Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian | Page 8

to those forest slopes, to those green
meadows."
At last the dusk obliterates the letters on the white paper,--the dusk
short as a twinkle. The old man rested his head on the rock, and closed
his eyes. Then "She who defends bright Chenstohova" took his soul,
and transported it to "those fields colored by various grain." On the sky
were burning yet those long stripes, red and golden, and on those
brightnesses he was flying to beloved regions. The pine-woods were
sounding in his ears; the streams of his native place were murmuring.
He saw everything as it was; everything asked him, "Dost remember?"
He remembers! he sees broad fields; between the fields, woods and

villages. It is night now. At this hour his lantern usually illuminates the
darkness of the sea; but now he is in his native village. His old head has
dropped on his breast, and he is dreaming. Pictures are passing before
his eyes quickly, and a little disorderly. He does not see the house in
which he was born, for war had destroyed it; he does not see his father
and mother, for they died when he was a child; but still the village is as
if he had left it yesterday,--the line of cottages with lights in the
windows, the mound, the mill, the two ponds opposite each other, and
thundering all night with a chorus of frogs. Once he had been on guard
in that village all night; now that past stood before him at once in a
series of views. He is an Ulan again, and he stands there on guard; at a
distance is the public-house; he looks with swimming eyes. There is
thundering and singing and shouting amid the silence of the night with
voices of fiddles and bass-viols "U-ha! U-ha!" Then the Ulans knock
out fire with their horseshoes, and it is wearisome for him there on his
horse. The hours drag on slowly; at last the lights are quenched; now as
far as the eye reaches there is mist, and mist impenetrable; now the fog
rises, evidently from the fields, and embraces the whole world with a
whitish cloud. You would say, a complete ocean. But that is fields;
soon the land-rail will be heard in the darkness, and the bitterns will
call from the reeds. The night is calm and cool,--in truth, a Polish night!
In the distance the pine-wood is sounding without wind, like the roll of
the sea. Soon dawn will whiten the East. In fact, the cocks are
beginning to crow behind the hedges. One answers to another from
cottage to cottage; the storks are screaming somewhere on high. The
Ulan feels well and bright. Some one had spoken of a battle to-morrow.
Hei! that will go on, like all the others, with shouting, with fluttering of
flaglets. The young blood is playing like a trumpet, though the night
cools it. But it is dawning. Already night is growing pale; out of the
shadows come forests, the thicket, a row of cottages, the mill, the
poplars. The well is squeaking like a metal banner on a tower. What a
beloved land, beautiful in the rosy gleams of the morning! Oh, the one
land, the one land!
Quiet! the watchful picket hears that some one is approaching. Of
course, they are coming to relieve the guard.

Suddenly some voice is heard above Skavinski,--
"Here, old man! Get up! What's the matter?"
The old man opens his eyes, and looks with wonder at the person
standing before him. The remnants of the dream-visions struggle in his
head with reality. At last the visions pale and vanish. Before him stands
Johnson, the harbor guide.
"What's this?" asked Johnson; "are you sick?"
"No."
"You didn't light the lantern. You must leave your place. A vessel from
St. Geromo was wrecked on the bar. It is lucky that no one was
drowned, or you would go to trial. Get into the boat with me; you'll
hear the rest at the Consulate."
The old man grew pale; in fact he had not lighted the lantern that night.
A few days later, Skavinski was seen on the deck of a steamer, which
was going from Aspinwall to New York. The poor man had lost his
place. There opened before him new roads of wandering; the wind had
torn that leaf away again to whirl it over lands and seas, to sport with it
till satisfied. The old man had failed greatly during those few days, and
was bent over; only his eyes were gleaming. On his new road of life he
held at his breast his book, which from time to time he pressed with his
hand as if in fear that that too might go from him.

THE PLAIN SISTER
BY