Poland: A Novel Part 27

'Of course. His palace is next to mine.' But as soon as he said this he observed how the words had affected Miss Trilling, so he took her arm and said quickly in French: 'But you understand, his is a real palace. Well, not like this, all marble and gold. A real palace Polish style. Mine is ...' He paused in embarra.s.sment. 'No one in his sensible mind would call where I live a palace.'

'Is it very old?'

'My castle? Maybe the year 1000 after Christ.' And again he tried to be honest: 'But it was ruined in 1200 after Christ. Each year one more rock tumbles down from the walls. My family lives in a house near the castle.'

'Is it old?'

Wiktor had never pondered that question. His home certainly looked old and he supposed that it had been erected first in those painful years following the Tatar invasion, but he was sure it must have been destroyed when the Ukrainian Cossacks swept across the land and certainly when the Swedish Protestants came surging in from the north. He summarized the history of his home in words calculated to inflame the imagination of any young American: 'It was built, I think, in 1214 or 1215 and burned by a dozen invaders. But always it was rebuilt on the same spot, looking over ... Or is it overlooking?'

'Overlooking. You mean overlooking the castle ruins?'

'No. Overlooking the Vistula.'

'And what is the Vistula?' she asked, but before he could master his astonishment at her ignorance she cried: 'Stupid me! Of course, I studied that with the man who tutored Father when he got his appointment to Vienna. The Vistula is Poland's Danube.' In some embarra.s.sment she stopped. 'We were instructed never to use the word Poland, but it is Poland, isn't it?'

'It is,' he said gravely, 'and one day you must to see it.'

'I would like to. And I would like to ride with you in the Prater, too.'

This was not to be, because when Wiktor rode back to Concordiaplatz that night he found awaiting him the tall, thin young man who had shared his fiacre at the riding exhibition, and he brought a neatly written letter from Paris: Dearest Wiktor, Come at once to Paris where all who truly love Poland and yearn for its freedom congregate against the day when that freedom comes. We need you and I long for you.

Together we could do so much.

Your dearest, Krystyna 'I've read the letter,' the young man said. 'You must go, really you must.' And for two days Bukowski's head was in a whirl, for he visualized himself in Paris with this exciting artist. He saw himself in bed with her in some small set of rooms, or carrying her music as she played in London and Munich and Rome. But mostly he saw himself in love with her, involved in the problems of real living and not drifting through the routine of a minor job in a minor ministry in an empire he really did not like.

Then the chords of the last etude came cras.h.i.+ng at him, bringing his own words back to haunt him: 'Home!

The fields are green,

The woods are clean,

My soul serene ...'

He wanted to be in Poland, to be a part of Poland, to see his land once more united as in the old days. He was, in brief, one of the thousands of Poles homesick for a way of life that had vanished, and responding to that seductive sequence of nostalgic chords, he seriously considered chucking everything and heading for Paris.

He was halted in this folly by Count Lubonski, to whom the secret police had brought a copy of Krystyna Szprot's letter, and he more than most could appreciate the turmoil this epistle must have ignited in the heart of his young countryman, for he had seen many exiles from the Russian part of Poland commit themselves to stupid actions when caught up in emotional crises. He therefore dispatched one of his carriages to Concordiaplatz, and when Bukowski stood before him in the large reception room he said simply: 'Wiktor, the police have shown me a copy of Mlle. Szprot's letter from Paris. Come, sit over here.'

He talked for a long time with the hot-headed young man, sharing with him incidents in his own life, and then he asked one of the servants to fetch the countess, and when she saw the letter she folded it, tapped it against her teeth, and said: 'It's exactly the kind of letter Andrzej once received from a great actress in Berlin. All young men should receive such letters, Wiktor, but they should never act upon them.'

'What should I do?'

The count answered: 'I've sent my man to pack your things. You're not to return to your rooms. You're catching the night train to Krakow, and I want you to spend the winter months at Bukowo, reminding yourself of what life is to be like. In March, come back to Vienna and find yourself a wife.'

'But my man, Janko Buk ... My horses?'

'Buk will be on the train. We're moving your horses to my stables. Wiktor, this is a major crisis in your life. Face it, conquer it, come back and do your job, and I believe that one day you could succeed me as a chief of ministry.'

