"I will come at Easter," said I, in a low, strange bass.
"But it is a long time till Easter."
"Not at all long," muttered I.
At that moment Selim rushed in, and after him came my father, the priest, Pani d'Yves, and some servants. The words, "To the sleigh! to the sleigh!" sounded in my ears. We all went to the porch; there my father and the priest embraced me. When the time came to take leave of Hania, I had an almost irrestrainable wish to seize her in my arms and kiss her as of old; but I could not bring myself to it.
"Farewell, Hania," said I, giving her my hand, but in my soul a hundred voices were weeping, a hundred most tender and fondling expressions were on my lips.
I saw on a sudden that the girl was shedding tears, and with equal suddenness was heard that stubborn Satan within, that irresistible wish to tear open my own wounds, which later in life I felt more than once; so, though my heart was bursting into bits, I said in a cold and rough voice,
"Do not cry without reason, my Hania." Then I sat down in the sleigh.
Meanwhile Selim took farewell of all. Running up to Hania he seized her two hands, and, though the girl tried to pull them away, he kissed them wildly, first one and then the other. Oh, what a wish I had to beat him off at that moment! When he had kissed Hania, he sprang into the sleigh. "Move on!" cried my father. The priest blessed us with the cross for the road. The driver called "Hetta! ho!" to the horses, the bells sounded, the snow squeaked under the runners, and we moved over the road.
"Scoundrel! robber!" said I in my soul. "That is how thou didst take farewell of thy Hania! Thou wert disagreeable to her, scolded her for tears of which thou wert unworthy, tears of an orphan."
I raised the collar of my fur and cried like a little child in silence, for I was afraid lest Selim should detect me in tears. It appeared, however, that Selim saw everything perfectly; but he himself was moved, hence he said nothing at first. But we had not gone so far as Horeli when he called,
"Henryk!"
"What?"
"Thou art blubbering?"
"Let me alone."
Again there was silence between us. But after a while Selim again said,
"Henryk!"
"What?"
"Thou art blubbering?"
I made no answer; suddenly Selim bent down, took a handful of snow, raised my cap, spread the snow on my head, and covered it again, saying,
"That will cool thee!"
CHAPTER IV
I DID not go home at Easter, for the approaching examination for maturitas stood in the way. Besides, my father wished me to pass the preliminary examination before the beginning of the University year. He knew that I would not like to work in vacation, and that beyond doubt I should forget at least one half of what I had learned in school, so I worked very vigorously. Besides the ordinary lessons in the gymnasium and the work for the examination, Selim and I took private lessons from a student who, as he had entered the University not long before, knew best what we needed.
This for me was a memorable time, for in it fell the whole structure of my thoughts and imagining, reared so laboriously by Father Ludvik, my father, and the whole atmosphere of our quiet house.
The young student was a radical in every regard. While explaining the history of Rome, he knew so well how to explain his disgust and contempt for the great oligarchy during the reforms of the Gracchi that my arch-noble convictions were swept away like smoke. With what profound faith my young teacher declared, for example, that a man who was soon to occupy the powerful and in every sense influential position of student at the University should be free from all "prejudices," and not look on anything save with the compassion of a genuine philosopher.
In general he was of opinion that for the regulation of the world, and for the exercise of a mighty influence on all people, a man is best between the eighteenth and twenty-third year of his life, for later he becomes gradually an idiot or a conservative.
Of those who were neither students nor professors of the University, he spoke with compassion; but he had ideals, which never left his lips. From him I learned for the first time of the existence of Moleschotte and Büchner, two men of science whom he cited oftenest. One should hear with what ardor our preceptor spoke of the conquests of science in recent times, of great truths which the blind superstitious past had avoided, and which the most recent scholars had raised "from the dust of oblivion" and announced to the world with unparalleled courage.
While uttering these opinions he shook his thick, curly foretop, and smoked an incredible number of cigarettes, assuring us that he was so trained that it was all one to him whether he let the smoke out through his mouth or his nostrils, and that there was not in Warsaw another man who could smoke in that fashion. Then he rose usually, put on his cloak, which lacked more than half its buttons, and declared that he must hurry, for he had another "little meeting." Saying this, he winked mysteriously and added that Selim's age and mine did not permit him to communicate to us nearer information about this "little meeting," but that later and without his explanation we should understand its meaning.
Notwithstanding all this which would not have pleased our parents much, the young student had his really good sides. He understood well what he was teaching us, and besides he was a real fanatic of science. He wore boots with holes in them, a threadbare coat, a cap which was like an old nest; he never had a copper on his person; but his mind never dwelt on his personal cares, poverty, want almost. He lived through a passion for science; of a joyous life for himself he had no thought. Selim and I looked on him as some higher supernatural personage, as an ocean of wisdom, as an immovable weight. We believed sacredly that if any one could save humanity in case of danger, it was surely he, that imposing genius, who, beyond doubt, was of this opinion himself. But we clung to his convictions as to bird-lime.
As to me, I went farther, perhaps, than even my master. That was the natural reaction against my previous education; and, besides, the student had really opened before me gates to new worlds of knowledge, in comparison with which the circle of my ideas was very narrow. Dazzled by these new truths, I had not many thoughts and fancies to devote to Hania. At first, and immediately after coming, I did not part with my ideal. The letters which I received from her fed that fire on the altar of my heart; but, compared with the ocean of ideas of the young student, all our village world, so calm and quiet, began at once to grow little and diminish in my eyes. Hania's form did not vanish, it is true, but was enwrapped, as it were, in a light mist.
As to Selim, he advanced also by the earthly road of violent reforms; but of Hania he thought less, since opposite our quarters was a window in which sat a schoolgirl named Yozia. Indeed, Selim began to sigh at her, and for whole days they looked at each other from the two windows, like two birds in two cages. Selim repeated with unshaken certainty, "this one or none." Frequently it happened that he would lie face and hands on the bed and study, then throw his book on the floor, spring up, seize me, and cry, laughing like a madman,
"Oh, my Yozia! how I love thee!"
"Go to the plague, Selim!" I would say to him.
"Oh, it is thou, not Yozia," he would answer roguishly, and return to his book.
At last came the days of examination. Selim and I passed both the final examination of the gymnasium and the one for entrance to the University very favorably; after that we were as free as birds, but we stayed three days longer in Warsaw. We used that time for getting students' uniforms, and for a solemnity which our master considered indispensable; that is, a feast for three in the first wine-cellar that we came to.