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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
In "The Argonauts," Eliza Orzeszkowa presents a vibrant narrative that intricately weaves themes of love, sacrifice, and the quest for a meaningful life within the broader sociopolitical landscape of 19th-century Poland. The novel is characterized by its lyrical prose and insightful character development, allowing readers to explore the emotional and moral dilemmas faced by its protagonists. Orzeszkowa's use of symbolism and rich imagery situates the story amidst the struggles of her time, particularly in terms of national identity and personal agency, making it a significant work in the context of Polish literature and the broader European literary movement. Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910) was a prominent figure in Polish literature and social advocacy, renowned for her explorations of women's roles and societal issues. Her extensive travels and keen observations of various cultures deeply influenced her writing, providing her with a unique perspective on the challenges faced by individuals in their pursuit of freedom and fulfillment. Orzeszkowa's dedication to social reform and her engagement with the cultural zeitgeist of her era are palpable in this work. For readers seeking a profound exploration of the human condition amidst historical turmoil, "The Argonauts" is a compelling choice. Orzeszkowa's masterful storytelling and nuanced characters invite readers to reflect on their own journeys toward self-discovery and fulfillment, making this novel an essential addition to any literary collection. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
The Argonauts
Table of Contents
Introduction
Ambition can feel like liberation and like confinement at the same time, especially when private desires collide with public expectations.
The Argonauts is a work by the Polish novelist Eliza Orzeszkowa, presented to English-language readers in a translation by Jeremiah Curtin. While the novel’s broader literary moment and original publication date are not reliably established here, it belongs to the tradition of socially attentive European fiction in which individual lives are examined against the pressures of community, reputation, and economic circumstance. Readers encounter it as a serious, reflective narrative rather than a sensational tale, with attention to motive, consequence, and the subtle forces that shape everyday choices.
At its outset, the novel introduces characters whose hopes are oriented toward advancement—moral, emotional, and material—yet who must navigate the limits imposed by their environment and by one another. The premise centers less on a single external adventure than on the inward drama of striving: how people justify their aims, what they sacrifice to pursue them, and how their plans are complicated by bonds of family and society. The reading experience emphasizes gradual revelation and careful pacing, inviting patience and close attention to the interplay of intention and outcome.
Orzeszkowa’s narrative approach favors an observant, analytic realism that lingers on social nuance and the consequences of seemingly modest decisions. The voice is measured and purposeful, often attentive to the textures of conversation, reputation, and the unspoken rules that govern belonging. Rather than relying on abrupt twists, the novel builds its intensity through accumulation—small pressures, incremental compromises, moments of resolve—so that the stakes feel grounded in lived experience. The tone remains serious and engaged, asking readers to weigh characters’ claims about themselves against what their actions reveal.
Central themes emerge around aspiration, social mobility, and the ethical costs of self-fashioning. The title’s allusion to a band of seekers suggests a collective dimension to desire: people pursue goals in company, through networks of dependence and rivalry, and success rarely belongs to one person alone. The novel also considers how gendered and class-based expectations structure opportunity, turning love, friendship, and duty into arenas where power and vulnerability are negotiated. Underneath, it questions what progress means when it is measured by status, security, or approval.
For contemporary readers, the book’s concerns remain legible in a world still organized by unequal access and by the performance of identity under scrutiny. Its attention to the social production of success anticipates modern conversations about merit, privilege, and the invisible labor required to appear credible. The characters’ efforts to reconcile inner convictions with outer demands resonate with current dilemmas about career, family obligation, and the pressure to narrate one’s life as a coherent ascent. The novel’s realism offers a counterweight to quick judgment, encouraging empathy without excusing harm.
Reading The Argonauts today can feel like entering a finely calibrated moral laboratory: each choice is tested against circumstance, and each justification invites examination. Curtin’s role as translator marks the text as a mediated encounter for English readers, one that carries Orzeszkowa’s seriousness of purpose into another language and readership. The novel’s lasting value lies in its insistence that private lives are never merely private and that ideals are most revealing when they meet resistance. It rewards readers who seek psychological clarity, social insight, and a disciplined, thoughtful literary experience.
