Tales by Polish Authors Part 49

Get on! Only three months more!

Meanwhile fortune again smiled on Adler. The demand for his goods, which were excellent, was greater than ever, and in July double the amount of orders came in. He accepted them all after consulting his confidential clerks, and bought up cotton with all his available capital. The hands were told that they would have to work until nine o'clock in the evening, and they were to be paid double for overtime.

More workshops were added, and the question of how to make use of the Sundays arose. With regard to this Adler had his plan ready. Sunday work was to be paid at a double rate in the beginning, but in a measure, as the hands got used to it, the pay would be reduced.

If everything went all right, Adler calculated that the profits of the current year would make it possible for him to sell the factory, for which he would easily find a purchaser, and to take his millions and his son abroad.

Thus both the workman and the princ.i.p.al were simultaneously approaching the realization of their hopes.

The increased activity in the mill affected the engineering workshop in the first place. New hands were taken on, the compulsory hours were extended until nine, and overtime work until midnight. The first two hours of overtime were paid double, the next three times as much. A stricter control was introduced, and if anyone left off work before time, so much was deducted from his wages that his profits were practically reduced to nothing. The hands were weary in consequence, especially Goslawski, who, as the most expert, was obliged to work until midnight.

Even he himself felt that he could not go on at this rate, and asked for relief. The millionaire agreed, and proposed a new arrangement.

Goslawski was in future to receive a fixed salary, and work with his hands only at those parts of the machinery which required the greatest exact.i.tude. His chief business would be to supervise the general run of the work and direct others. He would in reality be the head of the workshop, and while doing the work of a simple workman receive the pay of a head-mechanic.

No German would have agreed to such a proposal, but when it was first made it flattered Goslawski. He soon realized, however, that he was being exploited again, for he had to work physically as hard as before, and had in addition a greater strain on his mind. All day long he had to rush from the vice to the anvil, and from the anvil to the lathe, and was importuned besides by his fellow-workmen, who thought that Goslawski was there not only to give them information, but to do their work for them as well.

By the end of June he looked like an automaton. He never smiled, and hardly ever talked about anything that was not connected with his work. He, who had been so particular about tidiness, began to neglect his appearance. He ceased to go to church on Sundays, and slept till midday instead. In his relations with others he became irritable. His one pleasure was to sleep; he slept like a man in convalescence. He became a little more animated perhaps, when he kissed his little son "Good-morning" or "Good-night."

Goslawski himself quite understood the state he was in. He knew that the hard work was wearing him out, but he saw no way of freeing himself from it. The contract with the landowner could not be signed before August, and he could not take possession of the workshop till October. If he left the mill he would have to live on his ready money, and spend in a few months some hundreds of roubles which were indispensable for the new start. The only thing to be done was to stick to his post and strain his strength to the utmost. Perhaps a week's rest after he had moved into his own household would restore the disturbed balance of his organism.

But he was sick of the mill. He carried a little calendar about with him on which he crossed out the days as they pa.s.sed: only two months and a half now; sixty-five days; two months only!...

CHAPTER V

On a certain Sat.u.r.day night in August the engineering workshop was in a ferment of rush and work.

It was a large building covered with gla.s.s like a hothouse; along one wall was the power-engine, along the other two forges. There was also a small hammer worked by a hand-wheel, several vices, a lathe, drilling machinery and a number of hand tools. Midnight was approaching, the lights had long been put out in all the other parts of the mill; the tired weavers were asleep in their homes.

But here the great rush goes on. The hurried breath of the engine, the throb of the pumps, the din of the hammer, the rattle of the lathe, the grating of the files increase more and more. The air is soaked with steam, coal-dust and fine iron filings; the flames of the gas-lamps flicker through the heavy atmosphere like will-o'-the-wisps.

Outside there is the stillness of night as a background to the mill; the moon peeps in through the gla.s.s which quivers incessantly from the noise.

There is hardly any talking in the room; the work is urgent, the hour late, so the men hurry on in silence. Here a group of grimy blacksmiths are dragging a huge white-hot iron bar to be hammered; there a row of them bend and raise themselves as under a command over their vices. Opposite them the turners bend to watch the revolving work in the machines. Sparks fly from under the hammer. From time to time an order or a curse is heard. Sometimes the hammering and filing slackens down, and then the mournful groan of the bellows blowing on to the furnaces begins.

