Black Diamonds Part 62

"She has offended no one and has never been angry. Once a woman said something very offensive to her, for which we gave her a heavy fine.

The woman was ready to pay it, but the girl denied that she had been offended. Soon after the woman got ill; she had no one to nurse her, because she is a solitary widow, and this girl nursed her every night, and fetched the medicine from the apothecary for her."

"Do you think she is a hypocrite?"

"She is too merry for that, and ready for a joke. Hypocrites are gloomy folk. Our people would soon find her out if she wasn't on the square; but she is a prime favorite with every one. We don't choose our words exactly, but we can make a fair guess at the girl who respects herself. We like one that gives a good box on the ear to a fellow who would make too free. Sharp with the hand, but soft with her tongue; that's our sort. And still, sometimes I have watched her when she was in quite another mood; for instance, on Sunday afternoons, when we sit under the mulberry-trees, they all get round me and make me tell them--G.o.d knows how often!--the story of how you carried the pipe of the air-pump into the gallery of the Bondavara mine, and how we all thought you were a dead man. Women and children hold their breath while I tell it. I believe I do tell that story well, for they know it by heart, and yet they cannot but listen. They take it in different ways; but this girl, I have noticed her, she covers up her face and cries the whole time."

"And is she a modest girl?"

"To ascertain this point we had to call a jury of married women. They couldn't bring forward a single charge against her. Then we got the girls together, and we pressed them very close, if there was anything with the young men, but they all said--no. And there was no need for them to deny, for a peasant girl is fitly mated with a miner, and if he wants her he can have her."

They had now reached the colliery, and went into the station-house, which stood at the corner of the branch railroad. There was now another line, which ran underground and connected the two collieries.

Here Ivan found a great many of the miners. He sent for the rest, and told them work was over for the day. Men and women a.s.sembled by degrees, and only one group of girls still remained working. These had agreed not to leave off until they had driven their load of coals to the coal-hill, which lay between the entrance to the quarry gallery and the station-house where Ivan sat waiting. He could not see the girls; he could only hear their clear voices as they called to one another to make haste and get the work finished.

Some one began to sing. The melody was familiar to Ivan--one of those sad Slav airs in which the singer seems on the brink of tears; and the voice was sweet and tuneful as a bell, full, too, of feeling.

"Say when I smoothed thy hair, Showed I not tender care?

Say when I dressed my child, Was I not fond and mild?"

Ivan's face clouded. "Why do they sing that air? Why should it be on the lips of any one? Why not let it fall into oblivion?"

"The girl is coming," said old Paul. "I hear her singing; she is now coming down the hill with her wheelbarrow."

The next moment the girl appeared upon the summit of the coal-hill.

With a run she had shoved her wheelbarrow forward and emptied the contents with extraordinary dexterity; the big lumps of coal rolled down the hill. She was a young, well-developed girl in a blue jacket and a short petticoat; but this red petticoat was not tucked up--it fell over her ankles, and only showed her feet. The colored handkerchief on her head had fallen backward, and the rich plaits wound round her small head could be seen. Her face was smudged with coal-dust and was beaming with good-humor--earthly dirt, supernatural glory. But what the coal-dust could not conceal were the two large black eyes s.h.i.+ning like two brilliants--the darkness illumined by dazzling stars.

The girl stood immovable on the summit of the coal-hill, then looked down with some surprise on the crowd gathered in and around the station-house.

The next moment Ivan was beside her. In his joy he had made one bound from the station-house across the rails and had rushed up the coal-hill.

"Eveline!" he cried, clasping the girl's hand in his.

She shook her head, smiling at him. "No, sir," she said, "Evila."

"You here! You have come back here!"

"I have been in your colliery, sir, for a year, and if you will keep me on I should like to stay."

"You shall stay only on one condition--as my wife," cried Ivan, pressing her hand to his heart.

All who were at the foot of the hill saw this action; they could almost hear his words.

Evila shook her head and drew away her hand. "No, no. Allow me to be your servant, a maid in your house, the maid of your wife. I shall be quite happy; I expect nothing more."

"But I wish it. You have come back to me; you are mine. How could you be so cruel as to be a year so near me and never to tell me?"

"Oh, sir, you cannot raise me to your position!" said Evila, with a sad yet dignified expression. "If you knew all you would never forgive me."

"I know everything, and forgive everything."

These words proved that Ivan knew nothing. If he had known the truth he would have been aware there was absolutely nothing to forgive. As it was, he pressed his young love close to his heart, while she murmured:

"You may forgive me, but the world will never pardon _you_."

"The world!" cried Ivan, raising his head proudly. "My world is _here_"--laying his hand on his breast. "The world! Look round you from this hill. Everything that lives in this valley owes its breath to me; every blade of gra.s.s has to thank _me_ that it is now green.

Hill and valley know that, under G.o.d, I have saved them from destruction. I have acquired a million, and I have not despoiled any one. With every penny I receive a blessing. In the palace of the prince and in the cottage of the widow I have dried the tears of despair; I have delivered my enemies from a living grave, and I have saved their wives and children from the misfortune of being widows and orphans. My name is spoken of with admiration all over the globe, and yet I have hid myself _here_, not to be troubled with their praises; I do not care for praise. The most lovely of women has smiled on me and loved me, but she was not of _my_ world. She is dead, and the key of her coffin is a perpetual reminder to me that her world has pa.s.sed away. My world is within me, and into that inner world of mine no one has ever entered, no one _will_ ever enter, _but you_! Speak, Evila; answer me. Will you try to love me?"

The girl's eyes sank before the ardent gaze of her lover. Many men had made love to her, but none like this man, whose face shone like Jupiter's when, with a look, he killed Semele.

"Oh, sir," she murmured, "if I do not die I shall love you always; but my mind misgives me that I shall die."

As she spoke she fell back fainting, her brilliant color faded to a waxen pallor, the flas.h.i.+ng eyes closed; her body, which a moment before was like a blooming rose, was now as lifeless as a withered leaf.

Ivan held her motionless form in his arms. The woman whom he had so loved, for whom he had suffered so much, was his, just as her pulse ceased to beat, just as she had said, "I shall love you always, but I know that I shall die."

But she did not die.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE DIAMOND REMAINED ALWAYS A DIAMOND

THE END