The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [396]
‘If this were true, I’d have fine evidence of masculine constancy.’
‘No, you would merely have evidence of a miraculous cure,’ he said, with excitement. ‘My God! I feel as though someone had been hypnotising me for years, that during these ten weeks I was being clumsily aroused, and that only today have I woken up.’
‘Do you mean that?’
‘Surely you see how happy I am? I have regained my self, and belong to myself again … Please believe me, madam, that this is a miracle which I don’t in the least understand, but which can only be compared to a man already in his coffin awakening from lethargy.’
‘And to what do you attribute this?’ she asked, looking away.
‘To you, in the first place … And then to the fact that I’ve finally acquired a clear view of things which I long since understood but hadn’t the courage to recognise. Izabela is a woman of a different species from me, and only insanity could bind me to her.’
‘What will you do, now that you’ve made this interesting discovery?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Have you ever found a woman of your own species?’
‘Perhaps …’
‘That Mrs Sta … Sta? …’
‘Stawska? No. You, rather.’
Mrs Wąsowska rose from her chair with a very solemn expression.
‘I understand,’ said Wokulski. ‘Am I to leave?’
‘As you think fit.’
‘Shall we not drive to the country together?’
‘Oh, by no means … Although … I don’t forbid you to come … Bela will certainly be staying with me.’
‘In that case I won’t come.’
‘I don’t promise she’ll be there.’
‘Should I ever find you alone?’
‘I expect so.’
‘And should we talk as we have done today? Should we go riding as before.’
‘War would certainly start between us,’ Mrs Wąsowska replied.
‘I warn you I shall be the winner.’
‘Really? Perhaps you would make me your prisoner?’
‘Yes. I would show you I know how to rule, and then would implore you, at your feet, to accept me as your slave.’
Mrs Wąsowska turned away and made to leave the drawing-room. On the threshold, she paused a moment and, turning her head slightly, said: ‘Au revoir … In the country.’
Wokulski left her apartment as though intoxicated. In the street he murmured: ‘Of course, I am going mad.’
He looked back, and saw Mrs Wąsowska at the window, looking out from behind the curtain. ‘The devil take it,’ he thought, ‘can I have got myself embroiled in another intrigue?’
Walking along the street, Wokulski pondered over the change that had come over him. He seemed to have extricated himself from an abyss, in which night and madness dominated, into the light of day. His pulses beat more strongly, he breathed more freely, his thoughts flowed with unusual freedom: he felt a sort of vitality throughout his entire organism, and an indescribable tranquillity in his heart. Now the traffic in the streets no longer irritated him, and he delighted in the crowds of people. The sky had a deeper colour, the houses looked brighter, even the dust, imbued with streams of light, was pretty.
But the greatest pleasure of all was that caused by the sight of young women, their graceful movements, smiling lips and inviting glances. Some looked him straight in the eye with an expression of sweetness and coquetry; Wokulski’s heart beat faster, a disturbing current flowed through him from top to toe.
‘Pretty creatures!’ he thought. Then, however, he remembered Mrs Wąsowska and had to admit that among all these pretty women, she was the prettiest and, still better, the most attractive … What a figure, what marvellous ankles and bosom and eyes, holding something of diamonds and velvet … He could have sworn he’d caught the perfume of her body, that he could hear her convulsive laughter, and his head reeled at the mere thought of getting close to her …
‘What a passionate woman she must be!’ he murmured. ‘I’d bite her …’
The image of Mrs Wąsowska pursued him and tormented him so, that he suddenly conceived the idea of visiting her again that day,