the Scavenger/Chapter 6

by Vítězslav Hálek

 

CHAPTER VI.

 

HIS Poldik wore a harsh and rude exterior, but if the heart is the real core and marrow of a man, within his harsh exterior there was an excellent core and marrow.

Many a year passed away. Poldik still stuck to his horse doctoring, and was cited as an authority in his department and summoned to a horse’s sick bed like a physician. He had plenty of practice, and scarcely time to get through it all. His wealth grew very prettily, and already he might have spent any day he chose as a holiday. He could drive his own carriage, too, and he did drive one; for he got horses of a higher grade to be put to rights, such as had been knocked to pieces by drunken coachmen. And Poldik drove these horses in a carriage which he had expressly procured for the purpose, in order to test how far they had progressed towards convalescence. And he also drove them that people might see how his horses improved after so many Sundays or so many days, and to maintain his credit with the world.

He drove out like a gentleman who has his own coachman. The coachman was always one of those boys who had been adopted to be cured of scavenging and trained to wherrying.

As to what pertains to these boys, Poldik acquired by his generosity towards them the reputation of being a good-hearted fellow: it was a fine and honourable thing to take the children of the poor into his house and to look after everything which they might have need of. But we must not blind ourselves to the fact that he also laid himself open to the charge of eccentricity, and in sooth, just for these his good doings. He only took scavengers lads into his house, and he only turned out young wherrymen. This fact now hung about his neck like a characteristic label, and people, though applauding his doings, also added, “Tut! tut! Poldik, if a German mouse (i.e. a rat) were to come to him from a scavenger and begged for help because it wanted to set up among sand wherrymen, Poldik would give it shelter.” “And,” pursued others, “anyone could swindle him who chose. Let the first idle vagabond come and say, ‘I don’t want to be a scavenger, I want to be a wherryman,’ and Poldik would open his house and heart to the fellow.” But then on the other hand, they all concluded their conversation with, “But, pray, who would swindle him, where will you find the heartless rascal to do it?”

In one of these summers it came to pass that Francis died. His boat was capsized by a paddle wheel, he himself was drawn under the wheel, swam to shore indeed, but took such a chill that he never again rose from his bed. Malka was left with a little chap about six years old. It was a cruel blow to Malka. There on the water which she loved best of all things, where, too, she had found the man of her choice, she must see him perish. And when she took stock of her means she found that the unexpected blow had left her without money for the funeral.

It was, too, an uncommonly hard trial to Poldik, but in a different way. His instinct prompted him to go to her, and then again it whispered to him, “Never mind her, she has ruined thee with her cold-heartedness, let her have her trials also. Pray, why have a heart?” But he mastered himself, went to her, and said, “Oh! Malka, you have much sorrow and anxiety, I will look after the funeral for you. People would cheat you who are a woman, a man is not so easily defrauded.

It was a heavy stone which fell from his heart at these words. And he looked after the funeral very decently, and took care that all who wherried sand on the Moldau and all who carted it away from the shore should take a part in the last sad rites.

When Poldik came home after the funeral he said to himself, “Poor Malka! nowhere any one to turn to! and her boy on her hands! Where is she to work? What wages can she earn?” And he wished to set off at once and say to Malka that she had better give her boy to him, that he would take him like any other boy, and that he would relieve her of all anxiety. He would have gone but then again he said to himself, “What should I do with the little scamp? He will be like his father, he will never have heard of scavenging and care for nothing but the water. What is the profit of purifying his will from the taint of scavenging, when he has no will to be a scavenger? And only because he had neither skill nor power to fit the thing into his own mental economy, he hesitated and did not go for the boy.

But once it was made known to him that Malka was ill, and that she did not know how her illness might end. Hereupon Poldik went directly to Malka and said, “Ah! Malka, give me this boy of yours: he will be very useful to me, and then you will be freed from all anxiety about him. The boy will be as though he was my own!”

On this Malka said, “I thank you, Poldik, for your kindly offer: but I will not give the boy to you.”

These words made on Poldik the impression as though he had fallen from the sky. So then, she still even now so despised him that she would not even trust her child to him, although she was sick and in distress.

It is possible that anyone else, would have snatched his hat and quitted her at once. Even Poldik thought of leaving her, but his heart took a considerable step higher, he mastered himself and said, “And what if I should still wish for the boy.” He thought to himself, is it possible that she does not trust him to my charge. On this, Malka said, “I, still, shall not give him to you.”

Then at last Poldik stretched out his hand for his hat, and was departing: only instead of good bye, he said, “I did not think it of you.”

And here Malka looked at him almost with anguish and said, “Do not take it amiss, Poldik, dear. But you wish to make all your boys wherrymen.”

“Well, and what is the harm of that?” said Poldik, with a certain stubbornness which carried with it a touch of reproach to Malka.

“I do not wish to make a wherryman of him,” said Malka.

“Your boy has not to be a wherryman,” asked Poldik, and he felt as though he had come to the end of all his latinity.

“What then is he to be?” he added.

“His father perished on the water: I cannot look any longer at the water without crying, I should be miserable every day if my child had to be on the water for the whole day.”

That was a reason with which Poldik could hardly quarrel—it carried conviction with it. He laid his hat down again and said, “Well, well, doubtless you are in the right. And what then has he to be?”

“A scavenger, Poldik dear, a scavenger responded Malka, almost enthusiastically.” “There! now you know why I cannot give him to you.”

“A scavenger!” Poldik was again taken aback, perhaps this time more violently than before. “Perhaps you know of someone,” continued Malka, “who would adopt him and, of course, I will work for both of us in order to pay for his apprenticeship.”

