A smile passed over her face. Then she gave a long shudder and closed her eyes fast.
Starting up on a sudden, she joined her hands behind her bare and shapely neck.
“If you knew, Janka,” she whispered, “if you only knew how I love him! If you knew how I am longing for him every moment when he is away! If you knew how fondly, how wildly, how madly I love the exceeding sweetness of his mouth!”
Madame Wildenhoff does not belong to the class of women that Martha was speaking of. I think that, were it not for her intrigue with Imszanski, even Martha herself might acknowledge her as a “complete woman.” One may, however, be a complete woman, and yet not a complete human being. We are not yet in the habit of distinguishing these two ideas, as we distinguish between “human being” and “man.” The part of a human being is one so seldom played by a woman—they have so few opportunities of doing so—that we expect their womanliness to comprise the whole of humanity. Nor do we realize how much we lower woman by such an expectation.
Now, as a woman, Madame Wildenhoff is complete, although her human nature cannot be said to be rich.
Her life, which she told me with the utmost frankness, has not been wanting in colour. The daughter of a rich landowner, she was not yet sixteen when she crossed the frontier to elope with a neighbour over forty, and with whom she was not even in love! The whole affair came about quite by chance. She was the friend of his daughter, whom (though he was not in favour of religious education for women) he had decided to send to a convent in France: and the parents of Lola had asked him, since the two girls had made their studies together from the very beginning, to take their daughter with him as well. This man, having put his own daughter into the care of the nuns, asked Lola whether, instead of poring over books in a convent, she would not like to go with him to Italy. She very readily agreed to what she considered as a most natural plan. After a few months had elapsed, she threw him over for a very handsome Italian, who afterwards turned out to be a Parisian Jew. After a good many other such experiences, her parents, as a last resort, took legal measures to find her. This time they actually placed her in a convent: and there, during three years of penance, her outlook upon life took definite shape.
Her father at length relented, and allowed her to return home, for the family had given up country life altogether, and now resided in town. There, before the year was out, she entered the married state.
Her first lover was Wartoslawski, who died some time ago; Gina Wartoslawska, whom I have mentioned, is his daughter.
No long period elapsed ere Madame Wildenhoff became unfaithful to her husband: but he, from the height of his silent scepticism, looks down with scornful amenity upon her “flirtation.” It may even be that he does not dislike this state of things.
One child, a daughter, has been born of the marriage. She is two years older than Orcio; and Madame Wildenhoff has for her the greatest care and the tenderest maternal love.
I went to call upon her today, in the place of Martha, who is constantly unwell. She was by herself; for Wildenhoff, of course, like all husbands of his kind, either was no longer at home, or had not yet come back.
She tried to interest me by talking, as her custom is, about herself.
“My outward appearance, when all is said in its favour that can be said, is insufficient to explain the extraordinary success I have all my life had with men. My only ability—call it an art if you like—consists in influencing men by an appeal to their lower natures. That is the only way to succeed with them: for all of them are mere animals—all!”
She offered me some fruit, taking up the vase containing it with the gesture of a “hetaira” of old days, presenting a goblet of golden wine.
“You see,” she said, “I am an epicure. I want to get as much as I can out of life, and I know how to get it. With nothing but champagne and songs and flowers life would pall upon me very soon; so I like now and then to get the atmosphere of an ‘At Home’: for instance, with the Imszanskis. As to her, I don’t know whether she is really purer than the atmosphere of a private supper-room: at all events, her style of corruption is peculiar—more Gothic—and the virus is more skilfully inoculated. I like to take a rest, and spend some quiet evenings in my family circle, teach little Sophy her alphabet, or pass sleepless nights in penance and vigil and sombre meditations. After which, I may perform a sudden ‘pirouette,’ Paris style, and blow from afar a farewell kiss to husband, Sophy, mamma, grandmamma—and virtue!”
She laughed merrily.
“The future of the nations is not what I am looking forward to. No, I am resolved to get for myself the greatest possible amount of happiness, under the circumstances in which I am placed. … You will say I am a mere product of environment; well, let it be so. But mind: the way I live harms no one. If I am contented, so is my husband, and so are my admirers as well.”
“And their wives too?” I hazarded.
“Well, but is it my fault if they are fools? Now, I’ll tell you what. Never have I taken a man from a woman he loved. I am not of
