“Souls that pine in loneliness,” he went on, as sarcastic as before,
“ought to comfort each other, I think: don’t you?”
There was a pause, as we walked side by side.
“But why knit those fair eyebrows so? Oh, really, you frighten me....
Such malignant eyes! Come, come, I shall do you no harm; why be so
cantankerous?”
In a rage and turning my back on him, I walked swiftly away. He made no
attempt to follow. On arriving at the gate, where I was safe at last, I
looked round. He was standing where he had stood before, and from afar
waving me with bared head a graceful farewell.
The incident mortified and abashed me. I had behaved like a silly goose,
narrow-minded and ill-tempered; I had spoiled a situation that might
have had pleasant or curious developments. Why on earth had I done so?
Was this, again, only a matter of form? The necessity of that regular
introduction, so dear to the _bourgeoisie_, in a drawing-room where two
persons are made acquainted with each other by a third? Or was it not
rather that dread—now a part of our life—the instinctive dread of things
as they are, the eternal need of playing the part of a besieged fort,
which defends itself stubbornly in order to surrender on the best terms
possible?
As I came out of the park, a carriage driven at full speed passed by me;
I saw a couple of feathers and a good deal of fur. Suddenly the coachman
pulled up, and Mme. Wildenhoff jumped out and came towards me.
“Ah! how delighted I am to meet you! You won’t get away from me this
time. Pray step in: I must make a regular woman of you.”
“With pleasure: but what’s the matter?”
“You shall hear.”
We got in. Mme. Wildenhoff gave the man orders to drive slowly.
“Quite a warm day!” she observed.... “Well, you see, I have one _idée
fixe_, at least that’s what my husband calls it.”
“And that is?...”
“Ah, what a coincidence to have met you, of whom I was just thinking!”
“Very good, but what do you want me for?”
“Wait a bit; I must begin at the beginning.
“Let me tell you that I consider it a most important point that we
should, in the cause of Woman, meet and come to an understanding with
women of so-called ‘loose character.’ And, in particular, enter into
social relations with them. It is indeed an eccentricity on my part; but
I enjoy stemming and making head against the current.”
“It may lead to curious developments,” I said.
“You are perfectly right. In the first place, we must all of us get to
understand our community of interests. The social boycott which the
whole _demi-monde_ has to undergo, is a real civil war waged by women
against one another; a weakening of our powers, to which men not only do
not object, but which they also tend to aggravate. It is they who make
‘those dreadful creatures, bereft of a conscience,’ responsible for all
the transgressions which they themselves commit: so that the fury of
jealousy which their mothers and their wives, actual or intended, would
otherwise pour out upon their heads, is all transformed into a feeling
of hatred against such women. It is undoubtedly a very clever bit of
tactics on their part; but we ought not to let ourselves be taken in so
easily; we should all close our ranks and join shoulder to shoulder to
fight the common foe.”
“But what if those women hate us more than we do them?”
“That they do, is true; but it is only because they believe us to be
happier than they are. We have to dispel this egregious delusion; we
must let them know that we feel our wrongs as keenly as they do theirs;
that we recognize them as our companions in womanhood, as sharers in our
common humanity.... It is because we do nothing that such a falsehood
has been able to take such strong root.
“We should join with them, for they are our necessary complement: not
only so, but mingle with them without endeavouring to intensify the
difference between us and them by trying, in so far as we can, to
deprive our souls of those immense fields of womanliness, and renounce
to our own detriment the glamour of frivolity and of frailty. There must
be a thorough fusion; and it is only by such levelling down that we
shall arrive at the synthesis of womanhood: a new type, a complete type,
in which the only difference observable will be those of individuals,
not of avocations.”
“All that’s very fine, but where are you taking me?”
“I am coming to that. I am just paying a formal visit to an
ex-courtesan, a Mme. Wieloleska—formerly Mary _tout court_, for I don’t
know her family name. And I absolutely want you to come along with me.”
“But ... is she possible?”
“Quite; you may believe me. She takes everything as a matter of course,
and will be much pleased to receive you.... Only you will have to behave
exactly as if she were Wieloleski’s real wife.”
“What? then they are not married?”
“The idea! The man has a wife and five children somewhere down in the
country.... And that woman has got such a hold on him that he won’t stir
so much as one step from her side.... You must take a look at their
place.... She was formerly quite a common _demi-mondaine_, though well
spoken of.”
“And how did you get to know her?”
“Oh, she’s an old acquaintance, made by means of Imszanski.”
The carriage had stopped in front of an ornamental gateway, leading to a
handsome suburban villa, screened from view to some extent by a tracery
of branches and tree-trunks, and in a frame of towering fir-trees.
As I went up the broad white steps at the entrance, I felt my heart
beat, and could not tell exactly why. Perhaps at the fancy which then
came to me, that I might, within those very doors, come face to face
with the naked, dark, and horrible mystery of Life!
An elderly and very stylish footman raised the door-hanging to usher us
into a large sitting-room, conventionally furnished _à la sécession_.
In a few minutes there entered a very tall, slim, lady-like person,
quietly dressed in a clinging morning gown, somewhat like a
riding-habit, and followed by a little white lamb, which came treading
stiffly and sometimes funnily sliding along the polished floor.
Mme. Mary welcomed Mme. Wildenhoff with smiling effusion.
“I have come to call upon you with a friend of mine: Miss Dernowicz,
Mme. Wieloleska,” she said, introducing me. “I trust you will have no
objection; I wanted to show her your greenhouse very much.”
“Indeed, my dear Madame, but you are doing me a pleasure. I feel so
bored in this solitude, where I see nobody at all. All day long, my
husband is in the greenhouse or pottering about the hotbeds; he has
engaged a new gardener from Haarlem, and it is quite out of the question
getting him anywhere out of doors. If you care, we shall have a look at
the greenhouse at once. I tell you, if it were not for my books and
studies, I really might be tempted to make away with myself.”
“And why should you not take a walk sometimes? The weather is splendid
just now.”
“Oh, no! My husband won’t go out; and it would not be proper for a woman
to go out alone. You know how uncharitable people are.”
“And what may you be studying, Madame?” I asked.
“Pretty nearly everything possible,” she replied, laughing. “I take at
least five hours of lessons daily. One of my professors only just left
the house: he is giving me a course of University lessons on the ancient
literature of India. