After the noisy banquet I was curiously troubled and wanted to loosen Szuman’s tongue a little. If he did not tell me something about Staś, then surely I would never know. When we reached my room and the samovar had been brought, I remarked: ‘Tell me frankly, doctor—what do you think of Staś? He is making me uneasy. I can see that for a year he has been throwing himself into all sorts of things. That trip to Bulgaria, and today this store…the trading company…his own carriage…There is a peculiar change in his character.’
‘I see none,’ Szuman replied, ‘he always was a man of action who carried out whatever came into his head. He decided to go to the university, and went; he decided to make a fortune, and did so. If he has got some folly or other into his head, he will not hesitate to commit it. It’s his character.’
‘But for all that,’ I said, ‘I see many contradictions in his behaviour…’
‘That is hardly to be wondered at,’ the doctor interrupted, ‘for two men are merged in him: a Romantic of the pre-1863 kind, and a positivist of the ’70s. What onlookers find contradictory is perfectly consistent with Wokulski himself.’
‘But has he not been involved in any new…incidents?’ I asked. ‘I know of none,’ Szuman replied drily.
I fell silent and it was a moment before I began again: ‘What will become of him in the long run?’
Szuman raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands: ‘Nothing good,’ he replied. ‘People like him either reconcile themselves to everything, or come up against a great obstacle and break their heads open on it. Hitherto things have gone well with him…but no man wins every time in his life.’
‘What then?’ I asked.
‘So we may well be witnesses of a tragedy,’ Szuman concluded. He drank a glass of tea, then went home.
I could not sleep that night. Such terrible predictions on what should have been a day of triumph…But the Lord knows more than Szuman and surely He will not let Staś go to waste…
XI
Old Dreams and New Acquaintances
MRS MELITON had been through a hard school in life, where she even learned to despise all generally accepted notions. When she was young, it had been a truth universally acknowledged that a pretty and virtuous girl could marry even if she had no money; yet she did not marry. Later on, it was said—also in a general way—that an educated governess would acquire her pupils’ affection and their parents’ respect. She was an educated, even devoted governess, yet her pupils teased her to distraction and their parents derided her from morning to night. Then she read a great quantity of novels, in which it was a universally acknowledged truth that princes, counts or barons in love are noble persons in the habit of bestowing their hands upon a poor governess in exchange for her heart. So she surrendered her heart to a young and noble count, yet she never acquired his hand in marriage.
She was already over thirty when she married an elderly tutor, Meliton, solely in order to effect the moral elevation of a man who had taken somewhat to drink. After marriage, the bridegroom drank more than before, and sometimes beat his wife, as she elevated him morally, with a thick stick. When he died in the street one day, Mrs Meliton had him taken off to the cemetery, and once she was sure he was well and truly buried, got herself a dog: for it was a truth universally acknowledged that a dog is the most affectionate of all creatures. And so it was, until it went mad and bit a servant girl, which brought a serious illness upon Mrs Meliton herself. She stayed in the hospital six months, in a private room, alone and forgotten by her pupils, their families and the count she had bestowed her heart upon. It gave her time to reflect. And when she emerged as a thin, elderly woman with grey and thinning hair, people began to declare that illness had changed her beyond recognition.
‘I have learned sense,’ Mrs Meliton retorted.
She was no longer a governess, but recommended them; she did not think of marriage, only acted as go-between for young couples; she gave her heart to no one, only facilitated lovers’ meetings in her own house. And as everyone had to pay her for everything, she acquired a little money and lived on it.
At the start of her new career she was solemn and even cynical. ‘A priest’, she would tell her confidantes, ‘gets his income from marriages—I from engagements. A count…takes money for arranging things between horses, I for facilitating acquaintances between people.’
In time, however, she became more moderate in her tone, and sometimes even moralised, for she noticed that giving voice to universally acknowledged opinions and views affected her income.
