As she paced about the great room, her mournful thoughts gathered about her, and she saw a procession of all the people who had ever been there. Here the old Countess was nodding her head; two duchesses were inquiring from a prelate whether or not a child might be christened with rose water? A swarm of young men cast longing glances upon her or attempted to arouse her interest by feigned coldness; a garland of young ladies caressed her with their gaze, admiring or envying. The room seemed full of lights, rustling silks, conversations, and the greater part, like butterflies around a flower, framed Izabela’s beauty. Wherever she was, everything else paled; other women were her background, and men her slaves.
Yet all this had passed … and today it was cold, dark, empty in the drawing-room … There was only herself and that invisible spider of sorrow, which always spins its grey web in those places where we have been happy and from which happiness has fled. Has fled! … Izabela pressed her hands together to stifle the tears of which she was ashamed even in solitude and at night.
They had all deserted her, except Countess Karolowa who, whenever she was in a bad temper, would come and spread her skirts over the sofa to sigh and preach: ‘Yes, Bela dear — you must admit you have made some quite unforgivable blunders. I’m not referring to Victor Emmanuel, for that was but the fleeting caprice of a king — a rather liberal king, too, and anyhow he was terribly in debt. For relationships such as that one needs — I won’t say “tact”, but experience,’ the Countess went on, modestly casting down her eyes. ‘But to let slip — or, if you prefer it, reject — the Duke of St Auguste — my dear! A young man, wealthy, very well thought of, and with such a promising career before him … Only now he’s leading a deputation to the Holy Father and will certainly obtain a special benediction for the whole family … and Prince Chambord calls him cher cousin … Oh, my dear!’
‘I think it is too late to regret anything now, aunt,’ Izabela put in.
‘Do you suppose I want to upset you, poor child? As it is, misfortunes lie in store for you which only profound faith can alleviate. You probably know that your father has lost everything, even what was left of your dowry?’
‘What can I do?’
‘But only you can help him, and so you should,’ said the Countess emphatically. ‘Admittedly the marshal is not an Adonis, but … if one’s duties were easy to carry out, there would be no need for self-sacrifice. Anyhow, my dear, who can stop us from having some ideal in the depths of our hearts, the thought of which can sweeten the most difficult times? Finally, I can assure you that the position of a pretty woman with an old husband is by no means the worst imaginable. Everyone takes an interest in her, they all talk about her, pay tribute to her devotion and yet again an old husband is less demanding than one of middle age.’
‘But, aunt…’
‘No exaltation, Bela, if you please! You are not sixteen any longer and must take life seriously. You cannot, after all, sacrifice your father’s very existence, not to mention that of Flora and your servants for a mere whim! Finally, do remember how much good you — with your noble heart — might do in controlling a large fortune.’
‘But, aunt — the marshal is hideous. It isn’t a wife he needs, but a nursemaid to wipe his mouth for him …’
‘I don’t insist on the marshal, but the Baron …’
‘The Baron is still older, he paints his face and there are revolting marks on his hands.’
The Countess rose from the sofa.
‘I don’t insist, my dear, I am no match-maker; leave that to Mrs Meliton. I merely wish to point out that disaster is hanging over your father’s head.’
‘We still have the house.’
‘Which they will sell by midsummer so that even your share will decrease.’
‘How so? … A house that cost a hundred thousand to be sold for sixty thousand?’
‘It’s not worth more, your father spent too much on it. I know this from the builder who surveyed it for the Baroness Krzeszowska.’
‘But we still have the dinner-service and silver,’ Izabela exclaimed, wringing her hands.
The Countess kissed her several times.
‘My dear, dear child,’ she said with a sob, ‘to think I must hurt you so … Listen to me! Your father still has debts in the form of bills of exchange — several thousand roubles. But these debts — mind this — these bills have been bought up by someone — a few days ago, at the end of March. We think it may have been Krzeszowska…’
‘How vile!’ Izabela whispered. ‘But less of this … My dinner-service and the silver will cover these few thousand roubles.’