Countess Lubonska agreed with this: 'Vienna will always want to keep one Pole in high position, and it might as well be you, Wiktor.' She kissed him as he left the great room, a young man in total confusion.

At the train station he suffered one bad moment, for as he sought Buk and the count's man who held his tickets he found himself in a queue of animated travelers heading for a train labeled MUNICH-STRASBOURG-PARIS, and for one heady moment he felt like staying with these lively people all the way to Paris and to freedom. But Janko Buk caught sight of him and pulled him away to the proper queue VIENNA-BRNO-KRAKOW-WARSAW, where he obediently went aboard.

The train consisted of four types of carriages: a luxurious first cla.s.s, a clean and s.p.a.cious second cla.s.s, a wooden-bench third cla.s.s, and three large, bare wagons for conveying the pa.s.sengers' goods. Wiktor proceeded directly to his first-cla.s.s accommodations, where he consumed an immense meal, and then, despondent, went to sleep.

Janko Buk found himself a preferred corner seat on one of the wooden benches, where he could rest either sideways against the window or back against the seat. From a cloth bundle he produced rolls, cheese and a half-bottle of wine, which he offered to the man sitting across from him. The man was a Czech going only as far as Brno, a congenial workman who produced a bottle of his own, and after the drinks were shared, with each man deeming his the better, they fell to talking.

The Czech had been discharged from his position as doorman at one of the ministries because he championed the cause of a fiery young Czech revolutionary, Tma Masaryk, who was arguing for a free nation consisting of Bohemia, Moravia and, perhaps, even Slovakia. But he himself wanted no part of Slovakia because he had found Slovaks to be crooks, thieves and murderers.

'What will you do in Brno?' Buk asked in German.

'What a man always does, survive somehow. Maybe go to Prague and work for Masaryk.'

'Who would pay you?'

'Who knows?'

In response to the Czech's careful questioning, Buk explained that his master, an admirable young man, was being sent home for general misbehavior: 'He challenged a stupid German to a duel.'

'We'll drink to that!' the Czech said. 'I like your young fellow immediately.'

'Then at the big riding exhibition he defeated all the Austrian officers.'

'We'll drink to that too. I'd like to work for your master.'

'Then he fell on his knees at a public gathering and proposed to a young artist from Paris and she turned out to be a Polish revolutionary, fighting for freedom from Russia.'

'By G.o.d, let's go see your master, for he's my kind of man.'

The men were stopped as they tried to pa.s.s through the second-cla.s.s carriages, but the conductor, seeing their jovial inebriation and dismissing it as a normal frolic, spoke no harsh words: 'Your place is back there, and if you don't return quickly, your good seats will be taken.' So they went back and resumed their conversation.

'Are you married?' Buk asked.

'No, but I'm thinking seriously. A man ought to have children.'

'My own thoughts,' Buk said, and he confided that in his village of Bukowo there was this hard-working girl Jadwiga: 'She's two years or maybe three older than me, but she's very pretty and she can work like a horse. If we could get ourselves a piece of land ...'

'Not possible in Bohemia. How about Galicia?'

'Almost impossible, but I notice that every year some peasant grabs on to a piece, here or there, this way or that.'

'What will happen to your fine young master?'

'The count's man told me-'

'What count?' The Czech allowed nothing to pa.s.s.

'Count Lubonski.'

'You mean the minister? He's a very powerful man. He used to come to our offices and we all stepped when he appeared.'

'His man told me that Bukowski, that's my master, he'd be in exile a few months till he got his head screwed back on.'

'Have you ever noticed?' the Czech asked. 'You and me, we get fired, it's for good. Starve, you miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.d. But a n.o.bleman gets fired, three weeks he has a better job.'

When the Czech left the train at Brno, Janko settled back against the wall to catch what sleep he could, but the clatter of the wheels kept him awake and he thought patiently and seriously about his problems. He was twenty-six years old, healthy, strong. He did not like serving as a groom in Vienna, for although he loved horses and was adept at handling them, he felt a great affinity for the land and wished to be a.s.sociated with it: I could be a good forester, maybe a better farmer, or maybe a farmer who also took care of horses at the big house.

