‘Posing all the time as innocents.’
‘What if they do?’
‘And who deceive naive men who believe in them …’
‘But how does the deception harm them?’ she asked, looking him boldly in the eyes.
Wokulski clenched his teeth, but controlled himself and coolly said: ‘If you please, madam, what would my partners have said of me if, instead of a fortune of six hundred thousand roubles, as reported, I’d only had six thousand, but never protested against the reports. It’s merely a question of two noughts.’
‘Let’s leave financial matters aside,’ Mrs Wąsowska interrupted.
‘Hm! Well, and what would you have said of me, if, for example, my name had not been Wokulski, but Wolkulski, and I’d used that small change in spelling to gain the benevolence of the late Duchess, pushed my way into her house and had the honour of making your acquaintance there? What would you have called such a way of making acquaintances and gaining people’s respect?’
A feeling of disgust was painted on Mrs Wąsowska’s noble features. ‘What has this to do with the Baron and his wife?’ she countered.
‘The fact that it is not allowed to appropriate titles in society. A coquette may, of course, be a useful woman and no one has the right to reproach her for her special proficiency: but a coquette masking herself behind a façade of what is called respectability is a cheat. And she deserves blame for that.’
‘Monstrous!’ Mrs Wąsowska burst out, ‘but less of this … Tell me, though, what the world loses through such trickery?’
Wokulski began to hear a ringing in the ears: ‘The world sometimes gains if a naive simpleton falls into the madness called ideal love, and makes a fortune by taking terrible risks in order to place it at the feet of his ideal … But sometimes the world loses, if this madman, on finding out the trickery, is broken and of no use for anything … Or if, without making a will, he throws himself under … That’s to say, he fights a duel with Mr Starski and gets a bullet in the ribs. The world loses one happiness, one developed mind, and perhaps a man who might achieve something.’
‘That man himself is to blame.’
‘You are right, madam: he would be to blame if, having seen that, he didn’t behave as the Baron has done and didn’t break with his stupidity and shame.’
‘In a word,’ said Mrs Wąsowska, ‘men don’t voluntarily renounce their foolish privileges vis-à-vis women?’
‘That’s to say — if they don’t admit the privilege of being deceived.’
‘Anyone who rejects a peace treaty,’ she said with excitement, ‘starts a war.’
‘War?’ Wokulski echoed, smiling.
‘Yes — a war in which the stronger side will win … And we shall see which is the stronger!’ she exclaimed, shaking her fist.
At this moment a strange thing happened. Wokulski suddenly seized Mrs Wąsowska by both hands and placed them between three of his own fingers.
‘What does this mean?’ she asked, turning pale.
‘Let us see who is the stronger,’ he replied.
‘Come … Enough of this joke.’
‘No, madam, this is no joke. It is merely a small proof that in a battle with you, I can do as I choose. Is it so, or not?’
‘Let me go,’ she exclaimed, struggling, ‘I’ll call the servants …’
Wokulski let her hands go: ‘Ah, so you ladies will fight us with the help of servants? I wonder what reward these allies would require, and whether they would let you evade your obligations?’
Mrs Wąsowska gazed at him, first with slight alarm, then with indignation, finally she shrugged: ‘Do you know, sir, what I think?’
‘That I have gone mad?’
‘Something of the kind.’
‘Faced with such a pretty woman and in such an argument, it would be natural …’
‘Oh, that’s a shallow compliment,’ she exclaimed, with a grimace. ‘In any event, I must admit you have impressed me somewhat. Somewhat … But you didn’t keep to your role, you let my hands go, and that disappointed me.’
‘Oh, I know how to keep hold of hands …’
‘And I — to call servants.’
‘And I, if you please, can shut mouths …’
‘What? What?’
‘You heard what I said.’
Mrs Wąsowska was surprised again. ‘You know, sir,’ she said, folding her arms à la Napoleon, ‘that you’re either very unusual … or very badly bred.’
‘I was not “bred” at all.’