Goslawski is at the lathe, turning a large steel cylinder; the work must be done exactly to the thousandth of an inch! But somehow Goslawski is off his work. There had been so much to do that day that he had not been able to leave the workshop during the evening recess; he is even more than usually tired therefore. A light fever torments him, streams of perspiration flow down his body, at moments he has hallucinations, and then he imagines that he is somewhere else, far away. But he quickly rouses himself, rubs his eyes with his grimy hands to shake off the la.s.situde, and looks anxiously to see whether the cutting tool has not taken away too much of the cylinder.

"I am dead-beat," said his neighbour to him.

"So am I," replied Goslawski, sitting down on a stool.

"It's the heat," said the other. "The engine is red-hot, the blacksmiths are working with both forges; besides, it is getting late.

Take a pinch of snuff."

"No, thank you," replied Goslawski, "I should like a pipe, but not snuff. I would rather have a drink of water."

He stepped away and dipped a rusty mug into a barrel of water. But the water was warm, and instead of being refreshed, Goslawski felt the perspiration breaking out still more. He was losing his strength.

"What's the time?" he asked his neighbour.

"A quarter to twelve. Will you finish work to-day?"

"Yes, I think so. I must still take a hair's-breadth off the cylinder; but, d.a.m.n it! I see everything double."

"It's the heat--the heat!" repeated the neighbour, taking another pinch of snuff and moving away.

Goslawski measured the diameter of the cylinder, moved the cutting tool, clamped it with the screws, and once more set the machine in motion. After the momentary strain of attention there followed a reaction in him, and he began to doze standing, his eyes fixed on the s.h.i.+ning surface of the cylinder, on which drops of water were falling.

"Did you speak?" he suddenly asked his neighbour.

But the man, bending over his work, did not hear the question.

At that moment Goslawski fancied that he was at home: his wife and children are asleep; the lamp, turned low, is burning on the chest of drawers; his bed is ready for him.... Yes, here is the table, there is the chair! Worn out with fatigue, he wants to sit down on the chair; he leans his heavy arm on the edge of the table....

The lathe made a strange noise. Something cracked in it and began to go to pieces, and a dreadful human shriek resounded through the workroom....

Goslawski's right hand had been caught between the cogwheels; in the twinkling of an eye he was hung up as though welded to the machinery, which had got hold first of the fingers, then of the hand, then of the bone up to the elbow: the blood gushed out. The wretched man saw what had happened and tore himself away; the crushed and broken bones and torn muscles were not able to bear the load, they broke, and Goslawski fell heavily to the floor.

All this happened within a few seconds.

"Stop the engine!" shouted Goslawski's neighbour.

The engine was stopped, and all the men left their work and came running up to the wounded man. Someone poured a can of water over him; one young man had a fit when he saw the blood; others ran out of the workshop without knowing why.

"Fetch the doctor!" Goslawski cried in a changed voice.

"A horse ... hurry up! ... run to the town!" shouted the workmen, as if they were out of their senses.

"Oh, the blood, the blood!" groaned the wounded man.

The bystanders did not know what he meant.

"For G.o.d's sake, stop the blood! Tie up my arm!"

n.o.body moved; they did not know how to stop the blood, and were paralyzed with fright.

"What a place this is!" cried the man who had been working next to Goslawski--"no doctor, no bone-setter!... Where is Schmidt? Run for Schmidt!"

Some ran for Schmidt. Meanwhile one of the old blacksmiths showed more presence of mind than the others, knelt down, and compressed the arm above the elbow with his hands. The blood began to flow more slowly.

It was a terrible injury; part of the arm and two fingers were left, the rest had been torn away. At last, after a quarter of an hour, Schmidt, who took the doctor's place in the factory, appeared. He was just as terrified as the rest, and bandaged the wounded arm with rags, which instantly became soaked with blood. He ordered the men to carry Goslawski home. They laid him on some boards; two men carried him, two supported his head, the rest crowded round, and they all moved away in a body.

There was no one in the offices, and no light showed in Adler's house.

The dogs, scenting blood, began to howl; the night watchman took off his cap and looked with pale face after the procession moving along the highroad, which was flooded by the moonlight.

A factory hand appeared at an open window in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and called out:

"Hallo! What's the matter?"

"Goslawski has had his hand torn off!"