Tales by Polish Authors Part 47

"Dear Gottlieb," said Boehme, "Ferdinand is too old to be flogged with a stick, or even to be reprimanded too violently. Excessive severity will not only fail to improve him, but may cause him to lay hands on his own life; he is an ambitious boy."

This remark had a sudden effect on Adler. He opened his eyes wide and fell back into a chair.

"What is that you are saying, Martin?" he gasped. "Johann! Water!"

Johann brought the water, and the old man calmed down by degrees. He gave no more orders to fetch Ferdinand.

"Yes, the madcap might do such a thing," he whispered in depression, and dropped his head on his chest.

This strong and energetic old man understood that his son had taken the wrong turning and ought to be led back, but he did not know how to do it.

Late at night Ferdinand returned home in an excellent temper. He looked for his father in all the rooms, left the doors open, and beat a tattoo on tables and chairs with his walking-stick, singing in a loud and false baritone:

"Allons, enfants de la patrie...."

He reached the study and stood before his father, with his Scotch cap perched on the back of his head, his waistcoat unb.u.t.toned, and smelling of wine; sparks of mirth, untempered by reason, were burning in his eyes. When he came to the line

"Aux armes, citoyens!"

his enthusiasm was such that he flourished his cane over his father's head.

The old man was not accustomed to people who waved sticks over him. He sprang up from his chair, and looking fiercely at his son, cried: "You are drunk, you scoundrel!"

Ferdinand stepped back and said coolly: "Please don't call me a scoundrel, father; if I get accustomed to being called such names at home, it might not make the slightest difference to me if anyone else called me or my father these names. One can get accustomed to anything."

The moderate tone and clear exposition did not fail to impress the cotton-spinner.

"You are without honour," he said after a while; "you wanted to seduce old Boehme's daughter."

"Did you think it likely I should try to seduce the mother?" asked Ferdinand in a tone of astonishment.

"Stop these bad jokes," the father said angrily; "the pastor has been here to-day, and requests that you do not set foot in his house again.

He refuses to have anything to do with you."

"What a pity!" Ferdinand laughed, throwing his cap down on a pile of papers, and himself at full length upon the sofa. "He is really doing me the greatest favour by releasing me from those dull visits. They are a queer lot. The old man believes that he is living among cannibals, and is always converting somebody or rejoicing at somebody's conversion. The old woman has nothing but water on the brain, in which that learned snail, Jzio, swims about. The daughter is sacred like an altar at which only pastors are allowed to officiate. When she has had two children, she will be a skeleton like her mother, and then I congratulate her husband. How dreadfully dull and pedantic all these people are!"

"Very well, they may be pedantic," said his father; "but if you had been with them you would not have squandered sixty thousand roubles."

Ferdinand had just started a yawn, but did not finish it. He sat up on the sofa and looked sorrowfully at his father.

"I see, father, you will never forget those few thousand roubles."

"Certainly I shan't forget them," shouted the old man. "How can a man in his right mind spend so much money for devil knows what? I was going to tell you that yesterday."

Ferdinand took his feet off the sofa, smacked his knee with his hand, and feeling that his father's anger did not go very deep, began:

"My dear father, let us for once in our lives have a reasonable talk.

I suppose you do not look upon me any more as a child?"

"You are a monkey," the old man said abruptly. His heart was touched by his son's seriousness.

"Well then, father, as a man who looks below the surface of things, you probably understand, though you won't confess to it, that I am such as Nature and our family made me. Our family does not consist of such units as the pastor and his son. Our family was once upon a time given the name of 'Adler,'[24] not 'frog' or 'crab.' If you look at it even from the physical point of view, you can see that it consists of people with huge frames. It possesses a man who has gained millions and an excellent position in a strange country only through the work of his ten fingers. That shows that our family has imagination and strength."

Ferdinand said all this with true or feigned emotion, and his father was much impressed.

