‘But, madam …’ the former landowner protested, and his face grew as red as his nose.
‘Even that good-for-nothing Maruszewicz,’ the Baroness went on, ‘even he watches her through the window for days at a time …’
The Baroness’s dramatic voice went into sobs again: ‘And to think,’ she groaned, ‘that a woman like that has a daughter, a daughter she is bringing up for hellfire, while I …I believe in justice and heavenly mercy, but I cannot understand — no, I cannot understand the justice which has deprived me and yet leaves her child to that…that …Sir!’ she exclaimed at the top of her voice, ‘you may leave those nihilists if you will, but she …you must get rid of her! Let her apartment remain empty, I will pay for it, providing she has no roof over her head …’
I found this detestable. I made a sign to the agent that we should take our leave and said coldly, with a bow: ‘You must allow the landlord, Mr Wokulski, to decide this for himself.’
The Baroness crossed her arms like a person shot in the heart: ‘Ah! So that’s how it is?’ she hissed, ‘already you and that …that Wokulski are in league with her! Ha! I will, therefore await God’s judgement …’
We left, not being detained any longer; on the stairs I staggered like a drunk man.
‘What do you know of this Mrs Stawska?’ I asked Wirski.
‘She’s the most honest woman in the world,’ he replied, ‘young, pretty, keeps the whole household …Her mother’s pension is barely enough for the rent.’
‘So she has a mother?’
‘Yes. She is a good woman, too.’
‘And how much rent do they pay?’
‘Three hundred roubles,’ the agent replied, ‘it’s like taking money from orphans …’
‘Let us call on these ladies,’ said I.
‘Very gladly,’ he exclaimed, ‘and as for what that crazy woman says about them — why, pay no attention. She hates Stawska, though I can’t think why. Perhaps because she’s pretty and has a little daughter just like an angel.’
‘Where do they live?’
‘In the front wing, on the second floor.’
I don’t remember coming down the main stairs, nor crossing the yard, nor yet going up to the second floor of the wing. Before me stood Mrs Stawska and Wokulski …My goodness, what a fine pair they would make; but what of it, since she has a husband already? These are matters in which I have not the slightest desire to meddle. To me it seems one thing, to them it would seem another, and to fate something different again …
Fate, fate! It draws people together strangely. Had I not gone into Hopfer’s wine-cellars years ago, to see Machalski, I would not have met Wokulski. Again, had I not urged him to go to the theatre, perhaps he would not have met Miss Łecka. I have unwittingly stirred up trouble for him, and do not want to do so again. Let the Lord God do it…
When we stopped at the door of Mrs Stawska’s apartment, the agent smiled mischievously and whispered: ‘Mind now …First we must find out if the young lady is at home. She is well worth seeing, my dear sir!’
‘I know it, I know it …’
The agent did not ring, but knocked once, then again. Suddenly the door opened quite violently, and there was a fat, dumpy servant-girl with her sleeves rolled up and soapy hands an athlete might have envied: ‘Oh, it’s the agent,’ she exclaimed, ‘I thought it was him again …’
‘What, has someone been making a nuisance of himself?’ Wirski asked, in an outraged tone of voice.
‘No, nobody ain’t,’ the girl said in peasant speech, ‘only someone sent a bouquet today. They say it’s that Maruszewicz from over the way.’
‘Scoundrel!’ the agent hissed.
‘Men are all alike. If they take a fancy to a girl, they’re after her like moths around a candle.’
‘Are both the ladies at home?’ Wirski asked.
The fat servant-girl looked at me suspiciously: ‘Are you with that gentleman?’ she asked him.
‘Yes, he is the landlord’s plenipotentiary.’
‘Is he young or old?’ she inquired further, gazing at me like a judge eyeing a prisoner.
‘He’s old — can’t you see for yourself?’ the agent replied.
‘Middle-aged,’ I interrupted. (For goodness sake, they will be calling fifteen-year-old boys ‘old’ next!)
‘Both the ladies are at home,’ said the servant-girl, ‘but a young girl just came to the young mistress for a lesson. But the old lady is in her room.’
‘Hm …’ the agent muttered, ‘well, announce us to the old lady.’
