The Doll (116 page)

‘Yes, madam. Trade in human beings is a horrible thing, but the sale of oneself is still more horrible. But only transactions entered into in bad faith are shameful. When such a transaction is exposed, the consequences must be very disagreeable for the unmasked party.'

For a while both sat in silence. Mrs Wąsowska was vexed, Wokulski sulky.

‘No,' she cried suddenly, ‘I must get a firm opinion from you!'

‘What on?'

‘On various questions, to which I want you to reply clearly and distinctly.'

‘Is this to be an examination?'

‘Something of the sort.'

‘Pray continue, madam.'

One might have thought she was hesitating. However, she forced herself to ask: ‘So you hold the opinion that the Baron had the right to reject and defame a woman?'

‘A woman who had deceived him? Yes, I do.'

‘What do you mean by deception?'

‘Accepting the baron's adoration despite the
faiblesse
, as you call it, which she has for Mr Starski.'

Mrs Wąsowska bit her lip: ‘And how many
faiblesses
did the Baron have?'

‘As many as his desires and opportunities afforded, to be sure,' Wokulski replied. ‘But the Baron didn't pose as an innocent, he didn't profess to be a specialist in the purity of morals, nor was he surrounded by tribute for that … Had the Baron gained someone's heart by claiming he had never taken mistresses, when in fact he had done, he too would be a deceiver. Admittedly, no one asked him.'

Mrs Wąsowska smiled: ‘Capital, indeed! What woman is going to state or assure you she never had lovers?'

‘So you have had them?'

‘My good man!' the widow exclaimed, rising hastily. At once she recollected herself, and said boldly: ‘I expect a certain consideration from you in your choice of arguments.'

‘Why so? After all, we both have equal rights, and I will not be in the least offended if you ask me how many mistresses I have had.'

‘I am not interested.'

She started walking about the drawing-room. Anger was seething in Wokulski, but he controlled it.

‘Yes, I admit, sir,' she said, ‘that I am not without prejudices. But then I am only a woman, I have a smaller brain, as your anthropologists declare: besides, I am chained by social conventions, vices and Heaven knows what beside! If I were a sensible man like you, and believed in progress as you do, I would know how to rid myself of these influences, even if only to admit sooner or later that women must be emancipated!'

‘In respect of these
faiblesses
, I daresay?'

‘You “daresay” …' she teased him, ‘that is precisely what I'm talking about.'

‘Aha! So why should we wait for the dubious results of progress? Already today there are many women emancipated in that respect. They have even formed a powerful party, called coquettes. But it's strange: while they have the respect of men, these women don't enjoy the benevolence of other women.'

‘It's impossible to talk to you, Mr Wokulski,' the widow reproached him.

‘Impossible to talk to me about the emancipation of women?'

Mrs Wąsowska's eyes gleamed and the blood rose into her face. She sat down violently in an armchair and, striking the table with one hand, exclaimed: ‘Very well! I'll tolerate your cynicism and will even mention the coquettes. You must know, sir, that one must have a very low character to be able to compare those women who sell themselves for money with honest and noble women who give themselves for love.'

‘Posing all the time as innocents.'

‘What if they do?'

‘And who deceive naive men who believe in them …'

‘But how does the deception harm them?' she asked, looking him boldly in the eyes.

Wokulski clenched his teeth, but controlled himself and coolly said: ‘If you please, madam, what would my partners have said of me if, instead of a fortune of six hundred thousand roubles, as reported, I'd only had six thousand, but never protested against the reports. It's merely a question of two noughts.'

‘Let's leave financial matters aside,' Mrs Wąsowska interrupted.

‘Hm! Well, and what would you have said of me, if, for example, my name had not been Wokulski, but Wolkulski, and I'd used that small change in spelling to gain the benevolence of the late Duchess, pushed my way into her house and had the honour of making your acquaintance there? What would you have called such a way of making acquaintances and gaining people's respect?'

A feeling of disgust was painted on Mrs Wąsowska's noble features. ‘What has this to do with the Baron and his wife?' she countered.

‘The fact that it is not allowed to appropriate titles in society. A coquette may, of course, be a useful woman and no one has the right to reproach her for her special proficiency: but a coquette masking herself behind a façade of what is called respectability is a cheat. And she deserves blame for that.'

‘Monstrous!' Mrs Wąsowska burst out, ‘but less of this … Tell me, though, what the world loses through such trickery?'

Wokulski began to hear a ringing in the ears: ‘The world sometimes gains if a naive simpleton falls into the madness called ideal love, and makes a fortune by taking terrible risks in order to place it at the feet of his ideal … But sometimes the world loses, if this madman, on finding out the trickery, is broken and of no use for anything … Or if, without making a will, he throws himself under … That's to say, he fights a duel with Mr Starski and gets a bullet in the ribs. The world loses one happiness, one developed mind, and perhaps a man who might achieve something.'

‘That man himself is to blame.'

‘You are right, madam: he would be to blame if, having seen that, he didn't behave as the Baron has done and didn't break with his stupidity and shame.'

‘In a word,' said Mrs Wąsowska, ‘men don't voluntarily renounce their foolish privileges
vis-à-vis
women?'

‘That's to say — if they don't admit the privilege of being deceived.'

‘Anyone who rejects a peace treaty,' she said with excitement, ‘starts a war.'

‘War?' Wokulski echoed, smiling.

‘Yes — a war in which the stronger side will win … And we shall see which is the stronger!' she exclaimed, shaking her fist.

At this moment a strange thing happened. Wokulski suddenly seized Mrs Wąsowska by both hands and placed them between three of his own fingers.

‘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 echoed. ‘I vow that my only wish at this moment is that the slightest traces of my acquaintance with Miss Łęcka should disappear. And first of all, that wretched stone which moved her so.'

‘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.