‘They are worth far more, but who will buy such costly things nowadays?’
‘In any case, I will try,’ said the feverish Izabela. ‘I’ll ask Mrs Meliton to handle it for me …’
‘Just think, though — is it not a pity to dispose of such fine heirlooms?’
Izabela laughed.
‘Ah, aunt — so I am to hesitate between selling myself and the dinner-service? For I should never permit our furniture to be taken away … Ah, that Krzeszowska … buying up father’s bills of exchange … how monstrous!’
‘Well, perhaps it was not she.’
‘So some other enemy has turned up, worse than Krzeszowska?’
‘Perhaps it was Aunt Honorata,’ the Countess soothed her. ‘I don’t know. Perhaps she wants to help Tomasz by threatening him. But goodbye, dear child, adieu …’
At this point the conversation ceased; it had been in Polish, copiously ornamented with French, which made it resemble a face disfigured by a rash.
VI
How New People Appear on the Old Horizon
IT IS the beginning of April, one of those months which bridge winter and spring. The snow has already gone, but green leaves have not yet appeared; the trees are black, the grass-plots grey and the sky grey as marble cut across with silver and gilt veins.
It is about five in the afternoon. Izabela is in her boudoir, reading Zola’s latest novel, A Page of Love. She reads inattentively, every now and then raising her eyes to gaze out of the window, half-consciously thinking that the branches of the trees are black and the sky grey. Then she reads on, or looks round the boudoir and half-consciously thinks that her furniture, covered with that sky-blue material, and her blue gown have a sort of greyish tinge, and that the loops of the white curtains are like great icicles. Then she forgets what she was thinking and wonders: ‘What was I thinking of? … Ah, the Easter collection …’ Then suddenly she feels like taking a carriage drive, and at the same time regrets that the sky is so grey, that its gilded veins are so narrow … She is tormented by almost imperceptible uneasiness and expectancy, but is not sure what it is she is waiting for: whether for the clouds to part, or for the footman to come in with a letter inviting her to take part in the Easter collection. It is very soon now, but she has not yet been invited to take part.
She goes on with the novel, that chapter when Mr Rambaud repairs little Joanne’s broken doll one starry night, when Helene melts into futile tears and Father Jouve advises her to marry. Izabela shares Helene’s grief and who knows whether, if stars instead of clouds had been in the sky, she too might have burst into tears at this moment? After all, it is but a few days to the Easter collection, and they still have not invited her to take part. She knew she would be invited, but why the delay.
‘Those women who seem to seek God so feverishly, are sometimes unhappy beings whose hearts are shattered by passion. They attend church to adore a man there,’ says Father Jouve.
‘The good priest wanted so much to calm poor Helene,’ thought Izabela, and suddenly threw the book aside. Father Jouve has reminded her that for two months she has been embroidering a sash for a church bell, and has not yet finished it. She rises and draws a small table with embroidery frame and box of silks to the window, unwinds the sash and begins feverishly to embroider it with roses and crosses. Calmed by her work, she feels more courageous. No one who serves the Church as she doe
s will be forgotten at the Easter collection. She chooses silks, threads, needles, and continues to sew. Her eye goes from pattern to material, her hands rise and fall, but in her thoughts the question of her dress for the collection and her toilette for Easter begins to arise. This question soon fills her attention entirely, she blinds her eyes and stops her hand. Her dress, hat, cloak and parasol must all be new, but there is so little time left, they are not even ordered, let alone chosen!
Here she recalls that her dinner-service and the silver are already at the jewellers, already a buyer may be considering them and today or tomorrow they will be sold. Izabela feels a constriction of the heart for her dinner-service and the silver, but gains some relief at the thought of the Easter collection and her new toilette. She will wear a very splendid one, no doubt, but what is it to be?
