Chapter III

Land and Memory

Stanisław was among the few children to whom it was granted to survive the hardest years. Already as a boy of ten he understood for the first time that his lot would not be an easy one. He was standing then in the shadow of an old oak when his father's raised voice came from the cottage:

"We have no more land, Jan!"

Those words stayed with him for a long time.

At about that time his eldest brother, Jan, became acquainted with Marianna Mieszkowska. The boy's parents saw many virtues in her, yet they regarded her with clear reserve. They were troubled both by the girl's scant schooling and by her foreign origin. Marianna had completed only the second class of the common school; the school in the little town had burned down and for many years was not rebuilt. The Mieszkowskis themselves undertook her further instruction, so that she read, wrote, and reckoned well.

Jan knew, however, that before he could lead Marianna to the altar, he must overcome an obstacle harder than his parents' reluctance. That obstacle was land.

"Father..." The words came to Jan with difficulty, as though each weighed a ton. "Mr Mieszkowski has agreed to the marriage, but... he has set a condition. I must receive more land."

Łukasz slowly lifted his head, as if he had heard something wholly unexpected. For a long while he measured his son with his gaze; yet his eyes expressed not anger, but weariness. He looked at the papers spread before him—accounts that for a long time had not let him sleep.

After a moment he repeated quietly, "More land?" There was a sharper note in his voice. "You know well enough that I have not much left. Your brothers and sisters have their rights."

Jan, feeling his heart beat faster, began to explain clumsily. "When the boys are grown, I shall give them what is due to them." His voice began to tremble, and his words grew more and more confused. "Father, it is only for a time. Mr Mieszkowski wants security."

Łukasz sighed heavily, as though the burden of the whole world lay upon his shoulders. He wiped his brow with his hand and, in silence, stared into the flames of the hearth. The son felt the tension rise within him: every second of silence was like a leaden stone filling his stomach.

"And what of your brothers and sisters?" the father asked at last, his voice sounding like a low growl. "Józefa already has a suitor, but Marcjanna... Michał, Stanisław..." The names spoken one after another made Łukasz's face grow darker.

"When the boys are grown, I shall give them what is due to them," Jan repeated with determination.

"Land," the father muttered under his breath, more to himself than to his son. "Always land..." In his voice there quivered a pain, as though those words concealed something more than fields.

Łukasz, once a merry and ever-bustling lad, now gave the impression of an infirm old man. He did not look at his son, but nervously picked at the edge of the table, as though seeking rescue in the knots of the wood. Perhaps not by chance. For the old oak table, scratched, weary with years, yet remembering all the quarrels of the Kilises, might have had much to tell.

Jan felt the weight of responsibility fall upon his shoulders. Images of the future passed before his mind: brothers empty-handed, looking upon him with reproach, perhaps even with hatred. He thought also of Marianna—of her eyes full of hope and of the promises he had made her. His heart beat unevenly, struggling between loyalty to his family and the desire for a new life.

"Father, I shall do what must be done," he said at last; and his voice, filled with resolve, surprised even himself. "I shall fight for that land, but also for Marianna, for a family. I promise the children shall receive what is owed them, but now I must secure my own future."

Łukasz was silent for a while. Then he slowly raised his head and looked at Jan, as though he wished to read something in his face. He rose, leaning on the table, and went to the half-open shutter. A warm July wind carried the smell of mown hay, and the glow of the setting sun painted the room with gold.

"You have your land, Janek," he said at last, and his voice sounded like an echo. "But remember that every decision has its price. And that price you will soon pay."

The bustle of the village rang through Kosewo, summoning the guests to the wedding of Jan and Marianna. The July evening, warm and bright, pulsed with life. The smell of roasted pig and fresh bread mingled with the scent of hay from the fields. Fiddles and a drum played mazurkas, and the horses by the fence snorted in time with the tune.

Marianna, in a linen dress and lace cap, sat among the girls, her heart beating with exaltation. Jan, in a borrowed frock coat, stood beside the elders, who were sipping vodka from earthen cups. "May they prosper," old Pawlak muttered. "They have fields, but for how long? Happiness passes when land divides a family." His words carried bitterness, as though old wrongs were lying in wait in the shadow. "Always the same—first laughter, then hard years..."

Jan, gazing at his young wife, did not hear those words. To him Marianna was like a ray of hope, a new beginning in a world that too often crushed him with the weight of duties. Whenever she looked at him, he forgot all cares. Together they would overcome adversity. He went up to her and held out his hand.

"Shall we dance?" he asked with a broad smile.

Marianna answered with an equally radiant smile and let him lead her to the yard. The wedding lasted late into the night—their dancing figures stood out against the light of the bonfire, which seemed to enfold them. Laughter, talk, jests—all these formed the picture of a new life beginning.

A few months later the young couple settled in the new house raised in the Kilis farmstead. Their life was soon enriched by two daughters—first Balbina, and then Waleria. The first days after Balbina's birth were difficult for Marianna. The new role of mother overwhelmed her, although there was family around ready to help. When she first heard her daughter's cry, she felt something change within her—her heart trembled, as if that tiny sound had awakened a new strength in her. Holding little Balbina in her arms, she seemed to find her place in the world. The child's crying filled the empty rooms of the house, which not long before had seemed cold and soulless.

"Life takes on a new meaning, does it not?" Marianna once asked, coming up to Jan with a smile. Jan nodded, looking at her with a warmth he seldom managed to express in words.

Less than two years later a second daughter, Waleria, appeared in the house. Now their life was full—full of laughter, but also of new duties.

With the passing years the first changes began to show in Marianna's conduct. From a woman full of hope and warmth, she began to become a dry housewife, intent only upon her own good and her own household. That unhappy alteration was noticed by all. Stanisław noticed it too. The boy, though still very young, could not forget what life had looked like not so long before. He remembered the smell of newly cut hay, the days when, as a little boy, he had run across the field and the sun had stood high in the sky. "There was so much hope," he thought, recalling how his father had shown him how to work the land. "Everything seemed possible." Now, as he sat alone in the shadow of his own house, the sounds of the past were like distant echoes. Instead of laughter, he heard only long, heavy sighs. "What went wrong?"

In 1884 Marcjanna married Jan Michalski of Pomiechowo and left the family home; three years later Łukasz's youngest son, Michał, died. To fulfil the promise made to his father, Jan still had to pay Stasiek his portion or return the land once received. He knew that moment would someday come, but when in 1890 Stanisław resolved to marry Rozalia, daughter of Wawrzeniec and Balbina Pawelski, he felt that he stood before a difficulty.

The Pawelskis, like the Matyasiaks in Kosewo before them, were a new family in the neighbourhood. About the year 1873 Wawrzeniec Pawelski, with money earned at the building of the Tsar's forts, bought from the local landowner one third of the Śniadowo estate and, with several children, settled there after leaving his native parts in the parish of Sarbiewo. His first wife, Rozalia Garczyńska, he had married on 18 February 1844, still in Sarbiewo. They had four children: Piotr, Marianna, Franciszka, who became the wife of Jakub Łęgowski, and Antonina, wife of Tomasz Gruszczak.

After Rozalia's death, in 1869, Wawrzeniec married again in Sarbiewo—this time Balbina, daughter of Jan Biernacki and Ludwika Jankowska. From this union ten children were born: Władysława Milewska, Rozalia, Helena Celińska, Marianna Wasilewska, Władysław, Antoni, Katarzyna Sadlakowska, Jan, Julianna, and Stanisław.

