They rose on to a hilltop where a distant landscape lay before them, consisting of several villages, woods, a river, and a small town, with a church. The brake swayed from side to side: ‘Oh, what a splendid view!’ cried Mrs Wąsowska.
‘Like looking down from a balloon steered by Mr Ochocki,’ added Starski, clutching the rail.
‘Have you ever been in a balloon?’ asked Felicja.
‘Ochocki’s balloon?’
‘No, a real one …’
‘Alas, never,’ Starski sighed, ‘though I can imagine at this moment that I’m flying in a very paltry one.’
‘Mr Wokulski certainly has,’ said Miss Felicja in a tone of the utmost conviction.
‘Come, Felicja, what will you accuse Mr Wokulski of next?’ Mrs Wąsowska scolded her.
‘As a matter of fact, I have …’ said Wokulski in surprise.
‘You have? Oh, splendid,’ cried Felicja, ‘pray tell us all about it.’
‘You have?’ exclaimed Ochocki from the box, ‘hey there, wait a moment, I’ll join you.’
He tossed the reins to the groom, although they were driving downhill, jumped off the box and sat down in the brake opposite Wokulski. ‘So you’ve flown in a balloon?’ he repeated, ‘where was it? When?’
‘In Paris, but it was a captive balloon. Half a mile up, hardly any distance,’ replied Wokulski, somewhat embarrassed.
‘Pray go on … You must have had an enormous view. What did you feel?’ said Ochocki. He was strangely altered: his eyes widened, a flush appeared on his face. Looking at him it was hard to doubt that at this moment he had forgotten Izabela. ‘It must be a stupendous thrill … Go on, sir,’ he insisted, pressing Wokulski’s knee.
‘The view really was magnificent,’ Wokulski replied, ‘because the horizon was many miles wide, and the whole of Paris and its surroundings looked like a relief map. But the trip wasn’t agreeable: perhaps only the first time.’
‘What were your impressions?’
‘Odd … One thinks one is rising, then suddenly sees that one isn’t moving oneself, but that the ground is falling rapidly away. It’s such an unexpected and disappointing sight that … one feels like jumping out.’
Ochocki pondered and gazed before him at goodness knows what. Several times he seemed to want to jump out of the brake, and his companions, who were silent, apparently irritated him.
They drove into a field, followed by two servant-girls in a carriage. The ladies took baskets. ‘And now, each lady, with her cavalier, is to go in a different direction,’ commanded Mrs Wąsowska. ‘Mr Starski, I warn you that today I’m in an excellent humour, and what that means — Mr Wokulski already knows,’ she added, laughing excitedly, ‘Mr Ochocki, Bela — into the woods, pray, and don’t reappear until … you have picked a whole basket of mushrooms. Felicja!’
‘I am going with Michalina and Joanna,’ replied Miss Felicja hastily, glancing at Wokulski as though he were an enemy against whom she had to protect herself with the two servant-girls.
‘Let us be off, cousin,’ said Izabela to Ochocki, seeing that the company had already gone into the woods, ‘but pray take my basket and fill it yourself, for I must admit it doesn’t amuse me.’
Ochocki took the basket and threw it into the carriage. ‘What are mushrooms to me?’ he muttered sulkily, ‘I’ve wasted two months fishing, picking mushrooms, entertaining ladies and such-like nonsense. Other men have been up in balloons. I was going to Paris, but the Duchess insisted I should have my holiday here. A fine holiday I’ve had! I’ve grown utterly stupid. I can’t even think straight. I’ve lost my talents … Ah, confound the mushrooms! I’m so cross …’
He made a gesture, then put both hands into his pockets and walked off into the wood, head bent, muttering.
‘A charming companion,’ Izabela exclaimed to Wokulski with a smile. ‘He’ll be like this until the end of the holiday. I knew he’d be upset as soon as Starski mentioned balloons.’
‘Thank Heaven for those balloons,’ Wokulski thought, ‘a rival like this for Izabela isn’t dangerous.’ And at this moment he felt very fond of Ochocki.
‘I’m sure,’ he said to Izabela, ‘that your cousin will produce some great invention one day. Who knows — perhaps he will be an epoch in the history of mankind,’ he added, thinking of Geist’s projects.
‘You think so?’ Izabela replied, quite indifferently, ‘perhaps … Yet my cousin is sometimes impertinent, which occasionally suits him, but then again he can be a bore, which doesn’t suit even an inventor. When I look at him, an anecdote about Newton comes into my mind. He’s supposed to have been a great man, isn’t he? But what of it, when he was sitting with a young lady one day, took hold of her hand — would you believe it! — and began cleaning his pipe with her little finger! If a genius does that, I wouldn’t thank you for a husband who was one — Let’s walk a little into the woods, shall we?’
Each of Izabela’s words fell into Wokulski’s heart like a drop of sweetness: ‘So she likes Ochocki — who doesn’t — but won’t marry him …’
They walked along a narrow path which formed the limit of two woods: to the right oaks and beeches grew, to the left were pinetrees. Mrs Wąsowska’s red bodice gleamed between the pines from time to time, or the white veil of Ewelina could be seen. At one point the path forked, and Wokulski wished to turn aside, but Izabela prevented him: ‘No, no,’ she said, ‘don’t let’s go that way, for we shall lose sight of the others, and the woods are only attractive to me when there are other people about. At this moment, for instance, I can understand them … Just look … Isn’t that part like a huge church? The rows of pines are columns, there’s a side nave, and there the great altar. Just look! Now the sun between the boughs looks like a Gothic window. What an extraordinary variety of sights! There you have a lady’s boudoir, and those low bushes are her dressing-table. There’s even a mirror, which yesterday’s rain left behind. And this is a street, isn’t it? Rather crooked, but a street all the same … And yonder is a market-place or square. Do you see it all?’
‘I do, when you point it out,’ Wokulski replied with a smile, ‘but one needs a very poetic imagination to see the resemblances.’
‘Really? Yet I’ve always thought myself the embodiment of prose.’
‘Perhaps because you haven’t yet had an opportunity to discover all your capabilities,’ Wokulski replied, displeased because Felicja was approaching.
‘What’s this, aren’t you picking mushrooms?’ Felicja cried, ‘they’re marvellous: there are so many we haven’t enough baskets and must empty them into the carriage. Shall I get you a basket, Bela?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Or you, sir?’
‘I don’t think I could tell a mushroom from a toadstool,’ Wokulski replied.
‘Capital!’ cried Felicja, ‘I never expected such a retort from you … I’ll tell grandmama, and shall ask her not to let any of the gentlemen eat mushrooms, or at least not the ones I pick.’
She nodded and walked off.
‘You’ve vexed her,’ said Izabela, ‘that wasn’t nice. She is well disposed towards you.’
‘Felicja takes pleasure in picking mushrooms, I in listening to you talking about the woods.’
‘That is very flattering,’ said Izabela, blushing a little, ‘but I’m sure my lectures will soon bore you. The woods aren’t always beautiful in my eyes, sometimes they are terrible. If I were alone here, I should certainly not see any streets, churches or boudoirs. When I’m alone, the woods alarm me. They stop being a stage setting, and begin to be something I don’t understand, and which I fear. The birds’ voices are so wild, sometimes I hear a sudden cry of pain, or sometimes mockery, because I have come among monsters. Then each tree seems a living thing, which wants to enfold me in its branches and strangle me: each bush trips me up in a treacherous manner to prevent me getting away. And all this is the fault of my cousin Ochocki, who told me Nature wasn’t created for the benefit of mankind. According to his the
ories, everything is alive, and is alive for its own sake.’
‘He was right,’ Wokulski murmured.
‘How so? Do you believe that too? So you think this wood isn’t meant for the use of people, but has some business of its own, no worse than ours?’
‘I’ve seen immense forests, in which man only appears once in a generation, yet they flourished more than ours …’
‘Don’t say that! You degrade human values, and it’s not in accord with Holy Writ. God gave man the earth to dwell on, and vegetation and animals for his food.’
‘In a word, you think Nature should serve people, and people should serve the privileged and titled classes. No, madam. Both Nature and man live for themselves alone, and only those who possess more strength and who work more have the right to rule. Strength and work are the only privileges in this world.’
Izabela was vexed: ‘You can say what you like, sir,’ she declared, ‘and here I believe you, for I see your allies all around us.’
‘Will they never be your allies?’