She pushes the embroidery frame aside and takes Le Moniteur de la Mode from a little table on which lie Shakespeare, Dante, an album of European celebrities and several journals, and begins to look through it attentively. Here is a dinner gown: here spring outfits for young girls, unmarried ladies, wives and their mothers; here there are afternoon gowns, dinner dresses, walking-out dresses; half a dozen new hat designs, a dozen different materials and dozens of different colours … Which is she to choose? It is impossible to make her choice without the advice of Flora and the modiste …
Izabela, frustrated, lets the fashion magazine fall and reclines on the chaise-longue. Her hands, clasped as if in prayer, rest on the arm and she looks at the sky dreamily. The Easter collection, the new toilette, the clouds — all blend together in her mind’s eye against a background of remorse for the dinner-service and a slight feeling of shame at having sold it.
‘Oh, never mind …’ she tells herself, and again she wishes the clouds would part, even if only for a while. But the clouds thicken and within her heart remorse, shame and uneasiness increase. Her gaze falls on the little table by the chaise-longue, and on a prayer-book bound in ivory. Izabela picks it up and slowly, page by page, seeks the ‘Acte de resignation’ and when she has found it, she begins to read: ‘Que votre nom soit béni à jamais, bien qui avez voulu m’éprouver par cette peine.’ As she reads, the grey sky lightens and at the last words ‘et d’attendre en paix votre divin secours …’ the clouds break asunder, a fragment of bright blue appears. Izabela’s boudoir fills with light and her soul with tranquillity. Now she is certain that her prayers have been heard, that she will have the most splendid toilette and smartest church for the Easter collection.
At this moment the boudoir door softly opens: Flora appears, tall, in black, timid, holding a letter between two fingers and saying softly: ‘From Countess Karolowa.’
‘Ah, about the collection,’ Izabela replies with a charming smile. ‘You haven’t been to see me all day, Flora.’
‘I didn’t want to interrupt.’
‘My boredom?’ Izabela asks. ‘Who knows if it mightn’t be more amusing to bore ourselves together?’
‘The letter …’ says the woman in black timidly, holding it out to Izabela.
‘I know what it says,’ Izabela interrupts. ‘Sit here with me for a while and, if it is not too much trouble, read me the letter.’
Flora shyly sits down, carefully takes a paper-knife from the bureau and slits the envelope very carefully. She replaces the paper-knife then puts down the envelope, unfolds the letter and reads a letter in French in a quiet and melodious voice:
Dear Bela, forgive me for referring to a matter which only you and your father have the right to decide. I know, my dear, that you are disposing of your dinner-service and the silver, since you told me so yourself. I also know that a purchaser has been found, who offers five thousand roubles. In my opinion this is not enough, though nowadays it will be difficult to expect more. After a conversation I have had with Mme Krzeszowska, however, I begin to fear lest these heirlooms may not have fallen into the wrong hands.
I should like to prevent this, so I propose to offer you three thousand roubles as a loan, with the dinner-service and silver as security. I think the things will be better in my possession, since your father is in such difficulties. You may have them again whenever you wish, and without repaying the debt, in the event of my death.
I do not insist, merely suggest this. Consider which will be the more convenient to you, and think above all of the consequences.
I know you well enough to understand you would be painfully hurt should you hear at some time in the future that our family heirlooms adorn the table of some banker, or form part of his daughter’s dowry.
A thousand kisses from
Joanna
P.S. Imagine how fortunate my orphanage has been! Yesterday in the celebrated Wokulski’s shop, I alluded to a small donation for the orphans. I hoped for ten roubles or so, but he — believe it or not! — gave me a thousand, one thousand roubles, and said he would not have ventured to give me a lesser sum. A few more like Wokulski, and I feel I might become a democrat in my old age!
Flora finished the letter but dared not raise her eyes. Finally she plucked up courage and looked: Izabela was seated on the chaise-longue, pale, her fists clenched.
‘What have you to say to that, Flora?’ she asked presently.
‘I think,’ said Flora quietly, ‘that your dear aunt makes her position very clear.’
