The Doll (118 page)

‘They'd be right,' Wokulski replied. ‘If anyone dealt me a blow, it was certainly not the fair sex … But I really don't know what … Fate, perhaps.'

‘Through the medium of a woman, all the same.'

‘Through my own naivety, above all. Ever since I was a child, I've been looking for some great and unknown thing: and since I used to see women through the eyes of the poets, who flatter them too much, I thought that woman was that great and unknown thing. I was wrong, and there lies the clue to my temporary lack of balance which, however, helped me make a fortune.'

Mrs Wąsowska halted: ‘Come, sir, you surprise me! We haven't met since yesterday, but you now give me the impression of an entirely different man, a sort of old grandfather who despises women.'

‘It's not contempt, but observation.'

‘You mean?' asked Mrs Wąsowska.

‘That there's a species of woman in this world whose purpose is to torment and excite the passions of men. In this way they confound sensible people, bring about the downfall of the honest, while fools can keep their heads. They have many admirers and because of that they exert the same influence on us as harems do in Turkey. So, madam, you see that ladies have no cause to sentimentalise over my sufferings, and no right to amuse themselves at my expense. I am outside their field of reference.'

‘And you are even breaking with love, sir?' asked Mrs Wąsowska, ironically.

Anger surged up within Wokulski. ‘No, madam,' he replied, ‘only I have a pessimistic friend, who explained to me that it's far more profitable to purchase love for four thousand roubles — and faithfulness for five thousand — than to pay with what we call our feelings.'

‘There's faithfulness for you!' Mrs Wąsowska murmured.

‘At least we know what to expect.'

Mrs Wąsowska bit her lip and turned back in the direction of the carriage: ‘You should start propagating your new ideas.'

‘I think it would be a waste of time, madam, for some people will never understand them, and others never believe them, without personal experience.'

‘Thank you for your lecture,' she said, after a moment. ‘It has made such a powerful impression on me that I won't even ask you to see me home. Today you're in an exceptionally bad mood, but I trust it will pass. But … Here's a letter,' she added, handing him an envelope. ‘Pray read it. I am committing an indiscretion, but I know you will not betray me, and I have decided once and for all to clear up the misunderstanding between you and Bela. If my plan succeeds, burn the letter: if not, bring it with you to the country, when you come. Adieu!'

She entered her carriage and left Wokulski on the garden road.

‘Confound it, can I have offended her?' he said to himself. ‘A pity, for she's enticing.'

He walked slowly in the direction of Aleje Ujazdowskie, and thought about Mrs Wąsowska: ‘Nonsense! I'm not going to tell her I've taken a fancy to her! Besides, even if I picked a good moment to do so, what could I give her in return? I couldn't even tell her I love her?'

Not until Wokulski reached home did he open the letter from Izabela. At the sight of the once-loved writing, a lightning flash of grief passed through him: but the scent of the paper reminded him of those long-past times when she was encouraging him to arrange the ovations for Rossi. ‘He was one of the beads in the rosary Izabela uses for praying,' he whispered, with a smile.

He began reading: ‘Dear Kazia, I am so discouraged about everything, and still can't collect my thoughts, and only today have I found the energy to tell you what has occurred since you left.

‘I know now how much aunt Hortensja has left me: it is sixty thousand roubles — so altogether we have ninety thousand roubles, which the good Baron has promised to invest at seven per cent, bringing in some six thousand a year. Never mind, we shall have to learn economy.

‘I can't begin to tell you how bored I am, or perhaps I'm merely yearning … But that too will pass. This young engineer keeps visiting us every few days. At first he entertained me with talk about iron bridges, and now he tells me he was in love with a woman who married someone else, that he despaired, lost hope of falling in love again, and longs to regain his health by a new, better love. He also confided in me that he sometimes writes poetry, in which he only sings the charms of Nature however … Sometimes I want to burst into tears out of sheer boredom, but as I would die without society, I pretend to be listening and sometimes let him kiss my hand …'

The veins stood out in Wokulski's forehead. He paused, then read on: ‘Papa is still feebler. He weeps several times a day, and whenever we are alone for five minutes, he reproaches me, in connection with you know whom! You can't think how it upsets me.

