Pearl-Fishing; Choice Stories from Dickens' Household Words; First Series

The old man raised his head, gazed upon her with a ghastly smile, and took off his cap.

“And my good old mother, where is she?” Anielka asked.

“She is dead!” answered the old man, and falling back he began laughing idiotically. Anielka wept. She gazed earnestly on the worn frame, the pale and wrinkled cheeks, in which scarcely a sign of life could be perceived; it seemed to her that he had suddenly fallen asleep, and not wishing to disturb him, she went to the carriage for the presents. When she returned, she took his hand. It was cold. The poor old bee-keeper had breathed his last!

Anielka was carried almost senseless back to the carriage, which quickly returned with her to the castle. There she revived a little; but the recollection that she was now quite alone in the world, almost drove her to despair.

Her master’s wedding and the journey to Florence were a dream to her. Though the strange sights of a strange city slowly restored her perceptions, they did not her cheerfulness. She felt as if she could no longer endure the misery of her life; she prayed to die.

“Why are you so unhappy?” said the Count Leon kindly to her, one day.

To have explained the cause of her wretchedness would have been death indeed.

“I am going to give you a treat,” continued Leon. “A celebrated singer is to appear to-night in the theatre. I will send you to hear her, and afterwards you shall sing to me what you remember of her performances.”

Anielka went. It was a new era in her existence. Herself, by this time, an artist, she could forget her griefs, and enter with her whole soul into the beauties of the art she now heard practised in perfection for the first time. To music a chord responded in her breast which vibrated powerfully. During the performances she was at one moment pale and trembling, tears rushing into her eyes, at another, she was ready to throw herself at the feet of the cantatrice, in an ecstasy of admiration. “Prima donna,” – by that name the public called on her to receive their applause, and it was the same, thought Anielka, that Justiniani had bestowed upon her. Could she also be a prima donna? What a glorious destiny! To be able to communicate one’s own emotions to masses of entranced listeners; to awaken in them, by the power of the voice, grief, love, terror.

Strange thoughts continued to haunt her on her return home. She was unable to sleep. She formed desperate plans. At last she resolved to throw off the yoke of servitude, and the still more painful slavery of feelings which her pride disdained. Having learnt the address of the prima donna, she went early one morning to her house.

On entering she said, in French, almost incoherently, so great was her agitation – “Madam, I am a poor serf belonging to a Polish family who have lately arrived in Florence. I have escaped from them; protect, shelter me. They say I can sing.”

The Signora Teresina, a warm-hearted, passionate Italian, was interested by her artless earnestness. She said, “Poor child! you must have suffered much,” – she took Anielka’s hand in hers. “You say you can sing; let me hear you.” Anielka seated herself on an ottoman. She clasped her hands over knees, and tears fell into her lap. With plaintive pathos, and perfect truth of intonation, she prayed in song. The Hymn to the Virgin seemed to Teresina to be offered up by inspiration.

The Signora was astonished. “Where,” she asked, in wonder, “were you taught?”

Anielka narrated her history, and when she had finished, the prima donna spoke so kindly to her that she felt as if she had known her for years. Anielka was Teresina’s guest that day and the next. After the opera, on the third day, the prima donna made her sit beside her, and said: —

“I think you are a very good girl, and you shall stay with me always.”

The girl was almost beside herself with joy.

“We will never part. Do you consent, Anielka?”

“Do not call me Anielka. Give me instead some Italian name.”

“Well, then, be Giovanna. The dearest friend I ever had – but whom I have lost – was named Giovanna,” said the prima donna.

“Then, I will be another Giovanna to you.”

Teresina then said, “I hesitated to receive you at first, for your sake as well as mine; but you are safe now. I learn that your master and mistress, after searching vainly for you, have returned to Poland.”

From this time Anielka commenced an entirely new life. She took lessons in singing every day from the Signora, and got an engagement to appear in inferior characters at the theatre. She had now her own income, and her own servant – she, who had till then been obliged to serve herself. She acquired the Italian language rapidly, and soon passed for a native of the country.

So passed three years. New and varied impressions failed, however, to blot out the old ones. Anielka arrived at great perfection in her singing, and even began to surpass the prima donna, who was losing her voice from weakness of the chest. This sad discovery changed the cheerful temper of Teresina. She ceased to sing in public; for she could not endure to excite pity where she had formerly commanded admiration.

She determined to retire. “You,” she said to Anielka, “shall now assert your claim to the first rank in the vocal art. You will maintain it. You surpass me. Often, on hearing you sing, I have scarcely been able to stifle a feeling of jealousy.”

Anielka placed her hand on Teresina’s shoulder, and kissed her.