‘How humiliating!’ Izabela whispered angrily, striking her hand on the chaise-longue.
‘It is humiliating to offer three thousand roubles when other people offer five. But I see no other cause for humiliation.’
‘How she treats us! We must be ruined already …’
‘Not at all, Bela,’ Flora interrupted, with animation. ‘This unkind letter proves we are not ruined. Aunt likes being unkind but also knows how to spare the unfortunate. If you were threatened by ruin, she would be a sensitive and kindly comforter.’
‘I would not thank her for it.’
‘You need have no fear. Tomorrow we shall obtain five thousand roubles with which we can keep going for six months … well, three months. A month or two …’
‘They will auction our house.’
‘That is merely a formality. You may profit by it, since nowadays a house is merely a burden. And you are to inherit a hundred thousand roubles from Aunt Hortensja. Moreover,’ Flora added presently, raising her eyebrows, ‘I am not at all sure but that your father may not still have a fortune. Everyone believes he has …’
Izabela leaned forward to seize Flora’s hand.
‘Flora,’ she said in a low voice, ‘why tell me such things? Do you regard me as a marriageable woman who sees and understands nothing? You think I don’t know’, she added, still more softly, ‘that for a month now you have been borrowing money for the housekeeping from Mikołaj? …’
‘Perhaps it is your father’s wish.’
‘And does he ask you to slip a few roubles into his purse every morning?’
Flora looked her in the eyes and shook her head.
‘You know too much,’ she replied, ‘but that is not the whole of the matter. For the last two weeks or so your father has ten roubles and more every day.’
‘So he is contracting debts …’
‘No, your father never contracts debts in town. The moneylenders come to the apartment with the cash, and your father transacts his business with them in his study. You don’t know him in this respect.’
‘So where is he getting this money from?’
‘I don’t know. All I know is that he has money, and has always had some.’
‘But why is he permitting me to sell the silver?’ Izabela asked.
‘Perhaps to vex the family.’
‘And who has bought up his bills of exchange?’
Miss Flora made a gesture of resignation.
‘It was not Krzeszowska,’ she said, ‘I know that for certain. It was either Aunt Hortensja, or …’
‘Or …’
‘Your father himself. You know how often your father has do
ne things to vex the rest of the family and laugh at them afterwards…’
‘Why should he want to vex you and me?’
‘He thinks your mind is at rest. A daughter should trust her father implicitly!’
‘Ah, I understand …’ said Izabela, pondering.
Her black-robed cousin slowly rose and went out softly.
Izabela began to look around her room again, at the black boughs waving outside the windows, at a few sparrows chirping and perhaps building a nest, at the sky which had become uniformly grey without any bright streaks. The question of the Easter collection and her new toilette haunted her, but both matters seemed so trivial to her now, almost laughable, that while thinking of them she imperceptibly shrugged.
She was tormented by other questions: should she not hand the dinner-service over to her aunt? And where was her father getting that money? If he had had it before, why did he allow debts to be contracted from Mikołaj? And if he had none, where was he able to obtain it? If she let her aunt have the dinner-service and silver, she might lose the last opportunity of disposing of them at a profit; but if she sold them for five thousand, these heirlooms might in reality be acquired by the wrong sort of people, just as the Countess said.
Suddenly she broke off: her quick ear had caught a sound in the other rooms. It was a man’s footsteps, level, measured. The carpet in the drawing room stifled them, but in the dining room they again grew louder, and softer again in her bedroom, as if someone were tip-toeing.
‘Come in, papa,’ Izabela said, hearing a tap on her door.
Tomasz came in. She rose from the chaise-longue, but her father made her sit down again. He embraced her, kissed her forehead, then seated himself beside her, glancing at the large looking-glass on one wall. There he observed his own handsome features, his grey moustache, irreproachable black waistcoat and smooth trousers which looked as if they had just come from the tailor, and saw that all was well.
‘I hear’, he told his daughter with a smile, ‘that you have been receiving correspondence that has upset you.’