‘There is much for us to do,’ he whispered. ‘There are people among us whom it would be worth helping or strengthening … I am too old to make epoch-making discoveries, let the Ochockis of this world occupy themselves with that … I prefer to augment others’ happiness and to find happiness myself …’
He closed his eyes, and seemed to see Izabela looking at him in that strange way which was hers alone, approving his intentions with a tranquil smile.
Someone knocked at the compartment door, and the chief conductor appeared, saying: ‘Baron Dalski is wondering whether he might join you. He is travelling in this carriage.’
‘The Baron?’ Wokulski asked, in surprise, ‘of course, ask him to step this way …’
The conductor withdrew and closed the door. Wokulski recalled that the Baron belonged to the trading company with the East and that he was one of the now rather few suitors of Izabela. ‘What can he want with me?’ Wokulski thought, ‘perhaps he too is going to visit the Duchess in order to make a definite proposal to Izabela in the open air? Providing Starski has not got there first …’
Footsteps and voices were heard in the corridor, the door opened again and the conductor reappeared accompanied by a very lean gentleman with a tiny, pointed and grizzled moustache, an almost grey and even smaller beard, and very grey hair.
‘This can’t be he,’ Wokulski thought, ‘he used to be quite dark …’
‘My profoundest apologies for disturbing you,’ said the Baron, swaying with the train’s motion, ‘… profoundest … I would not venture to intrude on your solitude, were it not that I wanted to inquire whether you are going to visit our respected Duchess, who has been expecting you all week?’
‘That is precisely where I am bound for. How are you, Baron? Pray be seated.’
‘Capital,’ the Baron exclaimed, ‘I am going there too. I’ve been staying at the Duchess’s nearly two months. That’s to say, sir, not so much staying as continually visiting. Either from my own house which is being done up, or from Warsaw … I am now on my way back from Vienna, where I was buying furniture, but I’ll be staying at the Duchess’s only a few days, for I have to alter all the tapestries at the palace, put up only two weeks ago. But there’s no help for it … They weren’t liked, so we must take them down, no help for it!’
He smiled and blinked, and Wokulski felt cold. ‘Who is the furniture for? Who didn’t like the tapestry?’ he asked himself in alarm.
‘My dear sir,’ the Baron went on, ‘you have just completed your mission. My congratulations!’ he added, pressing his hand, ‘from the first moment, sir, I felt respect and liking for you, and this is now changing into genuine admiration. Yes indeed, sir. Our tendency to avoid political life has done us great harm. You were the first to break with the absurd principle of abstinence from it, and for that, sir, I admire you … After all, we must concern ourselves with the matters of the state in which our properties are, where our future lies …’
‘I don’t understand you, Baron,’ Wokulski suddenly interrupted.
The Baron grew so confused that he sat for a moment without a word or movement. Finally he stammered: ‘I apologise … Indeed, I had no intention of … But I think my friendship for the venerable Duchess who, sir, so …’
‘Let us have done with explanations,’ said Wokulski with a smile, pressing his hand, ‘are you pleased with your purchases in Vienna?’
‘Very much so, sir … very much. Will you believe me, though when I say there was a moment when I intended to disturb you in Paris, on the advice of the venerable Duchess …’
‘I would gladly have been of service. What was the matter?’
‘I wanted to have a diamond set there,’ said the Baron, but as I came across some splendid sapphires in Vienna … I have them with me, and if you permit … Are you an expert in jewels?’
‘Who are these sapphires for?’ Wokulski thought. He wanted to straighten his back, but felt he could neither raise his arms nor move his legs. Meanwhile, the Baron had produced four velvet boxes from various pockets, placed them on the seat and began opening them. ‘This is a bracelet,’ he said, ‘modest, is it not? One stone … The brooch and earrings are more ornate: I even ordered them to change the setting … This is the necklace … Simple but tasteful, and perhaps that is why it is beautiful … Fiery, sir, are they not?’
As he spoke, he moved the sapphires before Wokulski’s eyes, in the flickering light of the lamp. ‘Don’t you like them?’ the Baron suddenly asked, seeing that his companion did not answer.