In considering Stanisław's marriage plans, his parents could not fail to take into account the fact that the Pawelskis were prosperous people, while they themselves possessed nothing more. They did only what they could. In bringing up their youngest son, they strove merely to hand on to him the values by which they had lived from the beginning: faith, piety, and honesty. The young man read and wrote fluently not only in Polish but also in Russian; he knew mathematics, history, and geography.

"Stasiek, Janek promised that he would give you your part," his mother reminded him, when he was laying before her his plans for the future and worrying about her. "Go, son, to Janek."

The lad, suspecting how that meeting would end, was in no haste to visit. On the other hand, it was his only chance to secure some stability in life. Marianna, sensing these fears, decided to accompany him on that short but far from easy expedition. The meeting took place soon, for the time of All Saints' Day had come.

On the night of 31 October to 1 November people strove to keep watch, as old custom required. It was commonly believed that on that night the souls of the dead gathered for a silent Mass celebrated in church by a priest from the other world. After the service, under the priest's guidance, they went in a gloomy procession to the cemetery.

It was said that on that one night souls might visit their former homes. Therefore everyone left doors and windows ajar, so that no wandering spirit might feel shut out upon the threshold of its former life. In the house, all moved with caution, taking care not to disturb the peace of the visitor from beyond. Before anyone sat on a bench, he first passed his hand through the air, gently brushing aside an unseen presence.

Long before All Saints' Day, housewives baked little loaves called peretyczki, marked with a cross and the initials of loved ones who had gone. The rivalry in adorning these gifts for souls was almost sacred, and each cross and each letter expressed remembrance and longing. On the first day of November no fire might be kindled. It was whispered that souls liked to warm themselves by the stove, and if disturbed they might cause a fire. A bowl of groats and a bottle of vodka waited on the sill, and in some houses, especially in Podlasie, oat kissel was prepared expressly for the spirits.

The custom of "hosting the souls" disappeared in time, replaced by the wypominki—prayers for the dead recited by the priest. Yet the spirit of the feast remained unchanged: remembrance, gratitude, and the wish to preserve closeness with those who had departed still joined the world of the living and the dead. So it was in 1891, when mother and son went to claim what was theirs.

They had only a few dozen paces to cover, yet it seemed to them they were taking the longest road of their lives. They did not hurry, as though wishing to delay as long as possible the moment of meeting and speaking. They walked in silence, as if every word might awaken old grievances. The mother, slight and short from youth, now bent beneath the weight of years, led the son whose hunched figure expressed not only fear but resignation.

They expected no joyful welcome, yet what followed stunned the woman and wounded her more than she could have supposed. For she still wished to believe that her family had always shone as an example of every virtue. As soon as the dogs barked in the yard, Stanisław's sister-in-law appeared on the threshold.

"What are you after here?" she screamed, barely seeing their figures. She was surely expecting unwelcome guests, and must also have known why they came. "Got a longing for property, have you?" she added, and her voice shook with rage. In her hand the blade of an axe flashed; she lifted it slightly, as if already deciding whether to strike. "Be off! Or else you shall see what awaits you!"

The mother, despite her surprise at her daughter-in-law's words, did not show it. She drew herself up a little, as though she had suddenly regained her former strength.

"We have come to speak with Janek," she said firmly, yet calmly. "He promised Stasiek his share. The time has come for him to keep his word."

Marianna smiled, but there was bitterness in it. She took a step forward.

"Promised, you say?" she asked coldly, almost mockingly. "Janek has his own family now. We must think of our children's future, not of what is due to this one or that. Your time is past."

Stanisław stood as if paralysed. He felt each of Marianna's words drive into him like a knife. He knew his sister-in-law had long borne him ill will, but now it became all too plain.

"I beg you, Mania," the mother put in, trying to keep her composure. "Janek himself said he would give his brother what is due. After all, it is his family."

Marianna raised an eyebrow, looking at the old woman with evident impatience. Her voice sounded hard, almost cold.

"Family, you say?" Her words were almost a hiss. "And what do I get from that? Our land is our life. If we give you more, what will be left for our children? Balbina and Waleria cannot live on promises and pretty words."

At last Jan appeared, alarmed by his wife's raised voice. He came out onto the porch, trying to understand what was happening. At first, as Stanisław looked at his brother, he had hope that the tension would ease. The stern, silent expression he saw quickly stripped him of all illusion.

"Stanisław, you know I should like to help you, but..." Jan let his voice trail off, as if he did not know himself what to say. "We have our own troubles too. I know I promised, but times have changed."

The mother tried to say something more, but she only looked silently from one son to the other and whispered bitterly:

"This was not how it was to be..."

They argued no longer.

"Come away, son." Kilisiowa tugged Stanisław by the sleeve, but there was no longer any gentleness or warmth in her voice. The resignation she carried every day deep in her heart now echoed in each of her gestures. She was a mother who saw her son fall before the eyes of the world, and she could only lead him back home—in silence.

Stanisław felt her gaze upon him. Yet he could not look her in the eyes. How could he? How could he explain that humiliation, that pain? He followed her, stumbling over his own thoughts. The road by which they returned seemed to lengthen with every step.

They were silent, but it was not a peaceful silence. It was heavy with unspoken questions. Why had this happened? Why had their family become an enemy in its own eyes? Every step they took toward home was a painful reminder of what had just taken place. They knew that something in their family had cracked for ever.

The lack of property did not prevent the marriage of Stanisław and Rozalia. Despite actual poverty, young Kiliś had, in the eyes of the Pawelskis, one unquestionable advantage: the respect of people and a noble tradition which bound newcomers to the local folk. There was also something that everyone wished to hide—and which was indeed hidden for many decades. The young couple stood before the altar of the church in Cieksyn on 25 November 1891, and already in April of the following year, on the Pawelski estate, Anna was born. In her birth record it was written: "father unknown." The child lived barely four months, and the memory of her birth vanished for three generations. No one ever learned who the true father was, and in the family chronicle some hand recorded only Stanisław's mysterious words: "Father used to say that a child born out of wedlock cannot be loved, yet cannot not be loved. No one understood those words."

Anna's appearance gave rise to many questions, but neither Stanisław nor anyone else ever explained who the girl's true father had been. Stanisław married the pregnant Rozalia, but did he know of her condition before the wedding?

Soon after Anna's death, the relations of the young spouses with the Pawelskis began to deteriorate. Stanisław and Rozalia therefore resolved to move to Kosewo, where they hoped to begin a new and calmer life. It was there, on 18 September 1893, that their eldest daughter Marianna was born, whom Stanisław loved with particular tenderness. The girl's godfather was chosen to be Stanisław's brother-in-law, Franciszek Lewandowski, which was meant to help draw the family bonds closer.

At that time Rozalia grew very close to her husband's nearest kin. "All the good I learned in life came from my mother-in-law," she would say years later. The idyll, however, did not last long, for everything Stanisław's parents possessed formally belonged already to their son Jan. To him, and especially to his wife, the prolonged stay of the relatives became more and more burdensome. After a few months the young family had to return to Śniadowo.

Meanwhile, in the house of Jan and Marianna, the first joy at being rid of the kin soon yielded to new troubles. On the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in 1895, a fire broke out in the nearby farm buildings of Andrzej Pająk. When the flames spread to neighbouring buildings, the inhabitants resolved to pull down several houses in order to halt the conflagration. Among those marked for demolition was the house of Jan Kiliś. After the fire the house was never rebuilt. The family settled in Wrona—the place from which, in 1847, Marianna's parents had moved to Biela in the Płońsk district. In the following years, in Wrona, their next children were born: Stanisław, Kazimiera, Bronisława, and Feliksa.

