Without Dogma by Henryk Sienkiewicz

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"One must be desperate to go to such places as that."

"Yes; I did not feel very cheerful when I went."

Aniela looked at me for a moment, and there was that hunted,
half-frightened expression in her eyes again. If she had put her hand
upon my naked heart she could not have given it a sharper pull. The
more I had prepared myself for an exhibition of triumphant coldness
and satisfaction at my disappointment, the more I felt crushed now by
that angelic compassion. All my calculations and foresight had been
put to naught. I supposed she could not help showing herself off as a
married woman. And now I had to remind myself that she was married;
but in the recollection there was no loathing, nothing but
inexpressible sorrow.

It is in my nature that in every moral suffering I try to reopen my
wounds. I wanted to do that even now by speaking about her husband;
but I could not do it. It seemed to me cruel, almost a profanation.
Instead of that I said that I should like to see her mother, if she
were able to receive me. Aniela went to see, and presently came back
and said,--

"Mamma will be pleased to see you."

We crossed to the other side of the house, my aunt going with us. I
wanted to say a kind word to Aniela so as to put her more at ease; but
my aunt was in the way; presently I thought it would be even better if
I said it within my aunt's hearing. Near the door, leading into Pani
Celina's rooms, I stopped and, turning to Aniela, said,--

"Give me your hand, my dear little sister."

Aniela put her hand into mine; I saw her eyes lighting up with
gratitude for the words "little sister," and the pressure of her hand
seemed to say:--

"Oh! let us be friends! let us forgive each other!"

"I hope you two will agree together," muttered my aunt.

"We shall, we shall; he is so good!" replied Aniela.

And truly, my heart was very full of good-will at that moment.

Entering Pani Celina's room, I greeted her very cordially, but she
replied with a certain constraint, and I am sure she would have
received me with still greater coldness had she not feared to
offend my aunt. But I was not hurt by this; her resentment is quite
justifiable. Maybe, in her mind, she connects me with the loss of her
estate, and thinks all this would not have happened if I had acted
differently. I found her much changed. For some time she has been
confined to her invalid chair, on which they wheel her on fine days
into the garden. Her face, always delicate, looked as if moulded in
wax. There are still traces that show how beautiful she must have
been, and at the same time so unhappy.

I asked after her health, and expressed the hope that, with the return
of the fine weather, she would soon recover her strength. She listened
with a sad smile, and shook her head; two tears rolled silently down
her face.

Then, fixing her sad eyes upon me, she said,--

"You know Gluchow has been sold?"

This evidently is the thought ever present,--her continual sorrow and
gnawing trouble.

When Aniela heard the question she grew very red. It was a painful
blush, because a blush of shame and sorrow.

"Yes, I have heard," I said quickly. "Perhaps it can be recovered; if
so, nothing is lost; and if not, you must submit to God's will."

Aniela cast a grateful glance at me, and Pani Celina said,--

"I have lost all hope."

It was not true; she still clung to the delusion that the estate might
be recovered. Her eyes looked hungrily at me, waiting for the words
which might confirm her secret hopes. I resolved to gratify her wish,
and said,--

"It seems to have been a case of necessity, and I do not see how any
one can be blamed for it. Yet there are no obstacles which cannot be
overcome where there is a will and adequate means. Sometimes it has
happened that a sale has been invalidated in law from some omission of
formality."

By the bye, this was not strictly true; but I saw it was balm to
Pani Celina's sore heart. I had also stood up for Kromitzki, without
mentioning his name, which neither of the others had done in my
presence.

To say the truth it was not generosity which prompted me, but rather a
desire to conciliate Aniela, and show myself before her in the light
of goodness and nobility.

And Aniela was grateful; for, when we had left the room, she came out
to me, and, stretching out her hand, said,--

"Thank you for being so good to mamma."

For all answer I raised her hand to my lips.

