"You will marry Grzesikiewicz, I tell you; I, your father, command
you to do so! You will obey me immediately, or I will kill you!"
"Very well, kill me, if you want to, but I'll not obey you!"
"I will drive you out of this house!" he shouted.
"Very well!"
"I will disown you!"
"Very well!" she answered with growing determination. Janina felt
that with each word her heart was hardening with greater resolve.
"I'll drive you out . . . do you hear? . . . and even though you die
of hunger, I never want to hear of you again!"
"Very well!"
"Janina! I warn you, don't drive me to extremity. I beg you marry
Grzesikiewicz, my daughter, my child! . . . Isn't it for your good?
You have no one but me in the world and I am old . . . I will
die . . . and you will remain alone without protection or
support. . . . Janina, you have never loved me! . . . If you knew
how unhappy I have been throughout my life, you would take pity on
me!"
"No! . . . Never! . . ." she answered, unmoved even by his pleading.
"I ask you for the last time!" he shouted.
"For the last time I tell you no!" she flung back at him.
Orlowski hurled his chair to the floor with such force that it was
shattered to pieces. He tore open the collar of his shirt, so
violent was the paroxysm of fury that had seized him, and with the
broken arm of the chair in his hand, he sprang at Janina to strike
her, but the cold, almost scornful, expression of her face brought
him to his senses.
"Get out of here!" he roared, pointing to the door, "get out! . . .
Do you hear? I turn you out of my home forever! . . . You will never
again pass this threshold while I live, for I will kill you like a
mad dog and throw you out of the door! . . . I have no longer any
daughter!"
"Very well, I will go . . ." she answered mechanically.
"I no longer have any daughter! Henceforth I don't want to know you
or hear anything of you! . . . Go and perish . . . I will kill
you! . . ." he shouted, rushing up and down the room like a madman.
His insane violence now burst out in full force. He rushed out of
the house and from the window Janina saw him running toward the
woods.
She sat silent, dumb, and as though turned to ice. She had expected
everything, but never this. She burned with resentment but not a
single tear clouded her eye. She gazed about her distractedly, for
that hoarse cry still rang in her ears: "Get out of here! . . . get
out!"
"I will go, I will go . . ." she whispered in a humble and broken
voice through the tears that filled her heart, "I will go. . . ."
"God, my God! why am I so unhappy?" she cried after a while.
Krenska, who had heard all, approached her. With feigned tears in
her eyes she began to comfort her, but Janina gently pushed her
away. It was not that which she needed; not that kind of comforting.
"My father has driven me out . . . I must leave . . ." she said,
marveling at her own words.
"But that is preposterous! . . . Surely your father can be
placated. . . ."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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