The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [263]
‘Pray continue, madam.’
‘I’ll say no more, for talking to you bores me. Ah, this world brings nothing but disappointment! When we put on our first long dress, when we go to our first ball, when we first fall in love — then it seems to us that here is something new. But after a while we realise that it has already happened before, or is nothing. I remember last year, in the Crimea, a party of us were travelling along a very wild road, along which bandits once lurked. And just as we were talking about it, two Tatars came out from behind a cliff … Good God! I thought, will they kill us, for their expressions were terrible, though they were handsome men. And do you know, sir, what they proposed? … They wanted to sell us some grapes! … Grapes, sir! They were selling us grapes, and I was thinking about bandits. I wanted to knock them down in my anger, truly. Well, today you reminded me of those Tatars, sir … The Duchess told me a few weeks ago that you’re a very unusual man, quite different from the rest, but now I see you’re the most ordinary of pedants. Aren’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘You see, I know men. Perhaps we might gallop again? Or — no, I don’t feel like it, I’m tired. Oh, if only I could meet a really new man once in my life!’
‘What would happen?’
‘He’d have a new way of behaving, he’d say new things to me, sometimes vex me to distraction, then take mortal offence and of course have to apologise. Oh, he’d love me to distraction! I’d impress myself so on his heart and mind that he wouldn’t be able to forget me, not even in his grave … Well — I understand that kind of love.’
‘And what would you give him in exchange?’ asked Wokulski, who was growing increasingly depressed and unhappy.
‘I don’t know! Perhaps I’d decide on some folly or other.’
‘Now I’ll tell you, madam, what this new man would obtain from you,’ said Wokulski, spleen mounting within him. ‘First he would acquire a long list of your former admirers, then another list of the admirers to come after him, and in the entr’acte he’d have the opportunity of checking … whether your saddle is firm.’
‘That’s vile!’ cried Mrs Wąsowska, gripping her riding-crop.
‘It’s merely a repetition of what I heard from you, madam. If I speak too frankly, however, on such short acquaintance …’
‘Not at all, please go on. Perhaps your impertinence will be more diverting than the frigid civility I know by heart. Of course a man like you despises women such as I. Well, speak up!’
‘By your leave … In the first place, let’s not use strong words which aren’t suited to a horseback ride. There is no question of feelings between us, only of points of view. In my opinion, your view of love implies differences which can’t be reconciled.’
‘Oh?’ the widow was surprised, ‘but what you call differences, I can quite perfectly accord with life.’
‘You mentioned frequent changes of lovers.’
‘Call them admirers, please.’
‘Then you want to find some unusual man or other who wouldn’t forget you even in his grave. To my mind that can never be attained. With your extravagant views, you will never become economical, nor will an unusual man wish to fit in with several ordinary ones.’
‘He may not be aware of them,’ the widow interrupted.
‘Ah, so we have deception, too — but it can only succeed if your hero is blind and stupid. Even if he were, would you have the courage to deceive a man who loved you so much?’
‘Very well, so I would tell him everything, and add: “Remember Christ forgave Mary Magdalene, than whom I, after all, am less sinful, though I have hair as fine as hers …”’
‘And that would suffice?’
‘I think so.’
‘But what if it didn’t?’
‘I’d leave him in peace and go on my way.’
‘But first you’d impress yourself in his heart and mind so that he couldn’t forget you, even in the grave!’ Wokulski burst out. ‘That’s a fine world of yours … And how charming are women who, when a man surrenders his own soul to them in the best