Tales by Polish Authors Part 46

"Why? Isn't the German cuisine good enough?"

"The Germans are pigs!"

"What?" said the old man.

"I say the Germans are pigs," laughed the son. "They neither know how to eat nor how to enjoy themselves."

"Well," interrupted the father, "and what are you?"

"I? I am a human being--in other words, a citizen of the world."

That his son should call himself cosmopolitan mattered little to Adler, but he was much hurt by the wholesale relegation of Germans to the cla.s.s of unclean animals.

"I thought, my dear Ferdinand, that you might have learnt some sense for the sixty thousand roubles you have spent."

The son flung away his cigar and fell on his father's neck.

"What an excellent father you are!" he exclaimed, kissing him. "What a fine example of a real, stereotyped, conservative Baron! Well, don't frown--cheer up! Come, don't look so glum!"

He seized him by his hands and drew him into the middle of the room.

Tapping his chest, he said:

"What a chest! ... what calves! If I had a young wife, I should know who to be jealous of. And you really mean to say all the same that you agree with these dead and stale theories? 'The devil take the Germans and their cookery!' That is a motto worthy of the age and of strong men."

"You must be crazy," interrupted the father, somewhat pacified. "But what are you if you have ceased to be a German?"

"I?" replied Ferdinand with mock seriousness. "Among Germans I am a Polish n.o.bleman, Adler von Adlersdorf; among Frenchmen I am a republican and a democrat."

Such was Ferdinand's first meeting with his father, and such were the spiritual gains of his stay abroad, paid for with sixty thousand roubles.

On the same day father and son drove over to see Pastor Boehme. The mill-owner introduced Ferdinand to him as a converted sinner who had spent much money and gained much experience for it. The pastor tenderly embraced his G.o.dson and held up to him as an example his son, Jzef, who was working hard, and would continue to work to the end of his life. Ferdinand replied that work was really the only thing that gave human beings the right to exist. He added that he himself had been a little inconsiderate in spending his life among the people of a nation which boasted of its levity and idleness. Finally he a.s.serted that one Englishman worked as much as two Frenchmen or three Germans, and that he had for this reason lately acquired a great respect for the English. Adler was astonished at his son's earnestness and the sincerity of his conviction, and Boehme remarked that young wine must ferment and that his experienced eye could detect a change for the better in Ferdinand, which was worth more than the expenditure of sixty thousand roubles. After these solemn words the old people, with the addition of the Frau Pastor, sat down to a bottle of hock, and talked of their children.

"You know, dear Gottlieb," said the pastor, "I am beginning to admire Ferdinand. From being a young windbag of a fellow he has now become a _verus vir_. He has experience and judgment, and knows himself too."

"Oh yes," confirmed the Frau Pastor, "he reminds me altogether of our Jzio. Do you remember, father, when Jzio was here last vacation he said the same thing about the English? Dear boy!"

And the kind, thin lady sighed and pulled at the bodice of her black dress, which seemed to have been made in expectation of greater corpulence.

Ferdinand meanwhile was walking in the garden with Annette, the pretty daughter of the pastor. They had known each other from childhood, and the young girl had greeted the companion, whom she had not seen for so long, warmly and even enthusiastically. They walked about together for nearly an hour; but as the day was very hot, Annette had suddenly complained of a headache and gone up to her room, and Ferdinand returned to the old people. He was sulky and did not talk much. This did not astonish the pastor and his wife. A young man would naturally prefer the society of a young girl. Soon after Adler and his son returned home, and Ferdinand informed his father that he would have to go to Warsaw the next day.

"What for?" asked his father. "Have you got tired of home in eight hours?"

"Not in the least; only, you see, I need s.h.i.+rts and some suits, and also a carriage in which I can pay visits in the neighbourhood."

These reasons did not seem conclusive to the elder man. He said that the housekeeper could go to Warsaw to order the clothes; and if he bought a carriage, he would like to buy it himself from a carriage-builder of his acquaintance. It was difficult to agree about the clothes, but it was finally settled that a suit should be sent to the tailor as a pattern. Ferdinand did not look at all pleased at this.

"I suppose you keep a riding horse?"

"No; what good would it be to me?" replied the mill-owner.

"Well, but I must have one, and I hope you will at least not refuse me this?"

"Of course not."

"I should like to go into the town to-morrow to see if one of the n.o.bility has a good horse for sale. You won't object to that?"

"Not in the least."

By ten o'clock in the morning Ferdinand had left home to go into the town, and a few minutes later Boehme's cart and horse drew up in the courtyard. The pastor seemed unusually excited. When he hurried into the room, there were two flushed spots between his whiskers and his long nose. As soon as he saw Adler, he called out:

"Is Ferdinand at home?"

Adler was astonished, and noticed that his friend's voice was trembling.

"Why? What do you want Ferdinand for?" he asked.

"The scoundrel! He's a bad lot! Do you know what he said to Annette yesterday?"

Adler's face showed that he neither knew nor suspected anything.

"He actually," continued the pastor, getting still more excited, "he asked her...." He broke off, and exclaimed indignantly: "The insolence! The shame of it!"

"What is the matter with you?" asked Adler, growing anxious. "What did he say to her?"

"He asked her to leave the window of her room open for him at night."

The poor pastor, from the excess of his feelings, flung his panama hat on the floor.

In matters which had nothing to do with the manufacture and sale of cotton goods Adler took a long time to think. The chord that would have been touched by the wrong done to the girl was missing in his heart; but he had a feeling of friends.h.i.+p for the pastor, and starting from this basis and reasoning phlegmatically and logically, he came to the conclusion that, if the young girl had listened to the proposal, Ferdinand would have to marry her. In any case he would have to marry her; the old man saw no other way out of it.

This then was the end of it! A few hours after his arrival, and a few minutes after his excellent speech about his improvement, Ferdinand had put himself into such a position that he, the son of a millionaire, would have to marry a dowerless girl--the pastor's daughter! Instead of enjoying life at his side, and seeing him take the best of what money, youth and unrestrained freedom could give, he would now have to marry the boy to this girl.

It was only after the nervous old Boehme had begun to cry in his anger that Adler's wrath burst out in words.

"He is a scoundrel, that fellow!" he shouted. "A week ago I paid sixty thousand roubles for him, and now he extorts more money from me and behaves like this on the top of it all!"

He lifted his hands and shook them like Moses when he threw down the stone tablets on the heads of the wors.h.i.+ppers of the golden calf.

"I will thrash him!" roared the mill-owner.

Seeing his excitement, and guessing that a stick in Adler's hand might have deplorable results, the pastor pacified him.

"My dear Gottlieb, that is quite unnecessary. Leave it to me, and I will tell Ferdinand either not to come to our house, or to behave in a decent and Christian way."

"Johann!" shouted the manufacturer, and when the footman appeared he continued without softening his voice: "Send to the town at once for Ferdinand. I will flog the scoundrel!"

The footman looked amazed and frightened, but the pastor gave him a knowing look, and the sagacious Johann went out.