Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern PolandSienkiewicz, Henryk
General
Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Poland -- Fiction
The ladies did actually arrive at Jastrzeb the next day about noon,
followed immediately afterwards by Dolhanski, who did not, however, see
them on the road, because at the station he became occupied entirely
with the receipt of the baggage and therefore arrived in a separate
conveyance. The guests did not find Krzycki at home. As the burden of
the funeral, and all cares connected with it, fell upon him, he left an
hour earlier for Rzeslewo. The obsequies were to take place at three
o'clock. Ladislaus' mother arrived at the Rzeslewo church with Pani
Otocka, Panna Marynia, and their friend Miss Anney. In the second
carriage Gronski and Dolhanski came, while the third and last one
brought the younger members of the Krzycki family,--eleven-year-old
Anusia and Stas, who was a year younger, together with their French
instructress and the tutor, Laskowicz. Pani Krzycki reminded her son of
his feminine relatives and introduced him to Miss Anney, but he barely
had time to bow and cast a glance at her when he was summoned away on
some matter relating to the final funeral arrangements. Alighting from
the carriage, the ladies could scarcely press their way into the
church, although an effort was made to clear a path for them, for in
the church and adjacent enclosure an unusual throng held sway. The
greater landed gentry were represented in extremely scant numbers, as
the deceased Zarnowski did not associate with any one, and besides
Jastrzeb, Gorek, and Wiatrak, did not visit any of the manors in the
neighborhood. In their place, the Rzeslewo peasantry appeared as one
man, with their wives and children. The reason for this was that from
some unknown source and for some inexplicable reason, a rumor
circulated among them that the deceased had bequeathed to them his
entire fortune. Quite a number stood outside the church fence, and
their loud voices and anxious faces indicated the impression which the
rumor of the bequest had made upon them.
After chanted vigils and a sufficiently long mass, white surpliced
priests, preceded by a cross, appeared at the church doorway. After
them the coffin was borne. The hearse stood ready to receive the
remains, but peasants, in implicit faith of the bequest, lifted it upon
their shoulders to carry to the cemetery, which was a verst distant and
in which was located the tomb of the Zarnowskis. Gronski gave his arm
to Pani Krzycki, Dolhanski to Pani Otocka, while the duty of escorting
the light-haired Miss Anney fell to Krzycki. After an interval, the
funeral cortege slowly proceeded in the direction of the cemetery.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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