The room was very much to my taste; so was Idalia. There, all is tranquil and artistic. There I find nothing of that monstrous life which hurts me so—that lie which I feel here in my eyes as they look, in my mouth as it speaks!
Now I have left the Imszanski’s for good. Even for my nature, life with them was too exquisite a torment.
Martha, according to her custom, has understood everything but let nothing come to her as a surprise. Nor has she in any way altered her behaviour towards me.
When I told her it was too far for me to go from her house to the office, she never asked why, during close upon three years, I had not noticed the distance. She appears not to know that I am aware she has no more trust in me.
When, for the last time, I entered my room, in which there was but little change (for only a few of my things had been brought to their flat) I burst out crying. Martha stood by my side, grave and mournful.
Later, too, at the moment of my departure, there came to me a horrible pain of unbounded bewilderment, that took me, so to speak, suddenly by the throat. All this was, I thought, so heartrending, so incomprehensible!
Imszanski was speaking to the porter who helped the manservant to take my things downstairs. Then I asked Martha: “Don’t you—don’t you think it were better for me to die now, this instant?”
A smile dawned in her face, which she averted to hide it.
“No,” she said; “there is no need. Nothing comes to me unexpectedly now. … And latterly I have found an enemy—in myself besides.”
Quietly, daintily, she kissed me on the lips, and then, with a gracious gesture, gave her hand to Imszanski, who was going out to take me to my new abode.
I sit for a long time, spending the evening with Imszanski. And I enjoy myself. Although I do not for one instant forget her, that graceful melancholy woman, who now is wandering through the magnificent apartments of her lonely dwelling, always awaiting him, though she knows he will not come, and at the slightest noise rushing to the antechamber, listening with her ear close against the door, and her brain on fire with excitement. But the billows of undisturbed stillness are beating all around her. … And then she goes back to her rooms, and seats herself upon an easy-chair, and again upon a lounge, trying to fall asleep; and to keep herself from sobbing aloud, she bites her fingers hard. … And in a little while she goes once again and listens at the antechamber door. For now I am no longer by her side; now she is quite, quite alone; and so cruelly abandoned!
Not for an instant do I forget all this; and yet I enjoy myself. The faint bitterness of this tragedy gives, I suppose, an additional flavour to our amorous and delightful dalliance.
Witold would prefer not to speak of the subject, which I nevertheless bring forward again and again.
“But tell me now, how could you behave with such abominable baseness, forcing yourself into Martha’s life so? For you married her under downright compulsion: I well remember that she resisted with all her might. Were you at the time really in love with her?”
“She attracted me extremely, and I was puzzled by her great love for virginity. Never before had I found any woman with the instinct developed to such a degree. And I was then in a romantic, an idealistic, a Platonic mood, with which Martha harmonized to perfection.”
“Well, and how was it that this mood of yours came to alter so quickly?”
“I found Martha just a little disappointing: and even at the time when I married her I was quite sure that she could not satisfy me for long. All that alluring mystery of her ascetic philosophy of life merely proceeded from anaemia and poverty of temperament.”
“Witold! Witold! do go back to her again. For remember; I shall never love you as she does.”
“No, I will not; I will not,” and he gathered me in his arms: “I will not leave you, nor would I, even if you came to hate me. Besides: what, in this whole affair, has pained Martha most? Why, it is your leaving us. She is always sitting in your room; and she very often talks of you, and wonders why you don’t come.”
I had reached the conclusion that all Witold had said was but of a piece with the rest of Martha’s behaviour, studiously correct in regard of him: but I have got a letter from her today.
“Come to me, Janka, come! Do not bear me more ill-will than I bear to you. Remember that everything in our relations is still just as it was before. The memories are too deep-rooted; I cannot—Once I loved you even more than—
“I await you. M.”
I shall go to her tomorrow.
She received me, clad in a black dressing-gown, with grey borders and a silver fringe. I found it hard to conceal the painful impression that I felt. We talked together in a friendly way for about an hour.
With some air of mystery, she explained to me the idea she had of fitting up a boudoir entirely in mourning. “It might be made quite ornamental. The walls hung with crêpe, the furniture of black wood, upholstered with white plush, crosses of silver and of ebony, standing and suspended chandeliers of silver, a profusion of such flowers as are used to dress a catafalque, a large table in the centre, covered with a black cloth. And the boudoir lit with wax tapers only.”
She then showed me an album bound in black leather, with a silver cross that stood out in relief on the cover.
With an embarrassed smile, she explained its contents to me.
“Here I have placed all Witold’s loves, in chronological order,” she said, and the very sound of his name made her blush
