The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [277]
‘He was right,’ Wokulski murmured.
‘How so? Do you believe that too? So you think this wood isn’t meant for the use of people, but has some business of its own, no worse than ours?’
‘I’ve seen immense forests, in which man only appears once in a generation, yet they flourished more than ours …’
‘Don’t say that! You degrade human values, and it’s not in accord with Holy Writ. God gave man the earth to dwell on, and vegetation and animals for his food.’
‘In a word, you think Nature should serve people, and people should serve the privileged and titled classes. No, madam. Both Nature and man live for themselves alone, and only those who possess more strength and who work more have the right to rule. Strength and work are the only privileges in this world.’
Izabela was vexed: ‘You can say what you like, sir,’ she declared, ‘and here I believe you, for I see your allies all around us.’
‘Will they never be your allies?’
‘I don’t know … Perhaps … I hear of them so often, nowadays, that, some day, I may come to believe in their power.’
They emerged into a field enclosed by hills, on which grew drooping pines. Izabela sat down on the stump of a felled tree, and Wokulski on the ground near her. At this moment Mrs Wąsowska appeared with Starski on the edge of the field. ‘Bela,’ she cried, ‘won’t you relieve me of this cavalier?’
‘I protest,’ Starski exclaimed, ‘Izabela is quite content with her companion, and I with mine.’
‘Are you, Bela?’
‘Yes, she is,’ Starski cried.
‘So be it,’ Izabela said, trifling with her parasol and gazing at the earth. Mrs Wąsowska and Starski disappeared over the hill, Izabela trifled more and more impatiently with her parasol. Wokulski’s pulses were ringing like bells in his head. As the silence was lasting a little too long, Izabela broke it: ‘Almost a year ago, I was at a September picnic, here. There were some thirty people from the neighbourhood. They lit a bonfire over there …’
‘Did you enjoy yourself more than today?’
‘No. I was sitting on this same tree-trunk … Something was missing … And, though this rarely happens to me, I was wondering what would happen in a year’s time.’
‘How strange,’ Wokulski murmured, ‘I, too, was living in a forest camp, more or less a year ago, though it was in Bulgaria. I was wondering whether I’d still be alive in a year’s time.’
‘And what else? What were you thinking of?’
‘Of you.’
Izabela shifted uneasily, and turned pale. ‘Me?’ she asked, ‘did you know me?’
‘Yes. I’ve known you for several years, though sometimes it seems to me I’ve known you for centuries. Time expands enormously when we continually think of a person, awake and asleep …’
She rose from the tree-trunk as though to flee. Wokulski rose too: ‘Pray forgive me if I have caused you any pain. Perhaps in your eyes, a man such as I hasn’t any right to think of you. In your world, such a prohibition is possible. But I belong to a different world. In my world, the fern and the moss have as much right to look at the sun as the pines have, or … the mushrooms. So pray tell me outright, madam, whether I may or may not think about you? Today I shall ask nothing more.’
‘I scarcely know you,’ whispered Izabela, evidently confused.
‘I ask nothing of you today. I’m only inquiring whether you regard it as offensive that I think of you — nothing more. I know the views of the class in which you were brought up towards men such as I, and I know that what I am saying at this moment might be called impertinence. So pray tell me frankly, and if there is such a great difference between us, then I will no longer strive for your favour … I’ll leave today or tomorrow, without shade of resentment, indeed — completely cured.’
‘Every man