On 21 September 1895 Stanisław Kiliś saw the birth of his second child, a son, Kazimierz. Desiring to rebuild the strained family ties, he asked his elder brother Jan to stand as the boy's godfather. Despite the differences that had grown between them, Stanisław believed this gesture might warm the relations between them.

The Kilises soon learned that the life of heirs to a handsome estate was not written for them. Stanisław had long known he could not count on an inheritance; that had been plain to him even before he founded his own family. A similar disappointment now befell Rozalia when she learned of her father's decision. Wawrzeniec Pawelski resolved to divide his landed property among only three children: his sons, Antoni and Władysław, received the largest portions, while the remainder he left to Franciszka Łęgowska, daughter of his first marriage. Rozalia, despite her closeness to her father, was entirely omitted from the division.

That decision of Wawrzeniec remained incomprehensible to the rest of the family. It seemed that his pride in his own achievement had prevailed over feeling—perhaps he judged that Stanisław ought to provide for his family by his own efforts. One thing was certain: Wawrzeniec did not wish to parcel out the estate of whose acquisition he was so proud. Coming from a poor family, here in Śniadowo he could play the landowner and the nobleman. Was he now to lose it for the sake of a daughter who had gone to her wedding with such shame?

For Stanisław and Rozalia it was a blow they had not expected. The lack of land meant not only the loss of hope for a comfortable life, but also the sense that they had been pushed to the margin—by Stanisław's family and by Rozalia's alike. Their ambitions and plans for the future began to crumble, and on the horizon there rose the prospect of a hard struggle for survival.

Stanisław Kiliś was still a young man, yet life had already stripped him of many illusions. What he felt most painfully was not the lack of comfort, but the awareness that he could not provide for his family the conditions he considered the duty of a husband and father. Year by year he grew more silent. Once he had readily joined in neighbours' conversations; now he more often listened than spoke.

Those nearest to him noticed the change. Rozalia looked upon her husband with growing anxiety, yet there was little she could do. She saw how he closed himself within, how less and less often he smiled, and how more and more often he fled into long moments of silence.

In time almost every conversation turned to questions of principle and morality. Stanisław was convinced that a man should live according to clearly defined rules, and that more might be demanded of the father of a family than of others. The severity with which he judged himself he also transferred to those nearest him. He did not see that the burden of his own disappointments was becoming ever harder for them also to bear.

The news that Rozalia had been disinherited was another blow to him. After long reflection he decided to return with his family to Kosewo. He hoped that there, among familiar fields and people, it would be easier to begin anew.

For the next few years fate proved kinder to the Kilises. In the house by the Kosewo pond, more sons came into the world: Wacław, then Stefan, and at the end of the century Jan. At the same time Stanisław obtained a post as teacher in the nearby school. It was not well paid, but it gave the family the longed-for stability and brought the householder the respect of the people of the neighbourhood.

He always carried a leather satchel to school. He cared for it with unusual diligence. Children later remembered that before he crossed the classroom threshold he would straighten his collar, brush the dust from his clothes, and only then take out the books. He believed that a teacher should set an example not only by knowledge, but also by appearance and conduct.

At that time he drew closer to the parish priest of Pomiechowo and to Andrzej Laskowski, an officer of the Russian army of Polish origin. Evening meetings over cards quickly became the subject of local gossip.

There was no shortage of other stories either.

It was said that Stanisław's children did not sit in the school benches beside children from the poorest families. Some saw pride in this, others haughtiness. Few tried to understand that, in Stanisław's conviction, it was not a question of property. He believed that poverty was very often the result of the loss of principles, and that it was a father's duty to protect his children from everything that might lead them away from those principles.

Such a conviction brought him the dislike of neighbours.

Even greater astonishment was aroused by the moments when he sat alone by the lake with an accordion upon his knees.

For some it was ordinary music.

For him it was a return to memories of his father.

The death of Łukasz Kiliś on 8 March 1899 closed a certain chapter in the family's history. Gone was the man who all his life had striven to hold his kin together, though he had not always been able to prevent the divisions growing among them.

The new century did not bring the Kilises the peace they desired.

After another move they settled in Swobodnia. There two daughters were born: Helena, and two years later Wanda. Yet the joy at the children's births mingled with news coming from the family's old parts.

In Czarnowo something happened which, only a dozen or so years earlier, would have seemed unthinkable.

Wojciech, grandson of Michał Kiliś, squandered almost the whole inherited estate. First he lost a large part of the land at cards; what remained he sold, buying a small farm in Płońsk.

Thus ended for ever the history of the Kilis family estate in Czarnowo.

For Stanisław this was painful news.

Still more painfully did he take his mother's death.

Marianna died on 11 December 1906. The last person was gone in whose presence Stanisław had never had to prove his worth. After her death he felt truly alone.

Not long afterwards fate once more forced the family to change its place of residence.

This time unexpected help came from the Pawelskis. Old resentments did not vanish altogether, but they had plainly weakened. Thanks to this, Stanisław and Rozalia could return to Śniadowo.

There, in 1908, Ignacy was born.

Władysław and Julianna Pawelski held him at the font, and Antoni Pawelski was witness to the ceremony. For both families it was a sign that, despite old quarrels, they could still stand beside one another at the most important moments.

Soon Wawrzeniec Pawelski took another step.

On the edge of his farm he possessed a small piece of waste ground, lying where three roads met. He proposed that Stanisław build a house there.

For many it would have been a gift not to be refused.

Stanisław refused.

He judged that the offered scrap of land was too small to secure the future of so numerous a family. He did not wish to begin building a house in a place which from the first condemned them to further poverty.

Instead, he rented a little cottage at Pomocnia.

There, in 1910, Józefa came into the world.

The house consisted in truth of one room and a small lean-to. A few beehives were set around it, and Stanisław resolved to begin keeping pigs.

He bought three piglets.

The first died after a short time.

"Mr Kiliś, sell those two that are left. They will not last long anyhow," a neighbour advised him.

Stanisław shook his head.

"I shall not sell a thing when I know it is sick."

After a few days the second piglet died.

Then the third.

The family was left without money.

Stanisław, however, did not regret his decision for a moment.

He believed that a man might lose his property.

He must never lose his honesty.

On 16 July 1912 Innocenta was born.

She was the last child to come into the world in Śniadowo. A few months earlier Wawrzeniec Pawelski had once more stretched out his hand to his son-in-law. This time he lent Stanisław, for three years, part of his land, hoping that by his own labour he might improve the family's condition.

For the Kilises it was the chance they had awaited for many years.

From the first days they worked beyond their strength.

They cleared neglected ground, drained wet places, repaired fences. Each day they ended late in the evening, and at dawn they returned to work.

In the first year the land yielded almost no crop.

In the next, the harvest was destroyed by rains.

In the third came drought.

Once again it proved that industry alone does not always suffice.

Soon the spectre of war hung over Europe.

At first the inhabitants of the district about the Modlin Fortress did not feel it directly. Only rumours of mobilization and troop movements reached them. In time, however, more and more families began leaving their homes.

Some fled as far from the fortress as they could.

Others, on the contrary, sought shelter near it, believing that the presence of the great garrison would ensure safety.

Stanisław chose Kosewo.

Yet he was not guided only by fear of the front.

Most of all he feared for his growing sons.

Kazimierz, Wacław, and Stefan were already of an age at which the Russian army might claim them for service.