‘Of course, very fine. To whom are you bringing this gift?’
‘To my fiancée,’ the Baron replied, in a tone of surprise, ‘I thought the Duchess would have mentioned our family happiness to you?’
‘Not a word.’
‘It is just five weeks today that I proposed and was accepted.’
‘To whom did you propose? … The Duchess?’ said Wokulski in an altered voice.
‘No, no …’ the Baron exclaimed, recoiling, ‘I proposed to Ewelina Janocka, the Duchess’s grand-daughter. Don’t you remember her? She was at the Countess’s for the blessing that year, didn’t you notice her?’
A long moment passed before Wokulski realised that Ewelina was not Izabela Łęcka, that the Baron had not proposed to Izabela and was not bringing the sapphires for her.
‘Excuse me,’ he exclaimed to the uneasy Baron, ‘but I am so agitated I simply don’t know what I’m saying.’
The Baron jumped up and hastily began putting away the boxes. ‘What inattention on my part!’ he cried, ‘I noticed from your looks that you were tired, but despite that I dared interrupt your sleep …’
‘No, sir, I have no intention of sleeping, and it will be agreeable to pass the remainder of the journey in your company. That was a momentary weakness, which has already passed.’
To begin with, the Baron made a fuss, and wished to leave; but on seeing that Wokulski was, in fact, better, he sat down again, assuring him he would only stay a few minutes. He felt the urge to tell someone of his happiness. ‘What a woman,’ said the Baron expansively, ‘when I met her, she seemed cold as a statue, only interested in clothes. Like every woman, she adores dressing, but what intellect too! I wouldn’t say this to anyone else, sir, but I’ll tell you, Mr Wokulski. I began to go grey very young, and from time to time I’d touch up my moustache with pomade. Well, but who’d have thought it? Hardly had she noticed than she forbade me once and for all to dye: she said she had a particular liking for grey hair, and that as far as she’s concerned, only a grey-haired man is really handsome. So I asked her “What do you think of a grizzled man?” “They are the most interesting,” said she. And how she spoke! … Am I boring you, Mr Wokulski?’
‘Oh, my dear sir! It is always a pleasure to meet a happy man.’
‘I really am happy, and in a way which surprises me,’ the Baron continued, ‘for I have often thought of getting married, and my doctors have suggested I should for several years past. So I planned to take a pretty woman, well-educated, with a good name and presence, though without demanding any kind of romantic love from her. But there you are, sir! Love has crossed my path, and lit a fire in my heart with a single glance … Indeed, Mr Wokulski, I am in love … no, I am insane … I would not say this to anyone but yourself, for whom I felt an almost fraternal liking from the start … I am insane! I think only of her — when I sleep I dream about her, when I don’t see her I am literally ill, sir. No appetite, depressing thoughts, a kind of ceaseless agitation …
‘But I beg you will not repeat what I am telling you, even to yourself, Mr Wokulski. I wanted to put her to the test; that was despicable of me, was it not? Yet, never mind, a man doesn’t easily believe in happiness. So, wishing to put her to the test (but not a word about this to anyone, sir!), I had a settlement drawn up, according to which — if the marriage came to nothing through anyone’s fault (d’you understand me?) — I am to pay the lady fifty thousand roubles for her disappointment. My hea
rt sank within me for fear lest … she spurn me. But what d’you think? When the Duchess mentioned this plan to the young lady, she burst into tears … “What’s this?” says she, “does he think I will renounce him for some fifty thousand roubles? For, if he suspects me of being interested, and doesn’t admit of any more elevated motives in a woman’s heart, then he ought to understand that I wouldn’t give a million roubles for fifty thousand …”
‘When the Duchess told me this, I hastened to Ewelina’s room and fell at her feet without a word … Now, in Warsaw, I’ve made my will, and in it I name her the one and only heiress, even if I die before our wedding. All my family in all my life has not given me as much joy as this child in the course of a few weeks. And what will it be like later? What later, Mr Wokulski? I wouldn’t put such a question to anyone else,’ the Baron concluded, warmly shaking him by the hand. ‘Well, goodnight …’
‘An amusing story, upon my word,’ Wokulski muttered, when the Baron had gone, ‘that old man is really up to his neck in it.’
