



Produced by David Clarke, JoAnn Greenwood and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)









       TALES BY POLISH AUTHORS


               London
    SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & Co., LTD.


              New York
        LONGMANS, GREEN & Co.
    FOURTH AVENUE AND 30TH STREET




                TALES

                  BY

            POLISH AUTHORS


          HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ
    STEFAN ZEROMSKI  ADAM SZYMANSKI
          WACLAW SIEROSZEWSKI


            TRANSLATED BY
          ELSE C. M. BENECKE


               Oxford

     B. H. BLACKWELL, BROAD STREET

                1915




TRANSLATOR'S NOTE


Of the contemporary Polish authors represented in this volume only
Henryk Sienkiewicz is well known in England. Although the works of
Stefan Zeromski, Adam Szymanski, and Waclaw Sieroszewski are widely
read in Poland, none have as yet appeared in English, so far as the
present translator is aware. 'Srul--from Lubartow' is generally
considered one of the most striking of Adam Szymanski's Siberian
'Sketches.' The author writes from personal experience, having himself
been banished to Siberia for a number of years. The same can be said
of Waclaw Sieroszewski; during the fifteen years spent in Siberia as a
political exile, he made a study of some of the native tribes,
especially the Yakut and Tungus, and has written a great deal on this
subject. Stefan Zeromski is also one of the most distinguished modern
Polish novelists; several of his books have been translated into
French and German.

The translator is under a deep obligation to the authors, MM.
Sienkiewicz, Szymanski, and Zeromski, for kindly allowing her to
publish these tales in English, and to Mr. J. H. Retinger, Secretary
of the Polish Bureau in London, for authorising the same on behalf of
M. Sieroszewski.

         E. C. M. B.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

                                                                PAGE
    Henryk Sienkiewicz: '_Bartek the Conqueror_'                   1
    Stefan Zeromski: '_Twilight_'                                101
                     '_Temptation_'                              113
    Adam Szymanski: '_Srul--from Lubartow_'                      119
    Waclaw Sieroszewski: '_In Autumn_'                           137
                         '_In Sacrifice to the Gods_'            163




POLISH PRONUNCIATION:


    After k, rz = English sh.
    sz = English sh
    cz = English ch
    l = English w
    w = English v




BARTEK THE CONQUEROR

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ


CHAPTER I

My hero's name was Bartek Slowik[1]; but owing to his habit of staring
when spoken to, the neighbours called him 'Bartek Goggle-Eyes.'
Indeed, he had little in common with nightingales, and his
intellectual qualities and truly childish _naivete_ won him the
further nickname of 'Bartek the Blockhead.' This last was the most
popular, in fact, the only one handed down to history, though Bartek
bore yet a fourth,--an official--name. Since the Polish words'man'
and 'nightingale'[2] present no difference to a German ear, and the
Germans love to translate Barbarian Proper names into a more cultured
language in the cause of civilization, the following conversation took
place when he was being entered as a recruit.

'What is your name?' the officer asked Bartek.

'Slowik.'

'Szloik[3] _Ach, ja, gut._'

And the officer wrote down 'Man.'

Bartek came from the village of Pognebin, a name given to a great many
villages in the Province of Posen and in other parts of Poland. First
of all there was he himself, not to mention his land, his cottage and
two cows, his own piebald horse, and his wife, Magda. Thanks to this
combination of circumstances he was able to live comfortably, and
according to the maxim contained in the verse:

    To him whom God would bless He gives, of course,
    A wife called Magda and a piebald horse.

In fact, all his life he had taken whatever Providence sent without
troubling about it. But just now Providence had ordained war, and
Bartek was not a little upset at this. For news had come that the
Reserves would be called up, and that it would be necessary to leave
his cottage and land, and entrust it all to his wife's care. People at
Pognebin were poor enough already. Bartek usually worked at the
factory in the winter and helped his household on in this way;--but
what would happen now? Who could know when the war with the French
would end?

Magda, when she had read through the papers, began to swear:

'May they be damned and die themselves! May they be blinded!--Though
you are a fool--yet I am sorry for you. The French give no quarter;
they will chop off your head, I dare say.'

Bartek felt that his wife spoke the truth. He feared the French like
fire, and was sorry for himself on this account. What had the French
done to him? What was he going after there,--why was he going to that
horrible strange land where not a single friendly soul was to be
found? He knew what life at Pognebin was like,--well, it was neither
easy nor difficult, but just such as it was. But now he was being told
to go away, although he knew that it was better to be here than
anywhere else. Still, there was no help for it;--such is fate. Bartek
embraced his wife, and the ten-year old Franek; spat, crossed himself,
and went out of the cottage, Magda following him. They did not take
very tender leave of one another. They both sobbed, he repeating,
'Come, come, hush!' and went out into the road. There they realized
that the same thing which had happened to them had happened to all
Pognebin, for the whole village was astir, and the road was obstructed
by traffic. As they walked to the station, women, children, old men
and dogs followed them. Everyone's heart was heavy; but a few smoked
their pipes with an air of indifference, and some were already
intoxicated. Others were singing with hoarse voices:

    'Skrzynecki[4] died, alas!
    No more his voice is heard;
    His hand, bedeckt with rings,
    No more shall wield the sword,'

while one or two of the Germans from Pognebin sang 'Die Wacht am
Rhein' out of sheer fright. All that motley and many-<DW52>
crowd,--including policemen with glittering bayonets,--moved in file
towards the end of the village with shouts, bustle, and confusion.
Women clung to their 'warriors'' necks and wept; one old woman showed
her yellow teeth and waved her arms in the air; another cried: 'May
the Lord remember our tears!' There were cries of: 'Franek! Kaska!
Jozek! good-bye!' Dogs barked, the church bell rang, the priest even
said the prayers for the dying, since not one of those now going to
the station would return. The war had claimed them all, but the war