“Yes,” continued Teresina, regardless of everything but the bright future she was shaping for her friend. “We will go to Vienna – there you will be understood and appreciated. You shall sing at the Italian Opera, and I will be by your side – unknown, no longer sought, worshipped – but will glory in your triumphs. They will be a repetition of my own; for have I not taught you? Will they not be the result of my work?”

Though Anielka’s ambition was fired, her heart was softened, and she wept violently.

Five months had scarcely elapsed when a furore was created in Vienna by the first appearance, at the Italian Opera, of the Signora Giovanna. Her enormous salary at once afforded her the means of even extravagant expenditure. Her haughty treatment of male admirers only attracted new ones; but in the midst of her triumphs, she thought often of the time when the poor orphan of Pobereze was cared for by nobody. This remembrance made her receive the flatteries of the crowd with an ironical smile; their fine speeches fell coldly on her ear, their eloquent looks made no impression on her heart: that, no change could alter, no temptation win.

In the flood of unexpected success a new misfortune overwhelmed her. Since their arrival at Vienna, Teresina’s health rapidly declined, and in the sixth month of Anielka’s operatic reign she expired, leaving all her wealth, which was considerable, to her friend.

Once more Anielka was alone in the world. Despite all the honors and blandishments of her position, the old feeling of desolateness came upon her. The new shock destroyed her health. She was unable to appear on the stage. To sing was a painful effort; she grew indifferent to what passed around her. Her greatest consolation was in succoring the poor and friendless, and her generosity was most conspicuous to all young orphan girls without fortune. She had never ceased to love her native land, and seldom appeared in society, unless it was to meet her countrymen. If ever she sang, it was in Polish.

A year had elapsed since the death of the Signora Teresina when the Count Selka, a rich noble of Volkynia, at that time in Vienna, solicited her presence at a party. It was impossible to refuse the Count and his lady, from whom she had received great kindness. She went. When in their saloons, filled with all the fashion and aristocracy in Vienna, the name of Giovanna was announced, a general murmur was heard. She entered, pale and languid, and proceeded between the two rows made for her by the admiring assembly, to the seat of honor, beside the mistress of the house.

Shortly after, the Count Selka led her to the piano. She sat down before it, and thinking what she should sing, glanced round upon the assembly. She could not help feeling that the admiration which beamed from the faces around her was the work of her own merit, for had she neglected the great gift of nature, her voice, she could not have excited it. With a blushing cheek, and eyes sparkling with honest pride, she struck the piano with a firm hand, and from her seemingly weak and delicate chest poured forth a touching Polish melody, with a voice pure, sonorous, and plaintive. Tears were in many eyes, and the beating of every heart was quickened.

The song was finished, but the wondering silence was unbroken. Giovanna leaned exhausted on the arm of the chair, and cast down her eyes. On again raising them, she perceived a gentleman who gazed fixedly at her, as if he still listened to echoes which had not yet died within him. The master of the house, to dissipate his thoughtlessness, led him towards Giovanna. “Let me present to you, Signora,” he said, “a countryman, the Count Leon Roszynski.”

The lady trembled; she silently bowed, fixed her eyes on the ground, and dared not raise them. Pleading indisposition, which was fully justified by her pallid features, she soon after withdrew.

When, on the following day, Giovanna’s servant announced the Counts Selka and Roszynski, a peculiar smile played on her lips; and when they entered, she received the latter with the cold and formal politeness of a stranger. Controlling the feelings of her heart, she schooled her features to an expression of indifference. It was manifest from Leon’s manner, that without the remotest recognition, an indefinable presentiment regarding her possessed him. The Counts had called to know if Giovanna had recovered from her indisposition. Leon begged to be permitted to call again.

Where was his wife? why did he never mention her? Giovanna continually asked herself these questions when they had departed.

A few nights after, the Count Leon arrived, sad and thoughtful. He prevailed on Giovanna to sing one of her Polish melodies, which she told him she had been taught, when a child, by her nurse. Roszynski, unable to restrain the expression of an intense admiration he had long felt, frantically seized her hand, and exclaimed, “I love you!”

She withdrew it from his grasp, remained silent for a few minutes, and then said slowly, distinctly, and ironically, “But I do not love you, Count Roszynski.”

Leon rose from his seat. He pressed his hands to his brow, and was silent. Giovanna remained calm and tranquil. “It is a penalty from Heaven,” continued Leon, as if speaking to himself, “for not having fulfilled my duty as a husband towards one whom I chose voluntarily, but without reflection. I wronged her, and am punished.”

