"The general looks moved, my dear," observed "This place, you know," said the countess, " is so fraught with tender reminiscences such a romantic story, too-cousins-an attachment of early youth-all that sort of thing-one must make allowances; it quite overcomes him. I assure you I feel for him-it is so natural. Of course he has no longer that affection to offer me which, after all, one must be fair, belongs but to one period of life." havior, considering the very peculiar and delicate circumstances in which she was placed. The first her friend. time she stood prepared, radiant in her fairy beauty, all gauze and gossamer, with her marabout boa mingling with a cloud of fair hair, to be taken by him to a court-ball at Vienna, he felt a pride in his new bauble, such as he had not experienced since the sun of his emperor had blazed forth in glory. But pride gave way to mortification when, putting her child-like hand in his broad palm, she said, in her peculiarly low, yet acidulated accents -"Now mind, my dear general, our position is exceptional, so must our manners be-you must be doubly careful of me, and I shall be more reserved than other women, for no one can suspect me of a romantic attachment to you." "It need not be romantic," said the general, in a tone of pique, "but still "Still," said the countess, "my part will be a very difficult one just at first, till the world understands me thoroughly, and gets accustomed to the immense disparity of our years." "I," said the general, with a reddening brow, "I shall never condescend to play the jealous husband." " I don't ask you-it would be wearisome-be kind and fatherly, that is all I demand." That night the arrow entered the general's heart, and had rankled there ever since. He perceived plainly, and so did the world, that he was not loved that he was as much alone in his second marriage as he would have been had he remained a widower. The countess lived beside him, but not with him. Their pursuits, their amusements, their likings and dislikings, their joys and their griefs, had nothing in common. The count, an old trooper of the "grand army," hated the Jesuits. The countess, of a family devoted to them, lived and breathed but through their counsels. In his faults, as in his virtues, the count was reserved, but not false: the countess was a finished actress, and her husband at last came to the opinion that her manifold virtues were all but so many stage effects. Beneath the coldness of the count's air lay concealed passion; but the countess had not a fibre in her whole system which it was in the power of man to move. An inflexible willan indomitable pride-an unbounded self-esteem, were the qualities enshrined within that fragile casket; their hearts, parted from the first, were like two parallel lines running on; they never met by the way. But here, at Stanoiki, the count had known true happiness. Vanda had gilded years of felicity on this spot; and never had his regrets, no, not even in the first hour of bereavement, been so poignant as now, when experience had taught him how irretrievable was his loss. While he was thus musing, the countess and her female friend were discussing the general; not that she was one of those vulgar women who are in the habit of complaining of, or making formal accusations against, the man whose name they bear, to a third party; she was altogether above that. "But you so young, with your warm heart!" "Oh, I-I have such a perfect esteem for the general. He is, too, the father of my beloved Casimir. A romantic, silly girl might not like always having the remembrance of another rising between her and her husband, but you know with me it is so different." "Your angelic temper makes you bear anything, my dear." "We cannot expect unalloyed delight on this earth-we should not even desire it." Other guests now assembling in the salon prevented the countess from gratifying her patient listener with more of those wise saws and pious maxims which, when forming, as they did with this lady, the ground-work of conversation, are neither amusing, edifying, nor sincere. One sentiment alone seemed genuine-her almost idolatry of her son. The affectior could only be surpassed by the injudiciousness of its application. Cloyed with sweetmeats and blasé with toys from his cradle, ever present at the countess' late soirées, his education neglected-for no tutor could be found so thoroughly deprived of hope and resources as to remain for any length of time with this hopeful scion-his every wish gratified, no one on the establishment daring to venture upon the slightest opposition to his desires, and the Josephinka of his mother, who had replaced the Countess Vanda's Seraphinka, being proportionably humble and slavish as the rule she lived under was exacting, rendered fretful and irritable by the mismanagement of his stomach and disposition, Casimir was an embryo tyrant, whom even his mother was glad to obey. She had indeed managed to instruct him in the first rudiments of reading and writing, but there seemed but little prospect of his ever turning this instruction to good account. There was, it is true, no danger of his perusing light booksthe countess eschewing French novels as she eschewed plays, operas, and ballets, on account of their immoral tendency-but as often happens in such cases, the boy read not at all. The history of the Dukes of Burgundy, by Barante, lay open on the countess' table, always presenting the same page to view, for eleven successive years, and her son had a Buffon des enfans which seemed likely to do him similar service in time. We said that the countess had but one affection in her heart, but one tie in life. This was, however, doing