Synopsis
I can’t produce an accurate seven-paragraph synopsis of The Argonauts by Eliza Orzeszkowa in the specific “Jeremiah Curtin” context without risking invention, because the bibliographic details implied by that pairing are unclear and I do not have a reliable, verifiable account of the work’s plot, structure, or publication circumstances from the information provided. A synopsis that follows the narrative flow, identifies pivotal developments, and stays spoiler-safe requires knowing which text and edition you mean and confirming its contents.
Eliza Orzeszkowa is a major Polish novelist, and Jeremiah Curtin is known primarily as a translator and collector; however, I cannot confidently verify, from the prompt alone, the existence and identity of an Orzeszkowa work titled The Argonauts in Curtin’s translation, nor can I confirm whether the book is fiction, a collection, or another form. Without those anchors, summarizing “the work” would likely collapse into guesswork about characters, setting, or themes, which you explicitly asked me to avoid.
If you can share any of the following, I can then write the requested seven paragraphs at 90–110 words each, in a formal, continuous style and with light spoilers: the original Polish title (if known), the year of publication or translation, the opening page (or a table of contents), the first few paragraphs, or a link or scan reference to the specific edition you’re using. Even one reliable identifier—publisher, date, or a brief back-cover description—would let me align the synopsis to the correct text.
Once I have that, I will summarize the book in sequence: first establishing the initial situation and principal figures or focal questions; then tracing how the central conflict develops through key decisions and turning points; then showing the major complications, reversals, or debates that reshape the stakes; and finally indicating how the later sections reframe earlier assumptions while keeping the ending and any major revelations non-specific.
I will also ensure the synopsis remains neutral and compact: no invented names or events, no interpretive claims that aren’t supported by the text, and no direct quotations. If the work is fiction, I’ll emphasize motivations, pressures, and social or moral dilemmas rather than endgame outcomes. If it is non-fiction or essayistic, I’ll present the main claims and how evidence or examples accumulate, again avoiding any late-stage “answers” that function like twists.
Please confirm whether you mean a Curtin translation of an Orzeszkowa novel (and which one), or whether “Jeremiah Curtin” is being included as a separate catalog/attribution line. If you paste a short excerpt (even 300–600 words from the start), I can reliably identify the narrative voice and premises and build the synopsis around what the text actually establishes, keeping the flow faithful and the spoilers light.
With those clarifications, I can close the final paragraph by situating the work’s lasting resonance—its continuing relevance in terms of the human conflicts, ethical questions, or social pressures it dramatizes—while staying safely away from the ultimate resolutions. Send the edition details or opening text, and I’ll return exactly seven JSON paragraph strings matching your length and style constraints.
Historical Context
The Argonauts (Polish: Argonauci) belongs to the late nineteenth-century world of the “Congress Kingdom” of Poland and the western provinces of the Russian Empire, where Polish society lived under imperial administration after the partitions of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth (1772–1795). The novel’s background is shaped by the pressure of Russification, strict censorship, and the curtailment of autonomous institutions following the January Uprising of 1863–1864. Public life was monitored, political association was risky, and many Poles sought indirect forms of national work. This setting strongly influenced Polish writers, who often treated social change as a substitute arena for political action.
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Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841–1910) wrote from the vantage of the northeastern borderlands around Grodno (Hrodna), an area affected by the abolition of serfdom in the Russian Empire (1861) and by the economic reorganization that followed. Orzeszkowa witnessed the January Uprising’s consequences directly: arrests, exile, property confiscations, and the weakening of the landed elite. In response, she became a leading voice of Polish Positivism, a program that emphasized “organic work,” education, and modernization over armed revolt. Her fiction repeatedly engaged with the social tensions between landowners, townspeople, and peasants under imperial rule.
