The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [288]
‘Have you quite finished?’ Wokulski asked coldly.
‘Yes … Have you something to add?’
‘No, madam. I suggest we go back to the house.’
Mrs Wąsowska blushed scarlet. ‘I trust,’ she said, taking the horse’s bridle, ‘that you don’t think I speak of your love in this manner so as to catch you for myself? … You say nothing. So let’s be serious. There was a moment when I liked you: there was, but it passed. Even if it hadn’t, even if I were dying for love of you, which will certainly not happen, for I haven’t yet lost any sleep or appetite — I wouldn’t surrender to you, do you hear me? — not even if you came crawling at my feet. I couldn’t live with a man who loves another woman as you do. I am too proud. Do you believe me?’
‘Yes!’
‘I thought so. If I vexed you with my remarks, it was simply out of benevolence. Your madness impresses me, I hope you will be happy and that’s why I say — throw off the medieval troubadour, for this is the nineteenth century, women are different from what you imagine, as even twenty-year-old youths know.’
‘What are they really like?’
‘Pretty, agreeable, they like twisting you around their little fingers, and will fall in love only enough to enjoy it. No woman will accept a dramatic love, or at least not all women … First she must grow tired of flirtations, and then she will find herself a dramatic lover …’
‘In a word, you are insinuating that Izabela …’
‘Oh, I insinuate nothing about Izabela,’ Mrs Wąsowska protested vivaciously, ‘in her there is material for a fine woman, and the man she falls in love with will be happy. But before she falls in love … Pray help me mount.’
Wokulski did so, then mounted his own horse. Mrs Wąsowska was agitated. She rode ahead in silence for a while: suddenly she turned back to him and said: ‘My last word. I know people better than you may suppose … I am afraid you may be disillusioned. If that ever happens, remember my advice: don’t act under the influence of passion, but wait. Things often look worse than they really are.’
‘Satan!’ Wokulski muttered. The whole world began revolving around him and seemed infused with blood.
They rode on without speaking. At Zasławek, Wokulski went to the Duchess. ‘I’m leaving tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and as for the sugar-factory, don’t build one.’
‘Tomorrow?’ the old lady echoed, ‘and what will happen about the stone?’
‘If you permit, I’ll go to Zasław, I’ll inspect the stone, and I have other business there, too.’
‘Then God be with you … There is nothing for you to do here. And call on me in Warsaw. I shall be going back at the same time as the Countess and the Łęckis.’
That evening Ochocki came to his room. ‘Confound it!’ he cried, ‘I had so many things to discuss with you … But there, you were with the ladies all the time, and now you’re leaving.’
‘Don’t you care for the ladies?’ asked Wokulski with a smile, ‘perhaps you are right!’
‘It isn’t that I don’t care for them. But since I found out that great ladies are no different than chambermaids, I prefer the latter. These women,’ he went on, ‘are all geese, even the cleverest of them. Yesterday, for instance, I spent a half-hour explaining to Wąsowska the advantages of steering a balloon, I told her frontiers would disappear, nations be brothers, civilisation progress … She gazed into my eyes so that I’d have sworn she understood. Then, when I’d finished, she asked: “Mr Ochocki, why don’t you get married?” Did you ever hear anything like it! Of course, it took me another half hour to explain that I had no thought of marrying, that I wouldn’t marry Felicja, or Izabela, or even her … Good God, I don’t know a single woman in whose constant company I wouldn’t turn stupid in six months.’ He stopped, and began taking his leave.
‘One moment,’ said Wokulski, ‘when you come back to Warsaw, pray call on me. Perhaps I shall be able to give you news of an invention which admittedly will take