‘I don’t know … Perhaps … I hear of them so often, nowadays, that, some day, I may come to believe in their power.’
They emerged into a field enclosed by hills, on which grew drooping pines. Izabela sat down on the stump of a felled tree, and Wokulski on the ground near her. At this moment Mrs Wąsowska appeared with Starski on the edge of the field. ‘Bela,’ she cried, ‘won’t you relieve me of this cavalier?’
‘I protest,’ Starski exclaimed, ‘Izabela is quite content with her companion, and I with mine.’
‘Are you, Bela?’
‘Yes, she is,’ Starski cried.
‘So be it,’ Izabela said, trifling with her parasol and gazing at the earth. Mrs Wąsowska and Starski disappeared over the hill, Izabela trifled more and more impatiently with her parasol. Wokulski’s pulses were ringing like bells in his head. As the silence was lasting a little too long, Izabela broke it: ‘Almost a year ago, I was at a September picnic, here. There were some thirty people from the neighbourhood. They lit a bonfire over there …’
‘Did you enjoy yourself more than today?’
‘No. I was sitting on this same tree-trunk … Something was missing … And, though this rarely happens to me, I was wondering what would happen in a year’s time.’
‘How strange,’ Wokulski murmured, ‘I, too, was living in a forest camp, more or less a year ago, though it was in Bulgaria. I was wondering whether I’d still be alive in a year’s time.’
‘And what else? What were you thinking of?’
‘Of you.’
Izabela shifted uneasily, and turned pale. ‘Me?’ she asked, ‘did you know me?’
‘Yes. I’ve known you for several years, though sometimes it seems to me I’ve known you for centuries. Time expands enormously when we continually think of a person, awake and asleep …’
She rose from the tree-trunk as though to flee. Wokulski rose too: ‘Pray forgive me if I have caused you any pain. Perhaps in your eyes, a man such as I hasn’t any right to think of you. In your world, such a prohibition is possible. But I belong to a different world. In my world, the fern and the moss have as much right to look at the sun as the pines have, or … the mushrooms. So pray tell me outright, madam, whether I may or may not think about you? Today I shall ask nothing more.’
‘I scarcely know you,’ whispered Izabela, evidently confused.
‘I ask nothing of you today. I’m only inquiring whether you regard it as offensive that I think of you — nothing more. I know the views of the class in which you were brought up towards men such as I, and I know that what I am saying at this moment might be called impertinence. So pray tell me frankly, and if there is such a great difference between us, then I will no longer strive for your favour … I’ll leave today or tomorrow, without shade of resentment, indeed — completely cured.’
‘Every man has the right to think …’ Izabela replied, in still greater confusion.
‘Thank you, madam. By that phrase you have shown me that, in your eyes, I stand no lower than the Messrs Starski, the marshals and such-like … I understand that even under these conditions, I still may never win your affection … That is still far off… But at least I know I have human rights, and from now on, you will judge me by my actions, not by titles I don’t possess.’
‘You are a gentleman, and the Duchess says you are as good as the Starskis, even the Zasławskis.’
‘Indeed I am, even more so than many of the people I meet in the drawing-rooms. My misfortune is that, in your eyes, I’m also a tradesman.’
‘Well, you don’t have to be, that depends on you,’ said Izabela, more boldly.
Wokulski considered this. At that moment the others began calling and hallooing in the wood, and within a few minutes all the company, with servants, baskets and mushrooms, appeared in the meadow.
‘Let’s go back,’ said Mrs Wąsowska, ‘mushrooms bore me, and it’s time for luncheon.’
The next few days passed in a strange manner for Wokulski: had he been asked what they meant to him, he would surely have replied they were a dream of happiness, one of those periods in life for which, perhaps, nature brought man into the world.
An indifferent observer might have thought the days monotonous, even boring. Ochocki sulked from morning to night, glued together and launched ingenious forms of gliders. Mrs Wąsowska and Felicja read, or worked on an altar cloth for the local priest. Starski played cards with the Duchess and Baron.
So Wokulski and Izabela were entirely isolated, and even had to be together continually. They walked in the park or in the meadows, they sat under an ancient linden tree in the courtyard, but mostly they boated on the lake. He rowed, she from time to time threw a crust to swans which swam silently after them. More than one passer-by paused on the highroad and gazed in wonder at the unusual group formed by the white boat, with two people seated in it, and the two white swans with their wings raised like sails.
