The Spinoza of Market Street - Isaac Bashevis Singer [26]
Mrs. Woychehovska left and crossed Dr. Yaretzky's name off her list. Soon afterwards she suffered an attack of hiccups and it was some time before the spasms subsided.
II
HELENA SEEKS REVENGE
Mrs. Woychehovska repeated the incident to her crony, a Mrs. Markewich who told it secretly to her in-law, a Mrs. Krul. Mrs. Krul's servant girl repeated it to a milkmaid who worked at the estate, and she in turn told it to Helena as her mistress was feeding bread and sugar to her pet donkey. Helena, normally pale, turned white as the lumps of sugar when she learned of the incident. She ran to her mother screaming: "Mama, I'll never forgive you for this, not even on my deathbed!"
The widow denied any knowledge of the affair, but Helena was unconvinced. She flew to her blue room and ordered the chamber maid to remove the aquarium. She wanted to be alone, without the presence of even the goldfish. Bolting the door, closing the shutters, she began to pace up and down. Helena had suffered much. The day her father hanged himself from an apple tree in the orchard was the most terrible day of her life, but even that had been easier to bear than this. Dr. Yaretzky, that barbarian, that anti-Christ, that worm, had slapped her face, sullied her soul. If her servant knew, it must be common gossip by now. True, her mother swore she had not sent the matchmaker, but who would believe it? She, Helena, had been disgraced. The entire neighborhood was probably laughing at her.
But what could she do about it? Should she vanish so completely no one would ever hear of her again? Should she drown herself in the pond? Should she revenge herself upon that charlatan, Yaretzky?--But how? Were she a man, she would challenge him to a duel, but what could a mere female do? Fury raged in Helena's heart. Her honor had been the only thing left of her pride. Now, that too had been taken away. She'd been debased. There was nothing to do but die.
She stopped eating. She no longer fed the parrots and the donkey. She neglected to change the water in the fish tank. Naturally slim, she grew emaciated: a tall pale girl with a white face, a high forehead, and faded hair, once the color of gold, now like straw. White hairs became evident. Her skin grew transparent, networks of bluish veins covered her temples. Malnutrition and vexation sapped her strength, and she spent her days on the divan. Even Slowacki's divine poetry ceased to interest her.
When her mother realized that her only daughter was declining, she decided to act. But Helena refused to visit an aunt in Pietrkow Province. Nor would she consult doctors in Lublin or vacation at the Nalenchow spa. Every night she tossed sleepless in bed, seeking ways to revenge herself on Yaretzky. The hot blood of her father, the squire, and other noble ancestors tormented her. She fancied herself an avenging knight, stripping Yaretzky and lashing him in the market-square. After the scourging, she bound him to the tail of a pack horse and had him dragged off to the turnpike. And then, after all this torture, she gouged bits of flesh from his body and poured acid into the wounds. And while she was at it, she had that accursed matchmaker, that Woychehovska slut hanged.
But what good were fantasies? They merely fatigued the mind and intensified one's helplessness.
III
HELENA ATTENDS A BALL
Who can understand the feminine soul? Even an angelic woman shelters within herself devils, imps, and goblins. The evil ones act perversely, mock human feelings, profane holiness. For example, in Shebreshin during a funeral oration over a deceased landlord, a Squire Woyski, his widow suddenly burst out laughing. She stood over the coffin and laughed so intemperately that all the mourners and even the deceased's relatives began to laugh with her. Another time in Zamosc the wife of a brewer went to a barber-surgeon to have a tooth pulled, and when the man put his finger in her mouth to test the tooth, the woman bit it. Afterwards she began to wail and suffered an epileptic fit. Such things happen frequently. It is all