“ The gale, caught by the hills and resounding from the rocks, repeats its varied echoes within the taiga, and fills the whole place with such howling and moaning that it would be easy for you to think you had come by mistake into the hunting-ground of wolves or bears.
It was somewhere about the middle of November, a month to Christmas. The gale was howling in a variety of voices, as usual, driving forward clouds of dry snow and whirling them round in its mad dance. No one would have turned a dog into the street. ”

“ Adler shuddered and was silent. Ferdinand began to speak in a low voice and with pauses:
"I had to ... father ... I had to. Everyone spoke against us, the nobility, the newspapers, even the waiters. They were saying that I was squandering the money while you sweated the workpeople. Before long they would have spat in our faces."
"Do not exert yourself," whispered the doctor.
The old man listened with the greatest astonishment and sorrow. His thick lips were parted.
"Save me ... father...!" cried Ferdinand with raised voice. "I have promised ten thousand roubles to the doctor." ”

“ He had now been a shoemaker for five years, and, to speak the candid truth, a drunken shoemaker. His bad habit did not allow him even to think of carrying on business for himself; he therefore wandered round to all the local workshops, using other people's tools, and finding life very hard. Each master took a large percentage for the tools, and it is probable that Pan Józef charged him no less than other masters did.
His spirit had once been proud and audacious, but life had bruised it and trodden it into the dust. Some souls emerge thence not only beautiful and noble, but even strong. ”

“ I repeated with so much faith and confidence that I held my breath and waited after each appeal [53] for the sound of a voice like thunder, which would smother the prayers and painful groans, so that the joyful Christmas hymn or the triumphant Easter "Allelujah" might flow from the choir with healing balm upon the crowd of praying people. The last sobs were hushed; the last sighs of a thousand breasts fell with a deadened echo from the high vaulting on to the bowed heads praying below, and oppressed the suppliants with a sense of universal pain. ”

“ If I had a young wife, I should know who to be jealous of. And you really mean to say all the same that you agree with these dead and stale theories? 'The devil take the Germans and their cookery!' That is a motto worthy of the age and of strong men."
"You must be crazy," interrupted the father, somewhat pacified. "But what are you if you have ceased to be a German?"
"I?" replied Ferdinand with mock seriousness. "Among Germans I am a Polish nobleman, Adler von Adlersdorf; among Frenchmen I am a republican and a democrat." ”

“ He never harmed and never worried people; but this I only knew later. At the time I only knew that Olszeski was bad-tempered, and I feared him like fire, and—well, every bad thing. But I don't know how it came about; the farther I went from him, the more he came after me. He was always at me, scolding, cursing, and shouting. But I remembered what my father had said: 'Don't take any notice of his being angry, but remember that he's just'; so I stood it—stood it and never said a word. And I should have stood it longer if Olszeski hadn't gone too far. ”

“ Hey, Buza! what is it like farther on? Shall we be able to drink tea soon?"
"Where we stop we shall drink tea," the Cossack answered gravely.
He was immensely impressed by his own dignity as head of the expedition. He sat on the cask of vodka as if it were a throne, watching over it with a jealous eye.
"When we have passed the edge of the forest there will be no more houses or people to be seen. After that vodka will be all-powerful, and will have to answer every purpose; even our lives depend on it. Those cursed Chukchee drink it like fishes, and are wild to get it. ”

“ Adler, in utter bewilderment, pulled his fingers till the joints cracked.
"He is mad! Good Lord! he is out of his mind! Tell him he is silly, doctor—he speaks of dying.... As if we should allow him to die! You have been promised ten thousand roubles: that is not enough," feverishly continued the old man. "I will give a hundred thousand for my son, if there is the slightest danger. But mind you, I am not going to pay if he is merely silly. What is his condition?"
"It is not exactly dangerous," replied the doctor; "yet we must be careful."
"Of course! Do you hear him, Ferdinand? ”

“ Standing with his back against the church door, Jędrzej took off his cap and cried in a loud, solemn voice:
"Brothers! Poles!"
The women's screaming was hushed, and the crowd drew into a close circle, straining to listen, for the wet snow, which was falling thickly, made hearing difficult.
"I tell you this, brothers: just as the peasant goes out with his harrow in the spring to rake his field which he ploughed in the autumn, that it may be free from weeds before he puts in good seed, so now the time has come to weed out the wrong in the world.... ”