One evening he looked at Rozalia and said briefly:

"We are going to Józia's, to Kosewo. There it will be harder to find them."

She did not protest.

They packed only the most necessary things.

Each child carried something in his hands.

The boys took turns bearing Innocenta's small wooden cradle—the same in which all the older brothers and sisters had slept before her.

Among the things packed was also an old wooden table.

At first glance it was in no way remarkable.

It was small, gnawed by time, with a scratched top and a shaky leg.

Rozalia had more than once wondered why her husband surrounded it with such care.

Several years earlier she had seen Stanisław speaking for a long time with his mother in the orchard. Both were so absorbed in the conversation that they did not notice her presence. Later they entered Marianna's house, and after some time Stanisław came out of it with that very table.

She never asked him why he was taking the old piece of furniture.

She concluded that it must be a precious family keepsake.

She did not yet know that its value had nothing to do with the wood of which it was made. Quite the contrary—it lay in a secret known only to a few.

The nearer the war came to Kosewo, the fewer illusions its inhabitants had.

At first the presence of Russian soldiers surprised no one in particular. The nearness of the Modlin Fortress and Fort II made military patrols an everyday sight. With time, however, the detachments became so numerous that it was plain the neighbourhood would soon stand in the first line of events.

One summer day Russian soldiers began entering one farmstead after another.

"Убирайся![1]"

One word was enough.

Families left their houses, taking only what they could carry. The deserted farmsteads were occupied by soldiers.

The same fate befell the Lewandowskis.

They were indeed allowed to remain in the small room where Marianna Kiliś had lived years before, but for Stanisław, Rozalia, and their children there was no room left.

They moved into an outbuilding.

In the evening Stanisław went out before the house.

For a long time he looked at the familiar fields, the orchard, and the road leading toward Czarnowo. Everything remained in its place, and yet nothing was as it had been.

The war was only just coming.

He already knew it would take from people far more than their homes.

It was July 1914 when Stanisław, returning from the field, saw his niece running toward him.

"Uncle, uncle!" cried the adolescent Genia.

"Why are you shouting? What has happened?"

"The Muscovites have taken uncle's table!"

"The table? The one from your room?"

"The very one!"

Stanisław hastily set down beside him the basket of vegetables he was carrying, and without a word ran to learn the facts. As it turned out, during the household's absence Muscovite soldiery had forced their way into the room and, taking all they could carry, had gone off who knew where. The man did not wait. Without explaining himself to anyone, he disappeared behind the nearest buildings. A few dozen yards away, in his former family home, the Russian commander had his quarters.

"Где твой командир?[2]" he roared at the soldier standing in the doorway. When the fellow merely opened his mouth in astonishment, he added still louder: "Поговорите, а где Андрей Ласковский?[3]"

The soldier, still saying nothing, indicated the entrance with a nod of his head. At first glance one could see that although he was no longer young and had gained some polish in the Muscovite army, he had never shed the traits of the savage Asiatic. He had been used to shouting since childhood, but until that day no Pole had dared such insolence as to raise his voice to a Tsarist soldier. Ah, if only he might reach for his sabre!

Stanisław Kiliś knew what he might allow himself. During many nights spent over a deck of cards, he had not always been alone with the priest. A frequent companion of theirs was Andrzej Laskowski, descendant of Polish exiles to Siberia, now in the service of the Emperor as commander of the Russian contingent. He was still a relatively young man, educated and attentive to noble manners. He had earned his officer's epaulettes in the fighting against the Japanese at the beginning of the century. He understood Polish excellently, though when speaking it he mangled it terribly with Russianisms.

"Andrzej! Andrzej, those thieves of yours have robbed me!" cried Stanisław Kiliś as soon as he burst into the room.

"Robbed? Who? My soldiers?" the officer asked incredulously.

"Yes, my friend! Your thieves have robbed me!"

"Stanisław, I know that they steal," sighed Laskowski, trying to keep calm. "But here it is not a question of justice, only of survival."

Stanisław narrowed his eyes; his face grew hard.

"And what of my survival, Andrzej? What of my family?" he asked dryly, as if every word were a blade cutting the silence. Laskowski sighed, but his gaze turned to the floor. He had no answer. The silence that fell between them was more dreadful than any words. "I can do nothing about it, but I forbade them to rob the people of Kosewo... You know that," Laskowski reminded him. After a moment, as if speaking to himself, he added, "They know you personally, they have seen us together... which of them would dare?" he whispered, then added, "Wait here a little."

The Russian returned after several minutes.

"As I thought," he began. "My men did not rob you."

"But..."

"Listen." Laskowski interrupted his guest, explaining the background of the whole affair. "They were indeed Russian soldiers, but not mine. Before dinner they led new recruits this way to Modlin. I have learned that they 'looked in' at many houses," he concluded sadly.

"What now?"

"What did they take?"

"A table—a little wooden table," replied Kiliś; and seeing the Russian's surprised expression, he added with embarrassment, "Worth little, but to me it is the only keepsake of my grandparents."

"It is well that it is warm summer..."

"Summer? What has summer to do with it?"

"You see, Stanisław, if it were winter, the table would go into a fire. You would never see it again. But as it is, they are surely guarding it and looking for a buyer. Your furniture is safe, my friend," the Russian assured him with a smile.

After a brief consultation the two men agreed that one of them would obtain information about the moving detachment, its commander, and its place of stationing, and perhaps might also learn the direct perpetrators of the theft. The other would begin questioning the local people, asking for information should anyone hear of the sale of a similar object.

The Polish participant in that strange council, however, did not intend to limit himself to these arrangements. He remembered well how his sons, not knowing that their father could hear them, had spoken of the need to join the Polish units then being formed. In these plans Kazimierz and Wacław led the way, though Stefan, younger than they, did not hide his dreams of putting on a Polish uniform. For the moment all this seemed little realistic; and Stanisław, though he considered himself a patriot, did not dream that his children should die at the front. He had resolved that he would not hinder them from enlisting, yet in his soul he still counted on not having to bid farewell to his children. Now, however, he decided to give the lads a foretaste of war.

Rozalia saw Stanisław return home angry and pensive. His steps were heavy, as though he carried upon his shoulders not only cares, but decisions he had to make. She knew him too well not to notice these signs. He always fell silent first, then hurried away, and then made decisions that affected the whole family.

This time it was different. No sooner had Stanisław crossed the threshold than he turned to his sons. "You are coming with me." His command was stern, though his voice still trembled slightly.

Rozalia at once raised her head from the table, sensing trouble. "Stasiek, what are you doing?" she asked, though she did not expect an answer. Her voice was soft and full of care, but she knew that now nothing would stop him. Stanisław did not even look at her. He passed through the room as if she were not there, as if no one existed except the sons.

It always looked thus. His decisions were beyond appeal, his word final. But this time... this time something was different. She felt it as a woman feels such things after years beside the same man, knowing each glance, each gesture.

"Where are you taking them?" she repeated, though more to herself than to him.

Stanisław stopped for a moment. He wished to say something, to explain; but what could he tell her? That he was sending them on a mission from which they might not return? That the old table, and what was hidden in it, was more important than the safety of their children? Such words would not pass his lips. Without looking at her, he left the room.

Rozalia watched as the sons rose without a word and followed their father, as though they would follow him even to the end of the world. But did he know where he was leading them? With every minute she felt that something was changing, that something in their family was beginning to crumble still further. As ever, she remained silent.

When they were far enough away that no inquisitive ear could overhear them, the father set about laying the matter before his sons. Still not revealing the true value which the missing piece of furniture possessed for the whole family, he told them what the Russian had said and gave a brief order: they were to recover the furniture, or at least determine where it was being kept. He did not wait for consent. He gave an order and expected results.