We went into the kitchen, where a pail filled with soap suds and children’s underclothing stood. A child’s drawers, blouses and stockings were hanging up to dry on a line near the hearth. (It is always obvious when there’s a child in the house.)
We heard the voice of an elderly lady through the half-open door: ‘With the agent? …Some gentleman?’ said the invisible lady, ‘perhaps it is Ludwik, for I was just dreaming …’
‘Come in, if you please,’ said the servant, opening the door to a little drawing-room.
It was a small, pearly-coloured room, with emerald-green furniture, a piano, both windows full of pink and white flowers, prizes of the Fine Arts Society on the walls, a lamp with tulip-shaped glass on the table. After the tomb-like drawing-room of the Baroness Krzeszowska with its furniture done up in dark covering, it seemed more cheerful here. The room looked as if a guest was expected. But the chairs, too symmetrically placed around the table, showed that the guest had not yet arrived.
After a moment, a lady advanced in years came in, wearing an ash-coloured dress. I was struck by the almost white colour of her hair around a thin face which was not, however, too old, and very regular. The lady’s features were somehow familiar.
Meanwhile, the agent had undone two buttons on his stained frock-coat and, having bowed with the elegance of a true gentleman, said: ‘May I present Mr Rzecki, the plenipotentiary of our landlord, and my colleague …’
We glanced at each other. I admit I was somewhat startled by our suddenly being ‘colleagues’. Wirski noticed this and added, with a smile: ‘I say “colleague” because we have both been abroad and seen interesting things …’
‘So you have been abroad? Fancy that!’ the old lady exclaimed.
‘In 1849, and somewhat later,’ I interposed.
‘And did you ever come across Ludwik Stawski, by any chance?’
‘Come, madam,’ Wirski exclaimed, smiling and bowing, ‘Mr Rzecki was abroad thirty years ago, and your son-in-law left only four years ago …’
The old lady made a gesture as if to chase away a fly: ‘That’s so,’ she said, ‘whatever am I talking about? But I keep on thinking about Ludwik.…Pray be seated.’
We did so, while the former landowner bowed again to the imposing old lady, and she to him. Not until now did I observe that the ash-coloured dress was darned in many places, and a strange melancholy came upon me at the sight of these two people, one in a stained frock-coat, the other in a darned dress, behaving like princes. The levelling plough of time had passed over them both …
‘I expect you know about our trouble,’ said the imposing lady, turning to me, ‘my son-in-law was involved in a very terrible matter four years ago …Most unjustly …Some dreadful woman was murdered …Oh, dear, I don’t like to speak of it …Enough that someone close warned him he was suspected. Most unjustly, Mr …’
‘Rzecki,’ the former landowner put in.
‘Most unjustly, Mr Rzecki …Well, and the poor fellow fled abroad. Last year the real murderer was found out, Ludwik’s innocence established, but what of that, when he hasn’t written to us for two years?’
Here she leaned towards me and whispered: ‘Helena, my daughter, Mr …’
‘Rzecki,’ the agent exclaimed.
‘My daughter, Mr Rzecki, is being ruined …frankly, she is ruining herself by advertising in foreign newspapers, but nothing ever comes of it…She’s still a young woman, Mr …’
br />
‘Rzecki,’ Wirski prompted.
‘A young woman, Mr Rzecki, not at all plain …’
‘Perfectly lovely,’ the agent interrupted warmly.
‘I was quite like her,’ the elderly lady went on with a sigh, nodding to the former landowner, ‘here’s my daughter, sir, not at all plain, still young, with a little child …and perhaps longing for others. Although, Mr Wirski, I vow I have never heard a word of complaint from her …She suffers in silence, but I understand how she suffers …I too was thirty when …’
‘Which of us wasn’t, once?’ the agent sighed deeply.
The door squeaked and in ran a little girl with knitting-needles in her hand: ‘Please, grandma,’ she cried, ‘I shall never finish this dress for my dolly …’
‘Helena,’ the old lady exclaimed sternly, ‘you have not said good-day.’
The little girl made two curtsies, to which I replied clumsily, and Mr Wirski like a prince, and she went on showing her grandma the needles from which a little black woollen square was dangling: ‘Please grandma, the winter is coming, and my dolly won’t have anything to wear in the street. Please grandma, I have dropped another stitch …’
(A perfectly lovely child …Goodness me, why isn’t Staś her father? Perhaps he would not behave so foolishly?)
