The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [400]
‘Is that so?’
‘Certainly. All the ladies are interested in your sufferings, and I wager that more than one would like to console you.’
‘Or amuse herself with my alleged sufferings, like a cat with a hurt mouse? No, madam — I need no ladies to console me, because I’m not suffering at all, or at least not through the fault of a woman.’
‘What’s that?’ Mrs Wąsowska exclaimed. ‘Anyone might suppose you really hadn’t received a blow from tiny hands …’
‘They’d be right,’ Wokulski replied. ‘If anyone dealt me a blow, it was certainly not the fair sex … But I really don’t know what … Fate, perhaps.’
‘Through the medium of a woman, all the same.’
‘Through my own naivety, above all. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been looking for some great and unknown thing: and since I used to see women through the eyes of the poets, who flatter them too much, I thought that woman was that great and unknown thing. I was wrong, and there lies the clue to my temporary lack of balance which, however, helped me make a fortune.’
Mrs Wąsowska halted: ‘Come, sir, you surprise me! We haven’t met since yesterday, but you now give me the impression of an entirely different man, a sort of old grandfather who despises women.’
‘It’s not contempt, but observation.’
‘You mean?’ asked Mrs Wąsowska.
‘That there’s a species of woman in this world whose purpose is to torment and excite the passions of men. In this way they confound sensible people, bring about the downfall of the honest, while fools can keep their heads. They have many admirers and because of that they exert the same influence on us as harems do in Turkey. So, madam, you see that ladies have no cause to sentimentalise over my sufferings, and no right to amuse themselves at my expense. I am outside their field of reference.’
‘And you are even breaking with love, sir?’ asked Mrs Wąsowska, ironically.
Anger surged up within Wokulski. ‘No, madam,’ he replied, ‘only I have a pessimistic friend, who explained to me that it’s far more profitable to purchase love for four thousand roubles — and faithfulness for five thousand — than to pay with what we call our feelings.’
‘There’s faithfulness for you!’ Mrs Wąsowska murmured.
‘At least we know what to expect.’
Mrs Wąsowska bit her lip and turned back in the direction of the carriage: ‘You should start propagating your new ideas.’
‘I think it would be a waste of time, madam, for some people will never understand them, and others never believe them, without personal experience.’
‘Thank you for your lecture,’ she said, after a moment. ‘It has made such a powerful impression on me that I won’t even ask you to see me home. Today you’re in an exceptionally bad mood, but I trust it will pass. But … Here’s a letter,’ she added, handing him an envelope. ‘Pray read it. I am committing an indiscretion, but I know you will not betray me, and I have decided once and for all to clear up the misunderstanding between you and Bela. If my plan succeeds, burn the letter: if not, bring it with you to the country, when you come. Adieu!’
She entered her carriage and left Wokulski on the garden road.
‘Confound it, can I have offended her?’ he said to himself. ‘A pity, for she’s enticing.’
He walked slowly in the direction of Aleje Ujazdowskie, and thought about Mrs Wąsowska: ‘Nonsense! I’m not going to tell her I’ve taken a fancy to her! Besides, even if I picked a good moment to do so, what could I give her in return? I couldn’t even tell her I love her?’
Not until Wokulski reached home did he open the letter from Izabela. At the sight of the once-loved writing, a lightning flash of grief passed through him: but the scent of the paper reminded him of those long-past times when she was encouraging him to arrange the ovations for Rossi. ‘He was one of the beads in the rosary Izabela uses for praying,’ he whispered, with a smile.
He began reading: ‘Dear Kazia, I am so discouraged about everything, and still can’t collect my thoughts, and only today have I found the energy to tell you what has occurred since you left.
‘I know