The young Kilises understood their task. More than that, they were exceedingly proud of their father's trust and could not imagine failing him. The planning of the action began almost at once. Naturally, the chief object was the recovery of the loot. Yet they also had to see to internal security, that is, invent a suitable alibi for a longer absence from home. Their mother, Rozalia Kilisiowa, might unwittingly cross their plans, or even bring danger upon her sons. They, unlike their father, held that there were situations which required one to miss the truth for some higher, pious purpose. So it was now. The pretext became a visit to their cousins the Rzepkowskis in nearby Stanisławowo, then called in Russian fashion the Alexandrian Colony.

Rozalia Kiliś had neither time nor need to peer into the plans of Kazik and Wacek. Since their father had allowed them to visit family, let them go. But when everything seemed to be moving well, an unexpected difficulty appeared.

"And where are you two going?" asked Mania, the boys' eldest sister, seeing their preparations.

"To the Rzepkowskis," answered Wacek, trying to sound careless. "On a visit."

"To the Rzepkowskis..." the girl repeated with a slight smile. Her tone betrayed that something did not please her.

"Why, to the Rzepkowskis. Father has allowed it," Kazimierz added eagerly, trying to sound convincing.

"What a coincidence! Imagine that I too have begun to miss them. I shall go with you," she announced, as though the decision were already made.

Her brothers understood perfectly whence the girl's sudden decision came. Marianna was not only their father's first-born daughter, but also the beloved one. More than once she was the first to learn of many family matters, often being her father's confidante and even adviser. How many times had Mania known of affairs of which her mother had not the slightest notion. No, Stanisław hid nothing from his wife, yet he did not always deem it fitting to consult her in everything. After all, he was the head of the family. In his view, speaking with his daughter and seeking counsel from her did him no dishonour. There was no doubt that so it must have been this time also. If they were right, it meant that Marianna knew the truth, and perhaps even more than they did.

"Well, what shall we do?" asked Kazimierz, wishing to make a quick decision.

"Perhaps we ought first to pray..." Wacek suggested.

"A good thought. Let us borrow horses from uncle and ride to Mass in the morning."

"Then I shall walk about the village and gather a little information," the girl ordered.

When she had gone, the elder brother merely spread his hands in helplessness.

"Perhaps she will be of some use," sighed the other.

Their brief conversation was interrupted by Stanisław's appearance. This time, contrary to his habit, he did not call his sons with a gesture, but came up to them himself and, without preamble, set forth what he had learned from Laskowski. The soldier who had stolen the table was now stationed in the Alexandrian Colony.

"The Colony? But that is where we are going tomorrow!" cried Wacek with enthusiasm.

"I do not know whether you ought to," the father interrupted. "The soldier says he sold the table for a flask of vodka. But he does not know to whom."

A moment of silence followed, soon broken by the older lad: "Very well, father, we shall consider what to do."

Stanisław made no comment and, as quickly as he had come, went away. His sons, having nothing more to do that day, decided to wander about the neighbourhood, to listen, to look. Since they knew who the culprit was, finding some trace did not seem difficult.

Unfortunately, that day they managed to learn nothing of importance. When dawn came, all three, to their mother's evident surprise, rose and, according to plan, went to Pomiechowo. A weekday Mass was not long, so they soon set off on the road back.

"Wacek, drive by the Fort," Marianna asked the brother who was holding the reins.

"We were there yesterday... have you contrived something again?"

"Drive," the girl repeated; and when they were near, she ordered, "Boys, wait here for me."

They asked nothing. They knew that with Mania, as with their father, one did not argue. They turned off the road and halted the horses in the shade of the willows.

"What has become of her?" the younger brother grew anxious after an hour's waiting.

"She can manage for herself, but we shall catch it for not returning the horses," the other observed. "I shall stay here, and you go home, for uncle will not be pleased."

When Kazimierz was left alone, his first impulse was to go in search of his sister. After a moment, however, he abandoned the idea, understanding how easily they might miss one another on the way. Knowing that the front was approaching, hundreds of inhabitants of nearer and farther villages had taken to the roads. There were throngs of people on the move, and also soldiers in various uniforms, often more ragged than beggars seeking bread. In such conditions any departure from the appointed meeting place was very risky. He decided to wait.

Time passed, and Marianna did not return. Nor did Wacław return, though the journey home and back should not have taken him more than half an hour. He had little more than a kilometre to go.

"What happened?" Kazimierz called when he saw his brother running toward him after at least three hours.

"Nothing, I had to work off the horses at the Lewandowskis'," laughed the lad; but suddenly, looking round, he grew dark. "Has Mania not come back?"

Marianna was not there. She did not appear after another hour, nor at dinner time. At last both brothers decided that the moment had come to inform their father.

Nervous and uncertain of their sister's fate, they did not keep to the road. Their aunt and uncle's house stood at the edge of Kosewo, and by going across the fields they need not enter the neighbours' yards, which saved them several minutes. Passing the last strips of rye, they saw from afar their father walking to and fro among the apple trees. The hands clasped behind his back and the quick step unmistakably showed Stanisław Kiliś's frequent agitation.

"You are back already?" he cried, unable to hide his surprise when he saw his sons. They answered with no less astonishment: "Father, what do you mean—already?"

"Why, Mania has only just gone out to you..."

"Mania? To us?"

It turned out that, running home, the boys had just missed their sister, who, coming from the direction of neighbouring Janowo, had decided first to report to her father. Now she had gone to the place where they had parted many hours before. They did not run after her. They had to obtain the newest information, and it was of exceptional importance. It appeared that Marianna, from whom they had separated east of Kosewo, had made her way through the woods to Szczypiorno.

The village was not wholly strange to her. The settlement, though its known beginnings reached back to the days of King Jagiełło, was not very large. A dozen or so cottages, a few shops, and the manor of the heir. To this was added the office of the local forester. It happened that Kilisówna passed that way on visits to relatives, whether to Goławice or farther, to Czarnowo. Now she had learned that the lost piece of furniture had come into the hands of a local official of the Forestry Office. The man saw that it was no valuable antique, yet to him it was worth the price demanded by the wild Asiatic in Russian uniform.

Marianna's joy at obtaining this information did not last long. From the forester's account, the soldier, as soon as he received his payment, persuaded him with a bayonet to give the table back. The Pole surrendered it, and was glad that together with the furniture he did not have to surrender the remaining roubles he carried with him.

"The Muscovites are going toward Janowo, probably to the Fort at Błogosławie; follow them," the forester suggested. Marianna obeyed. What happened after that was not yet known. When she returned to her father, she already knew the name of the new owner of the furniture. That was enough for her brothers.

"We are going!" they cried at once.

"Wait!" the father called. "First I shall give you something." He led his sons to the old stone cellar sunk into the earth. He was not at home, yet in wartime he felt almost at home in his brother-in-law's yard. When after a moment he appeared again in the sunlight, he held in his hands a supply of all manner of food. Pressing into their hands pieces of ham, sausage, and a bottle of cream, he ordered, "Now go. And... may God bless you."

It was the customary hour of supper when the young Kilises set out on their way. Their father knew they had more than seven kilometres to cover, and so did not expect them soon. Yet when they did not arrive by night, he began to grow anxious. Rozalia too, who had never before dared oppose her husband, began to reproach him.

"Bits of wood are more important to you than the lives of our children?" she cried in despair.