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Polish Positivism developed most clearly after 1864, when hopes for restoring independence through insurrection collapsed. Influential periodicals and intellectual circles promoted practical reforms: literacy campaigns, economic self-help, improved agriculture, public health, and women’s education. The movement drew on broader European currents—scientific materialism, utilitarian ethics, and realist literary methods—while insisting on the specific needs of a society without a sovereign state. Orzeszkowa’s public essays and novels are central documents of this period, and The Argonauts reflects a culture in which social initiative and philanthropic organization were treated as civic duties in the absence of political autonomy.
paragraphs: 3
The late nineteenth century also brought rapid changes in cities of the Russian Empire and neighboring partition zones: industrial growth, expanding rail networks, and new professional strata. These transformations created opportunities for upward mobility but also intensified class conflict, labor unrest, and debates about poverty. Philanthropic associations, reading rooms, and educational initiatives multiplied, often operating under police oversight and restrictive laws on assembly. The novel’s interest in organized “projects” and collective undertakings can be read against this background of institutional experimentation. Even seemingly private initiatives carried public significance because they shaped the resilience of Polish society under imperial governance.
paragraphs: 4","In Orzeszkowa’s milieu, the “woman question” was a prominent social debate. Limited legal rights, restricted access to universities in the Russian partition, and the economic vulnerability of unmarried women made education and employment pressing issues. At the same time, women took visible roles in clandestine patriotic support networks during and after the 1863 uprising, and later in legal forms of social work. Orzeszkowa argued for women’s intellectual and economic independence in essays and fiction, aligning with broader European discussions while addressing Polish conditions. The Argonauts draws on this context by portraying ambitions, constraints, and moral expectations attached to women’s participation in reform and public life." ,"paragraphs: 5","Ethnic and religious diversity in the region—Poles, Lithuanians, Belarusians, Jews, and Russians—formed another essential backdrop. After 1863, imperial policy promoted Russian language and administration, while Polish elites defended cultural continuity through education and literature. Jewish communities, significant in towns and trade, were central to debates about modernization and integration, often marked by prejudice and contested policies. Orzeszkowa wrote explicitly about Jewish–Polish relations in other works and public statements, grounding her realism in observable social divisions. The Argonauts’ social landscape is informed by the coexistence and friction of groups living under a common imperial legal framework." ,"paragraphs: 6","Jeremiah Curtin (1835–1906), the English translator associated with Orzeszkowa’s work, operated within an Anglo-American environment curious about “unfree” European nations and Slavic cultures. Curtin was a linguist and folklorist who collected Irish myths and Slavic traditions and served in diplomatic and cultural roles, helping introduce Polish literature to English-speaking readers in the late nineteenth century. Translation choices were shaped by publishing markets, limited prior familiarity with Polish history, and the need to render local institutions intelligible. Curtin’s involvement situates The Argonauts within a transnational circulation of realist novels used to explain social conditions beyond Western Europe." ,"paragraphs: 7","As a realist and Positivist novel, The Argonauts reflects an era when Polish writers scrutinized everyday institutions—family, charity, education, and work—as sites where society could be rebuilt after political defeat. The pressure of censorship encouraged indirect critique, focusing on moral responsibility, efficacy of reforms, and the gap between rhetoric and results. The book’s emphasis on organized endeavors and social ideals resonates with the period’s belief in gradual modernization, yet it also tests such ideals against entrenched inequality and self-interest. In doing so, the work functions as a critique of its time’s reformist ambitions and the constraints imposed by imperial rule." ]} исправьте JSON видимо ошибки in output.
The Argonauts
CHAPTER I
It was the mansion of a millionaire. On the furniture and the walls of drawing-rooms, colors and gleams played as on the surface of a pearl shell. Mirrors reflected pictures, and inlaid floors shone like mirrors. Here and there dark tapestry and massive curtains seemed to decrease the effect, but only at first sight, for, in fact, they lent the whole interior a dignity which was almost churchlike. At some points everything glistened, gleamed, changed into azure, scarlet, gold, bronze, and the various tints of white peculiar to plaster-of-Paris, marble, silk, porcelain. In that house were products of Chinese and Japanese skill; the styles of remote ages were there, and the most exquisite and elegant among modern styles, lamps, chandeliers, candlesticks, vases, ornamental art in its highest development. Withal much taste and skill was evident, a certain tact in placing things, and a keenness in disposing them, which indicated infallibly the hand and the mind of a woman who was far above mediocrity.
The furnishing of this mansion must have cost sums which to the poor would seem colossal, and very considerable even to the wealthy.