Giovanna turned her eyes upon him. Leon continued, “Young, and with a heart untouched, I married a princess about ten years older than myself, of eccentric habits and bad temper. She treated me as an inferior. She dissipated the fortune hoarded up with so much care by my parents, and yet was ashamed, on account of my origin, to be called by my name. Happily for me, she was fond of visiting and amusements. Otherwise, to escape from her, I might have become a gambler, or worse; but to avoid meeting her, I remained at home – for there she seldom was. At first from ennui, but afterwards from real delight in the occupation, I gave myself up to study. Reading formed my mind and heart. I became a changed being. Some months ago my father died, my sister went to Lithuania, whilst my mother, in her old age, and with her ideas, was quite incapable of understanding my sorrow. So when my wife went to the baths for the benefit of her ruined health, I came here in the hope of meeting with some of my former friends – I saw you – ”

Giovanna blushed like one detected; but speedily recovering herself, asked, with calm pleasantry, “Surely you do not number me among your former friends?”

“I know not. I have been bewildered. It is strange; but from the moment I saw you at Count Selka’s, a powerful instinct of love overcame me; not a new feeling; but as if some latent, long-hid, undeveloped sentiment had suddenly burst forth into an uncontrollable passion. I love, I adore you. I – ”

The Prima Donna interrupted him – not with speech, but with a look which awed, which chilled him. Pride, scorn, irony sat in her smile. Satire darted from her eyes. After a pause she repeated slowly and pointedly, “Love me, Count Roszynski?”

“Such is my destiny,” he replied. “Nor, despite your scorn, will I struggle against it. I feel it is my fate ever to love you; I fear it is my fate never to be loved by you. It is dreadful.”

Giovanna witnessed the Count’s emotion with sadness. “To have,” she said mournfully, “one’s first, pure, ardent, passionate affection unrequited, scorned, made a jest of, is indeed a bitterness, almost equal to that of death.”

She made a strong effort to conceal her emotion. Indeed she controlled it so well as to speak the rest with a sort of gaiety.

“You have at least been candid, Count Roszynski; I will imitate you by telling a little history that occurred in your country. There was a poor girl born and bred a serf to her wealthy lord and master. When scarcely fifteen years old, she was torn from a state of happy rustic freedom – the freedom of humility and content – to be one of the courtly slaves of the Palace. Those who did not laugh at her, scolded her. One kind word was vouchsafed to her, and that came from the lord’s son. She nursed it and treasured it; till, from long concealing and restraining her feelings, she at last found that gratitude had changed into a sincere affection. But what does a man of the world care for the love of a serf? It does not even flatter his vanity. The young nobleman did not understand the source of her tears and her grief, and he made a present of her, as he would have done of some animal, to his betrothed.”

Leon, agitated and somewhat enlightened, would have interrupted her; but Giovanna said, “Allow me to finish my tale. Providence did not abandon this poor orphan, but permitted her to rise to distinction by the talent with which she was endowed by nature. The wretched serf of Pobereze became a celebrated Italian cantatrice. Then her former lord meeting her in society, and seeing her admired and courted by all the world, without knowing who she really was, was afflicted, as if by the dictates of Heaven, with a love for this same girl, – with a guilty love” —

And Giovanna rose, as she said this, to remove herself further from her admirer.

“No, no!” he replied earnestly; “with a pure and holy passion.”

“Impossible!” returned Giovanna. “Are you not married?”

Roszynski vehemently tore a letter from his vest, and handed it to Giovanna. It was sealed with black, for it announced the death of his wife at the baths. It had only arrived that morning.

“You have lost no time,” said the cantatrice, endeavoring to conceal her feelings under an iron mask of reproach.

There was a pause. Each dared not speak. The Count knew – but without actually and practically believing what seemed incredible – that Anielka and Giovanna were the same person —his slave. That terrible relationship checked him. Anielka, too, had played her part to the end of endurance. The long-cherished tenderness – the faithful love of her life, could not longer be wholly mastered. Hitherto they had spoken in Italian. She now said in Polish,

“You have a right, my Lord Roszynski, to that poor Anielka who escaped from the service of your wife in Florence; you can force her back to your palace, to its meanest work, but” —

“Have mercy on me!” cried Leon.

“But,” continued the serf of Pobereze, firmly, “you cannot force me to love you.”

“Do not mock – do not torture me more; you are sufficiently revenged. I will not offend you by importunity. You must indeed hate me! But remember that we Poles wished to give freedom to our serfs; and for that very reason our country was invaded and dismembered by despotic powers. We must therefore continue to suffer slavery as it exists in Russia; but, soul and body, we are averse to it; and when our country once more becomes free, be assured no shadow of slavery will remain in the land. Curse then our enemies, and pity us that we stand in such a desperate position between Russian bayonets and Siberia, and the hatred of our serfs.”

