The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [394]
‘In respect of these faiblesses, I daresay?’
‘You “daresay” …’ she teased him, ‘that is precisely what I’m talking about.’
‘Aha! So why should we wait for the dubious results of progress? Already today there are many women emancipated in that respect. They have even formed a powerful party, called coquettes. But it’s strange: while they have the respect of men, these women don’t enjoy the benevolence of other women.’
‘It’s impossible to talk to you, Mr Wokulski,’ the widow reproached him.
‘Impossible to talk to me about the emancipation of women?’
Mrs Wąsowska’s eyes gleamed and the blood rose into her face. She sat down violently in an armchair and, striking the table with one hand, exclaimed: ‘Very well! I’ll tolerate your cynicism and will even mention the coquettes. You must know, sir, that one must have a very low character to be able to compare those women who sell themselves for money with honest and noble women who give themselves for love.’
‘Posing all the time as innocents.’
‘What if they do?’
‘And who deceive naive men who believe in them …’
‘But how does the deception harm them?’ she asked, looking him boldly in the eyes.
Wokulski clenched his teeth, but controlled himself and coolly said: ‘If you please, madam, what would my partners have said of me if, instead of a fortune of six hundred thousand roubles, as reported, I’d only had six thousand, but never protested against the reports. It’s merely a question of two noughts.’
‘Let’s leave financial matters aside,’ Mrs Wąsowska interrupted.
‘Hm! Well, and what would you have said of me, if, for example, my name had not been Wokulski, but Wolkulski, and I’d used that small change in spelling to gain the benevolence of the late Duchess, pushed my way into her house and had the honour of making your acquaintance there? What would you have called such a way of making acquaintances and gaining people’s respect?’
A feeling of disgust was painted on Mrs Wąsowska’s noble features. ‘What has this to do with the Baron and his wife?’ she countered.
‘The fact that it is not allowed to appropriate titles in society. A coquette may, of course, be a useful woman and no one has the right to reproach her for her special proficiency: but a coquette masking herself behind a façade of what is called respectability is a cheat. And she deserves blame for that.’
‘Monstrous!’ Mrs Wąsowska burst out, ‘but less of this … Tell me, though, what the world loses through such trickery?’
Wokulski began to hear a ringing in the ears: ‘The world sometimes gains if a naive simpleton falls into the madness called ideal love, and makes a fortune by taking terrible risks in order to place it at the feet of his ideal … But sometimes the world loses, if this madman, on finding out the trickery, is broken and of no use for anything … Or if, without making a will, he throws himself under … That’s to say, he fights a duel with Mr Starski and gets a bullet in the ribs. The world loses one happiness, one developed mind, and perhaps a man who might achieve something.’
‘That man himself is to blame.’
‘You are right, madam: he would be to blame if, having seen that, he didn’t behave as the Baron has done and didn’t break with his stupidity and shame.’
‘In a word,’ said Mrs Wąsowska, ‘men don’t voluntarily renounce their foolish privileges vis-à-vis women?’
‘That’s to say — if they don’t admit the privilege of being deceived.’
‘Anyone who rejects a peace treaty,’ she said with excitement, ‘starts a war.’
‘War?’ Wokulski echoed, smiling.
‘Yes — a war in which the stronger side will win … And we shall see which is the stronger!’ she exclaimed, shaking her fist.
At this moment a strange thing happened.