Mrs Meliton had known Wokulski for years. And since she enjoyed public events and was in the habit of watching everything, she soon noticed that Wokulski was observing Izabela much too reverently. Having made this discovery, she shrugged: what concern was it of hers if a tradesman in haberdashery was in love with Miss Łęcka? If he had taken a fancy to some wealthy tradesman’s widow, or the daughter of some manufacturer, then Mrs Meliton would have had the opportunity of acting as go-between. But as it was…
Not until Wokulski returned from Bulgaria with a fortune, of which people gave miraculous accounts, did Mrs Meliton herself approach him with regard to Izabela, and offer him her services. And a tacit agreement came into being: Wokulski paid generously, while Mrs Meliton provided him with all sorts of information concerning the Łęcki family and the fashionable persons who associated with them. It was through her that Wokulski had acquired Łęcki’s promissory notes and Izabela’s silver. On this occasion Mrs Meliton had visited Wokulski at home to congratulate him: ‘You are setting about it very sensibly,’ she said, ‘though admittedly you will get little pleasure from the dinner-service and the silver, but it was a master-stroke to buy up Łęcki’s promissory notes. The mark of a real tradesman!’
Hearing this compliment, Wokulski opened his desk, looked about inside and presently produced a bundle of promissory notes: ‘These?’ he asked, showing them to Mrs Meliton. ‘Yes—I’d like to have the money they represent,’ she replied with a sigh.
Wokulski took the packet in both hands and ripped it up. ‘The mark of a tradesman?’ he asked.
Mrs Meliton looked at him curiously and muttered: ‘I am sorry for you.’
‘Why so, pray?’
‘I am sorry for you,’ she repeated, ‘I am a woman and I know women are not to be gained by sacrifice, but by power.’
‘Is that so?’
‘The power of looks, health, money…’
‘Intelligence…’ Wokulski interrupted in the same tone of voice.
‘Not so much intelligence as brute force,’ Mrs Meliton added with a derisive laugh, ‘I know my own sex, and have had occasion more than once to pity masculine innocence…’
‘Pray do not trouble to do so on my account…’
‘You think it will not be necessary?’ she asked, looking into his eyes.
‘My dear lady,’ Wokulski replied, ‘if Miss Łęcka is what I think she is, she may appreciate me at some future time. If she isn’t I shall have time to disillusion myself.’
‘Do it sooner than that, Wokulski—sooner,’ she said, rising, ‘for believe me it is easier to throw away a thousand roubles than to dislodge affection from the heart. Particularly when it is already established there. But do not forget to invest my little capital profitably. You would not have torn up those thousands of roubles, had you known how hard they must sometimes be worked for…’
In May and June the visits of Mrs Meliton grew more frequent, much to the dismay of Rzecki, who suspected a plot. He was not mistaken, either. There was a plot, but it was directed against Izabela; the elderly woman used to provide Wokulski with important information, but it concerned only Izabela. In other words, she used to tell him on what days the Countess planned to walk with her niece in the Łazienki park. When this happened, Mrs Meliton would call at the shop, reward herself with a trifle worth a few roubles or more, then would tell Rzecki the appointed day and hour.
These were strange periods for Wokulski. On being tol
d that the ladies would be in the Łazienki park on the morrow, he became restless today. He grew indifferent to business, became irritable; time seemed to stop and tomorrow was never coming. His night was full of wild dreams; sometimes, half awake, he would mutter: ‘In the end—what is it all for? Nothing! Oh, what a brute I am…’
But when the morning came, he feared to look out of the window lest he saw a cloudy sky. And the morning dragged so that all his life might have been anchored in it, poisoned with a dreadful poison. ‘Can this possibly be love?’ he asked himself in despair.
In a state of fever he would order the carriage for noon. At every moment it seemed to him he was about to meet the Countess’s carriage on its way back, or that his horses, chafing at the bit, were going too slowly.
