The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [395]
‘What does this mean?’ she asked, turning pale.
‘Let us see who is the stronger,’ he replied.
‘Come … Enough of this joke.’
‘No, madam, this is no joke. It is merely a small proof that in a battle with you, I can do as I choose. Is it so, or not?’
‘Let me go,’ she exclaimed, struggling, ‘I’ll call the servants …’
Wokulski let her hands go: ‘Ah, so you ladies will fight us with the help of servants? I wonder what reward these allies would require, and whether they would let you evade your obligations?’
Mrs Wąsowska gazed at him, first with slight alarm, then with indignation, finally she shrugged: ‘Do you know, sir, what I think?’
‘That I have gone mad?’
‘Something of the kind.’
‘Faced with such a pretty woman and in such an argument, it would be natural …’
‘Oh, that’s a shallow compliment,’ she exclaimed, with a grimace. ‘In any event, I must admit you have impressed me somewhat. Somewhat … But you didn’t keep to your role, you let my hands go, and that disappointed me.’
‘Oh, I know how to keep hold of hands …’
‘And I — to call servants.’
‘And I, if you please, can shut mouths …’
‘What? What?’
‘You heard what I said.’
Mrs Wąsowska was surprised again. ‘You know, sir,’ she said, folding her arms à la Napoleon, ‘that you’re either very unusual … or very badly bred.’
‘I was not “bred” at all.’
‘Then you are really unusual,’ she murmured. ‘It is a pity you never let Bela know this side of your nature.’
Wokulski turned to stone. Not at the sound of that name, but on account of the change he felt within himself. Izabela seemed a matter of indifference to him, while Mrs Wąsowska had begun to interest him.
‘You should have confronted her with your theories, as you have me,’ she went on, ‘and there would have been no misunderstanding between you.’
‘Misunderstanding?’ Wokulski asked, opening his eyes wide.
‘Yes — for as far as I know, she’s ready to forgive you.’
‘To forgive me?’
‘I see you are still very … feeble,’ she said, in an indifferent tone. ‘If you don’t feel that your actions were brutal … Compared to your peculiar behaviour, even the Baron is a gentleman.’
Wokulski burst out laughing so sincerely that he himself was alarmed. Mrs Wąsowska went on: ‘You laugh? I forgive you, for I understand such laughter … It is the highest degree of suffering.’
‘I can promise you, madam, that I haven’t felt so free for ten weeks … My God! Or even for years … It seems to me that during all that time, some terrible nightmare was rending my mind, and has only just vanished … Only now do I feel I am saved, and thanks to you.’
His voice shook. He seized both her hands and kissed them almost passionately. Mrs Wąsowska thought she perceived something like tears in his eyes.
‘Saved! Liberated!’ he repeated.
‘Listen to me, sir,’ she said coldly, removing her hands, ‘I know everything that passed between you two … You behaved unworthily by eavesdropping on a conversation which I know down to the smallest details, and even more … It was the most ordinary flirtation imaginable.’
‘Ah, so that was a flirtation?’ he interrupted, ‘which makes a woman resemble a restaurant napkin which anyone may use to wipe his mouth and fingers? That’s a flirtation, is it?’
‘Silence, sir,’ cried Mrs Wąsowska, ‘I don’t deny that Bela behaved wrongly, but … Judge for yourself, when I say that as far as you’re concerned she …’
‘Loves me, or what?’ asked Wokulski, stroking his beard.
‘Oh, perhaps not yet. So far she misses you … I don’t want to go into details, suffice it to say that I’ve been seeing her almost daily for the past two months … During this time she has spoken of no one but you, and her favourite spot for trips is Zasławek castle. Whenever she sits on that stone with the inscription, I see tears in her eyes … Once she even burst into tears as she repeated the couplet inscribed there: “Always, everywhere, I shall be at your side, for I have left a part of my soul there.” What have you to say to that?’
‘What have I to say?’ Wokulski