‘I visit the Zasław ruins every few days. Something draws me there, I don't know whether it is the beauty of Nature, or loneliness. When I am very unhappy, I write various things in pencil on the ruined walls, and joyfully think that the first rain will wash them all away.

‘But there! I was forgetting the most important thing. You must know that the marshal wrote my father a letter in which he very formally asked for my hand in marriage. I cried all night, not because I may become Her Excellency, but … because it may so easily happen!

‘The pen is dropping from my hand. Farewell, and recall your unhappy Bela sometimes.'

Wokulski crushed the letter: ‘I despise her so, and … I still love her,' he murmured.

His head was on fire. He walked to and fro with fists clenched, and smiled at his own dreams.

Towards evening he received a telegram from Moscow, after which he at once sent a telegram to Paris. But he spent the next day, from morning to late at night, with his lawyer and agent.

Going to bed, he thought: ‘Am I committing a folly? Well, I will see how things are on the spot … Whether a metal lighter than air can exist is another question, but there is something in it, no doubt of that. Besides, in searching for the philosopher's stone, chemistry developed: so who knows what will be discovered-next? In the end, it's all the same to me, provided I get myself out of this mud.'

Not until the following afternoon did a reply arrive from Paris, which Wokulski read through several times. A moment later he was handed a letter from Mrs Wąsowska, with a likeness of the Sphinx in place of seal. ‘Yes,' Wokulski muttered, smiling, ‘a human face and the body of an animal: and our imagination lends you wings.'

‘Pray call on me for a few moments,' Mrs Wąsowska wrote, ‘I have some very important business and hope to leave today.'

‘Let us see what this important business is,' he said to himself. Half an hour later he was at Mrs Wąsowska's: trunks, ready packed, were standing in the vestibule. The lady of the house received him in her workroom, where not a single thing recalled work.

‘This is very civil of you,' Mrs Wąsowska began, in an offended tone. ‘I was waiting for you all day yesterday, but you didn't appear.'

‘You forbade me to come here, after all,' replied Wokulski, in surprise.

‘How so? Didn't I clearly invite you to the country? But never mind this, I will attribute it to your eccentricity … My dear sir, I have some very important business to discuss with you. I want to go abroad soon and should like your advice: when is the best time to buy francs — now, or before I leave?'

‘When are you leaving?'

‘Ah … In November … December,' she replied, blushing.

‘Before your departure would be the best time.'

‘You think so?'

‘That is what everyone else does.'

‘I don't want to do as everyone else does!' Mrs Wąsowska exclaimed.

‘Then buy them now.'

‘But what if the franc goes down between now and December?'

‘Then postpone your purchase until December.'

‘Well, sir, you know you're the only person who can advise me … Black is black, white white. What sort of man are you? A man ought to be firm all the time, or at least know what he wants … Well, have you brought me Bela's letter?'

Wokulski silently handed her the letter.

‘Really!' she exclaimed, vivaciously, ‘so you don't love her? In that case, a talk about her ought not to distress you. For I have to reconcile you both or … Put the poor girl out of her misery. You are prejudiced against her … You are doing her an injustice. That is dishonest … A man of honour would not behave thus, would not worm his way into her affections, then throw her aside like a faded bouquet.'

‘Dishonest!' Wokulski repeated. ‘Kindly tell me, madam, what sort of honesty can be left in a man who has been nurtured on suffering and humiliation, or humiliation and suffering!'

‘You had other moments, too.'

‘Oh, yes indeed — a few kind looks and kind words, which now have the one fault in my eyes that they were … trickery.'

‘Today she regrets that, and if you were to return …'

‘What for?'

‘To gain her heart and her hand.'

‘Leaving the other hand for both known and unknown admirers? No, madam, I have had enough of those races, in which I was outstripped by Messrs Starski, Szastalski and the devil knows how many others besides! I cannot play the role of a eunuch in the presence of my ideal, and see a happy rival or undesirable cousin in every man.'

