Since all is lost, let all burn. I will sell the claim to any Jew; let him collect. Let them fly out on to the pavement; let the old man find some office; let her go as a governess, or marry Gantovski. Then he felt that he would agree to anything rather than the last thought. He would twist Gantovskis neck. Let any one take her, only not such a wooden head, such a bear, such a dolt. Beautiful epithets began to fall on the hapless Gantovski; and all the venom passed over on to him, as if he had been really the cause of whatever had happened.
Arriving in such a man-eating temper at Chernyov, Pan Stanislav might, perhaps, like another Ugolino, have gnawed at once into Gantovski with his teeth, where the skull meets the neck, if he had seen him at the station. Fortunately, instead of Gantovskis skull, he saw only some officials, some peasants, a number of Jews, and the sad, but intelligent face of Councillor Yamish, who recognized him, and who, when the train arrived soon, invited him thanks to good relations with the station-master to a separate compartment.
I knew your father, said he; and I knew him in his brilliant days. I found a wife in that neighborhood. I remember he had then Zvihov, Brenchantsa, Motsare, Rozvady in Lubelsk, a fine fortune. Your grandfather was one of the largest landowners in that region; but now the estate must have passed into other hands.
Not now, but long since. My father lost all his property during his life. He was sickly; he lived at Nice, did not take care of what he had, and it went. Had it not been for the inheritance which, after his death, fell to my mother, it would have been difficult.
But you are well able to help yourself. I know your house; I have had business in hops with you through Abdulski.
Then Abdulski did business with you?
Yes; and I must confess that I was perfectly satisfied with our relations. You have treated me well, and I see that you manage affairs properly.
No man can succeed otherwise. My partner, Bigiel, is an honest man, and I am not Plavitski.
How is that? asked Yamish, with roused curiosity.
Pan Stanislav, with the remnant of his anger unquenched, told the whole story.
Hm! said Yamish; since you speak of him without circumlocution, permit me to speak in like manner, though he is your relative.
He is no relative of mine: his first wife was a relative and friend of my mother, that is all; he himself is no relative.
I know him from childhood. He is rather a spoiled than a bad man. He was an only son, hence, to begin with, his parents petted him; later on his two wives did the same. Both were quiet, mild women; for both he was an idol. During whole years matters so arranged themselves that he was the sun around which other planets circled; and at last he came to the conviction that everything from others was due to him, and nothing to others from him. When conditions are such that evil and good are measured by ones own comfort solely, nothing is easier than to lose moral sense. Plavitski is a mixture of pompousness and indulgence: of pompousness, for he himself is ever celebrating his own glory; and indulgence, for he permits himself everything. This has become almost his nature. Difficult circumstances came on him. These only a man of character can meet; character he never had. He began to evade, and in the end grew accustomed to evasion. Land ennobles, but land also spoils us. An acquaintance of mine, a bankrupt, said once to me, It is not I who evade, but my property, and I am only talking for it. And this is somewhat true, truer in our position than in any other.
Imagine to yourself, answered Pan Stanislav, that I, who am a descendant of the country, have no inclination for agriculture. I know that agriculture will exist always, for it must; but in the form in which it exists to-day I see no future for it. You must perish, all of you.
I do not look at it in rose-colors either. I do not mention that the general condition of agriculture throughout Europe is bad, for that is known. Just consider. A noble has four sons; hence each of these will inherit only one-fourth of his fathers land. Meanwhile, what happens? Each, accustomed to his fathers mode of living, wishes to live like the father; the end is foreseen easily. Another case: A noble has four sons; the more capable choose various careers; you may wager that the least capable remains on the land. A third case: what a whole series of generations have acquired, have toiled for, one light head ruins. Fourth, we are not bad agriculturists, but bad administrators. Good administration means more than good cultivation of land; what is the inference, then? The land will remain; but we, who represent it at present under the form of large ownership, must leave it most likely. Then, do you see, when we have gone, we may return in time.
How is that?
To begin with, you say that nothing attracts you to land; that is a deception. Land attracts, and attracts with such force that each man, after he has come to certain years, to a certain well-being, is unable to resist the desire of possessing even a small piece of land. That will come to you too, and it is natural. Finally, every kind of wealth may be considered as fictitious, except land. Everything comes out of land; everything exists for it. As a banknote is a receipt for metallic money in the State Bank, so industry and commerce and whatever else you please is land turned into another form; and as to you personally, who have come from it, you must return to it.
I at least do not think so.
How do you know? To-day you are making property; but how will you succeed? And that, too, is a question of the future. The Polanyetskis were agriculturists; now one of them has chosen another career. The majority of sons of agriculturists must choose other careers also, even because they cannot do otherwise. Some of them will fail; some will succeed and return but return, not only with capital, but with new energy, and with that knowledge of exact administration which is developed by special careers. They will return because of the attraction which land exercises, and finally through a feeling of duty, which I need not explain to you.
What you say has this good side, that then my such-an-uncle-not-an-uncle Plavitski will belong to a type that has perished.
Pan Yamish thought a while and said,
A thread stretches and stretches till it breaks, but at last it must break. To my thinking, they cannot hold out in Kremen, even though they parcel Magyerovka. But do you see whom I pity? Marynia. She is an uncommonly honest girl. For you do not know that the old man wanted to sell Kremen two years ago; and that that did not take place partly through the prayers of Marynia. Whether this was done out of regard to the memory of her mother, who lies buried there, or because so much is said and written about the duty of holding to the soil, it is sufficient that the girl did what she could to prevent the sale. She imagined, poor thing, that if she would betake herself with all power to work, she could do everything. She abandoned the whole world for Kremen. For her it will be a blow when the thread breaks at last, and break it must. A pity for the years of the girl!
You are a kind person, councillor! cried Pan Stanislav, with his accustomed vivacity.
The old man smiled. I love that girl: besides, she is my pupil in agriculture; of a truth it will be sad when she is gone from us.
Pan Stanislav fell to biting his mustaches, and said at last, Let her marry some man in the neighborhood, and remain.
Marry, marry! As if that were easy for a girl without property. Who is there among us? Gantovski. He would take her. He is a good man, and not at all so limited as they say. But she has no feeling for him, and she will not marry without feeling. Yalbrykov is a small estate. Besides, it seems to the old man that the Gantovskis are something inferior to the Plavitskis, and Gantovski too believes this. With us, as you know, that man passes for a person of great family who is pleased to boast himself such. Though people laugh at Plavitski, they have grown used to his claim. Moreover, one man raises his nose because he is making property, another because he is losing it, and nothing else remains to him. But let that pass. I know one thing, whoever gets Marynia will get a pearl.