‘Then you are really unusual,’ she murmured. ‘It is a pity you never let Bela know this side of your nature.’
Wokulski turned to stone. Not at the sound of that name, but on account of the change he felt within himself. Izabela seemed a matter of indifference to him, while Mrs Wąsowska had begun to interest him.
‘You should have confronted her with your theories, as you have me,’ she went on, ‘and there would have been no misunderstanding between you.’
‘Misunderstanding?’ Wokulski asked, opening his eyes wide.
‘Yes — for as far as I know, she’s ready to forgive you.’
‘To forgive me?’
‘I see you are still very … feeble,’ she said, in an indifferent tone. ‘If you don’t feel that your actions were brutal … Compared to your peculiar behaviour, even the Baron is a gentleman.’
Wokulski burst out laughing so sincerely that he himself was alarmed. Mrs Wąsowska went on: ‘You laugh? I forgive you, for I understand such laughter … It is the highest degree of suffering.’
‘I can promise you, madam, that I haven’t felt so free for ten weeks … My God! Or even for years … It seems to me that during all that time, some terrible nightmare was rending my mind, and has only just vanished … Only now do I feel I am saved, and thanks to you.’
His voice shook. He seized both her hands and kissed them almost passionately. Mrs Wąsowska thought she perceived something like tears in his eyes.
‘Saved! Liberated!’ he repeated.
‘Listen to me, sir,’ she said coldly, removing her hands, ‘I know everything that passed between you two … You behaved unworthily by eavesdropping on a conversation which I know down to the smallest details, and even more … It was the most ordinary flirtation imaginable.’
‘Ah, so that was a flirtation?’ he interrupted, ‘which makes a woman resemble a restaurant napkin which anyone may use to wipe his mouth and fingers? That’s a flirtation, is it?’
‘Silence, sir,’ cried Mrs Wąsowska, ‘I don’t deny that Bela behaved wrongly, but … Judge for yourself, when I say that as far as you’re concerned she …’
‘Loves me, or what?’ asked Wokulski, stroking his beard.
‘Oh, perhaps not yet. So far she misses you … I don’t want to go into details, suffice it to say that I’ve been seeing her almost daily for the past two months … During this time she has spoken of no one but you, and her favourite spot for trips is Zasławek castle. Whenever she sits on that stone with the inscription, I see tears in her eyes … Once she even burst into tears as she repeated the couplet inscribed there: “Always, everywhere, I shall be at your side, for I have left a part of my soul there.” What have you to say to that?’
‘What have I to say?’ Wokulski echoed. ‘I vow that my only wish at this moment is that the slightest traces of my acquaintance with Miss Łęcka should disappear. And first of all, that wretched stone which moved her so.’
‘If this were true, I’d have fine evidence of masculine constancy.’
‘No, you would merely have evidence of a miraculous cure,’ he said, with excitement. ‘My God! I feel as though someone had been hypnotising me for years, that during these ten weeks I was being clumsily aroused, and that only today have I woken up.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Surely you see how happy I am? I have regained my self, and belong to myself again … Please believe me, madam, that this is a miracle which I don’t in the least understand
, but which can only be compared to a man already in his coffin awakening from lethargy.’
‘And to what do you attribute this?’ she asked, looking away.
‘To you, in the first place … And then to the fact that I’ve finally acquired a clear view of things which I long since understood but hadn’t the courage to recognise. Izabela is a woman of a different species from me, and only insanity could bind me to her.’
‘What will you do, now that you’ve made this interesting discovery?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you ever found a woman of your own species?’
‘Perhaps …’
‘That Mrs Sta … Sta? …’
‘Stawska? No. You, rather.’
Mrs Wąsowska rose from her chair with a very solemn expression.
‘I understand,’ said Wokulski. ‘Am I to leave?’
‘As you think fit.’
‘Shall we not drive to the country together?’
‘Oh, by no means … Although … I don’t forbid you to come … Bela will certainly be staying with me.’
‘In that case I won’t come.’