the lady injustice. She was a zealous patriot, and would have sacrificed for Poland. as an abstract idea, even the fortune of her child. Perhaps this feeling was too absorbing to allow boatman so bold and safe as Pavel-now to run serving does not, it seems, show Count Casimir thing in his case," said one of the gentlemen, galproper respect." others of a less pure nature to stand beside it, and had consequently raised her above ordinary temptations. In her country's cause she had already, as we have seen, lost a brother who, having succeeded to large estates in Russian-Poland, one day disappeared, no clue to his fate having ever been obtained. Whether he had fled to distant countries, as was his intention, and perhaps died in his exile, or perished by the hand of an unknown assassin, was what no one had been able to ascertain; and the countess, who inherited after him, had felt and exhibited on this occasion a sorrow which, considering the general tenor of her character, her husband might be excused for secretly suspecting to be greatly exaggerated. She had, however, neglected no means of procuring intelligence of his fate; hitherto these efforts had been fruitless, and except herself, no one indulged the belief that he was yet on earth. The evening fete went off badly. The peasantry were awkward from want of habit in that sort of thing. The ladies were tired, the lamps burned dimly, and the crackers would not explode. Every one said that it was a failure, which the countess, of course, attributed to Vanda's spirit, and her husband's maladresse, and the guests went to bed with a dim consciousness that this estate was rather far from Lemberg for amusement. Pavel had affected illness to avoid going near the castle, but he was now ordered, with one or two more, to work in the gardens. Never had he approached those precincts since he had last been there with the Countess Vanda. During the many years he had spent on the domain, he had uniformly avoided the premises. With what feelings did he now approach them! In spite of the insensibility in which he had endeavored to steep his soul, at sight of those well-remembered parterres, a flood of recollections crowded in upon him. In those broad alleys he had walked with his gentle protectress-in that shady bower he had sat, with scarce controlled impatience, listening to her tender words he was then the future lord of those grounds upon which he was now called to labor as a serf. The master and mistress never made their appearance in the garden, but Casimir constantly crossed his path. The first time Pavel set eyes on this usurper, as he deemed him, of what fate had intended to be his lot, his emotion was so great that he was obliged, on pretext of indisposition, to leave the place. But in time, whether there was something in Pavel that roused his latent love of teasing, or he found his services agreeable, Casimir seemed to take a fancy to him -he was ever having him called. The very sound of the boy's imperative voice, the sight of the scornful countenance he had inherited from his mother, made Pavel's heart beat. Should he, a man in his full strength and power, obey the beck of that child's hand-be ordered about by his querulous tones! - he would rather work in the mines, and labor for his master all the days of the week!--to be ever at that boy's disposal, now to boat him down the river-for there was no other after his pony, and satisfy his many caprices, was gall and wormwood-it was gall and wormwood to see him riding about the grounds as he once rode, spending his time roaming as he once roamed, and treated with more servile respect than he had been treated withal. Pavel's dark looks and sulky bearing seemed to give zest to the child's tyrannic humor. He found a sort of charm in this tacit opposition. Though too young to read aright the play of the features, he instinctively felt he was tormenting, and like all children too much left to themselves and their own whims, he was not insensible to the pleasure resulting from the consciousness of power. Yet sometimes there was that in Pavel's look which would check the boy in the very height of his enjoyment, and a monitor in his breast told him he had gone far enough for that day. One morning, the count, accompanied by his wife, and many of his guests, chanced to ride over a field on which, it being robot day, the peasants were at work. A little apart from the rest, in a fit of abstraction, his scythe lying beside him, his arms folded on his chest, a large straw-hat shading his face, stood a young man, in whose attitude and picturesque negligence of costume there was but little of the serf. His striking person and countenance drew all eyes involuntarily upon him. The count looked at him with a vague interest; and turning to the bailiff, who had come up when the party halted, and cutting short a long story with which that personage was favoring him, abruptly inquired the name of the youth. "Pavel Jakubski, excellency," was the answer -" the most dangerous-tempered man on the whole estate." At that moment their eyes met. Pavel's were filled with melancholy reproach. The count could not repress a start-could not conquer himself so far as to withdraw his gaze instantly; and his eyes fell before the peasant's steady look. To conceal his agitation, or perhaps in consequence of it, he looked fiercer than usual; and feeling that he must not appear to quail before one of his serfs, cast upon Pavel a glance of uncompromising severity, then turned away without a word. "What a handsome brigand!" exclaimed a young lady who rode near the countess, in tones so unmeasured that they reached Pavel's ears. "My dear," said the countess, with the air of mild virtuous reproof in which she loved to indulge, "people of this sort are below the notice of ladies like us." "Oh, that dark fellow!" put in Casimir, " you cannot think, mamma, how I hate him. He is always so reluctant to do anything for me, I am obliged to compel him; and he always seems as if he were about to say something impertinent." "I should think there is no one bold enough on this estate to brave its future lord," replied the lady. "General, this must be looked to." "What must be looked to?" said the general, somewhat abruptly. "That young peasant you were just now ob "And what has Casimir to do with that peasant!" "How strange and absent you are, general! How should I know?