Tales by Polish Authors Part 45

As he had lost sixty thousand roubles through his son, economy would have to bring him in at least fifteen to twenty thousand a year.

Nothing could alter this resolution. Besides, why should he alter it?

He was not risking anything.

As a matter of fact, the workmen calmed down. Some went to work of their own accord, others were sent away and their places taken by new hands, to whom the wages seemed good. There was a great deal of poverty in the district, and people were asking for employment. The place of the bone-setter was taken "for the present" by an old workman who, in Adler's opinion, was sufficiently acquainted with surgery to attend to slight injuries. As to graver cases--and these were rare--it was agreed to send for the doctor from the town, and the sick workmen and their wives and children were to go there at their own expense. So after this great upheaval matters were all right again at the factory.

Information carefully collected showed Adler that, in spite of all the wrongs he had done his workmen, nothing was going to happen to him--that there was in fact no power on earth which could do him harm.

The pastor, however, to whom Adler went without waiting to make up their difference, shook his head, and s.h.i.+fting his spectacles, said:

"Wrong begets wrong, my dear Gottlieb. You have neglected Ferdinand's education, and you did wrong. He has squandered your money, and you have reduced the workmen's wages in consequence, and done a greater wrong. What will be the end of it all?"

"Nothing," said Adler.

"It cannot be nothing," said Boehme, solemnly raising his hands. "The Almighty has so ordered things that every beginning has an end. Good beginning, good end; bad beginning, bad end."

"Not for me," said the cotton-spinner. "My capital is safely invested, the hands won't burn the mill, and if they do it is insured. If they leave, I shall find others. Besides, where could they go? Or do you think they will kill me? Martin ... do you really think they will?"

the giant guffawed, clapping his huge hands together.

"Do not tempt G.o.d," the pastor said angrily, and changed the conversation.

CHAPTER II

The history of Adler was as strange as he himself. After leaving the elementary school he had learnt weaving, and by the time he was twenty he was earning quite good wages. He was a strong fellow with a high complexion, to all appearances clumsy, but in reality shrewd and able to work like a horse. His seniors were satisfied with him, though they often found fault with him for being too dissipated. Adler spent every Sunday enjoying himself with friends and with women; they would go on merry-go-rounds and see-saws, gorge themselves and drink together; he was always the leader of the party. He enjoyed himself so frantically that his companions were sometimes quite taken aback. But on week-days he worked quite as frantically. His powerful organism seemed to possess no soul; only nerves and muscles were at play. He did not like reading or art of any kind; he could not even sing.

No other thought possessed him than that of using his acc.u.mulated animal strength to the full without bounds or limits, except envy for the rich. He heard that there were large cities in the world, with beautiful women ready to be loved, with whom one drank champagne in gorgeously decorated rooms; that rich people rode fast horses to death, climbed mountains on which one might break one's neck or drop from exhaustion, and sailed their own yachts--and he longed to do all these things. He dreamt of scouring the world from pole to pole, of rus.h.i.+ng on to battlefields thirsting for the enemy's blood; besides these things he meant to drink the choicest wines, eat the richest food, and travel with a whole harem. But how was all this going to happen if he spent all his earnings, and even ran into debt? Then suddenly an unusual thing happened.

A fire broke out on the second floor of one of the factory buildings.

All the workpeople had got away safely except two women and a boy on the fourth floor. These were only noticed after a time, when the flames were bursting forth from all parts of the building. n.o.body thought of going to the rescue; this induced the mill-owner to shout to the crowd: "Three hundred thalers to anyone who rescues them!"

The noise and excitement increased. The people encouraged one another to the venture, but did nothing, while the victims held out their arms in despair, entreating for help.

Then Adler stepped forward. He asked for a rope and a ladder with hooks, tied the rope round his waist, and approached the burning building. The crowd drew back in astonishment; they wondered how he meant to reach the fourth floor. He hooked the ladder to the broad cornices of each floor above him and ran up it like a cat. The flames singed his hair and clothes, thick smoke enveloped him like a blanket.