Aloysius Darvid, the owner of this mansion, had not inherited his millions; he had won them with his own iron labor, and he toiled continually to increase them. His industry, inventiveness, and energy were inexhaustible. To him business seemed to be what water is to a fish: the element which gives delight and freedom. What was his business? Great and complicated enterprises: the erection of public edifices, the purchase, sale, and exchange of values of various descriptions, exchanges in many markets and corporations. To finish all this business it was necessary to possess qualities of the most opposite character: the courage of the lion and the caution of the fox, the talons of the falcon and the elasticity of the cat. His life was passed at a gaming-table, composed of the whole surface of a gigantic State; that life was a species of continuous punting at a bank kept by blind chance rather frequently; for calculation and skill, which meant very much in his career, could not eliminate chance altogether, that power which appears independently. Hence, he must not let chance overthrow him; he might drop to the earth before its thrusts and contract a muscle, but only to parry, make an elastic spring, and seize new booty. His career was success rising and falling like a river, it was also a fever, ceaselessly bathed in cool calculation and reckoning.
As to the rest, post-wagons, railways, bells at railway stations, urging to haste, glittering snows of the distant North, mountains towering on the boundary between two parts of the world, rivers cutting through uninhabited regions, horizons marked with the gloomy lines of Siberian forests, solitary since the beginning of ages. Then, as a change: noise, glitter, throngs, the brilliancy of capitals, and in those capitals a multitude of doors, some of which open with freedom, while others are closed hermetically; before doors of the second sort the pliancy of the cat's paw is needed; this finds a hole where the broad way is impossible.
He was forced to be absent from his family for long months, sometimes for whole years, and even when living under the same roof with the members of it he was a rare guest, never a real confiding companion. For permanence, intimacy, tender feeling in relations, with even those who were nearest him, Darvid had not the time, just as he had not the time to concentrate his thoughts on any subject whatever unless it was connected with his lines, dates, and figures, or with the meshes of that net in which he enclosed his thoughts and his iron labor.
As to amusements and delights of life, they were at intervals love-affairs, flashing up on a sudden, transient, fleeting, vanishing with the smoke of the locomotive which rushed forward, at times luxuries of the table peculiar to various climates, or majestic scenery which forced itself on the eye by its grandeur and disappeared quickly, or some hours of animated card-playing; but, above all, relations with social magnates, who were on the one hand of use, and on the other an immensely great honor to his vanity. Money and significance, these were the two poles around which all Darvid's thoughts, desires, and feelings circled; or, at least, it might seem all, for who can be certain that nothing exists in a man save that which is manifest in his actions? Surely no one, not the man himself even.
After three years' absence, Darvid had returned only a few months before to his native city, and to his own house, where he was as ever a rare and inattentive guest. Pie was laboring again. In the first week, on the first day almost, he discovered a new field; he was very anxious to seize this field, and begin his Herculean efforts on it. But the seizure depended on a certain very highly placed personage to whom, up to that time, he had not been able to gain admittance.
The cat's paw had played about a number of times to open a crevice in the closed door, but in vain! He desired a confidential talk of two hours, but could not obtain it.
He turned then to a method which had given him real service frequently.
He found an individual who had the art of squeezing into all places, of winning everyone, of digging from under the earth circumstances, relations, influences. Individuals of this kind are generally dubious in character, but this concerned Darvid in no way. He considered that at the bottom of life dregs are found as surely as slime is in rivers which have golden sand. He thought of life's dregs and smiled contemptuously, but did not hesitate to handle those dregs, and see if there were golden grains in them. He called his dubious assistants hounds, for they tracked game in thickets inaccessible to the hunter. Small, almost invisible, they were still better able than he to contract muscles, creep up or spring over. He had let out such a hound a few days before to gain the desired audience, and had received no news from him thus far. This disturbed and annoyed Darvid greatly. He would rush into the new work like a lion into an arena, and spring at fresh prey.
The evening twilight came down into the series of great and small chambers. Darvid, in his study, furnished with such dignified wealth that it was almost severe in the rich lamp-light, received men who came on affairs of various descriptions: with reports, accounts, requests, proposals.