In the Łazienki park he jumped out of the carriage and hurried to the pond where the Countess usually walked, as she liked feeding the swans. He arrived too early, sank on a bench, drenched in cold sweat, and sat motionless, gazing towards the palace, oblivious of the whole world. Finally, two female figures appeared at the end of the path, one in black, the other in grey. The blood rushed to Wokulski’s head: ‘There they are! Will they speak to me?…’
He rose from the bench and went towards them like a madman, breathless. Yes, it was Izabela; she was with her aunt, talking to her. Wokulski stared at her, and thought: ‘Well, what is there about her that is so extraordinary? She’s a woman like any other…Surely I am unnecessarily crazy about her?…’
He bowed, the ladies bowed. He walked by without turning his head, so as not to betray himself. Finally he glanced back; both ladies had disappeared into the shrubbery.
‘I’ll go back,’ he thought, ‘I’ll look at her again…No—it wouldn’t do.’ And at this moment he felt the glittering water of the pond was drawing him with irresistible power: ‘Oh, if only I could be sure that death is forgetfulness. Suppose it is not?…No, there is no pity in nature. Is it right to equip wretched human hearts with an infinity of yearning, without at least giving them the consolation that death means oblivion?’
At the same time, the Countess would be saying to Izabela: ‘I am becoming increasingly convinced that money does not bring happiness, Bela. That Wokulski has made himself a fine career by his standards, but what good is it? He doesn’t work in his shop any more, but bores himself here in the Łazienki park…Didn’t you see how bored he looked?’
‘Bored?’ Izabela echoed, ‘he strikes me most of all as comical.’
‘I wouldn’t have said that,’ the Countess was surprised.
‘Well—unpleasant,’ Miss Izabela corrected herself.
Wokulski lacked the courage to leave the park. He walked along the other side of the pond and watched that grey dress fluttering among the trees. Not until later did he realise he was watching two grey dresses and a third, blue one, none of which belonged to Izabela: ‘I am abysmally stupid,’ he thought. Yet this did not help.
One day in the first half of June, Mrs Meliton let Wokulski know that Izabela would be out walking the next day with the Countess and the Duchess. This small incident might well have capital significance. For Wokulski had visited the Duchess several times since that memorable Easter, and knew that the old lady was extremely well disposed towards him. He usually listened to her tales of olden times, talked about his uncle and recently had even discussed erecting a gravestone for him. During these talks, the name of Izabela appeared in some unexplained manner, so unexpectedly that Wokulski was not able to conceal his emotion: his face changed; his voice darkened.
The old lady put on her spectacles and looked at Wokulski, then asked: ‘Am I right in thinking you are not indifferent to Miss Łęcka?’
‘I hardly know her…I have only spoken to her once in my life,’ Wokulski explained, in confusion.
The Duchess fell to pondering, nodded and murmured: ‘Ah…’
Wokulski bade her goodbye but that ‘Ah…’ remained in his mind. In any case, he was sure he did not have an enemy in the Duchess. And now, less than a week since that conversation, he had learned that the Duchess was going to the Łazienki park with the Countess and Izabela. Could she have found out that the ladies sometimes encountered him there? Perhaps she wanted to bring them together?
Wokulski looked at his watch: it was three in the afternoon. ‘So it’s to be tomorrow,’ he thought, ‘within twenty-four hours…No, not so many…how many?’ He could not estimate how many hours would flow between three o’clock and one o’clock next afternoon. He was overwhelmed with nervousness; he ate no dinner; his imagination rushed ahead, but cold common sense put the brake on it: ‘Let us see what tomorrow brings. Perhaps it will rain, or one of the ladies will be ill.’
He hurried out into the street and wandered about aimlessly, repeating: ‘Well, we shall see what tomorrow brings…Perhaps they won’t even stop? In any case, Izabela is a pretty woman, even unusually pretty, but she is only a woman, not a supernatural being. Thousands of equally pretty women walk about this world, yet I don’t dream of attaching myself to their skirts. What if she rejects me? So be it! I shall fall into the clutches of another, still more frantically…’
In the evening he went to the theatre, but left after the first act. Again he wandered about the town, and wherever he went, was haunted by the thought of the walk tomorrow and by an obscure premonition that it would bring him closer to Izabela.