“ You have your aims in life; you order about hundreds of workmen, and set engines in motion; you have had a big fight to assert 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. ”

“ Józef clung helplessly to the sledge, shivering as in fever. At last, when they were nearly under the huge crag of Peweka, the wind abated and merely blew in gusts. Stefan looked up with a feeling of almost religious awe at this rock which weathered gales and sea. Buza was waiting for them there.
"Well, we have done more than we could expect! We may congratulate ourselves. Now it will be just as if we were at home. I am only surprised not to see anyone about. It's true the weather's bad. ”

“ In an uninhabited and desolate country the sight of any fair-sized colony is so attractive that I never once walked this way without feasting my eyes on so visible a proof of man's strength and vitality. I knew every house there: near at hand the brightly lighted houses of the richer tradesmen and officials; farther off the Cossacks' houses, [60] like yurta; still farther the house of the shoemaker and church clerk, and Jan Piętrzak's forge; still farther, scarcely visible through the frozen panes, the feeble little lights from the Yakut yurta ”

“ The fire was breaking out in the spinning and weaving departments.
"Surely it is Adler himself who is setting the mill alight!"
"Why should we save it, when he is destroying it?"
"Who tells you to save it?"
"But what are we going to eat to-morrow?"
The shouts of men and the weeping of women and children rose from the dense crowd of hundreds of human beings, powerless in the face of this calamity. Rescue was, indeed, impossible. The people looked on stupefied while the fire spread rapidly. ”

“ There is hardly any talking in the room; the work is urgent, the hour late, so the men hurry on in silence. Here a group of grimy blacksmiths are dragging a huge white-hot iron bar to be hammered; there a row of them bend and raise themselves as under a command over their vices. Opposite them the turners bend to watch the revolving work in the machines. Sparks fly from under the hammer. From time to time an order or a curse is heard. Sometimes the hammering and filing slackens down, and then the mournful groan of the bellows blowing on to the furnaces begins. ”

“ The church was filled to overflowing with a compact mass of human beings, who joined in the chants which streamed from the choir like burning lava. Loud at first, their voices passed into sobbing until they died into a low and yet lower groan, imploring and scarcely audible.
My small body shivered as with fever. I pressed my burning forehead to the cold floor and folded my hands, stretching them out to God and begging Him to quiet the sorrowful sounds which were tearing my childish heart ”

“ He walked up and down the room with long strides, breathing hard.
"Let us go into the garden," he proposed. "Johann, take a bottle of hock into the summer-house."
The pleasant coolness in the summer-house near the pond, the freshness of the wind rustling in the trees, and perhaps the glass of good wine, gradually soothed Adler. Pastor Boehme looked at him over the rim of his gold spectacles, and seeing him in a better mood, resolved to return to the attack.
"Well," he said, clinking his glass against Adler's, "a man who keeps such excellent wine as this cannot have a bad heart. ”

“ Thumping their sticks together, the crowd shouted:
"Let's have done with them!... No need for such scoundrels to have a priest!... Let them die like dogs! No delay, or else they'll run and fetch the Cossacks! Kill them off!"
But the Gajdas, feeling that this brought a possibility of rescue, began to implore despairingly:
"Men, have pity! Send the priest; we want to make our confession! The priest!..." ”

“ But the Cossack's eyes were fixed on something else.
A Chukchee, dressed in fur and with a spear in his hand, lay face downwards across the pathway. A little farther on a head showed from under a snowdrift, the whites of the eyes shining and the hair dishevelled by the gale; a hand like a claw, clotted with blood, protruded from lower down the drift. Streaks of blood mingled with the red evening glow. ”

“ The sky was frequently half covered by a cloud resembling enormous bays and promontories; unable to disperse, it would lie motionless, threatening to burst suddenly over Obrzydłówek and the distant lonely fields. The fine snow from this cloud would fasten in crystals on the window-panes, while the wind made weird penetrating sounds like an exhausted baby crying out its last sobs close by at a corner of the house. Stripped of their leaves and lashed by the driving snow, wild pear trees swayed their branches over the distant field paths.... ”

