LITMIR.BIZ

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not a certain thing strike thee at times?" asked he, looking at me inquiringly; "I wanted to ask thee about it this good while, – does it not strike thee that Selim is circling a little too much about Hania?"

      Judging the case simply, I should have grown confused and let myself be caught, as they say, in the very act. But I was in such a state of mind that I did not betray by one quiver the impression which my father's words made on me, and replied calmly, —

      "No; I know that he is not."

      It wounded me that my father took part in those questions. I considered that, since the affair touched me alone, I alone should decide it.

      "Wilt thou guarantee that?" asked my father.

      "I will. Selim is in love with a schoolgirl in Warsaw."

      "I say this, for thou art Hania's guardian, and 'tis thy duty to watch over her."

      I knew that my honest father said this to rouse my ambition, occupy me with something, and snatch my thoughts from that gloomy circle in which I seemed to be turning; but I answered, as if in perverseness, indifferently and gloomily, —

      "What sort of guardian am I? Thou wert not here, so old Mikolai left her to me, but I am not the real guardian."

      My father frowned; seeing, however, that in this way he could not bring me to terms, he chose another. He smiled under his gray mustache, half closed one eye, in the fashion of a soldier, took me gently by the ear, and asked, as if joking, —

      "But has Hania, perhaps, turned thine own head? Speak, my boy."

      "Hania? Not in the least. That would amuse thee."

      I lied as if possessed; but it passed off more smoothly than I had expected.

      "Then has not Lola Ustrytski? Hei?"

      "Lola Ustrytski, a coquette!"

      My father became impatient.

      "Then what the devil is it? If thou art not in love, go as a soldier to the first muster."

      "Do I know what the matter is? Nothing is the matter with me."

      But I was tormented and made more impatient by questions which in their anxiety neither my father nor the priest spared, nor even Pani d'Yves. At last relations with them became disagreeable. I was carried away by everything and enraged at every trifle. Father Ludvik saw in this certain traits of a despotic character coming to the surface with age, and looking at my father significantly he laughed and said, —

      "Topknot chickens by blood!"

      But even he lost patience sometimes. Between my father and me there were frequently very disagreeable passages. Once at dinner during a dispute about nobility and democracy I so forgot myself as to declare that I should prefer a hundred times not to be born a noble. My father ordered me to leave the room. The women fell to crying because of this, and the whole house was embittered for two days.

      As to me, I was neither an aristocrat nor a democrat; I was simply in love and unhappy. There was no place in me whatever for principles, theories, or social convictions; and if I fought in the name of some against others, I did so only through vexation, to annoy it is unknown whom or why, just as I began religious disputes with Father Ludvik to annoy him. These disputes ended with slamming of doors. In short, I poisoned not the existence of myself only, but that of the whole house; and when after ten days Selim returned, a stone, as it were, fell from every one's breast. When he came I was not at home, for I was racing about through the neighborhood on horseback. I returned only toward evening and went straight to the farm buildings, where a stable-boy said, while taking my horse, —

      "The Panich has come from Horeli."

      At that moment Kazio came up and repeated the same news.

      "I know that already," answered I, harshly. "Where is Selim now?"

      "In the garden with Hania, I think. I will go and look for him."

      We both went to the garden, but Kazio ran ahead. I, not hurrying purposely with the greeting, had not gone fifty steps when, at the bend of the alley, I saw Kazio hastening back.

      Kazio, who was a great rogue and a joker, began from afar to make gestures and grimaces like a monkey. His face was red; he held his finger to his mouth and laughed, stifling laughter at the same time. When he came up to me he called in a low voice, —

      "Henryk! He! he! he! Tsss!"

      "What art thou doing?" asked I, in ill-humor.

      "Tss! as I love mamma! he! he! Selim is kneeling before Hania in the hop arbor. As I love mamma!"

      I caught him immediately by the arms and drove my fingers into them.

      "Be silent! Stay here! Not a word to anybody, dost understand? Stay here! I will go myself; but be silent, not a word before any one, if thy life is dear to thee."

      Kazio, who from the beginning had considered the whole affair on the humorous side, seeing the corpse-like pallor that covered my face, was evidently frightened, and stood on the spot with open mouth; but I ran on, as if mad, toward the arbor.

      Crawling forward quickly and silently as a serpent, between the barberry bushes which surrounded the arbor, I worked myself up to the very wall; the wall was made of small short bits of sticks, so I could hear and see everything. The repulsive rôle of a listener did not seem repulsive at all to me. I pushed aside the leaves very delicately and thrust forward my ear.

      "There is some one near by!" said the low, suppressed whisper of Hania.

      "No; only leaves moving on the branches," answered Selim.

      I looked at them through the green veil of the leaves. Selim was not kneeling near Hania now; he was sitting at her side on a low bench. She was as pale as linen; her eyes were closed, her head inclined and resting on his shoulder. He had encircled her waist with his arm, and drawn her toward him with love and delight.

      "I love, Hania! I love! I love!" repeated he, whispering passionately; and inclining his head he sought her lips with his. She drew back, as if warding off the kiss, but still their lips met and remained joined in that manner long, long; it seemed to me whole ages.

      And then I thought that all which they had wished to say to each other they said in that kiss. Some sort of shame stopped their words. They had daring enough for kisses, but not enough for speech. A deathlike silence reigned, and amid that silence there came to me merely their quick and passionate breathing.

      I seized the wooden grating of the arbor with my hands, and feared lest I might crush it into bits with that convulsive pressure. It grew dark in my eyes; I felt a turning of the head; the earth flew somewhere from under me into a bottomless pit. But even at the price of my life I wished to hear what they were saying; hence I mastered myself again, and catching the air with parched lips, with forehead pressed to the grating, I listened, counting every breath which they drew.

      Silence continued some time yet. At last Hania began in a whisper, —

      "Enough, enough! I dare not look you in the eyes. Let us leave this."

      And turning her head aside, she tried to tear herself out of his arms.

      "Oh, Hania! what is taking place in me? I am so happy!" cried Selim.

      "Let us go from here. Some one will come."

      Selim sprang up with gleaming eyes and distended nostrils.

      "Let the whole world come," said he. "I love, and I will say so in the eyes of all people. I know not how this happened. I struggled with myself; I suffered, for it seemed to me that Henryk loved thee, and thou him. But now I care for nothing. Thou lovest me, and so it is a question of thy happiness. Oh, Hania! Hania!"

      And here again was the sound of a kiss; and then Hania began to speak in a soft and, as it were, weakened voice, —

      "I believe, I believe, Selim; but I have many things to tell thee. They want to send me abroad to the old lady, I think. Yesterday Pani d'Yves spoke of this to Henryk's father. Pani d'Yves thinks that I am the cause of Pan Henryk's strange conduct. She thinks that he is in love with me. I myself do not know but that is the case. There are times when

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