The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [270]
‘I’m not a woman, and have never been asked to restrict my life for someone else’s sake, so I don’t know what I’d do,’ said Wokulski, indignantly. ‘All I know is that, as a man, I wouldn’t beg — not even for love. And I must also tell you,’ he added to the woman who was watching him with parted lips, ‘that not only I wouldn’t ask, but I wouldn’t even accept a sacrifice begged from someone’s heart. Such gifts are only temporary, as a rule.’
Starski hurried up to them by a side path, very preoccupied. ‘Mr Wokulski, the ladies are looking for you in the linden alley. My grandmama, Mrs Wąsowska …’
Wokulski hesitated what to do at this moment.
‘Oh, pray don’t concern yourself with me,’ said Ewelina, pinker than ever, ‘the Baron will be back directly, and the three of us will catch up with you.’
Wokulski bade them goodbye and walked away: ‘A fine thing!’ he thought, ‘Ewelina is going to marry the Baron out of pity, and is flirting with Starski … I can understand a woman marrying for money, though it’s a stupid way of earning a living. I can even understand a married woman who, after a happy life, suddenly falls in love and deceives her husband. Sometimes she’s forced into it by the fear of scandal, her children, a thousand other things … But a young woman deceiving her fiancée is an entirely new spectacle.’
‘Ewelina! … Ewelina!’ cried the Baron, coming in Wokulski’s direction. The latter suddenly turned and walked away in between the flower-beds: ‘I wonder,’ he murmured, ‘what I’ll say to him if he finds me? Why the devil did I step into this mud?’
‘Ewelina! … Ewelina! …’ the Baron cried, already much further away.
‘A nightingale calling its mate,’ Wokulski thought. ‘And yet can one entirely condemn this woman? She herself admits she has no character and, in a lower voice, that she needs money which she hasn’t got, but without which she, like a fish out of water, can’t live. The unhappy creature marries a rich man. But at the same time her heart calls out within her, an admirer persuades her to get married, and both think that the old man’s caresses won’t spoil their own taste, so they think up a new invention — deception before marriage — and don’t even try to patent it. After all, they may be virtuous enough to have agreed not to deceive him until after the wedding … Charming people! Society sometimes comes up with very odd products … And to think that such a thing might happen to any of us! Truly, one should mistrust poets when they praise love as the greatest happiness.’
‘Ewelina! … Ewelina! …’ cried the Baron, groaning.
‘What a vile performance,’ Wokulski thought, ‘I’d sooner put a bullet through my head than marry such an idiot.’
In an alley near the farmhouse he met the ladies, including the Duchess and a chambermaid, carrying her basket. ‘Ah, here you are,’ said the old lady to Wokulski, ‘that’s good. Wait here, all of you, for Ewelina and the Baron, who will surely find her in the end,’ she added, frowning slightly, ‘and Kazia will visit the horses.’
‘Mr Wokulski might also treat his horse to some sugar, as it bore him so well today,’ interrupted Mrs Wąsowska, rather sulkily.
‘Don’t tease,’ said the Duchess, ‘men like riding, not coddling themselves.’
‘Ungrateful things,’ Mrs Wąsowska murmured, giving the Duchess her hand. They walked off, and soon disappeared through a gate. Mrs Wąsowska glanced back, but on seeing that Wokulski was watching her, she quickly turned away her head.
‘Shall we look for the engaged pair?’ asked Izabela.
‘As you choose,’ Wokulski replied.
‘But perhaps it will be better to leave them alone? They say that happy people don’t care for witnesses.’
‘Were you never happy?’
‘Me? … Of course. But not in the same way as Ewelina and the Baron.’
Wokulski looked at her attentively. She was pondering, as tranquil as