But most of all he wanted a piece of land which he could call his own, something that he could till and seed and reap, something from which he could subtract a corner for the building of his own cottage-two rooms, no more-which he could pa.s.s on to his son and he to his son, the way the Lubonskis and the Bukowskis pa.s.sed along their lands. For one s.h.i.+ning moment, as the train moved north toward the Polish border, Janko Buk visualized a world in which every man owned his land and cottage, but he could imagine no system which would permit him to acquire his.

Since the year 830 the men and women of the Buk line had belonged to other men and women of the Bukowski line, who in turn had been subservient to the men and women of the Lubonski line, who were subservient, by G.o.d, to no one, except that they had mismanaged things so sorely that they were now subservient to the Emperor Franz Josef, and you better keep that firmly in mind. Things changed for the Lubonskis and to a lesser degree for the Bukowskis, but for the Buks they never changed.

However, the concept of pa.s.sing a farm and a cottage on to one's sons encouraged Janko to consider seriously his possible relations with this girl Jadwiga, as fine a woman as any of the villages along the Vistula provided. She was the daughter of a widow, which was bad, because that could mean that her husband might have to support not only a wife but also a mother-in-law, and this was a real possibility, because if the old woman could no longer farm the master's land constructively, she would be thrown out of her cottage, and then what?

On the other hand, not many men caught themselves wives as capable as Jadwiga. Besides, she had a free and easy smile, as if she had made her peace with the world and with the fools that inhabited it. Watching her swing along a lane, bringing the geese home at the end of day, or chasing across the meadows to fetch a wandering cow, was to see grace and beauty, and Janko had reason to believe that she would always retain these qualities. She was, in village parlance, a good woman, and he knew for a fact that she had already refused proposals of marriage from men not worthy of her.

So by the time the train approached Krakow, where wagons would be waiting to carry the travelers on to Bukowo, Janko Buk had pretty much made up his mind to court Jadwiga seriously and in due course to propose marriage, whether he had a cottage of his own or not, whether he owned the land he sought or not: A man can't wait forever to have children.

And then he fell to wondering about his master, and he had one simple wish: He's as generous a master as a man could have. I only wish he'd find a good Polish woman, someone at a palace like Lancut or Gorka who has lots of money, and he could stay here with his horses and not go back to Vienna ... He laughed as he reflected on this: Maybe he wants to go back to Vienna. Maybe it's only me that wants to stay home.

On the ride from Krakow to the village, Wiktor sat with his groom and revealed that he did indeed want to get back to Vienna as soon as his informal exile permitted: There is so much to be done. So many people to see.'

'There's lots to be done at Bukowo,' Janko said.

'I know. The roads. The buildings. And we do need a barn for the horses.'

'Why not stay home?'

'Money. Janko, we have no extra money but what my salary gives us. At Bukowo, I know a hundred things that need doing, but I haven't one spare crown.'

'There must be a lot of girls in the big houses ... looking for husbands.'

'It's not like the old days. I'm told that then you could travel to sixteen houses and find fifteen wives.'

'Isn't it a pity Lubonski has no daughter.'

Wiktor looked at his groom, aware that this conversation had become too personal, but he liked the frank peasant, and concluded: 'I've often wished that the countess had given birth to a daughter.' As he said this they were riding past the great and gloomy castle of Gorka, a place that would never again know the levity of the old days when the Counts Lubonski held court here; now they languished in Vienna. They had that splendid little half-palace at 22 Annaga.s.se, but they languished nevertheless, and Bukowski knew it, for that was the destiny which awaited him.

At the Bukowski home he found things much as he had left them after his parents' death. Auntie Bukowska, no immediate relative but a reliable woman imported from a distant branch of the family, remained in charge, as she had for a dozen years. Her daughter Miroslawa was six now, a quiet, large-eyed child who gave no trouble. The horses were poorly stabled and the fields were not as carefully tended as they had been when Auntie's husband had served as steward of the two villages. Rents were sometimes not collected, but the c.u.mbersome system did go creakingly forward, providing Wiktor with just enough surplus to pay for his apartment in Vienna and the care of his three horses.

It never would have occurred to Bukowski or to Lubonski, not even to Janko Buk himself, that if he had been placed in charge of the estate, it would have flourished, yielding surpluses for all. To make such a radical change would have been totally impossible; stewards were freedmen of the towns, or sometimes the third or fourth sons of the gentry, who in their amiable ways ran the great estates into the ground. Peasants were not stewards. For one thing, few of them could write or keep figures.