"What are you prating?" the man answered, likewise raising his voice. The exchange very quickly became an open quarrel, so uncommon that a lamp was lit in the window of the room where the Lewandowskis slept. This cooled the emotions of both Kilises a little. "You understand nothing," the man muttered at the end; and then, lifting his voice toward the heads of the younger children raised above the pillows, he added, "Sleep."

That night no one slept. Stanisław realised that his nearest kin must think him a heartless eccentric who, in the face of war, sends his children straight into the enemy's paws to seek some old, worthless piece of furniture. He himself was no longer wholly certain of his decision. He told himself that at worst his sons might be beaten and return with nothing. Nothing worse could happen, for though the Russians were savages, they treated these lands as their own. The familiarity of the region for Muscovite troops was also shown by the numerous colonies round about, where Russians formed not only a considerable portion of the inhabitants, but often even the majority. So it was not only in the Alexandrian Colony, which had become a sort of centre of the invaders' spiritual life, but even in Szczypiorno, where the Tsarist government purchased land for new settlement.

The risk, then, as he calculated, was not great. On the other hand, he was terrified by the possibility that what was hidden in the table, and of which even those nearest him knew nothing, might fall into unauthorized hands. "If the Muscovites get into the hiding place, that is but half a misfortune," he reasoned. "The Katsaps do not know Polish." At worst they would burn a piece of history that generations had written.

"If that book fell into Polish hands..." The thought struck him suddenly, as if drawn from the abyss of his deepest fears. He grew breathless, his heart quickened, and a cold trickle of sweat ran down his back. Was this truly a reason to endanger his own sons?

His thoughts still circled about the old table. That simple, almost insignificant piece of furniture had suddenly gained such weight. It was not merely a piece of wood. It was something more. Heritage and memory. The blood of his line, shut within those yellowed pages, written by the hands of forefathers. But was it worth it? His father's words returned to him like an echo: "Honour, son, is not something one may lose and regain. It is a treasure you guard all your life." And now he, Stanisław, was to give it up? No gold in the world could make good that loss.

On the other hand... Was he ready to watch his sons go into the jaws of the enemy?

He felt his fists clench. He knew what Rozalia would say if she learned. "How can you send them to certain ruin? For what? For a piece of wood?" He heard already that voice, full of pain and reproach. "But what could she know? She will not understand," he thought bitterly. The woman, though good and devoted, did not have that weight upon her shoulders, that responsibility. Upon him rested the burden of the family's honour. He had to do it.

Morning brought no good news; nor did the whole day, nor evening, nor the following day. The atmosphere in the house grew ever more strained. Astonishment, and even concern, at the boys' absence could also be seen among the Lewandowskis, who, living in the same building, passed one another, spoke, and shared daily affairs all the time. It could not escape their notice that suddenly someone was missing and, stranger still, no one wished to speak of it.

On the third day after Kazimierz and Wacław had left the house, their father resolved to act. "I am going to Laskowski," he confided to his wife. Rozalia, at first surprised by the mere fact that her husband was informing her of what he meant to do, could not restrain a sharp word: "At last!"

He did not answer. He was already so occupied with his own thoughts that perhaps he did not even hear his wife's words. He had to go to Laskowski. That officer was now his only hope of finding his sons. Almost running, he reached the building he knew well, where for a long time the familiar descendant of Polish exiles had lived and commanded his soldiers.

Only when Stanisław Kiliś found himself on the porch did he notice that something was wrong. Not as it had always been. There were no soldiers loitering everywhere; no one pretended to control those entering. From every side came complete emptiness and silence. The only noise to be heard came from neighbouring properties and from the road along which people walked and horses drew the machines of war. German troops were already approaching Modlin, and so the Muscovites were concentrating all their strength in the fortress and the forts surrounding it. Laskowski must therefore have gone with them.

"What to do, what to do?" Stanisław Kiliś leaned upon the wooden rail of the porch and thought. He saw no sense in searching for his sons alone. Too much movement of new troops, of strangers unknown to one another. Too great a mass of these new people. Yet to wait idly was impossible. "I must go. Perhaps I shall come upon some trace," he resolved, and set out on his way, so that to the first relative he met he might say, "I am going to Błogosławie. Tell Rozalia."

He had not gone more than two kilometres beyond the last cottages of Kosewo when from somewhere far off a familiar voice reached him. He turned. Then he saw Marianna running along the edge of the forest.

"Father, father, the boys have come back!" she cried joyfully; and he wished to know nothing more. He did not question her. It was enough that his sons were at home, alive. He did not even notice the tender form of address which he hated, requiring his children to use the more proper "father." They returned home almost at a run, holding each other firmly by the hands. She, a joyful young woman, and he, suddenly grown young again and full of strength. Both felt that they had recovered those whose return they had already begun to doubt. The gate that usually closed the Lewandowski yard stood open this time. Just beyond it all had gathered: Stanisław's nearest kin and his sister Józefa's family alike. Within only a few minutes the news of the lads' return had drawn a dozen people from the fields, the orchard, the stable, and the recesses of the house. The two principal heroes, seeing their father running, raised up something which Stanisław recognised without difficulty. Wacław and Kazimierz had returned not only whole and sound, but also with the recovered furniture.

The moment of greeting and joy did not last long. Both boys were exceedingly tired, and from their faces one could read without difficulty that they had passed through much—perhaps too much.

The next morning all were to go to a Mass of thanksgiving. They did not go. The fighting that had just broken out paralysed the whole neighbourhood for ten days. Neither Kazimierz, nor Wacław, nor Marianna wished to tell anyone what had befallen them in those last days.

"Father, the most important thing is that now we are ready to join our army," whispered the younger son. His father guessed that behind such an answer there must stand some great adventure, so terrible that no one wished to return to it. He was not accustomed to showing feeling, still less weakness. This time he made an exception. He embraced his son tightly and whispered something in his ear. "Very well, father," the lad answered aloud, and went to look for Marianna.

After a brief conversation the brothers and sister parted. Wacław disappeared somewhere with the piece of furniture recovered the day before, while Mania began assigning the younger children their daily tasks. No one wondered at it, for the girl, though she herself did not avoid work, also liked, with her father's permission, to manage her siblings. When she had finished, she went straight to the room where she wished to find her mother. "Mother, father told me to call you," she said to Rozalia, who stood by the stove. "I am washing," the woman muttered, but she took off her apron and followed her daughter. They went straight to the orchard, but stopped only behind the old bushes that grew just before the field sown with oats.

When Kilisiowa saw her husband and two eldest sons standing by the all too familiar table, she almost fainted.

"What has happened?" she forced out as soon as she had recovered her voice.

"Rózia, nothing has happened," Stanisław answered with a smile and with a warmth strangely unlike him in his voice. "Nothing has happened. You have simply earned the right to know the truth about this table and why it is so important." He came closer to the furniture and turned it with its top toward the grass. Kneeling beside it, he began to pry at something with a chisel held in his hand.

While all watched the scene with curiosity, only Marianna seemed a little bored, as if scarcely interested in what was almost a shock to the others. This did not change even when, after several minutes, Stanisław removed one board and then drew from within a bundle wrapped in rags.

"It is not the table that has value for us, but this," he said, raising what he had drawn from the rags—something resembling several small books bound into one with thick waxed thread. "This is the history of our line," he added solemnly. "Here were written the misfortunes which, generation after generation, fell upon the Kilises, as though some curse lay upon us." Involuntarily he repeated his mother's words from decades before. He wished to say more, but here the elder of the sons interrupted him:

"Father, but why was it hidden?"