And he could not dispel the figure of the Baron, who had looked like a shadow against the amaranthine background of the carriage seat. So he observed the lean face, on which brick-red flushes glowed, his hair which seemed to be powdered with flour, his large sunken eyes in which an unhealthy gleam flickered. His outburst of passion had made a droll yet mournful impression in a man who kept covering up his throat, checking that the window was tightly shut and continually changed his seat in the compartment for fear of draughts.
‘He’s in a fine state,’ thought Wokulski. ‘Is it possible that a young woman could fall in love with such a mummy? He’s certainly ten years older than I, and how incompetent and naive into the bargain!
‘Very well, but supposing this young woman does really love him. For it is hard to suppose she is deceiving him. In general, women are nobler than men: not only do they commit fewer sins, but they sacrifice themselves far more often than we do. So, if such a vile man were by chance found, who lied from morning to night for money, could a woman be suspected of anything similar, especially a young lady brought up in a respectable family? Of course, something must have got into her head, and she must be bemused, if not by his personal charms, then by his position. Otherwise she couldn’t help betraying that she is playing a comedy, and the Baron would have noticed, for love looks through a microscope.
‘Yet, if a young girl can fall in love with such an old fool, why shouldn’t she fall in love with me?’
‘I keep coming back to myself,’ he whispered. ‘This notion has already become a kind of monomania.’
He opened the window which the Baron had closed and, to dispel his obsessive thoughts, began looking at the sky again. Pegasus was already fading to the west, and to the east rose Sagittarius, Orion, Canis Minor and Gemini. He eyed the manifold stars that were scattered in this section of the sky, and into his mind came that strange, invisible power of attraction, which binds distant worlds in one unity more strongly than material chains.
‘Attraction … attachment … They are one and the same, ultimately; a power so strong that it engulfs everything, so fertile that all lives comes from it. If we deprive the earth of its attachment to the sun, it would fly off into space and in a few years would be a block of ice. If we pushed some wandering star into the solar system, who knows that life mightn’t awaken on it? So why is the Baron to break down under the law of attachment, which pervades all nature? And is there a greater abyss between him and Ewelina than between earth and sun? What is surprising in human madness, since the world is equally mad.’
Meanwhile the train went more slowly and stopped for long periods in stations. The air grew cold, in the east the stars turned pale. Wokulski closed the window and lay down on the sofa. ‘If,’ he thought, ‘a young woman can fall in love with the Baron, why should not I …? For, after all, she is not deceiving him … In general women are nobler than we are … They lie less.’
‘If you please, sir, this is your station … The Baron is already taking tea …’
Wokulski roused himself: the conductor was standing over him, and had awakened him in the most respectful manner.
‘Morning already?’ he asked in surprise.
‘It is nine o’clock, we have been standing in the station half an hour. I didn’t wake you, for the Baron said not to, sir, but as the train is leaving now …’
Wokulski got out quickly. The station was new, not yet finished. Nevertheless, they provided him with water for washing, and brushed his clothes. He came to himself entirely and went into a small buffet, where the beaming Baron was at his third glass of tea. ‘Good morning!’ the Baron cried in a familiar way, shaking Wokulski’s hand. ‘Landlord, tea for the gentleman … A beautiful day, is it not, perfect for a horse-back ride. But they have played a nice trick on us!’
‘What has happened?’
‘We must wait for the horses,’ the Baron went on, ‘fortunately I sent a telegram at two o’clock in the morning, to announce your arrival. The day before yesterday I sent the Duchess a telegram from Warsaw, but the station master tells me I made an error and ordered the horses for tomorrow. Luckily, I sent a telegram today on route. They dispatched a courier with it at three, the Duchess will get the telegram by six, and at eight at the latest the horses will be here. Let us wait another hour, and in the meanwhile you must become acquainted with the neighbourhood. A very pretty place, sir.’
