A girl named Nierwiska works in the office with me. I like her best of
all, because she is the prettiest. Both her looks and her getup are in
rather consistent Japanese style; a style that makes her look limp and
drooping under the burden of her own hair. Now, on my return from the
holidays, I had noticed that she was much changed and extremely
dejected.
To-day, contrary to my custom, I left the office with her, and it turned
out that our way home was the same for a good distance.
Our conversation runs at first on indifferent matters. Nierwiska answers
briefly, in low tones, now and then casting a somewhat suspicious glance
towards me. Women have intuition; and she, less cultured than Martha, is
averse to purely objective curiosity. I feel that, at any question too
bluntly put, she will shut her lips fast, shrink back into herself, and
close up like a mimosa leaf; and this makes me doubly cautious. Our talk
turns upon the general lot of women who earn their bread.
“Those who are forced to work for their livelihood,” she says in musical
tones, “are apt to fall into a chronic state of dreariness, even when no
real and tangible cause is there.”
“You are right. Certainly, there are people who cannot understand how it
is possible to feel sad, so long as no harm is done them. But for us,
life itself is an evil; it harms us.”
“Because of the work we have to do.”
“Then don’t you like your work?”
“On the contrary. I should like it, but....”
“Well, but what?”
“In general, I can work with a pretty good will; but just now I am so
weary and so upset....”
We are now in front of the house where Nierwiska is living. As we take
leave of each other, I draw her into the doorway, and ask her in a
whisper:
“You are in love, are you not?”
She starts away from me in a flutter of shyness. I stroke her hand
soothingly.
“And things don’t go smoothly, eh? Tell me.”
She hangs her head, and replies, in an earnest childlike tone:
“No, they do not.”
“What! does he not love you?”
“Perhaps he does—just a little. But I must tell you, with me,
self-respect comes first of all.... I cannot.... Even should I be forced
to break it all off, I will have nothing to blush for.”
I look at her attentively, not without surprise: till now, I had not
known her to be of this stamp.
“As for me,” I suddenly burst out, “as for me,—if the man who ruined my
life, and took his leave without even a smile or a kind word of
farewell, were only to beckon me to him to-day, I would at once follow
him like a lamb!”
Then, in the rough, free and easy way of comrades at work, I bid her
good-bye with a hand-shake, and walk swiftly away from her door,
depressed and uncomfortable; humbled, in a word.
And now, I am in a most vile humour. She has shown herself far more
clear-headed than I have. By means of a few commonplaces, she has forced
from me an avowal that I never would have made, no, not even to Martha
herself!... A pose,—in part at least,—that prodigious self-respect of
hers. All the same, she is sacrificing her love to it.
Strange creatures they are! Take Martha’s case: purity! why, she was
raving about it.
Nothing should stand in my way, if I loved; and therefore no doubt I
cannot meet with love anywhere.
I often call upon Obojanski now, in the dim semi-conscious hope that I
may meet him there. And each of my visits is only a fresh
disappointment.
This “hope deferred” is working me up beyond all bearing; and the
bitterness of my suffering makes me long for him yet more impatiently
and more fondly. Really, I begin to believe that I love the man.
I care no longer for songs, for dances, for flowers. I dream of a
strange life, a cold out-of-the-way life,—he and I together,—nay, a life
from which kisses should be shut out. I cannot tell why, but I somehow
fancy I could not bring myself to kiss that hard, firm-set mouth.
Nothing binds me to him—nothing but the sway of his keen, icy glance.
And yet, I live in the belief that he is destined to be mine, that no
one else shall be my husband.
I went to Obojanski to-day, in order to return to him (unread) a
monograph about some species of insect.
From the ante-room I could hear a man’s voice.
My heart gave a bound of joy, mingled with trepidation; it was stilled
again at once.
It was, as I presently found out, the voice of Smilowicz, a former pupil
of Obojanski: an ugly little man, who makes people laugh a great deal,
not by his wit, but by his queer, comical grimaces.
“I must begin by telling you quite frankly,” he says, turning to me,
“that at first sight I thought you hateful; you had all the outward
appearance of a fine lady. It was only when the Professor had explained
to me that you were an accountant and worked for your living, that my
hatred changed into sympathy for you.”
His hearty laugh infects me with a gaiety so artificial that it almost
gives me pain.
“Your compliment, paid in so negative a form, I cannot doubt to be
sincere; as such it is a novelty. But I have not the least wish to make
my appearance symbolize the dreary lot of a woman who works.”