"My son, I have read you Mickiewicz's poems... do you remember these words: 'There are truths which the sage speaks to all men; there are those which he whispers to his nation; there are those which he confides to the friends of his house; there are those which he may reveal to no one.'" Stanisław Kiliś quoted from memory. "It is the same with us," he added. "In this book there are words which no stranger should read... Your forefathers have written in it for several centuries already. I too wrote something here years ago."

"Was there some crime among us?" Wacław cried, impatient with the whole mystery.

"A crime? Oh no, there was no crime." The father could scarcely restrain a laugh. "Though once, still in Lithuania, something happened for which people might have taken us upon their tongues. And what is more, this book warns us too against a curse..."

Had it not been that Stanisław Kiliś had always enjoyed the reputation of a grave and truthful man, his words would have been received as a jest. Instead they awakened unbridled curiosity. Naturally, Rozalia was the first to seize the find. Unfortunately, unable to manage the old, partly faded manuscript, she had to pass it to Kazik. He, like his brother, excellently taught by his father, dealt with the reading admirably.

"Children, remember: guard this book as you would guard yourselves," the father advised. "This book is not only paper. It is our story, our memory of those who were before us, of their lives. They too suffered, they too loved, and, most importantly, they lived for us. All this will have meaning so long as we remember them."

"And the curse? After all..." Kazimierz seemed about to call attention to the thread that interested him more than the written history.

"For so long now nothing has happened that could be connected with that curse," the father interrupted. "Perhaps it is only human talk. But here our history is written. That is what matters," he stressed firmly, although neither then nor ever later did he learn how great was his error.

The thickets around the house were not the best place for such a conversation or for reading. After a short time everything had to be put aside for later.

The secret which from that day was kept by those five persons cemented their bond in a special way for life. Both relatives and complete strangers accused the Kilises of favouring the three eldest children; meanwhile, what bound them was only a secret.

The time of the Great War passed in the family without great tragedies. For several more years the Kilises remained in the Lewandowski farmstead. The most precious of the family's pieces of furniture was officially entrusted to the care of the eldest son, Kazimierz. Yet he did not long fulfil the role of guardian of the family secrets. Going to war against the Bolsheviks, he wished to hand the furniture over to his beloved sister. She, realising that writing was not her strongest side, refused. In the end, Wacław took charge of the table.

From that period few entries remained in the chronicle. "Kazik has gone to war and there is no news of him," Wacław wrote at the beginning of 1920 in a simple, diary-like style. He also described the everyday realities: "It is very hard at home. It is well that little Jadzia is growing healthy. Nocia, as ever, is sickly."

A few pages later he made another note.

There was more truth in those short sentences than in long descriptions. The youngest, Innocenta, had been frail in health from birth. Her parents devoted much attention to her; the older siblings had long since learned to fend for themselves.

Wacław also wrote tenderly of Marianna:

"Mania knows how to arrange life for herself. At home she has taken on the role of mother, though at times she looks more to me like an overseer. To have peace from the children, she orders them to clean the cutlery or wipe the dust. But it is thanks to her that order reigns in the house when our parents are occupied with work."

That brief entry said more about Marianna than many a lengthy description. She was not harsh. She was responsible. And precisely for that reason, though she wrote little about herself, she took a special place in the family chronicle.

Among the wartime notes Wacław left two more stories. At first glance they might have seemed ordinary village tales. Yet he wrote them down with all seriousness—not because he easily believed in extraordinary things, but because their witness was a man whose honesty he never called into doubt.

Stanisław Kiliś.

Wacław noted briefly:

"Father never lied."

That one sentence explains all that follows.

The first story concerned a woman who died in childbirth. She left behind a newborn child. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood claimed, however, that every day, at the same hour, they saw her going toward the family farmstead.

They recognised her without difficulty. In life she had limped noticeably, because one leg was shorter than the other. They saw her thus also after death.

Reapers working in the nearby fields would say among themselves:

"The lame one is going. It must already be eleven."

At that same moment there came from the house the characteristic sound of a suckling infant. The child, who a moment before had been crying, suddenly fell silent, as if someone had just fed it with its mother's milk.

In the neighbourhood the story was told with complete conviction. No one tried to prove it. Nor did anyone especially argue with it. It simply belonged to the memory of the local people.

The second tale was still more extraordinary.

One day Stanisław and a friendly householder were driving a cart to the market in Warsaw. It was still before dawn. As they passed the wooded hills near Nowy Dwór, they saw on the left side of the road a flock of sheep grazing in the morning dew.

Suddenly a powerful ram separated itself from the flock. To the astonishment of both men, it ran straight up to their wagon. It was not frightened. It did not try to flee. On the contrary, it approached one of the householders and began rubbing against him like a tame animal.

The man instinctively stroked its head.

"Poor little ram... poor little ram..."

At that very moment the animal lifted its head. It looked the man straight in the eyes and answered distinctly in a human voice:

"Poor little ram... poor."

Then it calmly jumped down from the wagon and returned to the flock.

For the rest of the road the two men did not say a word to one another. Only after they returned did they tell the villagers everything.

Wacław ended this entry with a simple comment:

"Were it not for father, no one would have believed it."

And for that very reason he resolved to preserve the story in the family chronicle.

Contrary to later judgments, the inhabitants of the Zakroczym Land did not live at the beginning of the twentieth century solely in a world of superstition. They knew history, read the national literature, and commented upon stories heard in church, at the market, and in neighbours' houses. Poverty, however, made them most readily return to tales speaking of hunger, want, and human greed.

Among the most often recalled was the little story of the beggar who ordered from a householder a soup cooked on a nail. For many years there was also told the tale of the local beggar, Wróbel. Having invited himself to dinner at a rich farmer's, he was said to have asked for another helping so many times that his bowels twisted and he died.

On the occasion of that misfortune, the priest of Pomiechowo was also reproached for a great want of tact. During the funeral Mass he was said to have asked:

"Man, had you never seen dumplings?"

"Why, surely he had not seen them for a long time," people later commented with compassion for the dead man.

Christmas of the year 1919 did not bring the Kilis family the joy and peace usually attending the holy season. The Good Tidings of Christ's birth were dimmed by the epidemic of influenza called the Spanish sickness, which was then rolling across Europe. The plague did not spare Mazovia either.

Wacław noted then:

"All round us we are ill. I do not know whether we shall survive, though Wandzia, who is caring for us, assures us that we shall be well."

Farther on he added words still more moving:

"She, perhaps the most joyful of us all, is convinced that she alone among us will die."

Alas, Wanda's premonition proved prophetic.

At the beginning of 1920 the girl, until then full of life and cheer, suddenly fell ill. Her condition worsened day by day. On 11 January, scarcely moving her lips, she whispered:

"A Lady all dressed in white has come for me..."

Those were her last words.

Wacław's role as author of the chronicle soon came to an end. In the late summer of 1920 he too reported for military service. The last entry concerned the wounds Kazimierz had received near Kiev and the later bloody dysentery that ended with a stay in hospital.

In the middle of 1921 both brothers returned home. Wacław, decorated with the Cross of Valour, decided to remain in the army. In time he became a soldier of the Border Protection Corps. His younger brother Stefan followed in his footsteps. Both settled near Krzynowłoga Wielka, on the frontier of the Polish Commonwealth with East Prussia.