But he climbed higher and higher, hanging like a spider over the flames and the chasm below. When he reached the fourth floor the crowd shouted and applauded. Adler fixed the ladder to the parapet on the roof, and, with surprising skill for a youth so clumsy and heavy, carried the people, who were half dead with fright, one after the other on to the roof. As one wall of the building had no windows, Adler let the rescued people down on that side with the help of the rope, and finally slid down himself. When he reached the ground, burnt and with bleeding hands, the crowd lifted him upon their shoulders.

As a reward for this almost unparalleled bravery, Adler received the gold medal from the Government, and a rise in wages as well as the three hundred thalers from the mill-owner.

This became a turning-point in his life. Finding himself in possession of such a large sum, a desire for money grew in him. He did not value it because he had risked his life for it, or because it reminded him that he had saved the life of others. To him it simply represented a sum of three hundred thalers. What a time he might have if he spent three hundred thalers on enjoying himself! But if he first increased it to a thousand he might have a still better time. Adler gave up his old dissipated habits and became n.i.g.g.ardly and a usurer. He started lending his friends money for short terms, but at high interest; and as he worked hard besides, and was getting on fast, after a few years he possessed, not three hundred, but three thousand thalers. All this was done with the idea that when he had ama.s.sed a considerable sum he would enjoy himself like a rich man. But--as the sum increased, he decided on ever new limits, towards which he advanced with the same determination as before.

While striving towards this "ideal" of the greatest possible self-indulgence, he lost his sensual instincts, as a matter of fact.

He spent his gigantic strength in hard work, suppressed his dreams, and fixed his thoughts on one thing only, and that was money. In the beginning the money had represented the means to another end, but by degrees even this disappeared, and his whole soul was filled with the desire for work and money.

When he was forty years old he possessed fifty thousand thalers gained by real hard work, determination, uncommon shrewdness, meanness and usury. He then went to Poland, where, he had heard, industry could be turned to the greatest profit, and started a small cotton-mill. He married a rich heiress, who died after a year in giving birth to a son, Ferdinand; and having her money to work with, Adler set out to become a millionaire. His new home proved a veritable land of promise, for he was well trained in his exhausting business and in the race for money, and found himself among people who let themselves be exploited: some because they had no money; others because they had come by it too easily and had too much, or they were not shrewd enough, or again because they tried to be cleverer than they were. Adler despised these people who possessed neither the most elementary economic qualities nor the strength to carry through their aims. Having surveyed his ground thoroughly, he knew how to make capital out of it. So his fortune grew, and people thought that the successful manufacturer was backed up by money from Germany.

With the birth of Ferdinand a new feeling awoke in Adler's stony heart--a feeling of unbounded and eternal love. He carried the motherless baby about in his arms, and even used to take him to the mill with him, where the frightened child got blue in the face with screaming. When he grew bigger, the father satisfied all his wishes, stuffed him with sweets, surrounded him with servants, and gave him sovereigns to play with.

The more the child developed, the more he loved him. Ferdinand's games reminded him of his own childhood, of his own instincts and dreams. He pictured to himself that it would be his son who would enjoy life and reap the real benefit of the money. Ferdinand would reach the goal of his own desires, not yet extinct, for distant travels, dangerous expeditions and expensive tastes.

"Only let him be grown up," the father thought, "then I will sell the mill and we will go out into the world together; he will enjoy himself, and I shall look on and see that he comes to no harm."

As a human being cannot give to others more than he himself possesses, Adler gave to his son an iron const.i.tution, selfish propensities, money, and an unbounded desire for enjoyment. He developed no higher instincts in him. Neither father nor son had any understanding for the true values of life; they cared nothing for beauty in Nature or in Art, and they both despised their fellow-men.

In the social life of the community, where every unit is consciously or unconsciously tied by a thousand bonds of sympathy and fellow-feeling, these two stood alone. The father loved money above all things, and his son above money; the son liked his father, but loved only himself and the things which satisfied his instincts.

The boy had his tutors, and went to school for a few years. He learnt several languages, was a fair talker and a good dancer, and dressed in good taste. As he got on easily with people when they put no obstacles in his way, was witty and spent money lavishly, he was popular; though Boehme, who looked at things from a different point of view, maintained that the boy knew very little and was on the wrong track.

