Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish, Greek, Belgian, Hungarian | Page 7

would be gone.
The package, cut open, lay before him, shone upon clearly by the
afternoon sun, and on it was an open book. When the old man stretched
his hand toward it again, he heard in the stillness the beating of his own
heart. He looked; it was poetry. On the outside stood printed in great
letters the title, underneath the name of the author. The name was not
strange to Skavinski; he saw that it belonged to the great poet,
[Footnote: Mickiewicz (pronounced Mitskyevich), the greatest poet of
Poland.] whose productions he had read in 1830 in Paris. Afterward,
when campaigning in Algiers and Spain, he had heard from his
countrymen of the growing fame of the great seer; but he was so

accustomed to the musket at that time that he took no book in hand. In
1849 he went to America, and in the adventurous life which he led he
hardly ever met a Pole, and never a Polish book. With the greater
eagerness, therefore, and with a livelier beating of the heart, did he turn
to the title-page. It seemed to him then that on his lonely rock some
solemnity is about to take place. Indeed it was a moment of great calm
and silence. The clocks of Aspinwall were striking five in the afternoon.
Not a cloud darkened the clear sky; only a few sea-mews were sailing
through the air. The ocean was as if cradled to sleep. The waves on the
shore stammered quietly, spreading softly on the sand. In the distance
the white houses of Aspinwall, and the wonderful groups of palm, were
smiling. In truth, there was something there solemn, calm, and full of
dignity. Suddenly, in the midst of that calm of Nature, was heard the
trembling voice of the old man, who read aloud as if to understand
himself better:
"Thou art like health, O my birth-land Litva! [Footnote: Lithuania.]
How much we should prize thee he only can know who has lost thee.
Thy beauty in perfect adornment this day I see and describe, because I
am yearning for thee."
His voice failed Skavinski. The letters began to dance before his eyes;
something broke in his breast, and went like a wave from his heart
higher and higher, choking his voice and pressing his throat. A moment
more he controlled himself, and read further:
"O Holy Lady, who guardest bright Chenstohova, Who shinest in
Ostrobrama and preservest The castle town Novgrodek with its trusty
people, As Thou didst give me back to health in childhood, When by
my weeping mother placed beneath Thy care I raised my lifeless
eyelids upward, And straightway walked unto Thy holy threshold, To
thank God for the life restored me,-- So by a wonder now restore us to
the bosom of our birthplace."
The swollen wave broke through the restraint of his will. The old man
sobbed, and threw himself on the ground; his milk-white hair was
mingled with the sand of the sea. Forty years had passed since he had
seen his country, and God knows how many since he heard his native

speech; and now that speech had come to him itself,--it had sailed to
him over the ocean, and found him in solitude on another
hemisphere,--it so loved, so dear, so beautiful! In the sobbing which
shook him there was no pain,-- only a suddenly aroused immense love,
in the presence of which other things are as nothing. With that great
weeping he had simply implored forgiveness of that beloved one, set
aside because he had grown so old, had become so accustomed to his
solitary rock, and had so forgotten it that in him even longing had
begun to disappear. But now it returned as if by a miracle; therefore the
heart leaped in him.
Moments vanished one after another; he lay there continually. The
mews flew over the light-house, crying as if alarmed for their old friend.
The hour in which he fed them with the remnants of his food had come;
therefore, some of them flew down from the light-house to him; then
more and more came, and began to pick and to shake their wings over
his head. The sound of the wings roused him. He had wept his fill, and
had now a certain calm and brightness; but his eyes were as if inspired.
He gave unwittingly all his provisions to the birds, which rushed at him
with an uproar, and he himself took the book again. The sun had gone
already behind the gardens and the forest of Panama, and was going
slowly beyond the isthmus to the other ocean; but the Atlantic was full
of light yet; in the open air there was still perfect vision; therefore, he
read further:
"Now bear my longing soul