‘How low that is!' Mrs Wąsowska exclaimed. ‘So for one mistake — and an innocent one, moreover — your are rejecting the woman you once loved?'

‘Allow me to have my own idea of the number of the mistakes, madam: and as for innocence. … Merciful heavens! What a wretched position I am in, since I don't even know how far their “innocence” went.'

‘Can you suppose? …' Mrs Wąsowska asked, coldly.

‘I suppose nothing,' Wokulski replied, quietly. ‘All I know is that, in my view, a flirtation of the commonest sort was going on under the cover of indifferent liking, and … that sufficed. I can understand a wife deceiving her husband: she may explain away her actions by the bonds which marriage has placed upon her. But that a free woman should deceive a stranger … Ha ha ha! That is a different kind of sport, for Heaven's sake! After all, she had the right to place Starski — and all of them — above me. But no! She also needed to have a fool in her suite of followers, a fool who truly loved her, who was prepared to sacrifice everything for her sake. And for the final degradation of human nature, it was I and I alone that she wanted to use as a screen for herself and her admirers … Don't you know how those people must have laughed at me, heaped with cheaply purchased attentions? And do you realise what a Hell it is, to be as ludicruous as I was, and yet at the same as unhappy, to realise my own decline and yet to know too that it was undeserved?'

Mrs Wąsowska's lips trembled: she was restraining tears with difficulty. ‘Isn't it all imagination?' she interposed.

‘Oh, no, madam … Betrayed self-respect isn't imagination.'

‘Well?'

‘What is the alternative?' Wokulski replied. ‘I realised in time, I got myself out, and today I at least have the satisfaction of knowing that my rival's victory is not complete, as far as I'm concerned.'

‘That is irrevocable?'

‘If you please, madam … I understand a woman surrendering herself for love, or selling herself out of poverty. But I cannot conceive this spiritual prostitution, carried out without any need, in cold blood, keeping up an appearance of virtue.'

‘So there are things that cannot be forgiven?' she inquired softly.

‘Who is to forgive whom? Mr Starski will never take offence over such matters, and will perhaps even recommend her to his friends. For the rest, people with so many and such choice friends need not care.'

‘A last word,' said Mrs Wąsowska, rising. ‘May I know your intentions?'

‘I wish I knew them myself.'

She gave him her hand: ‘Goodbye, sir.'

‘I wish you every happiness, madam.'

‘Ah …' she sighed, and quickly went into the next room.

‘It strikes me,' thought Wokulski, as he went downstairs, ‘that at this moment I've settled two matters. Who knows but that Szuman wasn't right?'

From Mrs Wąsowska's he drove to Rzecki's apartment. The old clerk was very haggard and could barely rise from his armchair. Wokulski was deeply touched by the sight of him. ‘Are you angry, old fellow, because I haven't been to see you for so long?' he asked, shaking him by the hand.

Rzecki shook his head sadly. ‘As if I didn't know what was happening to you,' he replied. ‘There's misery in the world … Misery … Worse and worse …'

Wokulski sat down, thoughtfully. Rzecki went on: ‘You know, Staś, I have a notion it's time for me to join Katz and my other comrades in the infantry, who are angry with me for defaulting. I know that whatever you decide to do with yourself will be wise and good, but … Wouldn't it be practical to marry Mrs Stawska? After all, she is your sacrifice, as it were.'

Wokulski clutched his head. ‘Good God!' he exclaimed, ‘when am I to pay off these women? One flatters herself I am her victim, another is my victim, a third would like to be my victim, and there are dozens of others, each of whom would accept me and my fortune as her victim … An amusing country, this, to be sure, where the women play first violin, and there are no matters of interest, apart from happy or unhappy love!'

‘Well, well,' Rzecki replied. ‘I am not forcing you. Except, d'you see, Szuman told me you urgently need romance in your life.'

‘Ugh! No! I need a change of scene, and have already prescribed that medicine for myself.'

‘Are you leaving?'

‘The day after tomorrow at the latest I go to Moscow, and then … Where God wills.'

‘Have you anything in mind?' asked Rzecki, mysteriously.