Obojanski, somewhat annoyed, remarks: “Alas! that even the cleverest of
her sex should have this little bit of vanity!”
I glance at his form, gracefully leaning back in his easy-chair, clad in
a fine suit of black cloth; at his trousers, beautifully creased, his
nicely-tied cravat, and his silvery beard in perfect trim; and I smile
silently. I shall not tell him what comes to my mind: he would directly
begin to protest that his clothing is as unpretentious as can be;
neither dirty nor untidy, but nothing more. Now all these
half-conscious, but innumerable, little insincerities, are distasteful
to me: there is something unmanly about them.
“Vanity is nothing but the æsthetic feeling in its maturity. Undoubtedly
it contains an element of coquetry, but the latter has its source in the
reproductive instinct.” This I say, seriously, but speaking quickly, to
hide what I feel; adding, “It is by a woman’s clothing that her
individuality and degree of artistic culture are made known.”
“Individuality? In the fetters of fashion? Bah!”
“Well, what is fashion after all? It only expresses variations in the
preferences of human beings: just like the various periods in literature
and art and history.”
Smilowicz interferes. “Yes, but these variations of preference should be
free, not enforced.”
“There is no help for that. In every sphere of life we meet with
individuals who have happy thoughts, and with crowds who imitate them.
No one orders them to imitate: they do so willingly, driven by the force
of other people’s opinions, because they neither think nor act for
themselves. Besides, is the following of fashion necessarily a spirit of
imitation? It is very often, as it were, something infectious in the air
we breathe. Short sleeves succeed to long ones, sleeves puffed about the
wrists, to sleeves puffed at the shoulders: just as Idealism comes after
Realism, and as Mysticism reigns where Positivism reigned once.”
“Tut, tut, tut,” says the Professor, “there is some difference between
literature and dress.”
“Oh, surely.... Now, every general trend should allow particular
tendencies to come into play, and it is just in these that individuality
is manifested. And that’s why I simply cannot bear male attire, with its
never-changing stiffness and lifelessness of form.”
“Ah, but do you not see that this fixed standard is the ‘great leveller
of classes,’ which annihilates inequalities in social standing? Attired
as I am, there is no difference between me and a shoemaker in his Sunday
suit.”
Once again, the insincerity, the cheap semi-conscious coquetry of these
words, is disagreeable to me. No one looking at him could help seeing
that a shoemaker, were he clad in those very garments, would be
otherwise attired than he. And this Obojanski is perfectly well aware
of.
“That,” I make answer, “is just what is wrong with men’s clothing; it
excludes the manifestation of what in reality exists, and, by removing
the outward show of an evil, it helps us to forget its presence. I do
not think that to be at all right.”
“Yes,” Smilowicz chimes in with his funny smile, “its result for you,
Professor, would be that people, taking you for a shoemaker, might fancy
you to be an honest man who gets his bread by his work alone.”
The notes of Grieg’s _Der Frühling_ just now recur to my mind: they so
strongly recall those evenings I spent with Martha. I was happier then:
every present good is always greatly magnified, when past. I now look
back on Klosow as on a Paradise—to which I shall never return!
Something grievous is awaiting me here. And, meanwhile, he does not
come—he does not come!
“There are times when I doubt whether I am doing well to awake your mind
so early, and raise doubts on all the points you were accustomed to
believe in. I fear you may find such views an intolerable weight upon
your mind, and lose yourself in the maze of my own sceptical musings.”
With these words, Obojanski winds up a long lecture that tends to prove
there is no such thing as a God, and that the soul is but a function of
the body. I smile at his fears, which (I assure him) are quite
groundless: I am not in danger of any doubt whatever on things
fundamental.
“I now see that I look upon you as a friend, and talk to you about
everything. I forget that you are a woman—and as yet all but a little
girl.”
And here the electric bell rings; its tinkle announces nothing out of
the common to me!
“Who has come so late?” I ask, trembling all over.
“Roslawski, very likely.... He arrived yesterday, and wrote that he
would be here; but I was not expecting him any longer.”
I hear the servant’s steps in the ante-room, and the door as it opens.
Obojanski leaves the room, and presently I recognize that voice—_his_
voice! He is explaining the cause of his delay in coming.
“Have you any one with you?” he asks, evidently averse to seeing
strangers now.
“No, no; only Smilowicz and Miss Dernowicz, whom you know.... Come
along.”
This time my self-control has quite forsaken me, and I feel my face on
fire.... My first impulse is to jump up from my chair and welcome him;
fortunately, I have not the strength to rise.
