Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian | Page 3

passed. He had
campaigned in the four parts of the world, and in wandering had tried
almost every occupation. Labor-loving and honest, more than once had
he earned money, and had always lost it in spite of every prevision and
the utmost caution. He had been a gold-miner in Australia, a
diamond-digger in Africa, a rifleman in public service in the East
Indies. He established a ranch in California,--the drought ruined him;
he tried trading with wild tribes in the interior of Brazil,--his raft was
wrecked on the Amazon; he himself alone, weaponless, and nearly
naked, wandered in the forest for many weeks living on wild fruits,
exposed every moment to death from the jaws of wild beasts. He
established a forge in Helena, Arkansas, and that was burned in a great
fire which consumed the whole town. Next he fell into the hands of
Indians in the Rocky Mountains, and only through a miracle was he
saved by Canadian trappers. Then he served as a sailor on a vessel
running between Bahia and Bordeaux, and as harpooner on a
whaling-ship; both vessels were wrecked. He had a cigar factory in
Havana, and was robbed by his partner while he himself was lying sick
with the vomito. At last he came to Aspinwall, and there was to be the
end of his failures,--for what could reach him on that rocky island?
Neither water nor fire nor men. But from men Skavinski had not
suffered much; he had met good men oftener than bad ones.
But it seemed to him that all the four elements were persecuting him.
Those who knew him said that he had no luck, and with that they
explained everything. He himself became somewhat of a monomaniac.
He believed that some mighty and vengeful hand was pursuing him
everywhere, on all lands and waters. He did not like, however, to speak

of this; only at times, when some one asked him whose hand that could
be, he pointed mysteriously to the Polar Star, and said, "It comes from
that place." In reality his failures were so continuous that they were
wonderful, and might easily drive a nail into the head, especially of the
man who had experienced them. But Skavinski had the patience of an
Indian, and that great calm power of resistance which comes from truth
of heart. In his time he had received in Hungary a number of bayonet-
thrusts because he would not grasp at a stirrup which was shown as
means of salvation to him, and cry for quarter. In like manner he did
not bend to misfortune. He crept up against the mountain as
industriously as an ant. Pushed down a hundred times, he began his
journey calmly for the hundred and first time. He was in his way a most
peculiar original. This old soldier, tempered, God knows in how many
fires, hardened in suffering, hammered and forged, had the heart of a
child. In the time of the epidemic in Cuba, the vomito attacked him
because he had given to the sick all his quinine, of which he had a
considerable supply, and left not a grain to himself.
There had been in him also this wonderful quality,--that after so many
disappointments he was ever full of confidence, and did not lose hope
that all would be well yet. In winter he grew lively, and predicted great
events. He waited for these events with impatience, and lived with the
thought of them whole summers. But the winters passed one after
another, and Skavinski lived only to this,--that they whitened his head.
At last he grew old, began to lose energy; his endurance was becoming
more and more like resignation, his former calmness was tending
toward supersensitiveness, and that tempered soldier was degenerating
into a man ready to shed tears for any cause. Besides this, from time to
time he was weighed down by a terrible homesickness which was
roused by any circumstance,--the sight of swallows, gray birds like
sparrows, snow on the mountains, or melancholy music like that heard
on a time. Finally, there was one idea which mastered him,--the idea of
rest. It mastered the old man thoroughly, and swallowed all other
desires and hopes. This ceaseless wanderer could not imagine anything
more to be longed for, anything more precious, than a quiet corner in
which to rest, and wait in silence for the end. Perhaps specially because
some whim of fate had so hurried him over all seas and lands that he

could hardly catch his breath, did he imagine that the highest human
happiness was simply not to wander. It is true that such modest
happiness was his due; but he was so accustomed to disappointments
that he thought of rest as people in general think of something which