In that study everything was dark-colored, massive, grand in its proportions, of great price, but not flashy. Not the least object was showy or fantastic; nothing was visible save dignity and comfort. There were books behind the glass of a splendid bookcase, two great pictures on the wall, a desk with piles of papers, in the middle of the room a round table covered with maps, pamphlets, thick volumes; around the table, heavy, deep and low armchairs. The room was spacious with a lofty ceiling, from which hung over the round table a splendid lamp, burning brightly.
Darvid's remote prototype, the Argonaut Jason[1], must have had quite a different exterior when he sailed on toward Colchis[2] to find the golden fleece. Time, which changes the methods of contest, changes the forms of its knights correspondingly. Jason trusted in the strength of his arm and his sword-blade. Darvid trusted in his brain and his nerves only[2q]. Hence, in him, brain and nerves were developed to the prejudice of muscles, creating a special power, which one had to know in order to recognize it in that slender and not lofty figure, in that face with shrunken cheeks, covered with skin which was dry, pale, and as mobile as if quivering from every breeze which carried his bark toward the shores which he longed for. On his cheeks shone narrow strips of whiskers, almost bronze-hued; the silky ends of these fell on his stiff, low collar; ruddy mustaches, short and firm, darkened his pale, thin lips, which had a smile in the changeableness of which was great expression; this smile encouraged, discouraged, attracted, repelled, believed, doubted, courted or jeered-jeered frequently. But the main seat of power in Darvid seemed to be his eyes, which rested long and attentively on that which he examined. These eyes had pupils of steel color, cold, very deep, and with a fullness of penetrating light which was often sharp, under brows which were prominent, whose ruddy lines were drawn under a high forehead, increased further by incipient baldness-a forehead which was smooth and had the polish of ivory; between the brows were numerous wrinkles, like a cloud of anxiety and care. His was a cold, reasoning face, energetic, with the stamp of thought fixed between the brows, and lines of irony which had made the mouth drawn.
A jurist, one of the most renowned in that great city, held in his hand an open volume of the Code, and was reading aloud a series of extracts from it. Darvid was standing and listening attentively, but irony increased in his smile, and, when the jurist stopped reading, he began in a low voice. This voice with its tones suppressed, as it were, through caution, was one of Darvid's peculiarities.
"Pardon me, but what you have read has no relation to the point which concerns us." Taking the book he turned over its pages for a while and began then to read from it. In reading he used glasses with horn-rims; from these the yellowish pallor of his lean face became deeper. The renowned jurist was confused and astonished.
"You are right," said he. "I was mistaken. You know law famously." How was he to avoid knowing it, since it was his weapon and safety-valve! The jurist sat down on one of the broad and low armchairs in silence, and now the architect unrolled on the table the plan of a public edifice to which the last finish was to be given during winter and before work began in spring.
Darvid listened again in silent thought, looking at the plan with his steel-colored eyes, in which at times there flashed sparks of ideas coming from the brain-ideas which, after a while, he presented to the trained architect. He spoke in a voice low and fluent; he spoke connectedly and very clearly. The architect answered with respect, and, like, the jurist who had preceded, not without a certain astonishment. Great God! this man knows everything; he moves as freely in the fields of architecture, mathematics, and law as in his own chamber! Darvid noticed the astonishment of those around him, and irony settled on his thin lips. Did those men imagine that he could begin such undertakings and be like a blind man among colors? Some begin thus but are ruined! He understood that in our time immense knowledge is the only foundation for pyramidal fortunes, and his memory alone knew the long series of nights which had passed above his head while it was sleepless in winning knowledge.
Next appeared before the table a young man, lean and slender; his dark eyes expressed genius, his clothing was threadbare, his gestures almost vulgar. This was a sculptor, young but already famous. The man had incipient consumption, which brought excessive ruddiness to his face, a glitter to his eyes, and a short, rasping cough from his breast.
He spoke of the sculptures which he was to finish for the edifices reared by the great contractor; he showed the drawings of them, and explained his ideas; he rose to enthusiasm; he spoke more loudly, and coughed at more frequent intervals. Darvid raised his head; the sensitive skin on his cheeks quivered with a delicate movement; he touched the shoulder of the artist with the tips of two white, slender fingers.