And so things settled into the old ruts: the estate languished, the peasants walked somberly to their distant fields, and church bells rang, and once or twice a year the villages erupted into robust celebrations when some young couple were married or some old man was buried. At the Bukowski house young Wiktor drew plans for a stable that would be built some day, looked idly at the estate books he could not understand, and pined for the excitements of Vienna. Using lesser horses from his stud, he rode across his fields and talked with his peasants, encouraging them to make whatever improvements they deemed best. He also visited with the priest who served these territories, and sometimes fished in the Vistula. He was invited to several big houses in the Russian part of Poland and even to a mournful celebration organized by a branch of the once-great Mniszech family at the Palais Princesse in Warsaw, but he did not care to display himself in his banishment.

There was one significant change in his routine. Auntie Bukowska had discussed it with him in tedious detail: 'I can't go on climbing the stairs, and little Miroslawa is too young to be of real help, so we must hire another girl while you're here. It's only sensible, and to that I'm sure you'll agree.'

She had noticed that the girl Jadwiga might be a likely servant: 'She's big and strong and rather intelligent, I think. We can get by with paying her almost nothing, and she can care for all the upper rooms.' She asked Wiktor if he wanted to check as to the girl's appropriateness, but he said simply: 'If she satisfies you, she satisfies me.'

She did indeed. With nothing better to occupy his mind, he began talking with this strong-willed peasant girl and found her frank and firm: 'Master, my mother is an old woman now and we must find some way for her to live.'

'You have your cottage.'

'But it will be taken away.'

'I'll speak to the steward.'

Jadwiga noticed that he was always going to do things, but never did them, and in this he contrasted very unfavorably with the young man who had begun courting her. Janko Buk said on Monday that he had been thinking about doing something to improve the fields that were not even his, and on Tuesday he did it. But she enjoyed talking with Bukowski, and liked to listen to his colorful stories of Vienna.

One morning, as he came out of his way to watch her at work, she asked bluntly: 'Why haven't you found yourself a wife?' and he asked: 'How old are you, Jadzia?' and she told him: 'A year older than you and ten years wiser,' and he laughed: 'I think you're right.'

'You haven't heard my question. Why no wife?'

He threw his hands wide, indicating his estate: 'A man like me, with no prospects and only two villages. I need a rich wife, I really do.'

'Cast a net and catch one,' she advised him. 'North of the line, in Russia 'And you? Why no husband?'

'I've had men courting me. Plenty. But I have no mind to work my life out for a man who accomplishes nothing. Born in a filthy hut. Die in a filthy hut.'

'You should go to Vienna, Jadzia.'

'Born in a filthy corner. Die in a filthy corner. Here at least we breathe clean air.'

Day after day they talked like this, a n.o.bleman preoccupied with his horses, a peasant woman seeing with terrible clarity the years ahead, and one morning when he had dispatched Auntie to the village, he pulled Jadwiga into an unused room and began to fondle her, aware that she was resisting him with a cynical knowledge of exactly what compelled him: his ennui, his pride in his position of owners.h.i.+p, his longing for the city. And in the end she allowed him to force her onto a bed when with a flick of her powerful right arm she could have knocked him across the room.

It was harsh love-making overlaid with a hundred complex motivations, and in the numerous repet.i.tions which followed, so that even Auntie must have known what was happening with her new servant, the compulsions never changed: Wiktor needed a diversion to make his banishment palatable; Jadwiga welcomed this brief vision of a new world during this cold, dreary winter when snow was deep upon the fields.

During one protracted love-making she replied imprudently, in answer to his endless questions about her life: 'Before all this happened I thought I might take your Janko Buk as my husband,' and he answered with equal imprudence: 'Wonderful man. If you were to marry him-when I'm gone, that is-maybe I'd find him a farm ...'

'You mean, his own land?'

'No, I didn't mean that at all. But maybe ...'

Without his being aware of it, Jadwiga now crossed his path with peculiar frequency, and one morning in March, as spring thaws began, she told him: 'I think I'm pregnant.'

'Ridiculous. You can't be.'