“There are some books,” she said, “in which I find a rest, and which enable me to escape from reality altogether. And that’s why I can’t bear such authors—Zola, for instance—as bring dirt which ought to revolt any delicate mind, into a sphere where poetry alone should reign supreme.”
I hazarded another objection here.
“Do you not think that the first step towards healing the ulcers of society is to lay them bare?”
“Ugh! why write about them? We all know them too well! In life itself, there is, I tell you, quite enough of sorrow and of miasma. You, so young, may possibly not have as yet had any opportunity of coming into contact with them. … No, no: why should we ourselves spoil the short sweet moments when it is possible to dream?”
She then proposed that we should take a rest on a seat of bamboo-work, ensconced amongst exotic plants and shrubs in large green tubs. As soon as we had sat down, her trained pet lamb came and lay down on the skirt of her dress.
“Everyone ought to have some sacred book—some Bible or other—ought he not?” she asked, after a short silence. “Alas! there is no one, with ever so little knowledge of philosophy, who can possibly believe in the existence of God—and all the rest of it.
“But we can at any rate respect the poetry which religion contains, and the feelings of those who have not as yet lost their faith: is it not so?”
“Certainly,” I replied with the utmost gravity.
“Well, the Bible which I could not go to sleep without reading, and out of which I read portions daily instead of my prayers, is that book of legends by Voragine. … Do you know it?”
“Oh, yes,” I assented, “the Golden Legend.”
“Oh, what a world of poetry there is in it! What treasures of freshness and simplicity of feeling!”
“Well, I say! if they are all of her kidney!” was all I remarked to Mme. Wildenhoff, as I returned with her after our half-hour’s call at Wieloleski’s. I felt a good deal bored, and mused over the meaning of the well-known aphorism:
Dans la bête assouvie un ange se réveille.1
For some time Imszanski has been spending his evenings at home! He either goes out later in the evening, or not at all, and Martha’s hopes are reviving within her; but I do not take this conversion of his very seriously.
We three sit together frequently; now and then Czolhanski and Owinski, or Rosuchowski drop in.
One peculiarity about Owinski is the continual vague absent look in his eyes, caused by his extremely short sight. He cannot see two paces in front of him, and distinguishes people by their voices only. His facial muscles are in constant play; and he never smiles but with set teeth. He is very far indeed from being good-looking; yet I do not wonder at Gina’s loving him to distraction.
Witold has been pleased to take me as his confidante now. He is probably feeling compunction for his recent behaviour, somewhat late in the day.
Life, taken in general, is a barren waste. His theory of love does not permit him to hold innocent those delusions of the senses which are usually termed “bits of lovemaking,” though in reality, they and love have nothing in common. They are then evil; but they have become necessary evils, to which men have in the course of ages completely accustomed themselves; evils from which women—he means of course those of the better classes—are free, and against which they ought to be guarded with the utmost care. By means of this reasoning, he considers his relations with Martha to be all they should be; for he always endeavoured to spare her, and to preserve her high ideals, and her feelings of purity.
I could not help smiling as he said this, knowing as I did how little his intention had been realized.
But now he too seems to be tiring of the life he leads—this howling wilderness of a life. “These women are so shallow, so mindless, so fatuous! Their own looseness of morals is the keynote which decides every one of their acts.”
I could now shrewdly guess what his drift was.
“Take, for instance, Mme. Wildenhoff. She enjoys a change of—affections—once a month. That’s her business: but why the devil does she bring in Philosophy and Sociology, and Emancipation? The thing she does is as old as the hills, and why trouble about her and women like her?”
I had long ago made the remark that men object to women who argue. On the other hand, they rate their souls very high indeed. Now, Witold confesses, it is the soul—the soul alone, the soul at any price—that he wants to have.
Who knows whether he will not again become a faithful husband to Martha?
I dislike all colourless people. And I dislike myself along with them, since I find I am growing more and more colourless day by day. I feel out of sympathy with my own type of character: I am ordinary. I have had enough of my life; more than enough of it.
How terribly I am craving now for someone who shall tell me—and tell me incessantly—that I am good-looking and clever and original in mind, that I dress nicely and move gracefully.
For though at this moment I am quite satisfied that none of these things are so: yet, if I were told so this day, I should at once believe it to be true.
I am in pain. At times I feel a special need of saying all that I think. At times it is so hard to wear a mask. … And I want some sympathy. …
I was at the Wildenhoff’s today, and had a talk with Witold. I cannot conceive how it came about, but on a sudden I found I was saying too much—or rather, speaking too much to the point.
Finding the position I had taken up was too advanced and too much exposed, I decided to beat a
