The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [95]
‘Why so, pray?’
‘I am sorry for you,’ she repeated, ‘I am a woman and I know women are not to be gained by sacrifice, but by power.’
‘Is that so?’
‘The power of looks, health, money…’
‘Intelligence…’ Wokulski interrupted in the same tone of voice.
‘Not so much intelligence as brute force,’ Mrs Meliton added with a derisive laugh, ‘I know my own sex, and have had occasion more than once to pity masculine innocence…’
‘Pray do not trouble to do so on my account…’
‘You think it will not be necessary?’ she asked, looking into his eyes.
‘My dear lady,’ Wokulski replied, ‘if Miss Łęcka is what I think she is, she may appreciate me at some future time. If she isn’t I shall have time to disillusion myself.’
‘Do it sooner than that, Wokulski—sooner,’ she said, rising, ‘for believe me it is easier to throw away a thousand roubles than to dislodge affection from the heart. Particularly when it is already established there. But do not forget to invest my little capital profitably. You would not have torn up those thousands of roubles, had you known how hard they must sometimes be worked for…’
In May and June the visits of Mrs Meliton grew more frequent, much to the dismay of Rzecki, who suspected a plot. He was not mistaken, either. There was a plot, but it was directed against Izabela; the elderly woman used to provide Wokulski with important information, but it concerned only Izabela. In other words, she used to tell him on what days the Countess planned to walk with her niece in the Łazienki park. When this happened, Mrs Meliton would call at the shop, reward herself with a trifle worth a few roubles or more, then would tell Rzecki the appointed day and hour.
These were strange periods for Wokulski. On being told that the ladies would be in the Łazienki park on the morrow, he became restless today. He grew indifferent to business, became irritable; time seemed to stop and tomorrow was never coming. His night was full of wild dreams; sometimes, half awake, he would mutter: ‘In the end—what is it all for? Nothing! Oh, what a brute I am…’
But when the morning came, he feared to look out of the window lest he saw a cloudy sky. And the morning dragged so that all his life might have been anchored in it, poisoned with a dreadful poison. ‘Can this possibly be love?’ he asked himself in despair.
In a state of fever he would order the carriage for noon. At every moment it seemed to him he was about to meet the Countess’s carriage on its way back, or that his horses, chafing at the bit, were going too slowly.
In the Łazienki park he jumped out of the carriage and hurried to the pond where the Countess usually walked, as she liked feeding the swans. He arrived too early, sank on a bench, drenched in cold sweat, and sat motionless, gazing towards the palace, oblivious of the whole world. Finally, two female figures appeared at the end of the path, one in black, the other in grey. The blood rushed to Wokulski’s head: ‘There they are! Will they speak to me?…’
He rose from the bench and went towards them like a madman, breathless. Yes, it was Izabela; she was with her aunt, talking to her. Wokulski stared at her, and thought: ‘Well, what is there about her that is so extraordinary? She’s a woman like any other…Surely I am unnecessarily crazy about her?…’
He bowed, the ladies bowed. He walked by without turning his head, so as not to betray himself. Finally he glanced back; both ladies had disappeared into the shrubbery.
‘I’ll go back,’ he thought, ‘I’ll look at her again…No—it wouldn’t do.’ And at this moment he felt the glittering water of the pond was drawing him with irresistible power: ‘Oh, if only I could be sure that death is forgetfulness. Suppose it is not?…No, there is no pity in nature. Is it right to equip wretched human hearts with an infinity of yearning, without at least giving them the consolation that death means oblivion?’
At the same time, the Countess would be saying to Izabela: ‘I am becoming increasingly convinced that money does not bring happiness,