At the beginning of the twenties the children of Stanisław and Rozalia began to establish families of their own. Kazimierz, just after returning from the war, following his grandfather's example, found employment in construction work connected with the rebuilding and expansion of the fortifications around the Modlin Fortress. A year later, in 1922, he married Stefania Łęgowska, his mother's cousin, and with the money he earned bought a field in Janowo, where he built a three-room wooden house.

Marianna too had her chance to arrange her life. During the war against the Bolsheviks she met a legionary with whom she planned to found a family. God decided otherwise. The lad did not return from one of the nearby battles.

Wacław, living in the north, met Teodozja Kołakowska. In 1925 they married and had four children. For Stanisław this was painful news. Not only because his son had founded a family far from home. The father saw in it a further continuation of the scattering of the line which he had so feared all his life.

"This is not how our family ought to look," he said violently when it reached him that Wacław intended to spend his life on the Prussian border.

After a moment he added more quietly:

"There have been enough moves and lost kinsmen already."

This time, however, he knew that his opposition would avail little.

It was the first in a series of blows that were to meet him in the marriages of his children.

In 1926 Ignacy married Helena Łabęda. At the same time Helena, against her father's will, married Antoni Szcześniak, an inhabitant of Kosewo. For Stanisław this union was doubly painful. The Szcześniaks, though in the past matters had at times been otherwise, were in his eyes people of wavering morals and weak attachment to the Church. Worse still, the candidate for son-in-law was not without reason associated with the subversive activity of Polish communists inspired by Moscow.

"She has already seen peasant drawers!" Stanisław shouted when Helena ran to meet her unhappy chosen one.

He did not, however, protect his daughter from marriage. That union stood the test of time, though Antoni was later in anger called by his wife a wife-beater, which in truth he remained to the end.

Still greater emotions broke out when Józefa decided to marry her kinsman, Lucjan Kiliś of Pomiechowo. The candidate for husband was related in several ways to his future father-in-law, and so the young couple had to seek an ecclesiastical dispensation.

This did not convince Stanisław. To the end he opposed the union, and the true reason for refusing his blessing he never publicly revealed. It was commonly believed that he considered Lucjan too poor, though his material condition was far better than that of Stanisław's family.

The truth was otherwise.

Only three of his children knew it. For the other relatives the father's opposition remained the incomprehensible obstinacy of an older man.

The marriage took place in Pomiechowo on 22 November 1931, in an atmosphere of family scandal. Józefa, shortly before the planned wedding, fled to her aunt Józefa Lewandowska and never returned to the family home.

Kazimierz, who was then keeping the book, later wrote:

"Father suffered greatly over this affair. Always, as long as I can remember, nervous and secretive, he has now become very explosive. His speech has changed too. He speaks so quickly that sometimes it is hard to understand the words, and he treats that lack of understanding as our malice."

From about the same time comes also a story later recalled in the family in lowered voices. A neighbour whose bees had swarmed, knowing that Stanisław was a beekeeper, came to ask to borrow a koszka, that is, a swarm basket. In the master's absence Rozalia disposed of the implement on her own authority. When Stanisław returned, he judged that the decision belonged to him as head of the family.

At first people told only of a violent quarrel. With time, however, the tale began to take on sharper forms, until in family tradition there appeared a version about a severe beating. It is difficult today to determine how much truth there is in this and how much later addition. There is no doubt, however, that Stanisław was by then an irritated, sick man, ever more attached to the appearances of the old order.

In autumn, not long after Józefa's marriage to Lucjan, Stanisław returned home greatly agitated. He slammed the door, sat at the table, and hid his head in his trembling hands.

"Father, what has happened?" cried Marianna, seeing that with each moment her father was losing strength. "Father!"

Only an incomprehensible torrent of sounds answered her.

Stanisław, with a groan, rested his forehead upon the tabletop. His left hand fell limp; his right, trembling, still tried to support his head. In vain.

"Father, I shall help you to the bed," Marianna whispered, taking him under the arms.

The man who all his life had decided for himself and for others became helpless in an instant. He could not protest. He could not help his daughter. He could not even say what was happening to him.

Marianna, the eldest and at the same time the strongest of the siblings, managed to lay her father upon the bed.

"Father, what is happening?" she repeated.

Again only a dull moaning answered her.

She was not a learned woman. To her parents' disappointment she had completed only two classes. Instead of study she chose help in the house and care of the younger brothers and sisters. Yet from earliest years she showed uncommon practical wisdom, and the knowledge of practical matters she drew no one knew whence.

This time too she understood sooner than the others.

She opened the door and called:

"Mother, father has been struck by blood! He has had a stroke!"

Rozalia ran into the room without a word. She knelt by the bed.

"Stasiek, what is the matter with you?"

The sick man could not answer. Yet the terror in his eyes said more than words. He must have suffered greatly, for tears ran down his wrinkled cheeks, and a quiet groan filled the room.

The next day relatives began to arrive. His sister came from Kosewo; Pawelskis and Kilises appeared. After many hours of commotion, talk, and lamentation, however, it was decided that what the sick man needed above all was quiet.

Life slowly returned to its ordinary rhythm.

Everything changed only in the little Kilis cottage.

Days passed. The sick man slowly recovered speech, but he never rose from bed again. From that time the only source of support became the ten złotys which the elder sons, non-commissioned officers in the Polish Army, sent to the family home. Obtaining them was not easy. Marianna, like most of her siblings, in build resembling her grandfather Kiliś—short, though strong—now had to work beyond measure. Whatever the weather, she would go to the post office in Zakroczym, twenty kilometres away, to collect the money from her brothers. This did not relieve her of the need to gather firewood in the forest, prepare meals, or wash the clothes of her sisters, her mother, and her bedridden father; and for water one had to walk nearly a kilometre to Śniadówek, then called Zatoka.

"Stop, or I shall shoot!" Marianna heard a cry from behind the bushes as she gathered brushwood in Uncle Władek's forest. She turned; and seeing her mother's brother aiming a double-barrelled shotgun at her, she set aside what she had gathered, then turned her back again and bent slightly.

"Then shoot," she called back, pointing with her hand to the lowest part of her back. Since no shot came, the woman took up her gathering and, without a word of farewell, went toward home. Troubles appeared not only during visits to private woods. The locals were also harassed by one of the Forestry Office officials. The forester paid the highest price for it. Caught by a group of women, he was tied in an anthill. The perpetrators, it was said, were known to all; no one denounced them.

During one of her daily journeys to Śniadówek, Marianna met Stanisław Chojnacki, her future husband. It was he who, with money received from home as payment for the value of one cow, built a one-room cottage on a five-are plot rented from the Śmieszny family on the edge of Szczypiorno. A few dozen paces farther on the Szcześniaks already lived there. The Chojnackis did not settle in Szczypiorno alone. To their house was added a tiny little room in which Marianna's parents, and also her youngest sisters, found a roof over their heads.

Marianna herself, unlike many of Szczypiorno's inhabitants, was not afraid of the world. Among the journeys best known in the family were her trips to her brothers. By railway, with changes, and then by a wagon arranged beforehand, she reached Świniary, Janowiec Kościelny, or Leśniki.

Stanisław Kiliś, after years of illness, died on 7 January 1935. He was buried in the parish cemetery in Pomiechowo, where his grave existed until the beginning of the twenty-first century.

A year and a half later Jadwiga married Czesław Kamiński. The wedding was held in the forest, opposite the Chojnacki house. Soon afterwards the young couple bought from the Kielak family the neighbouring plot. On the other side, just beyond the Jankowski homestead, the Szcześniaks were already living.

None of those present supposed that, with the saved chronicle, there had also been saved the memory of a family line to which later generations were yet to add the following pages.