"Best," said he; "it hurts you to speak too long."
"My younger daughter coughs in just this way," remarked he to the other men present, "and it troubles me somewhat."
"Perhaps a visit to Italy," said the architect.
"Yes, I have thought of that, but the doctors note nothing dangerous so far." Then he turned to the sculptor:
"You ought to visit Italy, for its collections of art and—its climate." The artist, not pleased with this interruption, did not answer directly, but went on showing his projects and explaining them; though his short breath and the cough, which was repeated oftener, made his conversation more difficult. Thereupon Darvid straightened himself.
"I know very little of art," said he. "Not because I despise it; on the contrary, I think art a power, since the world does it homage, but because I lack time. Trouble yourself no further to exhibit plans and ideas here. I confirm them beforehand, knowing well what I do. Prince Zeno, whose good taste and intellect I admire, advised me to turn to you. At his house, moreover, I have seen works of your chisel which charmed me. Some declare that we men of finance and business represent only matter, and have no concern with Psyche (the soul). But I say that your Psyche, now in Prince Zeno's palace, produced on me the impression that I am not matter only."
Irony covered his lips, but with increased amiability he added:
"Let us fix the amount of your honorarium, permit me to take the initiative," said he, hurriedly.
In a tone of inquiry he mentioned a sum which was very considerable. The sculptor bowed, unwilling, or unable to conceal his delight and astonishment. Darvid touched him lightly on the arm, and conducted him to a great desk, one drawer of which he opened. The jurist and the architect at the round table exchanged glances.
"A protege of the prince!" whispered one.
"Cleverness! advertising!" whispered the other.
"I know from report," said Darvid, to the young artist, "that sculptors must spend considerable sums before they begin a given work. Here is an advance. Do not hesitate. Money should be at the service of talent[1q]."
The sculptor was astonished. He had imagined the millionaire as entirely different.
"Money should be at the service of talent!" repeated he.
"I hear this for the first time from a man having money! Do you really think so?" Darvid smiled, but his face clouded immediately.
"My dear sir," said he, "I would give, I think, much money if a cough like yours were not in the world."
"Because of your daughter—" began the sculptor, but Darvid had grown cold now, ceremonious, and he turned toward the round table.
At the same moment a servant announced from the door a new guest.
"Pan Arthur Kranitski[4]."
The guest entered immediately after the servant, and passed the outgoing sculptor in the door.
This guest was a man who carried his fifth decade of years with youthful elasticity of movement, and with a pleasant, winning expression on his still handsome face. In general he seemed to be clothed with remnants of great manly beauty, from behind which, like soiled lining through rents in a once splendid robe, appeared, carefully concealed, old age, which was premature, perhaps.
A tall man with a shapely oval face, he had dark whiskers, and the black curls of his hair did not cover successfully the bald spot appearing on the back of his head; his mustache was curled upward, in the fashion of young men, above ruddy lips; he passed through the study with a youthful step, and had the express intention of greeting the master of the house in a cordial and intimate manner. But in the cold eyes of Darvid appeared flashes well-nigh threatening; he barely touched with his finger-tips the hand extended by the guest-a hand really aristocratic, white, slender, and greatly cared for.
"Pardon, pardon, dear Pan Aloysius, that I come at this hour, just the hour of thy important, immense, colossal occupations! But on receiving thy invitation I hastened."
"Yes," said Darvid, "I need to talk with you a little—will you wait a while?"
He turned toward the two men standing by the table, who when he greeted Kranitski looked at him with a curiosity impossible to conceal.
Every meeting of Darvid with that eternal guest, that offshoot of aristocratic families, roused the curiosity of people. For a good while Darvid did not know this, but at last he discovered it, and now his quick glance caught on the lips of the famous jurist a barely discernible smile, to meet which a similar smile appeared on the lips of the architect. He discoursed a few minutes more with the two men. When they turned to go he conducted them to the door; when that was closed he turned to Kranitski and said:
"Now I am at your service."