Her grandma apologised to me, took the wool and the needles, and at this moment in came Mrs Stawska.
I must confess that at the sight of her I behaved with dignity: but Wirski quite lost his head. He jumped up like a student, fastened a button on his frock-coat, then blushed and began stammering: ‘May I present Mr Rzecki, our landlord’s plenipotentiary …’
‘How do you do?’ said Mrs Stawska, bowing, her eyes lowered. But a powerful blush and traces of alarm on her face suggested I was not a welcome visitor.
‘Just wait,’ thought I. And I imagined Wokulski in my place in the room: ‘Just wait, I’ll prove to you you have nothing to fear …’
Meanwhile, Mrs Stawska, having sat down, was so embarrassed that she began fidgeting with her daughter’s dress. Her mother lost her good humour too, and the agent became quite sheepish.
‘Just wait, all of you,’ thought I and, adopting a very stern expression, asked: ‘How long have you been living in this apartment, ladies?’
‘Five years,’ Mrs Stawska replied, blushing still more. Her mother quivered where she sat.
‘And how much do you pay?’
‘Twenty-five roubles a month,’ the younger lady whispered. At the same moment she went pale, began rubbing her dress and, certainly without realising it, cast such an imploring look at Wirski that …had I been in his place, I would have proposed to her at once.
‘We still owe,’ she added, still more softly, ‘for July …’
I scowled like Lucifer, and drawing in as much breath as there was air in the apartment, declared: ‘You ladies owe us nothing …until October. The fact is that Staś —I mean, Mr Wokulski — has written to me that it is sheer robbery to take three hundred roubles for three rooms on this street. Mr Wokulski cannot permit such extortion, and told me to inform you that from October this apartment will be rented at two hundred roubles. If you do not wish …’
The agent almost fell out of his chair. The old lady clasped her hands, and Mrs Stawska gazed at me with wide-open eyes. Such eyes! And how she could use them! I vow that if I were Wokulski, I’d have proposed to her on the spot. Obviously there is nothing doing with her husband, if he hasn’t written for two years. Besides, what are divorces for? Why has Staś such a fortune?
Again the door creaked, and a girl about twelve years old appeared, with a school hat on, and a bundle of school books in her hand. She was a child with a round, red face, not betraying much intelligence. She curtsied to us, to Mrs Stawska and to her mother, kissed little Helena on both cheeks, and went out, obviously going home. Then she came back from the kitchen and, blushing to the roots of her hair, asked Mrs Stawska: ‘Can I come the day after tomorrow?’
‘Yes, dear …come at four o’clock,’ Mrs Stawska replied, also embarrassed.
When the little girl had finally left, Mrs Stawska’s mother said in a displeased tone: ‘And that is called a lesson, for goodness sake …Helena has been working with her for an hour and a half, and gets forty groszy a lesson …’
‘Mother!’ Mrs Stawska interrupted, looking at her imploringly.
(Were I Wokulski, I’d already have come back from the wedding. What a woman! What features! What expressive looks! I never saw anything like it in my life …And her little hands, her figure, her height, her movements and those eyes!)
After a moment of embarrassing silence, the younger lady spoke again: ‘We are very grateful to Mr Wokulski for the terms on which he rents the apartment …Surely this is the only time a landlord has ever been known to lower the rent of his own accord. But I do not know …whether we ought to take advantage of his kindness.’
‘It is not kindness, madam, but the honesty of a true gentleman,’ the agent put in. ‘Mr Wokulski has lowered my rent too, and I accepted …The street, after all, is third-rate, little traffic …’
‘Yet it’s easy to find tenants,’ Mrs Stawska interposed.
‘We prefer ones known to us for quietness and respectability,’ I replied.
‘You are quite right,’ the old lady assured me, ‘respectability in the house is our guiding principle …Even though little Helena sometimes throws pieces of paper in the yard, Franusia immediately clears them away …’
‘But, grandma, I was only cutting out envelopes, for I wrote letters to papa to come back,’ the little girl protested.