Ferdinand was a Don Juan even in his seventeenth year; in his eighteenth he was expelled from school. A year later he had incurred debts at cards, and at twenty he went abroad. In spite of large sums allowed him by his father, he ran into debt to the tune of sixty thousand roubles. He had thus indirectly brought about the need for "economy" at the factory, and caused himself and his father to be cursed by the workpeople.

During his few years' absence from home, Ferdinand had climbed Alpine glaciers and Vesuvius, had been up in a balloon, and allowed himself to be bored for a few weeks in London, where houses are built of red brick and there are no amus.e.m.e.nts on Sundays. But the longest and gayest time he had spent in Paris.

He did not often write to his father; only when a stronger impression than usual touched his iron nerves he reported it to him in detail.

These letters therefore were great events in Adler's life. The old mill-owner read them again and again, and enjoyed every word of them; they revived in him the ardent dreams of long ago. To go up in a balloon or look down into the crater of a volcano; to join in a cancan or give a woman champagne baths; to lose or win hundreds of roubles at one throw--had these not been the ideals of his life? Did not Ferdinand even surpa.s.s them? Under the influence of these letters, sketched in the excitement of first impressions, the habit of dreaming came back to this sternly realistic mind. At times he distinctly visualized what he read, investing it with an almost poetic fancy, but the vision fled before the rhythmic throb of the engines and power-looms. Adler had only one longing, one hope and faith--to ama.s.s a million, sell his mill, and go away with his son to see the world.

"He will enjoy himself, and I shall look on all day long."

Pastor Boehme was not at all in favour of this programme, worthy of the corrupt Elders of Sodom and Gomorrah, or the Roman Empire.

"When you have come to the end of the money and the pleasure, what will you do then?"

"Ah, but money like ours does not come to an end," the mill-owner would reply.

CHAPTER III

The day for Ferdinand's return had arrived. Adler got up at five o'clock in the morning according to his custom, drank his coffee at eight from his large china mug, inscribed with the motto: "Mit Gott fr Knig und Vaterland," and visited the factory. At eleven he sent the carriage and a luggage cart to the station, and then sat down in the portico and waited, his face as apathetic and dull as usual. From time to time he looked at his watch. The sun was hot; the scent of mignonette and acacia from the courtyard mingled with the pungent smell of smoke from the factory. The sky was clear and the air quite still. Adler wiped the perspiration from his face, and kept changing his position on the iron seat. The old mill-owner did not eat his lunch at twelve, and did not drink his beer out of the big pot with the pewter lid, as he had done every day for forty years.

At one o'clock the carriage with Ferdinand arrived, followed by the empty cart. Ferdinand was a tall, rather thin, but strongly built young man with fair hair and blue eyes. He wore a Scotch cap with ribbons and a light circular cape. As soon as he saw him, the mill-owner drew up his huge figure to its full height, and holding out his arms and giving one of his big laughs, exclaimed:

"Well, Ferdinand, how are you?"

The son jumped out of the carriage, embraced his father and kissed him on both cheeks.

"Has it been raining here, that you have your trousers turned up?" he said.

The father glanced at his trousers.

"Ha, ha! How the rascal notices everything!" he roared. "Johann!

Lunch!"

He took his son's cape and travelling bag, and gave him his arm as if he were a lady. Looking back into the courtyard, he asked: "Why, the cart is empty! Why haven't you brought your luggage from the station?"

"My luggage? Why, father, do you think I am married and drag about boxes and portmanteaux with me? My things are in the dressing-bag; besides the fittings, there are a couple of s.h.i.+rts and a few pairs of gloves--that's all."

He talked vivaciously and in a loud voice, and laughed much. Pressing his father's hand several times, he continued: "Well, and how are you, father? What's the news? I am told you are doing very well with your piqus and dimities.... Let us sit down."

They clinked their gla.s.ses and finished their lunch quickly. When they had retired to the study, Ferdinand said, lighting a cigar:

"I must introduce the French way of living here, and especially the French way of cooking."

The father made a grimace.