After breakfast they went on to the platform. The district looked flat and almost bare from here: a clump of trees was visible here and there, and brick buildings among them.
‘Are those manors?’ asked Wokulski.
‘Ah yes … there are many nobles in these parts. The land is wonderfully cultivated; you have lupin here, clover …’
‘I see no village,’ broke in Wokulski.
‘Because these are manorial lands, and you know the saying, sir: “Many ricks on the manor’s field; on the peasant’s — many people.”’
‘I have heard,’ said Wokulski suddenly, ‘that the Duchess has a large number of guests.’
‘Ah, my dear sir,’ cried the Baron, ‘on a fine Sunday it’s like being at a ball at one’s club: dozens of people drive over. Even today we ought to find a crowd of permanent guests. Well, in the first place, my fiancée is staying here. Then there is Mrs Wąsowska, a charming little widow, about thirty, with a great fortune. It seems to me that Starski is interested in her. Do you know Starski, sir? A disagreeable person, arrogant, rude … I’m surprised that a lady with intellect and taste, like Mrs Wąsowska, can take any pleasure in the company of such a frivolous creature …’
‘Who else?’ asked Wokulski.
‘There is also Fela Janocka, the cousin of my young lady: a very sweet child, she is about eighteen. And Ochocki …’
‘What is he doing here?’
‘When I left, he was spending entire days fishing. But as his tastes change so frequently, I am not at all sure that I shan’t see him next as a hunter … But what a noble young man, what knowledge! Well, and he has achieved a great deal: he has already produced several inventions.’
‘Yes, an unusual man,’ said Wokulski. ‘Who else is visiting with the Duchess?’
‘No one else, though Mr Łęcki and his daughter very often come down for a few days, or a week. A most distinguished person,’ the Baron went on, ‘full of rare qualities. Surely you know them? Happy is the man to whom she will give her hand and heart. What charm, sir — what intellect: indeed one can only respect her as a goddess! Don’t you think so, sir?’
Wokulski surveyed the landscape, unable to reply. Fortunately a servant ran up at this moment to tell the Baron the carriage had come. ‘Excellent!’ the Baron cried, and gave the man a few coins, ‘take our things, my good man, and let us, sir, be off. In two hours you’ll be making the acquaintance of my fiancée.’
XXV
Rural Diversions
FIFTEEN minutes passed before their things were packed into the carriage. Final
ly Wokulski and the Baron got in, the driver in yellow livery waved his whip in the air and the pair of fine grey horses set off at a steady canter.
‘Oh, I recommend Mrs Wąsowska to you,’ said the Baron, ‘she’s a jewel, not a woman, and so witty! She has no thoughts of marrying again, but loves being surrounded by admirers. It is hard, sir, not to adore her, but adoration is perilous. She is paying Starski back for all his frivolity. D’you know Starski, sir?’
‘I met him, once …’
‘A distinguished man, but disagreeable,’ said the Baron. ‘My fiancée has quite an antipathy for him. He affects her nerves so that the poor girl quite loses her good humour in his company. I am not surprised, for they are diametrically opposed characters: she is serious, he trivial — she full of feeling, even sentimental, he a cynic.’
As he listened to the Baron’s chatter, Wokulski surveyed the countryside which was slowly changing its looks. Half an hour from the station, woods appeared on the horizon, with hills nearer: the road wound among them, ran across their summits, or down into valleys. On one such elevation, the driver turned to them, pointed ahead with his whip and said, ‘See, the ladies and gentlemen are coming along in the brake.’
‘Where? Who?’ cried the Baron, almost climbing on to the box. ‘Ah yes, it is they … A yellow brake with piebald foursome … I wonder who it can be? Just look, sir.’
‘It seems to me I can see something red,’ Wokulski replied.
‘That’s Mrs Wąsowska. I wonder if my fiancée is with her?’ added the Baron in a lower voice.
‘There are several ladies,’ said Wokulski, who was thinking at this moment of Izabela. ‘If she is with them, that will be a good omen,’ he thought.
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