That night passed, and dawn came. At noon, he ordered the carriage to be harnessed. He wrote a note to the shop that he would come later, and ripped a pair of gloves to shreds. At last the servant came in: ‘The horses are ready!’ He reached for his hat. ‘The Prince!’ said the servant.
Everything grew dark before Wokulski’s eyes: ‘Announce him…’
The Prince entered: ‘Good morning, Mr Wokulski,’ he cried, ‘are you going out? To the shops or the railway, I’ll be bound. But none of that! I hereby place you under arrest and am taking you off to my house. I will even be uncivil enough to commandeer your carriage, as I didn’t bring mine today. However, I am sure you will forgive me in view of the splendid news…’
‘Please be seated…’
‘Well, just for a moment. Pray imagine,’ said the Prince, as he took a chair, ‘that I have teased our fraternal gentlemen—was not that neatly phrased?—until they have promised to come to my house and listen to the plans for your partnership. So I will take you at once, or rather I shall come along with you, and we shall be off to my house.’
Wokulski felt like a man who has fallen from a height and lies stunned. His confusion did not escape the Prince’s attention, and he smiled, attributing it to delight at this visit and invitation. It never even entered his head that a ride to the Łazienki park was more important to Wokulski than any Prince or trading partnership.
‘Are we ready, then?’ the Prince inquired, rising. It was only a matter of a second for Wokulski to say he was not going, and wanted nothing to do with any partnership. But at this moment he thought: ‘The outing—that’s for me; the partnership—for her.’
He took his hat and went with the Prince. It seemed to him that the carriage was not driving along the street but over his own brains. ‘Women are not gained by sacrifice, but by brute force…’ he recalled Mrs Meliton’s phrase. Influenced by this aphorism, he felt like seizing the Prince by the scruff of the neck and throwing him bodily into the roadway. But this lasted only a moment.
The Prince was looking at him through half-closed eyes, and seeing Wokulski turn red, then white, thought: ‘I never dreamed I would give this honest fellow so much pleasure. Yes, one should always extend a hand to new people…’
Among his peers, the Prince had the reputation of a fervent patriot, almost a chauvinist; elsewhere, he enjoyed the reputation of an excellent citizen. He very much enjoyed speaking Polish, and even his conversations in French concerned matters of public interest. He was an aristocrat from top to toe, in his soul, heart and blood. He believed that society consisted of two elements: the ordinary crowd
, and the chosen few. The ordinary crowd was the work of Nature, and might well be descended from monkeys, as Darwin maintained, despite Holy Scripture. But the chosen few had some higher origin, and were descended, if not from gods, then at least from heroes related to them—Hercules, Prometheus, or in the last resort Orpheus. The Prince had a good friend in France (infected to the greatest possible degree by the democratic disease) who scoffed at the divine origins of the aristocracy.
‘Cousin mine,’ he would say, ‘I think you fail fully to understand the question of stock. What are the great houses? They are made up of those whose ancestors were hetmans, senators, governors, or, in today’s terms, marshals, members of the upper house, or departmental prefects. Well—we know such gentlemen, do we not? There’s nothing unusual about them…They eat, drink, play cards, court women, amass debts—like any other mere mortal, whom they occasionally surpass in stupidity.’
A sickly flush suffused the Prince’s face.
‘Cousin,’ he retorted, ‘have you ever met a prefect or marshal with a majestic expression such as those we see in the portraits of our forefathers?’
‘There is nothing odd in that,’ laughed the plague-stricken Count. ‘Artists endowed their paintings with expression never dreamt of by the original sitters, just as heraldists and historians told fabulous legends about them. All lies, my cousin!…These are only the scenery and costumes that make of one Jack a prince and of another a ploughman. In reality they are merely miserable actors both.’
‘Derision, cousin, makes a poor debating partner!’ fulminated the Prince and escaped. He hurried home, lay down on the chaise-longue with his hands clasped behind his head and, gazing at the ceiling, watched as figures of superhuman strength, courage, reason, disinterestedness passed before him. These were his ancestors, and those of the Count, except that the latter denied them. Could he possibly have some mixed blood?…