Later, Wokulski could not even recollect what they talked about at such moments. Mostly they were silent. Once, she asked him how snails could move under the surface of the water: then again — why do clouds have different colours? He explained, and it seemed to him he was gathering all nature from earth to sky in his arms and placing it at her feet.
One day it occurred to him that if she were to order him to plunge into the water, and perish, he would have died blessing her.
During these excursions on the lake and also during their walks in the park, and whenever they were together, he felt an immeasurable peace within him, and the whole world from east to west was full of tranquillity, in which even the rattle of carriages, barking dogs or rustling leaves were wonderfully beautiful melodies. He seemed no longer to be walking, but floating across an ocean of mystical bemusement, he was no longer thinking or feeling or desiring — only loving. The hours disappeared like lightning flashes that blaze and perish on a distant horizon. No sooner was it morning, than it was already afternoon, then evening — and a night, full of restlessness and sighs. Sometimes he thought the day had been divided into two unequal parts: a day briefer than the twinkling of an eye, and a night longer than the eternity of damned souls.
One day the Duchess summoned him: ‘Be seated, Stanisław,’ she said, ‘well, are you enjoying yourself here?’
He shuddered like a man suddenly aroused. ‘Me?’ he asked.
‘Are you bored?’
‘I’d give my life for a year of such — boredom.’
The old lady shook her head. ‘Sometimes one thinks so,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know who it was that said man is happiest when he sees around him that which he carries within himself. But never mind asking why one is happy, providing one is. Forgive me if I awaken you.’
‘Pray continue, madam,’ he replied, involuntarily turning pale.
The Duchess was still gazing at him, shaking her head slightly: ‘Well, you needn’t think I shall awaken you with bad news. I’ll do it in the ordinary way. Hav
e you considered the sugar-factory they want me to build here?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Well, no hurry. But you’ve completely forgotten your uncle. And he, poor soul, lies not far from here, three miles away, at Zasław. Perhaps you might go there tomorrow? It’s a pretty district, and there are the castle ruins. You might spend some time very pleasantly, and do something about the memorial stone. You know,’ the old lady added, sighing, ‘I’ve changed my mind. There’s no need to demolish the stone near the castle. Leave it where it is, and arrange to have these words engraved on it: “In every spot, and at every moment …” You know them?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘More people visit the castle than the cemetery, they will read it, and perhaps think of the final limits of everything in this world, even of love …’
Wokulski left the Duchess in great agitation: ‘What did that conversation mean?’ he wondered. Fortunately he met Izabela walking toward the lake, and forgot everything else.
Next day, the whole company went to Zasław. They passed woods, green hillocks, valleys with yellow paths. The region was pretty, the weather even better, but Wokulski, lost in unhappy thoughts, paid no attention to anything. He was no longer alone with Izabela as he had been the day before: he was not even sitting near her in the brake, but opposite to Felicja, and above all … But this was merely an illusion, he even smiled inwardly at his own premonitions. Starski seemed to be glancing at Izabela in a strange way, so that she blushed.
‘Oh nonsense,’ he told himself, ‘why should she deceive me. I’m not even her fiancé …’
He roused himself, and was only slightly displeased that Starski was sitting next to Izabela. But only slightly … ‘Well, after all, I can’t prevent her,’ he thought, ‘from sitting with whom she chooses. And I won’t degrade myself by jealousy which in any case is a vile feeling, and most often founded merely on appearances. Besides, if she and Starski wanted to exchange melting looks, they wouldn’t behave so obviously. I’m a madman.’
A few hours later, they arrived. Zasław, formerly a small town but now only an insignificant settlement, stands in a valley surrounded by marsh-land. All the buildings are one-storeyed, wooden and old, apart from the church and former town hall. In the middle of the market-place, or rather square, filled with booths and taverns, stands a great pile of rubbish and a well, its ramshackle roof supported on four rotting posts. As it was the sabbath, the market was empty and all the booths shut. A mile outside the town, to the south, lay a group of hills. On one stood the ruins of the castle, consisting of two hexagonal towers from whose tops and windows was hanging copious vegetation: a group of old oak trees grew on another.