My aunt too seemed touched by my goodness. I left her and, lighting a
cigar, went into the park for a quiet stroll to collect my thoughts
and impressions; but I met there the young doctor who was taking
his morning constitutional. As I wished to conciliate every one at
Ploszow, I went up to him, and asked him, with the special regard due
to science and authority, what he thought about Pani Celina's chances
of regaining her health. I saw that this flattered him a little, and
gradually he began to lose some of his democratic stiffness, and
enlarged upon the theme of Pani Celina's illness with the ready
eagerness of a young scientist who has had no time yet to doubt his
powers. In speaking, he used every now and then Latin expressions, as
if addressing a colleague. His strong, healthy frame, a certain power
of speech and eye impressed me favorably. I saw in him a type of that
new generation Sniatynski at one time had spoken of to me. Walking
along the avenues, we had one of the so-called intellectual
conversations, which consist a great deal in quoting names of books
and authors. Chwastowski is thoroughly acquainted with certain
subjects; but I have read more, and this seemed to astonish him not a
little. At moments he looked almost vexed, as if he considered it an
encroachment upon his own territory that I, an aristocrat, should know
so much about certain books and authors. But then again I won his
approbation by the liberality of my opinions. My liberality consists
merely in a kind of tolerance for other people's views, and looking
upon them without party feeling; and that from a man of my position
and wealth was sufficient to win over the young radical. At the end
of our conversation we felt towards each other as men do who have
understood each other, and agreed on many points.

Most likely I shall be the exception of the rule as regards Doctor
Chwastowski. As in my country every nobleman has his particular Jew in
whom he believes,--though he dislikes the race in general,--so every
democrat has his aristocrat for whom he feels a special weakness.

When going away I asked Doctor Chwastowski about his brothers. He said
that one of them had a brewery at Ploszow, which I knew already from
my aunt's letter; a second had a bookshop at Warsaw; and a third,
who had been at a mercantile school, had gone as assistant with Pan
Kromitzki to the East.

"It is the brewer who has the best of it just now," he said; "but
we all work, and in time shall win good positions. It was lucky our
father lost his fortune; otherwise every one of us would sit on his
bit of land 'glebae adscripti,' and in the end lose it as my father
did."

In spite of the preoccupation of my mind I listened with a certain
interest. "There are, then," I said to myself, "people that are neither
over-civilized nor steeped in ignorance. There are those that can do
something and thus form the intermediate, healthy link between decay
and barbarism." It is possible that this social strata mostly exists
in bigger towns, where it is continually recruited by the influx
of the sons of bankrupt noblemen, who adapt themselves to burgher
traditions of work, and bring to it strong nerves and muscles. I then
recalled what Sniatynski once said when I left him: "From such as you
nothing good can come; your fathers must first lose all they have,
else even your grandsons will not work." And here are Chwastowski's
sons who take to it, and push on in the world by help of their own
strong shoulders. I, too, perhaps, had I no fortune, should have to do
something, and should acquire that energy of decision in which I have
been wanting all my life.

The doctor left me presently as he had another patient at Ploszow, a
young cleric from the Warsaw seminary, the son of one of the Ploszow
peasants. He is in the last stage of consumption. My aunt has given
him a room in one of the out-buildings, where she and Aniela look
after him. When I heard of this I went to pay him a visit, and
instead of the dying man I expected to see, I found a young, rather
thin-looking lad, but bright and full of life. The doctor says it
is the last flicker of the lamp. The young cleric was nursed by his
mother, who, upon seeing me, overwhelmed me with a shower of gratitude
copious enough to drown myself in.

Aniela did not visit the sick man that day, but remained with her
mother. I saw her only at dinner, at which also the mother was present
in her invalid's chair. It is only natural that Aniela should devote
her time to her mother, and yet I fancy she does it partly to avoid
being alone with me. In time our mutual relations will establish
themselves upon an easier footing, but I quite understand that at
first it will be a little awkward. Aniela has so much intelligence of
heart, so much goodness and sensibility, that she cannot look upon our
present position with indifference, and has not worldly experience
enough to preserve an appearance of ease. This practice comes with
later years, when the live spring of feelings begins to dry up and the
mind acquires a certain conventionality.