So saying, and without waiting for a reply, Leon rushed from the room. The door was closed. Giovanna listened to the sounds of his rapid footsteps till they died in the street. She would have followed, but dared not. She ran to the window. Roszynski’s carriage was rolling rapidly away, and she exclaimed vainly, “I love you, Leon; I loved you always!”

Her tortures were unendurable. To relieve them she hastened to her desk, and wrote these words: —

“Dearest Leon, forgive me; let the past be forever forgotten. Return to your Anielka. She always has been, ever will be yours.”

She despatched the missive. Was it too late? or would it bring him back? In the latter hope she retired to her chamber, to execute a little project.

Leon was in despair. He saw he had been premature in so soon declaring his passion after the news of his wife’s death, and vowed he would not see Anielka again for several months. To calm his agitation, he had ridden some miles into the country. When he returned to his hotel after some hours, he found her note. With the wild delight it had darted into his soul, he flew back to her.

On regaining her saloon a new and terrible vicissitude seemed to sport with his passion: – she was nowhere to be seen. Had the Italian cantatrice fled? Again he was in despair; stupefied with disappointment. As he stood uncertain how to act in the midst of the floor, he heard, as from a distance, an Ave Maria poured forth in tones he half-recognized. The sounds brought back to him a host of recollections; a weeping serf, the garden of his own palace. In a state of new rapture he followed the voice. He traced it to an inner chamber, and he there beheld the lovely singer kneeling in the costume of a Polish serf. She rose, greeted Leon with a touching smile, and stepped forward with serious bashfulness. Leon extended his arms; she sank into them; and in that fond embrace all past wrongs and sorrows were forgotten! Anielka drew from her bosom a little purse, and took from it a piece of silver. It was the rouble. Now, Leon did not smile at it. He comprehended the sacredness of this little gift; and some tears of repentance fell upon Anielka’s hand.

A few months after, Leon wrote to the steward of Olgogrod to prepare everything splendidly for the reception of his second wife. He concluded his letter with these words: – “I understand that in the dungeon beneath my palace there are some unfortunate men, who were imprisoned during my father’s lifetime. Let them be instantly liberated. This is my first act of gratitude to God, who has so infinitely blessed me!”

Anielka longed ardently to behold her native land. They left Vienna immediately after the wedding, although it was in the middle of January.

It was already quite dark when the carriage, with its four horses, stopped in front of the portico of the palace of Olgogrod. Whilst the footman was opening the door on one side, a beggar soliciting alms appeared at the other, where Anielka was seated. Happy to perform a good action, as she crossed the threshold of her new home, she gave him some money; but the man, instead of thanking her, returned her bounty with a savage laugh, at the same time scowling at her in the fiercest manner from beneath his thick and shaggy brows. The strangeness of this circumstance sensibly affected Anielka, and clouded her happiness. Leon soothed and re-assured her. In the arms of her beloved husband, she forgot all but the happiness of being the idol of his affections.

Fatigue and excitement made the night most welcome. All was dark and silent around the palace, and some hours of the night had passed, when suddenly flames burst forth from several parts of the building at once. The palace was enveloped in fire; it raged furiously. The flames mounted higher and higher; the windows cracked with a fearful sound, and the smoke penetrated into the most remote apartments.

A single figure of a man was seen stealing over the snow, which lay like a winding-sheet on the solitary waste; his cautious steps were heard on the frozen snow as it crisped beneath his tread. It was the beggar who had accosted Anielka. On a rising ground, he turned to gaze on the terrible scene. “No more unfortunate wretches will now be doomed to pass their lives in your dungeons,” he exclaimed. “What was my crime? Reminding my master of the lowness of his birth. For this they tore me from my only child – my darling little Anielka; they had no pity even for her orphan state; let them perish all!”

Suddenly a young and beautiful creature rushes wildly to one of the principal windows: she makes a violent effort to escape. For a moment her lovely form, clothed in white, shines in terrible relief against the background of blazing curtains and walls of fire, and as instantly sinks back into the blazing element. Behind her is another figure, vainly endeavoring to aid her, – he perishes also; neither are ever seen again!

This appalling tragedy horrified even the perpetrator of the crime. He rushed from the place; and as he heard the crash of the falling walls, he closed his ears with his hands, and darted on faster and faster.

The next day some peasants discovered the body of a man frozen to death, lying on a heap of snow, – it was that of the wretched incendiary. Providence, mindful of his long, of his cruel imprisonment and sufferings, spared him the anguish of knowing that the mistress of the palace he had destroyed, and who perished in the flames, was his own beloved daughter – the Serf of Pobereze!