‘I don’t promise she’ll be there.’
‘Should I ever find you alone?’
‘I expect so.’
‘And should we talk as we have done today? Should we go riding as before.’
‘War would certainly start between us,’ Mrs Wąsowska replied.
‘I warn you I shall be the winner.’
‘Really? Perhaps you would make me your prisoner?’
‘Yes. I would show you I know how to rule, and then would implore you, at your feet, to accept me as your slave.’
Mrs Wąsowska turned away and made to leave the drawing-room. On the threshold, she paused a moment and, turning her head slightly, said: ‘Au revoir … In the country.’
Wokulski left her apartment as though intoxicated. In the street he murmured: ‘Of course, I am going mad.’
He looked back, and saw Mrs Wąsowska at the window, looking out from behind the curtain. ‘The devil take it,’ he thought, ‘can I have got myself embroiled in another intrigue?’
Walking along the street, Wokulski pondered over the change that had come over him. He seemed to have extricated himself from an abyss, in which night and madness dominated, into the light of day. His pulses beat more strongly, he breathed more freely, his thoughts flowed with unusual freedom: he felt a sort of vitality throughout his entire organism, and an indescribable tranquillity in his heart. Now the traffic in the streets no longer irritated him, and he delighted in the crowds of people. The sky had a deeper colour, the houses looked brighter, even the dust, imbued with streams of light, was pretty.
But the greatest pleasure of all was that caused by the sight of young women, their graceful movements, smiling lips and inviting glances. Some looked him straight in the eye with an expression of sweetness and coquetry; Wokulski’s heart beat faster, a disturbing current flowed through him from top to toe.
‘Pretty creatures!’ he thought. Then, however, he remembered Mrs Wąsowska and had to admit that among all these pretty women, she was the prettiest and, still better, the most attractive … What a figure, what marvellous ankles and bosom and eyes, holding something of diamonds and velvet … He could have sworn he’d caught the perfume of her body, that he could hear her convulsive laughter, and his head reeled at the mere thought of getting close to her …
‘What a passionate woman she must be!’ he murmured. ‘I’d bite her …’
The image of Mrs Wąsowska pursued him and tormented him so, that he suddenly conceived the idea of visiting her again that day, in the evening. ‘After all, she invited me to lunch and dinner,’ he told himself, feeling that something was surging up in him.
‘What if she shows me the door? Why did she flirt with me? I knew all along that she didn’t dislike me, well and I fancy her, which is something.’
Just then, a dark girl with violet eyes and the face of a child passed him, and Wokulski realised with amazement that he liked her too.
A few yards from his apartment, he heard someone shouting: ‘Hey! Hey! Staś!’
Wokulski looked around and caught sight of Szuman under the canopy of a café. The doctor abandoned an uneaten portion of ice cream, threw down a silver coin and hurried to him. ‘I was on my way to see you,’ said Szuman, taking his arm. ‘You know, you haven’t looked so well for a long time. I’ll be bound that you’re coming back into the firm, and will drive those Yids out … What a look! What an eye! At last I recognise the old Staś!’
They passed the gateway and stairs and went into the apartment. ‘And I was just thinking that a new sickness was threatening me,’ said Wokulski, with a smile. ‘Would you like a cigar?’
‘Why should it?’
‘Just imagine, for perhaps an hour past, women have been making a tremendous impression on me … I’m shocked.’
Szuman laughed out loud: ‘Capital! … Instead of giving a dinner party to celebrate his happiness, he’s afraid … Do you think you were in a healthy state of mind when you were crazy about one woman? You’re well today, when you like them all, and have nothing more important to do then to strive for the favours of the woman who suits your taste best.’
‘Hm … But suppose she were a great lady?’
‘So much the better … Great ladies are far more appetising than chambermaids. Femininity gains greatly by chic and intelligence, and by pride above all. What ideal conversations await you, what trusting looks … They’re worth ten times more, let me tell you.’
A shadow flitted across Wokulski’s face.