I had let Aniela see there was no resentment in my heart towards her,
and I shall not allude even to the past, and for that reason did not
try to see her alone. In the evening during tea we discussed general
topics. My aunt questioned me about Clara, who interests her very
much. I told her all I knew about her, and from that we drifted into
conversation about artists generally. My aunt looks upon them as
people sent into the world by kind Providence to give performances for
the benefit of charitable institutions. I maintained that artists,
provided their hearts were pure and not filled with vanity and love of
self, might be the happiest creatures in the world, as they are always
in contact with something infinite and absolutely perfect. From life
comes all evil, from art only happiness. This was, indeed, my point of
view, supported by observation. Aniela agreed with me, and if I took
note of the conversation it is because I was struck by a remark of
Aniela's, simple in itself, but to me full of meaning. When we spoke
about the contentment arising from art she said: "Music is a great
consoler."

I saw in this involuntary confession that she is unhappy, and is
conscious of it. Besides, in regard to that, I never had any doubts.
Even the face is not the face of a happy woman. If anything, it is
more beautiful than before,--apparently calm, even serene; but there
is none of that light which springs from inward happiness, and there
is a certain preoccupation that was not there formerly. In the course
of the day I noticed that her temples have a slight yellow tint like
that of ivory. I looked at her with an ever renewed delight, comparing
her to the Aniela of the past. I could not get enough of this
exchange of memories with reality. There is something so irresistibly
attractive in Aniela that had I never seen her before, if she were
among thousands of beautiful women and I were told to choose, I should
go straight to her and say: "This one and no other." She answers
so exactly to the feminine prototype every man carries in his
imagination. I fancy she must have noticed that I watched and admired
her.

I left at dusk. I was so shaken by the sensations of the day, so
utterly different from all my preconceived ideas, that I had lost the
power of dissecting my thoughts. I expected to find Pani Kromitska,
and found Aniela; I put it down once more. God only knows what will
be the consequence of this for us both. When I think of it I have the
sensation of a great happiness, and also a slight disappointment. And
yet I was right, theoretically, in expecting those psychical changes
which necessarily take place in a woman after she is married, and I
might easily be led to think she would show in some way that she was
glad she had not chosen me. There is not another woman who would have
denied herself that satisfaction of vanity. And as I know myself, my
sensitiveness and my nerves, I could take my oath on it, that if such
had been the case I should have been now full of bitterness, anger,
and sarcasm,--but cured. In the mean while, things have fallen
out differently,--altogether differently. She is a being of such
unfathomable goodness and simplicity that the measure I have for
goodness is not large enough for her.

What will happen next, what will happen to me or to her, I cannot say.
My life might have run on quietly towards that ocean where all life is
absorbed,--now it may run like a cataract down to a precipice. Let it
be so. At the worst I can only be a little more unhappy, that is
all. Until now I have not been lying on a bed of roses, with that
consciousness of my useless life continually before me.

I do not remember; somebody, was it my father? said that there must
always be something growing within us, that such is the law of
nature. It is true. Even in the desert the forces of life hidden in
the depth bring forth palms in the oasis.

21 April.

I live nominally at Warsaw, but have spent four consecutive days at
Ploszow. Pani Celina is better, but the cleric Latyzs died the day
before yesterday. Doctor Chwastowski says it was a splendid case of
pulmonary consumption, and with difficulty conceals his satisfaction
that he foretold the exact course of the disease up to the last hour.
We had been to see the young man twelve hours before he died. He was
quite merry with us, and full of hope because the fever had left him,
which was only a sign of weakness. Yesterday, when sitting with Aniela
on the veranda, the cleric's mother came up to tell us about his
death, in her own quaint way, in which sorrow blended with quiet
submission to the inevitable. In my pity for her, there was a great
deal of curiosity, for up to now I had not much occasion to see
anything of the inner life of the peasants. What quaint expressions
they use! I tried to remember her words in order to note them down.

She embraced my knees, then Aniela's, after which she put the outside
of her hands over her eyes, and began to wail: "O little Jesus,
dear--O Maria, holiest of Virgins! He is dead, my poor lamb, dead! He
was eager to see the Lord face to face; more eager than to stop with
his little father and mother! Nothing could hold him back, not even
the ladies' cares! Wine he had in plenty, and good food, and that
could not save him; O little Jesus, dear! O holiest of Virgins! O
Jesus mine!"

In her voice there was certainly a mother's sorrow! but what struck me
most was the modulation of the voice, as if set to some local music. I
never heard before the peasants lament their dead, but I am quite
sure they all do it in more or less the same way, as if according to
certain rules.