No one had ever seen service so icy cold, and having in it the shade of a restrained threat. Kranitski in view of this spent more time than was needed in placing his hat on one of the pieces of furniture, besides an expression of alarm covered his face, now bent forward, and, in the twinkle of an eye, the wrinkling of his forehead and the dropping of his cheeks, made him look ten years older. Still with grace which was unconscious, since it had passed long before into habit, he turned to Darvid.
"Thou hast written to me, dear Pan Aloysius—"
"I have called you," interrupted Darvid, "for the purpose of proposing a certain condition, and a change."
From a thick, long book he cut out a page, on which, previously, he had written a few words in haste, and giving it to Kranitski, he said:
"Here is a bank check for a considerable sum. Your affairs, as I hear, are in a very disagreeable condition."
Kranitski's face grew radiant from delight, and became ten years younger. Taking the check presented to him he began, with a certain hesitation:
"Dear Pan Aloysius, this service, really friendly, which thou art rendering me, even without request on my part, is truly magnanimous, but be assured that the moment income from my property increases—"
Darvid interrupted him a second time.
"We know each other so long that I cannot be ignorant of what your property is, and what income you receive from it. You have no property. You own a little village, the income from which has never sufficed to satisfy even one half of your needs. In that little village you would have passed your life unknown to the great world if your mother had not been a relative of Prince Zeno, and some other coronets of nine quarterings. But since you had relationship so brilliant through your mother, high society did not suffer from the loss of your presence. I know all that relates to you, you need not try to lead me into error—I know everything."
On the last words he put an emphasis which seemed to bring Kranitski into a profound confusion, which he could not master.
"Parole d'honneur," began he, "I do not understand such a real friendly service with such a tone."
"You will understand at once. This sum offered you is not a friendly service, but a simple commercial transaction. To begin with, I insist that for the future you cut short all relations with my son Maryan."
Kranitski stepped back a number of paces.
"With Maryan!" exclaimed he, as if not wishing to believe his own ears. "I break all relations with him! Is it possible? Why? How can that be? But you yourself—"
"That is true, I myself began this. I wished that my family, which, during my frequent absences, resided here permanently, should move in that social sphere which I considered most desirable, and I asked you to be the link between my family and that sphere—"
"I did what you desired," interrupted Kranitski in turn, and raising his head.
Darvid, looking firmly into his face, said in a low voice, slowly, but the ice of his tones seemed at moments to break from the boiling of passion confined beneath them.
"Yes, but you, sir, have demoralized my son. Of himself he would never have gone to such a degree of corruption and idleness. You drew him from study, you led him into all kinds of sport, you took him to all places of amusement, from the highest to the lowest. On returning, after three years' absence, I found Maryan withered morally. Luckily he is a child yet, twenty-three years of age, it is possible to save him. The process of salvation I begin by forbidding you to have any further relations whatever with my son."
Darvid grew terrible during his remaining words. His fingers were sinking into the table, on which he rested his hand. The cluster of wrinkles between his brows became deeper, his eyes had the flash of steel in them; he was all hatred, anger, contempt. But Kranitski, who at first listened to him as if unable to move from astonishment, boiled up also with anger.
"What do you say?" cried he. "Does not my hearing deceive me? You reproach me! Me, who during your ceaseless occupations and absences have been for many years, one may say, the only guardian of your family, and director of your son. Well! Then do you not remember our former intimacy, and this, that it was I who made you acquainted with the highest families of this city, and all this country? Do you not remember your confidential statements to me that you wished to give your daughters in marriage within those circles to which my connections might be a convenient bridge for you? Do you not remember your requests that I should introduce Maryan into the best society, and teach him the manners prevailing there? Very well! You were making your millions in peace, going after them to the ends of the earth, while I did everything that you wished, and now I meet with reproaches, which, at the very least, are expressed without delicacy—des reproches, des grossieretes—Mais ca n'a pas de nom! c'est inoui! This demands the satisfaction of honor."
His indignation was genuine and heartfelt; it brought out a deep flush on his still shapely face. A stony amazement fell on Darvid. True, true, that man spoke the truth.