‘Aha!’ cried Szuman, ‘I can see the long ears of that creature on which Christ rode into Jerusalem … Why do you grimace? Flirt with great ladies only, they’re the ones who are interested in democracy.’
The bell rang in the vestibule and Ochocki came in. He glanced at the excited doctor and inquired: ‘Do I interrupt you gentlemen?’
‘No,’ Szuman replied, ‘you may even be helpful. For I am just advising Staś to cure himself by having a love affair, though … Not an ideal one. Enough of those!’
‘Well, sir, I would like to attend the lecture too,’ said Ochocki, lighting the cigar offered him.
‘Now for an argument!’ Wokulski muttered.
‘Not at all,’ Szuman declared. ‘A man with your money could be completely happy, all that is needed for rational happiness are — to eat different dishes every day, have clean linen and to change one’s residence and one’s mistress every three months.’
‘There wouldn’t be enough women to go around,’ Ochocki interposed.
‘Leave that to the women, sir, and they’ll make sure there is no shortage,’ the doctor replied, scoffingly. ‘After all, the same diet applies to women as well.’
‘A quarterly change of diet?’ asked Ochocki.
‘Certainly. Why should they be any worse off than we?’
‘But the tenth or twentieth change of diet wouldn’t be interesting.’
‘Prejudice! Prejudice!’ said Szuman. ‘You’ll never notice or guess, especially if they assure you that you are only the second or fourth, and in any case you’re the man they truly love and have been waiting for.’
‘Weren’t you at Rzecki’s?’ Wokulski suddenly asked Szuman.
‘Well, I’m not writing him prescriptions for love,’ the doctor replied. ‘The old man is going to rack and ruin.’
‘That’s so, he looks terrible,’ Ochocki put in.
The conversation shifted to Rzecki’s state of health, then to politics, finally Szuman bade them goodbye.
‘A cynical devil, that,’ Ochocki muttered.
‘He doesn’t care for women,’ Wokulski added, ‘and besides, he sometimes has bad days, and then he talks like a heretic.’
‘Not without justice, sometimes,’ Ochocki said. ‘He hit the mark with those observations … For only an hour ago I had a solemn talk with my aunt, who insists on trying to make me get ma
rried, and claims that nothing so ennobles a man as the love of a good woman.’
‘He wasn’t advising you, but me.’
‘As I listened to his argument, I too was thinking of you. I can imagine how you’d look if you changed your mistress every three months, if at some time all the people who now work towards providing your income were to stand before you and ask: “With what are you repaying us for our labour, poverty and shortened lives, part of which we hand over to you? With work, or advice, or example?”’
‘What sort of people work towards my income nowadays?’ asked Wokulski. ‘I have withdrawn from trade and am putting my fortune into investments.’
‘If you are investing it in land mortgages, then the interest will be paid by farmhands: if in shares, then the dividends are provided by railroad workers, confectioners, weavers, goodness knows who.’
Wokulski became still more sombre. ‘Pray tell me, sir,’ he said, ‘why should I think of that? Thousands of people live on their dividends, and don’t trouble themselves with such problems.’
‘But then,’ Ochocki muttered, ‘they are the others, not you. I have fifteen hundred roubles a year altogether, but it often strikes me that such a sum would provide subsistence to three or four people, and that some fellows are giving up their lives for me, or having to limit their own needs which are restricted enough in all conscience.’
Wokulski walked about the room. ‘When are you going abroad?’ he suddenly inquired.
‘I don’t even know that,’ Ochocki replied sourly. ‘My debtor won’t repay the money for a year. He’ll pay me off simply by getting into another debt, but that won’t be easy to do nowadays.’
‘Does he pay high interest?’
‘Seven per cent.’
‘Is it secure?’
‘The next best thing after the Credit Union.’
‘Suppose I gave you the cash and took over your rights, would you go abroad then?’
‘In a moment!’ exclaimed Ochocki, leaping up. ‘Why should I settle down here? I’d marry well in sheer desperation, and later do as Szuman advises.’