My Ántonia Willa Cather (autobiographies to read txt) 📖

been out on a two years’ voyage. He was paid off one morning, and by the next he hadn’t a cent left, and his watch and compass were gone. He’d got with some women, and they’d taken everything. He worked his way to this country on a little passenger boat. Mary was a stewardess, and she tried to convert him on the way over. He thought she was just the one to keep him steady. Poor Ole! He used to bring me candy from town, hidden in his feedbag. He couldn’t refuse anything to a girl. He’d have given away his tattoos long ago, if he could. He’s one of the people I’m sorriest for.”

If I happened to spend an evening with Lena and stayed late, the Polish violin-teacher across the hall used to come out and watch me descend the stairs, muttering so threateningly that it would have been easy to fall into a quarrel with him. Lena had told him once that she liked to hear him practice, so he always left his door open, and watched who came and went.

There was a coolness between the Pole and Lena’s landlord on her account. Old Colonel Raleigh had come to Lincoln from Kentucky and invested an inherited fortune in real estate, at the time of inflated prices. Now he sat day after day in his office in the Raleigh Block, trying to discover where his money had gone and how he could get some of it back. He was a widower, and found very little congenial companionship in this casual Western city. Lena’s good looks and gentle manners appealed to him. He said her voice reminded him of Southern voices, and he found as many opportunities of hearing it as possible. He painted and papered her rooms for her that spring, and put in a porcelain bathtub in place of the tin one that had satisfied the former tenant. While these repairs were being made, the old gentleman often dropped in to consult Lena’s preferences. She told me with amusement how Ordinsky, the Pole, had presented himself at her door one evening, and said that if the landlord was annoying her by his attentions, he would promptly put a stop to it.

“I don’t exactly know what to do about him,” she said, shaking her head, “he’s so sort of wild all the time. I wouldn’t like to have him say anything rough to that nice old man. The colonel is long-winded, but then I expect he’s lonesome. I don’t think he cares much for Ordinsky, either. He said once that if I had any complaints to make of my neighbors, I mustn’t hesitate.”

One Saturday evening when I was having supper with Lena, we heard a knock at her parlor door, and there stood the Pole, coatless, in a dress shirt and collar. Prince dropped on his paws and began to growl like a mastiff, while the visitor apologized, saying that he could not possibly come in thus attired, but he begged Lena to lend him some safety pins.

“Oh, you’ll have to come in, Mr. Ordinsky, and let me see what’s the matter.” She closed the door behind him. “Jim, won’t you make Prince behave?”

I rapped Prince on the nose, while Ordinsky explained that he had not had his dress clothes on for a long time, and tonight, when he was going to play for a concert, his waistcoat had split down the back. He thought he could pin it together until he got it to a tailor.

Lena took him by the elbow and turned him round. She laughed when she saw the long gap in the satin. “You could never pin that, Mr. Ordinsky. You’ve kept it folded too long, and the goods is all gone along the crease. Take it off. I can put a new piece of lining-silk in there for you in ten minutes.” She disappeared into her workroom with the vest, leaving me to confront the Pole, who stood against the door like a wooden figure. He folded his arms and glared at me with his excitable, slanting brown eyes. His head was the shape of a chocolate drop, and was covered with dry, straw-colored hair that fuzzed up about his pointed crown. He had never done more than mutter at me as I passed him, and I was surprised when he now addressed me. “Miss Lingard,” he said haughtily, “is a young woman for whom I have the utmost, the utmost respect.”

“So have I,” I said coldly.

He paid no heed to my remark, but began to do rapid finger-exercises on his shirtsleeves, as he stood with tightly folded arms.

“Kindness of heart,” he went on, staring at the ceiling, “sentiment, are not understood in a place like this. The noblest qualities are ridiculed. Grinning college boys, ignorant and conceited, what do they know of delicacy!”

I controlled my features and tried to speak seriously.

“If you mean me, Mr. Ordinsky, I have known Miss Lingard a long time, and I think I appreciate her kindness. We come from the same town, and we grew up together.”

His gaze traveled slowly down from the ceiling and rested on me. “Am I to understand that you have this young woman’s interests at heart? That you do not wish to compromise her?”

“That’s a word we don’t use much here, Mr. Ordinsky. A girl who makes her own living can ask a college boy to supper without being talked about. We take some things for granted.”

“Then I have misjudged you, and I ask your pardon,”⁠—he bowed gravely. “Miss Lingard,” he went on, “is an absolutely trustful heart. She has not learned the hard lessons of life. As for you and me, noblesse oblige,”⁠—he watched me narrowly.

Lena returned with the vest. “Come in and let us look at you as you go out, Mr. Ordinsky. I’ve never seen you in your dress suit,” she said as she opened the door for him.

A few moments later he reappeared with his violin case⁠—a heavy muffler about his neck