Tears were trembling on Aniela's eyelashes, and with that peculiar
goodness only women are capable of, she began to inquire into the
details of his death, guessing that it would soothe the poor woman to
speak about it.

And in fact she began at once most eagerly:--

"When the priest had left him I said thus: 'Whether you die or not is
in God's hands! You are nicely prepared now, so lay ye down and go to
sleep.' Says he: 'Very well, little mother,' and fell in a doze, and
I too; as, not reproaching the Lord with it, I had not had a proper
sleep for three nights. At the first crow my old man comes in and
wakes me; thus we were both sitting there, and he still asleep. I says
to the old man: 'Is he gone?' and he says, 'Happen and he is gone.' I
pulled him by the hand; he opened his eyes and said: 'I feel better
now.' Then he remained quite still for about five _paters_ and _aves_,
and smiled toward the ceiling. This made me angry, and I says: 'Oh,
you good-for-nothing, how can you laugh at my misery? But he only
smiled at death, not at my misery, for he began breathing very hard,
and that was all he did until the sun rose."

She began moaning again, and then invited us to come and see the body,
as he was dressed already, and looked as beautiful as a picture.
Aniela wanted to go at once, but I held her back; besides, the woman
had already forgotten all about it, and began now lamenting her
poverty. Her husband, it seems, had been a well-to-do peasant
proprietor, but they had spent every bit of money upon their son's
education. Acre after acre had been bought by the neighbors, and at
present they had nothing but the hut,--no land whatever. One thousand
two hundred roubles he had cost them. They had hoped to find a shelter
for their old age with him at a parsonage, and now God had taken him.
The old woman declared, with all the stoicism of the peasant, that
they had already made their plans, and would go a begging. She seemed
not afraid of it, and spoke of it with a kind of half-concealed
satisfaction. She was only afraid the community might raise
difficulties about the certificate, which, for some reason unknown
to me, seemed to be necessary for the new profession. Hundreds of
realistic details mingled with the calling upon the Lord Jesus, the
Holy Virgin, and laments over the dead son. Aniela went into the
house, and returned presently with some money for the woman. I
arrested her hand; another idea, I thought good at the time, had
crossed my mind.

"So you spent a thousand two hundred roubles on your son?" I said to
the woman.

"That's so, please the gracious Pan. We thought when he got his church
we would go and live with him. The Almighty willed it otherwise; no
church for us now, but the church door" (place where beggars sit).

"I will give you the thousand two hundred roubles; you can buy some
land if you like, and start fresh again."

I should have given it at once, but had not enough money by me; I
intended to take it from my aunt, and told the woman to come back for
it in an hour. She stared at me with wide-open eyes, without saying a
word, and then with a cry fell down at my feet. But I got rid of her
and her gratitude very soon, as she was in a hurry to be off to tell
her husband the good news.

I remained alone with Aniela, who seemed moved deeply, and who
repeated:--

"How good you are! how good you are!"

"There is not much goodness in it," I said in a careless manner. "I
did not do it for these people I have seen for the first time in my
life. I did it because you care for them,--to please you." It was
true; they did not interest me more than any other people would in
the same position, but I would have given ten times as much to please
Aniela. I said it on purpose, as words like these said to a woman
carry a deep meaning. It is almost the same as if I told her, "I would
do anything for you, because you are everything to me." And, moreover,
no woman can defend herself against a tacit confession such as this,
or has any right to be offended. I had disguised the meaning, treating
it as the most natural thing in the world; but Aniela perceived the
drift, and lowering her eyes in evident confusion, said: "I must go
back now to mamma," and left me alone.

I am quite aware that in acting thus I introduce a disturbing element
into Aniela's soul. I perceive, too, with surprise, that if, on the
one hand, my conscience cries out against this wilful destroying of
the peace of the one being for whom I would give my life, on the other
hand, it causes me a savage delight, as if thereby I satisfied man's
innate instinct of destruction. I have also the conviction that no
consciousness of evil, or sting of conscience, will stop me. I am too
headstrong to let anything stand in my way, especially in presence of
that powerful, inexpressible spell she has cast upon me. I am now as
that Indian who threw away his oar, and gave himself up to fate. I
do not reflect now that it was my fault, that all might have been so
different, and that I had only to stretch out my hand to secure
the happiness I am now yearning for in vain. But it could not be
otherwise. I have come to the conclusion that generations which had
lost all vital power, have made me what I am; that nothing remains but
to cast away the oars and let myself drift with the current.