-he probably amuses himself." "Well, then, I forbid you, sir, ever to amuse yourself with that man-do you hear? If you disobey me, and I discover it, you may depend upon being sent immediately to the gymnase of the nearest town;" and the count rode forward. Military men," said the countess, with a slight shrug, "have such strange manners and fancies! The idea of sending Casimir to a gymnase-to a common school!-now many people, not knowing him, might imagine from such a speech that he is actually brutal, whereas it is no such a thing. The worst that can be said of the count is, that, at such a time of life, one has no delicacy of sentiment-the keen edge of sensibility has been worn off by friction with the world. The only drawback to marriage," she added, turning to her younger guests, " is the roughness of man's mind compared to our own refinement. This I feel more than another, perhaps, who am gifted with such extreme sensibility. As if I lantly. The countess turned on him the most virtuous of glances, and again the glory seemed to shine around her head. When, however, she reëntered the chateau, and was alone in her boudoir with the unhappy Josephinka, who had felt the angel's talons oftener than she had seen her wings, the countess inquired, in somewhat harsh tones, if she knew anything of Jakubski, or had ever heard the name. Josephinka had not. She must be very stupid, considering the time she had been at the castle. Josephinka did not defend herself. The countess felt nervous and irritable. Josephinka had an unfortunate way, when agitated, of losing her head completely; and that morning, in her trepidation, went the length of leaving her mistress with a walking-boot on one foot, and a satin shoe on the other, a delinquency which was only discovered as the countess was about to adjourn to the salon. This was too much. The unlucky abigail's attention was called to the error she had been guilty of; and, to the no small amusement of Casimir, her cheek was made acquainted with the sole of the said slipper. When the angel entered the drawing-room, however, not one feather of her wings was ruf could live without my Casimir! Is not the tak-filed; and there were few men more envied by the ing him from my sight striking me blind? why not at once deprive me of ears, if I am no longer to hear his voice?" The angel wings were fast spreading at her back when the tenderest of mothers was awkwardly interrupted by a rough, fat, old German baroness, whose thirty-two quarterings seemed to croak in her guttural accents as she exclaimed: "Bah! machère, is that the way you bring up boys to be men in Poland-tying them to their mothers' apron-strings? His majesty the emperor has been kind enough to take six of mine successively, and yet I am not aware that my sight or hearing were ever affected by the fact, and you should see what proper men they are-perfect giants, my dear. Now poor little Casimir is so delicate" "Oh," said the countess, with affected bonhomie, and half-closed eyes, "of course, my child could scarce be expected to resemble yours. I know," she continued, turning to her Polish friends, "I am a foolish mother; but if I cannot say, with the Roman matron 'here are my jewels, I can at least say with all sincerity, there is my only treasure." male portion of the assembly than the happy possessor of so much sweetness. As the general entered the apartment, his eye was attracted by a letter, or, more correctly speaking, a petitionfor there was no mistaking the manner in which it was folded and directed that lay, conspicuously, among many more elegant and far-travelled epistles upon the table. Hastily snatching it up, he thrust it into the breast-pocket of his coat. "Ladislas," said the countess, in a coaxing voice for the room was full-"you know the petitions belong to me by right-they are the only secrets of yours I wish to surprise; but really you have done so much for your estate, and I am so little known here as yet, that my own egotism prompts me to demand admittance into your counsels on such occasions." "Later-later," said the count, hurriedly. "Later means never," replied the lady. "Well, then, never!" exclaimed her husband, abruptly, and, rising, he left the room. The guests looked at each other. The general was a well-meaning, but rough man; thus might the glances be construed. The count retired to his own chamber, and sat "You are building something there," said one at his desk, with the paper unfolded before him. of the ladies. "What may it be?" Neither the style, the hand-writing, nor the orthography were perfect; yet all were superior to what might have been expected from a person whose education had been neglected; nor was the letter couched in terms that betrayed a vulgar mind. the late countess was so charming-so beautiful- It was an appeal of Pavel's. He represented how it is natural that he should never have got over his loss." "It seems to me I should be consoled for every CCLXXXV. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 14 he had, in every respect, conformed to the general's desires-how he had never alluded, nor would even now allude, to the past, but that 1 day's meeting had shown that the count could not hold the stalls, in balls, in private theatricals, in wash it out of his memory. Why not spare a lotteries, there are none more charitable than yourbeing who had never offended, the consciousness selves. You don't dislike going begging for the of being hated? Why not spare himself so de- poor from house to house, with the rarest veils on testable a sight? Why not give him (Pavel) the your heads; but as to unseen, unknown charitymeans the only boon he had ever asked-not as to obliging where the obligation bears no echo pecuniary, but legal, of quitting the domain-liberty to sell the small property which had devolved upon him? This was all he would ever demand. He had been refused education-been refused every chance of bettering his moral condition-all he now asked was the power, not of making him -Well, vanity, thy name is 'woman." "Of course," said the countess, " you have a type in your remembrance to whose perfection I cannot pretend to aspire." The count was fairly silenced, and, as usual on such occasions, beat a hasty retreat. self happier, but of suffering less. "Descend The steward was triumphant. He had received into your heart," were the concluding words"consult your own conscience, and then deny me this request if you can." The count, crushing the letter in his hand to a ball, flung it among his waste papers, then ringing the bell, ordered his steward to be called. "Duski," he said, " let the youth you pointed out to me this morning know that he is to send no more petitions here." "Has he had the insolence ?" two commissions for Pavel, which he was fully aware would chafe his high spirit to the uttermost, and which he, of course, determined to execute in a manner most likely to produce that effect. The countess, to spare her beloved Casimir any chance of collision with the paternal will, which she knew to be as inflexible as her son's stubbornness was unconquerable, had held an interview with Duski, in which she had commissioned him to forbid the young peasant Jakubski the approach to the "That's no concern of yours-have the good- chateau, or its immediate vicinity, so long as the ness to do my errand without comment." family should be on the estate. No reason for this contemptuous treatment did she assign. The steward transmitted the command of his master and mistress in a manner which seemed to make them both emanate from the former. Pavel listened with suppressed passion. "The count is right," he said at length, with "Well, Sophie," he said, "here is a petition a bitter laugh-" quite right." that chiefly concerns you. It from the daughter "Do these words imply a threat against our of an officer in your father's regiment-a Polea gentleman-at least so she says. She wishes her father, who has lost his reason, in consequence of a brain fever, to be placed in the lunatic asylum at Lemberg, and her brother at the free school, her work being by no means adequate to their care and maintenance." "Oh, I'll send her a few florins," said the countess, negligently. "But, my dear, she does not ask florins-she represents herself to be the daughter of a gentleIt is our interest, our protection, that she man. lord?" said Duski; but Pavel turned his back upon him, and left the hut. "A bad son, a bad son," said old Jakubska, from her corner-" a bad everything. You can't think what I have to suffer from Pavel. He lays my food before me as one does before the bruteshe never opens his mind to me on any subject, and hardly ever speaks to me at all." "Ay," said the steward, "he is a discontented, disaffected soul-we have our eye on him-he 'll bring himself and you into trouble one day-but it's all your own fault. Why did you, against desires. She says she is obliged to pay guardi- the express command of our lord, get him taught ans night and day for her father, and the boy grows up wild for want of proper training." "Nonsense!" said the countess, pettishly"what do poor people want with education ?when one has no money, one makes oneself a footman; and as to the father, it wants no interest to get him into the hospital." "Well, my dear Sophie, you know best what answer to make to your own petitioners: but it seems to me that you ought to bring your professions and your practice into more harmony." "My dear general, there are very few ladies, I believe, so widely known as myself for their unsparing exertions in favor of the poor." "Ay," said the general, " you fine ladies have a way of your own in such matters. So long as your charity can vent itself in bazaars, where you reading and writing? And then a precious example he has had in you, mother Jakubska-if you could see yourself with your watery eyes!" "It's weeping over my son that does it—I shall go blind with sorrow before long." "Ay, sorrow and brandy," said the steward. He was about to depart, but a sudden thought arrested his footsteps. "He, doubtless, takes from you the pension my lord allows you?" "That," the old woman said, shaking her head, "would be nothing; but never a word of comfort can be got out of him-never a word, good, bad, or indifferent; and nobody," continued the gossip, "will come near me, and my limbs are too weak and too stiff now to carry me far, so that I am but a poor, lone body, abandoned like a dog in his kennel-if it wasn't for the drop of brandy that you speak of, master Duski, how could I ever keep my heart up!" The steward treasured in his memory that portion of the widow's complaints which suited his own views. Indeed, he