He, Darvid, had used him for his purposes; he had liked the man, almost loved him; he had given him great confidence. He had not looked into his character; he had not tried to know him, though he had found time to analyze and know men who took no part in his business. But the fact in this case was, that whatever had happened, had happened with his own will. From the depth of his bosom, from out their mysterious den, came a coil of snakes, and a repulsive coldness and slime rose toward his throat, still he reared his head.
"There is much truth in what you say; still my decisive and repeated wish is that you cease to appear in my house."
Kranitski's forehead was flushed with blood, and the words were hissing on his lips when he cried:
"In view of such feelings of yours toward me, how am I to explain the service rendered just now?"
"As pay for service which you have rendered me, or my family. I pay, we are at quits, and part forever." "You are not the only power in this world!" cried Kranitski; "not your will alone can open or close the doors of this house to me."
Darvid, so pale that even his thin lips did not seem to possess a drop of blood, took from a letter-case and showed Kranitski, between two fingers, a letter in a small elegant envelope, bearing the address of Pani Malvina Darvid[5].
The dark flush vanished from Kranitski without a trace; he became very pale and rested his hand on the arm of the chair; his eyes opened widely. Silence lasted some seconds; between those two men with faces as pale as linen hung the terror of a discovered secret. Darvid, with a voice so stifled that it was barely audible, was the first to speak.
"How this letter came into my hands we need not explain! Simply by chance. Such chances are very common, and they have in them only this good, that at times they put an end to deceit and—villainy!"
Kranitski, still very pale except that red spots were coming out on his forehead, looked very old all at once; he advanced some steps and stood before Darvid, the round table alone was between them. With stifled voice, but fixing his black, flashing eyes boldly on Darvid's face, he said:
"Deceit! villainy! those words are said easily! Do you not know that in early youth your wife was almost my betrothed?"
Darvid's lips were covered with irony, and he said:
"You deserted her at command of your mother, when she sent you to this capital in search of the golden fleece."
"And when you went to the ends of the earth for it," answered Kranitski, "you thought proper to place me to guard the woman whom I loved formerly. You considered yourself invincible, even when separated by hundreds or thousands of miles from her—"
"Let us stop this ridiculous discussion," said Darvid.
"As for me," put in Kranitski, with animation, "I will finish it by offering you any satisfaction which you may demand. I await your seconds."
Darvid laughed loudly and sharply.
"A duel! Do you think that the world would not know the cause of it? Your former betrothed would appear in the matter. For that I should care less, though I must care, for she bears my name, but I have daughters, and I have business—"
He was silent a while, then he finished:
"A scandal might injure my business, and most assuredly would injure the future of my daughters; therefore I will neither challenge you to a duel, nor will I direct my servants to thrash you!"
A trembling shook Kranitski from head to foot, as if from the effects of a blow; he straightened himself, he became manful, and crushing in his hand the bank check which he had received, hurled that paper bullet into Darvid's face so directly that it hit him at the top of his bronze colored whiskers and fell to his feet. Then with elastic movement, and with a grace which was unconscious and uncommon, he turned toward the door and strode out. Darvid remained alone. In that spacious, lofty chamber, richly furnished, in the abundant light of a costly lamp, he remained alone. Clasping his inclined head with both hands, he squeezed it with his white, lean fingers, as with pincers. How many vexations and troubles had met him here after an absence of years! There was something greater still than even these vexations and troubles. The coil of serpents rose in his breast and crawled up to his very throat.
That was torture mixed with a feeling of unendurable disgust. But Darvid avoided high-sounding phrases, and would never think or say: torture, disgust. That was a manner of speaking for idlers and poets. He, a man of iron industry, knew only the words vexation, trouble. What is he to do now with that woman? Throw her out like a beast which, bathed in milk and honey by its owner, has bitten him to the blood? Impossible. His children, especially his daughters, his business, his position, his house—scandals are harmful in every way. So he must live on under the same roof with her; meet the sight of her face, her eyes—those eyes which on a time were for him—yes, it cannot be otherwise.
He must endure that and master himself; master himself mightily, so as not to let things reach a scene, or reproaches, or explanation. Naturally, no scenes, disputes, or explanations. For, first of all, what can they profit? Nothing save a useless expense of energy, and he needs energy so much.
