The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [258]
The dinner-bell finally reconciled them. After dinner, the Baron went to his room (at this time of day he always had migraine), while the rest of the company planned to meet in a summer-house in the park, where fruit was usually eaten.
Wokulski went there half an hour later. He thought he would be first, but he found all the ladies there, and Starski addressing them. He sat stretched out in a cane chair and was speaking with a bored expression on his face, tapping his boot with a riding-crop: ‘If marriages have ever played a part in history, then it wasn’t marriage for love, but those of self-interest. What would we know today of Jadwiga or Maria Leszczyńska if those ladies had not known how to make a judicious choice? Who would Stefan Batory or Napoleon I have been if they had not married women of influence? Marriage is too important an event to enter into on the strength of feelings alone. It isn’t a poetical union between two souls, but an important event for many people and interests. If I were to marry a chambermaid or governess, I should be lost to my world tomorrow. No one will ask me what the temperature of my feelings was, but what income I have for keeping up a household, and who is the woman I am introducing into my family.’
‘Political marriages are one thing, and those entered into for money, to a person one doesn’t love, are another,’ said the Duchess, looking at the ground and tapping the table with her fingers. ‘That is violence done to the most sacred feelings.’
‘Oh, grandmama, dear!’ Starski replied, with a sigh, ‘it’s easy to talk of feelings when one has twenty thousand a year. Everyone says “Vile money! Detestable money!” But why does everyone, from a farm-labourer to a minister of government, use up their spare time with work? Why do miners and sailors risk their lives? Simply for this vile money — because vile money gives them freedom for at least a few hours a day, or a few months in the year, or a few years in a man’s life. Everyone mistakenly despises money, but each one of us knows that it’s the manure in which personal freedom, science, art, even ideal love, all grow. Where did courtly love and the love of troubadours grow? Not, certainly, amidst tailors and smiths, not even among doctors and lawyers. It was cultivated by the wealthy classes which created women with delicate skin and white hands, and produced men with enough time to adore women.
‘We have here with us a representative of the men of action in Mr Wokulski who, as you yourself said, grandmama, has more than once given proof of his heroism. What attracted him to danger? Money, of course, which today is a power in his hands.’
The room grew quiet, all the ladies looked at Wokulski. After a moment of silence, he replied: ‘Yes, you are right, I made a fortune amidst difficult adventures, but do you know why I did so?’
‘Excuse me,’ Starski interrupted, ‘I’m not reproaching you, on the contrary — I regard it as a praiseworthy example for everyone. But how do you know, sir, whether a person who marries for money doesn’t have noble aims in view too? My parents are supposed to have married for love, but they weren’t happy and as for me, the fruit of their feelings, it’s useless to talk … Meanwhile, my admirable grandmama here married against her own feelings but today she is the benefactor of the entire neighbourhood. Better still,’ he added, kissing the Duchess’s hand, ‘she is correcting my parents’ errors — they were so taken up with love that they forgot to provide a fortune for me. And we have another example in the person of charming Mrs Wąsowska.’
‘Come, sir,’ said the widow, blushing, ‘you speak as if you were the prosecuting attorney at the Last Judgement. I’ll reply like Mr Wokulski: do you know why I did it?’
‘Yet you did it, and so did grandmama, and we all do the same,’ said Starski with ironical coldness,