had only listened to them in order to extract from her something that might prove prejudicial to the object of his enmity. Nothing could be more groundless than the old woman's malicious insinuations. Far from losing anything by Pavel, to which she had a claim, she continually drained his own resources; but she had tact enough to perceive the version of the story which was most pleasing to the steward. A few days later, Duski was again in the count's presence, with a large book under his arm, the domain register, on whose pages were noted down, in categorical order, the names of the vassals, and various details concerning them and their families, her family was numerous and young-there are many on the estate more deserving" "Not another word, Duski," interrupted the count, severely; "look to it that the pension be paid regularly, and in full." "I believe," mentally ejaculated the steward, "that if the late countess had chosen to dispose of Stanoiki by will to an utter stranger, the count would yield possession. Well, I don't understand great folks he looks pretty sharp after his money, too, on ordinary occasions, and clips my reckonings close enough, and he is not ashamed to lavish it on those worthless people." From that day forth, Pavel did not darken the precincts of the castle; but the young count's pleasure in his future domains was much curtailed, by not having the savage-looking peasant to torment, and watch the effect of his dawning tyranny as well as the exact allotment of each, and a speci- in his physiognomy. The visitors soon wearied fication of the tithes, charges, and feudal services of the monotony of the place, and departed, leaving belonging to its tenure. Then followed observa- the house more empty and more silent, much to the tions on the more or less regularity of performance, a black cross marking the names of those who had attempted to pass off light weights of corn, grumbled at lending their cattle, or kept more than their lawful number, by which means they could lend their master their worst teams, and keep their best for their own use. There were, too, notices on relief of the general, but greatly to the chagrin of his wife. At last autumn came, and with it a pretext for departure; for the countess could never spend a winter away from the capital; and her husband, seeming to take no more pleasure in a tête-à-tête than herself, made no objection to the plan of removing to Lemberg. the general character and behavior of the several The peasantry felt no regret when the travelling families, of course more or less favorable, accord-carriages were seen undergoing preparations for ing to the number and value of each peasant's voluntary contributions to the steward. The count, after looking over the most recent annotations, turned hastily the pages, as if in search of a name which he could not immediately find; at last, losing patience, he said hurriedly "And that young man that Jakubski-what of him?-what sort of character does he bear in the village?" "The very worst, my lord. He ill-treats the poor, old, bed-ridden woman, his mother, and takes from her all the money your grace has been so good as to allow her. Moreover, he is averse to the discharge of his duties it is next to impossible to extract the dues from him. He is a sulky, illtempered man-it could scarce be otherwise, son of such an old drunkard as his mother." A shade of pain passed over the count's counte nance. "If I might humbly venture to suggest," continued the steward, "that woman wants no pension now-her son can manage the land his father and brothers left. When the late countess granted it, [GED'S INVENTION OF BLOCK-PRINTING.] THE Monthly Review for February, 1782, contains a brief article on the "Biographical Memoirs of William Ged, including a particular account of his progress in the art of block-printing." "We the journey. Their master had fulfilled none of their expectations; and they accused themselves of folly in ever having entertained them. They gazed in gloomy silence on the chariot containing the count and countess, each leaning back in a corner. their son sitting between them, as it rolled away from the chateau, followed by several britzskas with their suite. The countess affected to sleep, to avoid being troubled with her husband's conversation, who, however, was wrapt in thought, whilst Casimir was assiduously emptying a large paper of bonbons, with which, despite the general's desires in that respect, his mother never failed to gratify her beloved Casimir. This journey, how little satisfactory soever it might be to any of the parties concerned, was, to the great vexation of the countess in particular, to be frequently repeated; but, as she said to some of her most intimate friends, "Every one in this world has a cross to bear;" a favorite expression with many people who hardly know what it is to have a cross in life. jin all respects superior to the method of printing by single types, we cannot suppose that it would have proved unsuccessful. Sufficient trial was made, and though perhaps some unfair practices were chargeable on certain persons who were interested have here," it says, "some authentic documents in opposing or undermining Mr. Ged's undertaking, of an ingenious though unsuccessful invention, and some fugitive memoirs of the inventor and his family. Mr. Ged's scheme for block-printing, with his execution of the specimen which he produced, were certainly curious; but had his invention been found yet both our universities and private printers seem to be nothing loath in consigning not only the artist, but his performances, to that oblivion from which these Memoirs are designed to rescue them." |