This morning we three--my aunt, Aniela, and I--went to the funeral of
the young cleric.

It was a strange sight, this village procession headed by the priest,
the coffin on a cart, followed by a crowd of peasants, men and women
who were singing a tune sad and weird as if set to some Chaldean
music. At the furthest end, the men and women were talking to each
other in a drawling, half-sleepy way. Going along, among the rowan
trees, the procession came now and then into the glare of the sun, and
then the kerchiefs flashed into flames of blue, and red, and yellow,
which but for the coffin and the incense of juniper berries, made the
procession rather look like a wedding than a funeral. Death does not
seem to make much impression upon the rustic mind; perhaps they regard
it in the light of an everlasting holiday. As we stood by the open
grave, I noticed their faces following the ceremony with concentrated
attention and curiosity; but I saw no trace of thoughtfulness or
reflection at the inexorable end, after which begins the great,
terrible Unknown.

I looked at Aniela as she stooped for a handful of soil to throw upon
the lowered coffin. She was paler than usual, and with the sun shining
upon her I could read the transparent features as an open book. I was
certain she was thinking of her own death. To me it seemed simply
monstrous, a horrible improbability, that this face so full of
expression, so full of life and charming individuality, should at some
time be stony white and remain in eternal darkness.

And as if a sudden frost had nipped all my thoughts, I grew suddenly
conscious that the first ceremony I assisted at with Aniela was a
funeral. As a person in long sickness, having lost faith in medicine,
turns to quack doctors and wise women, so the sick soul, doubting
everything, still clings to certain superstitions.

Probably no one is so near the gulf of mysticism as the absolute
sceptic. Those who have lost faith in religious and sociological
ideals, those whose belief in the power of science and the human
intellect is shaken, that whole mass of highly cultured people,
uncertain of their way, deprived of all dogmas, hopelessly struggling
in the dark, drift more and more towards mysticism. It seems to spring
up everywhere,--the usual reaction of a society whose life is based
upon positivism, the overthrow of ideals, empty pleasures, and
soulless striving after gain. The human spirit begins to burst its
shell, which is too narrow, too much like a stock exchange. One epoch
draws to an end, and then appears a simultaneous evolution in all
directions. It has struck me often with amazement that, for instance,
the more recent great writers seem not to know how very close upon
mysticism they are. Some of them are conscious of it, and confess so
openly. In every book I opened lately, I found, not the human soul,
will, and personal passions, but merely fatal forces with all
the characteristics of terrible beings, independent of personal
manifestations, living alone within themselves, like Goethe's
"Mother."

As regards myself, I too come near the brink. I see it and am not
afraid. The abyss attracts; personally it attracts me so much that if
I could I would go to the very bottom, and will some time when I am
able.

28 April.

I intoxicate myself with the life at Ploszow, the daily sight of
Aniela, and forget that she belongs to somebody else. Kromitzki, who
is somewhere at Baku, or further still, appears to me as something
unreal, a being deprived of real existence, something bad that might
come down upon us, as for instance, death, but of which one does not
think continually. But yesterday something happened to bring him
before my mind. It was a small and apparently most natural incident.
Aniela received at breakfast two letters. My aunt asked whether they
were from her husband, and she replied, "Yes." Hearing that, I felt
the sensation a condemned man may feel when they rouse him from
a sweet dream in order to tell him to have his hair cut for the
guillotine. I saw my whole misfortune more distinctly than ever
before, and the sensation remained with me the whole day, especially
as my aunt, quite unconsciously, of course, was bent upon torturing me
further. Aniela wanted to put off the reading of the letters, but
my aunt insisted upon her opening them, and presently inquired how
Kromitzki was.

"Thank you, aunty, he is very well."

"And how are his affairs going on?"

"Thank God! he writes that everything prospers beyond expectation."

"When does he think of coming back?"

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