“ But, among the seemingly indifferent, without question those most remarkable for strength of will are the peasants. It needs a long, long time before a spark can be kindled from the deep grief of a peasant; but when the fire has broken out it burns so fiercely that a man either hides from the glare or stares in dismay. [58]
I had struggled with this severe illness for some months already and by the time Christmas Eve came I was straining after everything that recalled home, with the unhappy perversity with which a drunkard's thoughts run on spirits, or the thoughts of a lunatic on his mania. ”

“ Thus spurred on, each time Maciej's "Ha, ha!" became louder and his face redder, and when the samovar had boiled he declined to obey the shoemaker and would not pour out the tea.
"Can I never have a talk? When do I ever get a chance of speaking to anyone? You're in the shop; you know what to do and how to talk [28] to people, but I don't. It's not only with those who come here; I can't do it even with our own people, I'm such a plain man. It's dull to be alone, and I'm losing flesh; but there's no one I can go to, for people get bored with me. ”

“ If Ferdinand was meant to work hard, as I have done, why should God have given him the money? What will the boy get out of it if he spends his life in adding ten millions to the one I have made, and his son in adding another ten? God has created rich and poor; the rich enjoy life. ”

“ All this happened within a few seconds.
"Stop the engine!" shouted Gosławski's neighbour.
The engine was stopped, and all the men left their work and came running up to the wounded man. Someone poured a can of water over him; one young man had a fit when he saw the blood; others ran out of the workshop without knowing why.
"Fetch the doctor!" Gosławski cried in a changed voice.
"A horse ... hurry up! ... run to the town!" shouted the workmen, as if they were out of their senses. ”

“ The pastor pointed towards the pond, where the things he had thrown upon the water were making circles that grew larger and larger.
"Do you see how the waves are getting farther and farther away from the middle?" he asked.
"They are always doing that. What is there peculiar in it?"
"You are quite right," said the pastor; "it is always like that—everywhere, on the pond and in our lives. When something good happens in the world, waves are produced by it; they grow larger and larger and extend farther and farther."
"I don't understand you," said Adler indifferently, sipping his wine. ”

“ We know that!" the miller asserted rancorously.
"Then it's they who robbed and killed the Jews in the forest!"
"Sure enough, it's the Gajdas! It's they!... The carrion!... The mean wretches! The scoundrels!" The peasants began to curse, thumping their sticks on the ground and stamping. Their eyes shot fire, and they raised their clenched fists.
"Let's have done with them! Punish those swine! Try them! Try them!"
"Then let's go quickly before they escape us!" Jędrzej cried.
"Skin them!... Batter them to death like mad dogs!" ”

“ He had a presentiment that this time it would not conceal pipes, ropes and a broom, but a notice on a coffin, which he had once seen in an undertaker's shop in Warsaw: "Lodgings for a single person."
"The undertaker must have been a wag," Ferdinand thought.
The hotel sofa was not remarkable for its softness; when Ferdinand leant his head against its arm, he was reminded of his midnight drives home in his carriage. For a man in a sitting posture that was extremely comfortable, but when you lay down it was as uncomfortable as this sofa. ”

“ Here was he, the son of an unpopular father, coming forward to fight a man respected by everybody, and as it were the representative of an offended community. On the side of his adversary were all those who had the courage to stand up against Adler, all the workpeople and most of the officials at the factory. And who was on his side?
Not his father, for he would not have allowed him to fight; not the companions of his dissipations, for they felt uncomfortable, and were only waiting for an opportunity to desert him. Should he wound Zapora, he would give his enemies fresh cause for indignation ”

“ He spent his gigantic strength in hard work, suppressed his dreams, and fixed his thoughts on one thing only, and that was money. In the beginning the money had represented the means to another end, but by degrees even this disappeared, and his whole soul was filled with the desire for work and money.
When he was forty years old he possessed fifty thousand thalers gained by real hard work, determination, uncommon shrewdness, meanness and usury. ”

“ The pastor, however, to whom Adler went without waiting to make up their difference, shook his head, and shifting his spectacles, said: [203]
"Wrong begets wrong, my dear Gottlieb. You have neglected Ferdinand's education, and you did wrong. He has squandered your money, and you have reduced the workmen's wages in consequence, and done a greater wrong. What will be the end of it all?"
"Nothing," said Adler.
"It cannot be nothing," said Boehme, solemnly raising his hands. "The Almighty has so ordered things that every beginning has an end. Good beginning, good end; bad beginning, bad end." ”

“ 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. ”