She would work for both and could not even work for one, said Poldik to himself with a sigh.

And here a gigantic conception emerged in him. Ay, it is possible that even a giant would have felt himself weak beneath its weight.

Poldik’s head went round at the notion, and he felt as though some tremendous weight had exhausted his feet and hands, and even his tongue and words. He knew what he wished to say, but at that moment it seemed an impossible thing to say it. To-day, at least, it was too much for him; step by step he had gone higher, but now at the same time he felt that if he attempted another round of the ladder, he would stagger and perhaps fall.

He took the final step, staggered, but did not fall.

“I know of such an one,” said he. “I will make a scavenger of him for you.”

When Poldik expressed himself in these words he felt as though he had expressed his consent to a crime, and yet on the other hand he felt that something stirred within him which gave him wings, just as if he sped in flashing skiff along the Moldau, and just as if he felt a joyous sense of boundless freedom. Malka looked at him as at a man completely new—just as if it was not Poldik, and said:

“They do you cruel wrong, Poldik: they say of you that you are an eccentricity, and that you don’t want anyone to scavenge. Oh! what a cruel wrong they do you!”

These words confirmed in Poldik the sensation of having acquired wings, although they told him that he was about to undertake something wholly repugnant to his habits of thought.

Well, and so Poldik became once more a scavenger, and I think that in thus doing he reached the highest summit to which his capacities could aspire. For the sake of a fair and noble deed—to take care of a deserted child, the son of a detested father, and of a mother equally detested—for the sake of the same fair and noble deed to tear to pieces and fling to the winds all theories, personal crotchets, hatred and distastes—name to me anything more sublime and more honourable—I know of none, and let your heroes rant and declaim from the boards I know not how far to your satisfaction—Poldik the scavenger can boldly place himself beside any of them, and stand on a level even with the most favoured.

He hated the scavenger’s business from the very bottom of his soul, and now he walked once more beside his cart with sand and led by the hand the son of Francis, called Francis like his father; he instilled into him a love for a calling for which he himself felt no love; he pointed out to him its advantages, though he himself knew of none; he was silent about its disadvantages of which he could count so large a number.

But he adapted himself to it once again. He still continued to exercise his trade in horses, not however to the same extent as formerly, but only like an artist, when he felt an inclination to do so.

But now as day by day with little Francis he rolled out his “hee! hee!” and “heesta!” alongside his vehicle, he felt delighted when the boy first caught up the cry, and then he taught the little fellow to say “cl! cl!” and to shout at the horses, and he felt enormous delight when Francis’ first oath tripped off his tongue in the true Poldikian style. He already began to settle down to scavenging and it began to please him.

And now his horses again halted at the alehouse, at the blacksmith’s, the fruiterer’s and the tobacconist’s, only they were different horses and rather brisker than the old ones. And then there was a different landlord at the alehouse, at the blacksmith’s forge a different blacksmith, at Naplavka also an almost completely different set of sandsmen and wherrymen—most of them the result of his own careful training. And what immeasurable astonishment was exhibited at the stations when Poldik appeared with his vehicle once more, although if he chose he might have driven his own coach—we can imagine for ourselves.

The people were completely puzzled to know whether he was an eccentricity or whether he was not, and in the ale-house several times in the week we might have heard the following conversation.

“People always said that Poldik turned scavengers into wherrymen, and now look you, he scavenges, and that with a wherryman’s little chap!”

“’Tis true he goes about with a wherryman’s little chap. It is Malka’s boy, and don’t you know that Poldik wanted to have her for his wife. Tra-la-la! Strangers’ boys he teaches to be wherrymen, and he keeps scavenging only for—the Lord be with him. Tra-la-la!”

But even bygone times, more or less, renewed themselves. Malka, when her health was restored, once more brought dinner for them; at first, however, only for her son, but soon for Poldik also, because Poldik said as we drive together we must also dine together. Sometimes they waited for Malka, and when she was coming with the dinner, settled her in the cart and then drove on with her. On these occasions little Francis must needs take the horses in hand, that his mother might see with her own eyes how far he had progressed. Here Poldik laughed heartily at his “Whoah ups” and whip-cracking and looked the picture of contentment. There was only one fault to find in Francis, and that was that he was still diffident of swearing before his mother. This slight shortcoming which marred the perfect whole, Poldik could not pass over in silence, and therefore said, “Ah! Malka, he is learning very fast, but he still wants the least little bit of courage.” And that meant more particularly, “If only he would swear all would be well.”

At last Francis was well nigh grown to man’s estate, and then Poldik entirely confided to him the charge of the horses and vehicle. He himself carted sand no longer, but devoted himself solely to the management of horses. He was already old, he could not any longer walk so well as he was wont, beside the cart, “hee” and “heesta” no longer issued bravely from his lips, and the horses obeyed them better when they heard them from the lips of Francis. “Come, then, Francis, manage everyth for me,” said Poldik, and thus he quitted forever his previous occupation.

When Poldik grew enfeebled by age Malka shifted to his lodging and tended him as though he had been her father, and when he expired no son and daughter could have grieved more heartily for a father than did Malka and Francis. And it would be hard to name any other funeral in which so many people took part, and amongst whom so large a number could say and said with tears the words, “He was our father.”

And in the evening after the funeral—if you had seen the Moldau! The whole Moldau was covered with boats of all descriptions, on all of which were lanterns of every colour of the rainbow and torches, and from all of them issued plaintive music and plaintive dirges—it was a grand “pannuchis” in which all joined with the frankest and heartiest good will.

So lived and died Poldik, the scavenger.