The shadow of sorrow and weariness flitted across Mrs Stawska’s face. ‘No news?’ the agent inquired. The young lady shook her head slowly: I am not sure that she didn’t sigh, though softly.
‘What a fate for a young and pretty woman!’ the older lady cried, ‘neither maid nor wife …’
‘Mother …!’
‘Neither widow nor divorcée, in a word —and no one knows why or how. You can say what you like, Helena, but I tell you Ludwik is dead …’
‘Mother! Mother!’
‘Yes,’ said her mother, loftily, ‘here we are, all awaiting him every day, every hour, but it’s all for nothing. He’s either denied or renounced you, so you are under no obligation to wait for him.’
Tears came into the eyes of both ladies: the mother’s of anger,
and the daughter’s …I don’t know …Perhaps of grief for a ruined life.
Suddenly a thought went through my brain which (had it not been mine) I would have considered a stroke of genius. But less of that. Suffice it to say there was something in my face and attitude that, when I straightened myself in the chair, crossed my legs and coughed, made them all gaze at me, even little Helena.
‘Our acquaintance,’ said I, ‘is too brief for me to venture …’
‘Never mind,’ Mr Wirski interrupted, ‘good deeds can be accepted even from strangers …’
‘Our acquaintance,’ I repeated, silencing him with a look, ‘is really very short. Allow me, however, to suggest that Mr Wokulski might use his influence to find your husband …’
‘Ah!’ the older lady groaned, in a way I could not but regard as manifesting joy.
‘Mother! …’ Mrs Stawska interrupted.
‘Helena,’ said her grandmother firmly, ‘go and play with your doll and make her the dress. I have picked up the stitch for you, now run along …’
The little girl was somewhat startled, perhaps even intrigued, but she kissed her grandma and her mother’s hands and went out with her knitting.
‘Pray, sir,’ the old lady continued, ‘if we are to speak frankly, then I am not so much concerned …That is, I do not believe Ludwik is still alive. Anyone who doesn’t write for two years …’
‘Mother, that’s enough …’
‘Not at all,’ her mother interrupted, ‘if you still don’t feel your position, then I do. It is impossible to go on li
ving with this eternal hope —or threat …’
‘Mother dear, I alone have the right, when my happiness and duty …’
‘Don’t mention happiness to me!’ her mother exclaimed, ‘it ended on the day when your husband fled from the police, who found out some sinister relations with that money-lender. I know he was innocent, I was ready to swear it. But neither you nor I understand why he used to go to her …’
‘Mother, these gentlemen are strangers,’ Mrs Stawska cried in desperation.
‘Me a stranger?’ the agent asked reproachfully, but he rose from his chair and bowed.
‘You’re not a stranger, nor is that gentleman,’ the old lady went on, indicating me, ‘surely he is an honest man …’
It was my turn to bow.
‘So I tell you, sir,’ the old lady continued with a sharp look at me, ‘we are living in continual uncertainty about my son-in-law, and this uncertainty is ruining our peace of mind. But I confess I fear his return more than anything.’
Mrs Stawska covered her face with a handkerchief and ran to her room.
‘Weep, then—weep!’ said the old lady, crossly, shaking a finger after her. ‘Such tears, though painful, are at least better than the tears you weep every day …Sir,’ she turned to me, ‘I accept everything God sends, but I feel that if this man came back, he would finish off my child’s happiness. I vow,’ she added more quietly, ‘that she no longer loves him, though she herself doesn’t realise it. Yet I am certain …she would go to him, if he called …’
Stifled sobbing interrupted her words. Wirski and I looked at one another and said goodbye to the elderly lady.
‘Madam,’ I said, leaving, ‘before the year is out, I will bring news of your son-in-law. And perhaps,’ I murmured, with an involuntary smile, ‘matters will work out so that…we shall all be pleased …All of us, even some who are not present …’
The old lady looked at me inquiringly, but I said nothing. I bade goodbye to her once more, and went out with the agent, not inquiring about Mrs Stawska.
‘Drop in and see us any evening you like,’ the elderly lady called when we were already in the kitchen. Of course I will! But will my trick with Staś work out? Heaven knows. Calculations do not work when the heart is at stake. But I will at least try to unfasten that woman’s hands, and that will be something.