"Is it my fault," he went on, gradually raising his voice, "that I have inherited this imagination and this strength from my ancestors? I must live more fully and do more than a 'stone' or a 'flower,' or even an ordinary 'bird'--for I am an 'eagle.' I am not satisfied with a narrow corner; I must have the world. My strength requires that I should either have great obstacles to overcome and difficult circ.u.mstances to master, or else I must have plenty of dissipation.

Otherwise I should burst. Men of temperament either wreck empires or become criminals. Bismarck smashed beer-mugs on the heads of the Philistines before he smashed up the Austrian and French Empires. He was then exactly what I am to-day. To rise to the surface and to be a true 'eagle,' I must have suitable circ.u.mstances; I am not living in my proper sphere now. I have nothing to fix my attention on, and nothing to wear out my strength; that is why I am so fast. If I weren't, I should die like an eagle in a cage. You have your aims in life; you order about hundreds of workmen, and set engines in motion; you have had a big fight to a.s.sert yourself against others and to get your money. I have not even got that pleasure. What is there for me to do?"

"Who prevents you from taking an interest in the factory, or ordering the people about and increasing our capital? That would be a better thing than to go and waste it."

"All right!" exclaimed Ferdinand, jumping up; "give me some of your authority, and I will set to work to-morrow. It will be with really hard work that my wings will grow. Well now, will you give over the management of the factory to me to-morrow? I will take it over, if it's only for something to do; I am tired of this empty life."

Had old Adler had tears to shed, he would have cried for joy, but he had to be satisfied with pressing his son's hand repeatedly. He had surpa.s.sed all his expectations. What a piece of luck that Ferdinand should wish to take over the management of the factory! In a few years their fortune would be doubled, and then they would go out into the world and look for a wider horizon for the young eagle.

The mill-owner slept badly that night. The next morning Ferdinand really went to the mill, and made the round of all the departments.

The workmen looked at him with curiosity, and vied with one another in giving him information and carrying out his orders. The jolly, friendly young man, who was quite the opposite to his stern father, made a favourable impression on them. But all the same, at ten o'clock one of the foremen came to the office to complain that the young gentleman was flirting with his wife and behaving improperly with the workwomen.

"Nonsense!" said Adler.

In an hour's time the foreman of the spinning department came running in with a frightened face.

"Pan Adler," he shouted, "Pan Ferdinand has heard that the hands have had their wages reduced, and he is urging them to leave. He is repeating this in all the workrooms, and is telling the hands all sorts of strange things."

"Has the fellow gone out of his mind?" burst out the mill-owner.

He sent for his son immediately, and ran to meet him. They met in front of the warehouse, Ferdinand with a lighted cigar in his mouth.

"What! you are smoking in the factory? Throw that down at once!" and the old man took it away from him and stamped on it angrily.

"What do you mean? Am I not allowed to smoke a cigar? I--I?"

"n.o.body is allowed to smoke inside the factory," bawled Adler. "You will set the place on fire. You are stirring up my workpeople. Get out of this!"

The encounter had many witnesses, and Ferdinand was offended.

"Oh, if you are going to treat me like this, I have done with you.

Upon my honour, I won't set foot in your factory again. I have had enough of these pleasant home scenes."

He stamped on his cigar and went into the house without even looking at his father, who was panting hard with mingled feelings of anger and shame.

When they met again at lunch, old Adler said:

"Well, you need not trouble me with your help. I will give you a monthly allowance of three hundred roubles, a carriage, horses and servants, and you can do what you like, provided you promise me to keep away from the mill."

Ferdinand leaned his elbows on the table, and said:

"My dear father, let us talk like reasonable people. I cannot waste my life in this house. I have mentioned to you before that I am threatened with an illness called 'spleen,' and that the doctors have forbidden me to be bored. As our life here is very monotonous, I feel already that I am beginning to fail. I do not want to grieve you, but if I am condemned to death----"

His father was frightened.