I keep silence, hanging down my head, so as to conceal the working of my
features. Smilowicz says something to me, but I cannot make out what.
In comes Roslawski; I bow without looking him in the face; indeed, I
scarce raise my head at all.
I am terribly afraid I shall do some unexpected thing. A wild
unaccountable terror comes over me, such as one feels when about to
faint. I clench my teeth, expectant.
After a while, my nervousness passes away, and I can hear myself asking
him about his voyage, about England, about the sea; the calm
indifference of my own voice is a surprise to me.
The first coherent thought which strikes me is—that I am a handsome
woman: that I _must_ be handsome. Roslawski is talking to Obojanski; it
is a long time since they met, and they must be left to themselves a
little while. I get up from my arm-chair and go towards Smilowicz, who
stands silently by, looking at a new book on one of the shelves. Cool,
majestic, with head erect and bright eyes shining serenely in the
gas-light, I walk by, close to Roslawski. I see myself as from without,
clad in a clinging black dress, wearing a great soft and quaintly
designed autumn hat; with outlines that form a graceful silhouette, slow
movements, picturesque in their indolence, the outcome of a superfluity
of latent vital force, kept down and subdued by the will.
For the first time now I cast my eyes upon him, and meet that cold,
critical glance of his. No one but myself has ever hitherto been able to
look at me in such wise.
I am standing by Smilowicz, and stoop down with a motion full of
elegance and grace, to read the title of the book he is perusing. And
all the time I know that the other’s cold glance is fixed on me.
“You have changed very considerably during the vacation, Miss
Dernowicz,” Roslawski says to me, in an undertone audible in the quiet
room.
“Have I?” This I say with a smile, raising my head.
“Yes, you seem taller now, and more like a ‘grown-up.’ Last year there
was still something of the schoolgirl in your appearance.”
I protest, laughingly, and try to talk with Smilowicz. But instead of
listening to him, I am thinking.
Roslawski is to my mind not so much a man as a mechanical power,
something of a nature that is hostile and full of hatred; something
dangerous; a mesmeric influence. This tall, well-dressed, well-informed
gentleman in glasses is not to my mind a living man: rather a sort of
abstract idea. At times I can scarce believe him to have any personal
existence at all.
I have somehow the impression that I am standing upon a railway track,
in a whirlwind of frozen snow. Above the howling of the blast, I hear
the thunder of an approaching train; but I remain rooted to the spot, my
eyes fixed upon the cold unfeeling glare from the lamps of the engine
rushing on and going to crush me:—rooted there as in a dreadful
nightmare, and unable to take my eyes away from those calm and
ever-dazzling lights. There I stand, waiting, powerless, full of
hostility yet of self-abasement.
Tea is brought, and the conversation becomes general. To the atmosphere
that always reigns at Obojanski’s, Roslawski now brings a newly imported
stock of British iciness and rigidity. We all are sensible of the bonds
of I know not what invisible etiquette, enveloping and wrapping us up
like subtle, unbreakable cobwebs: we no longer venture to laugh out
loud; everything is suppressed and stiff and grey.
“So then,” he says, without for a second taking his eyes off me during
the whole of our conversation, “so then, you can manage to look at
everything in life as an object of observation and severe minute
analysis?”
“Yes, I can. Predominance of the thinking over the emotional faculties
is a characteristic of my brain.”
“Don’t you consider this a disadvantage to you? Such constant vigilance
must deprive you of all directness in feeling.”
“To some extent, yes. But this want of directness is fully compensated
by the very process of observation and analysis, which are a source of
intense pleasure to me. Besides, in the place of mere intensity of
impression, I attain a far wider range; for my mind has the pleasure of
perceiving and discriminating certain nice shades, which escape the
notice of others.”
A smile rises to Roslawski’s lips, and I feel my soul freezing within
me.
And now, summer is dead and gone: withered with suffering and desire,
the flame-red flower of Life has fallen to the ground. Now once more the
infinite ice-plains are stretching all around me. Behold the sun
quenched in the black sky, and the greenish Northern Lights rising above
the horizon. And my ice-cold dreams, that had died, now come to life
again. And see! that Soul of mine, which trampled my flowers beneath her
feet, girds up her loins and goes forth into the snowy Infinite, priding
herself upon her sorry triumph, and singing joyously her lofty and
sublime hymn to Death!
Oh, how terrible it is, when the Soul is victorious! How terrible!
The weather has changed very suddenly; it is nearly as warm as in
summer, and the leaves seem to have turned yellow with heat.