The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [392]
Wokulski did so at once, praying inwardly that he would be able to control the trembling of his hands. The footman brought the wine and two glasses. Mrs Wąsowska filled both. ‘Drink this,’ she said.
He swallowed it at one gulp. ‘Ah, I like that! Your health,’ she added, drinking, ‘and now you must drink to mine.’
Wokulski drank off a second glass. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘you must drink to the fulfilment of my plans. But instantly!’
‘I beg your pardon, madam,’ he replied. ‘but I don’t want to get drunk.’
‘So you don’t wish to fulfil my plans?’
‘Of course I do, but I must know what they are, first.’
‘Really?’ exclaimed Mrs Wąsowska, ‘that is something entirely new … Very well, pray drink up.’
She began looking out of the window, tapping one foot on the floor. Wokulski pondered. The silence lasted several minutes, finally the lady interrupted it: ‘Have you heard what the Baron has done? How do you like it?’
‘He has done the right thing,’ Wokulski replied, already quite calm.
Mrs Wąsowska turned to him. ‘What’s that?’ she cried. ‘You defend a man who has covered a woman with shame? A brute, an egoist, who didn’t hesitate to use the most vile means to get his revenge?’
‘What did he do?’
‘So you don’t know? He demanded a separation from his wife, and had a duel with Starski in order to make the scandal still more notorious.’
‘I understand you,’ said Wokulski, after some thought. ‘For he might have shot himself in the head without saying anything, and left his fortune to his wife.’
Mrs Wąsowska burst out in anger. ‘Naturally,’ she cried, ‘any man with a spark of nobility and feeling of honour would have done so. He would sooner kill himself than force a poor woman into the yoke of shame, a poor being it’s so easy to take one’s revenge on when a man has money, position and social prejudices behind him … But I didn’t expect this from you. Ha ha ha! So this is the new man, the hero who suffers in silence … Oh, you men are all the same.’
‘I beg your pardon, but … precisely what do you have against the Baron?’
A flash appeared in Mrs Wąsowska’s eye. ‘Did he love Ewelina or not?’ she inquired.
‘He was insane about her.’
‘No, that isn’t true, he was pretending he loved her, he was lying when he said he adored her. For at the first opportunity, he proved he didn’t even regard her as a person with rights equal to his own, but as a slave girl, who for a momentary weakness, can have a halter put around her neck and be dragged into the market-place, covered with shame … Oh, you men of the world, you’re deceivers! As long as an animal instinct blinds you, you’ll cast yourselves at her feet, you’re ready to commit shameful deeds, to tell lies: it’s “My dearest … My adored one … I’d give my life for you.” But when the poor victim believes your oaths, she starts to grow bored and if frail human nature awakens in her, you trample it underfoot. Oh, how revolting, how shameful! What have you to say to that?’
‘Did not the Baroness flirt with Mr Starski?’ asked Wokulski.
‘Oh! So it’s “flirted”, is it? She did, and she had a faiblesse for him, besides.’
‘A faiblesse? I didn’t know the word. But if she had a faiblesse for Starski, why did she marry the Baron?’
‘Because he went down on his knees and implored her to … He threatened to do away with himself.’
‘Excuse me, but … Did he merely ask her to deign accept his name and fortune, or did he also beg her not to have a faiblesse for other men?’
‘What about you … you men? What don’t you do, both before marriage and after? So is a woman to …?’
‘Madam, they explain to us while we are still children that we are animals, and that the only way to become a man is to love a woman, whose nobility, innocence and loyalty help prevent the world from becoming totally animal. So we believe in this nobility, innocence and the like, we adore her, we fall on our knees to her …’
‘Quite right too, for all of you are worth much less than women.’
‘We admit this in a thousand ways, and we declare that although man creates civilisation, woman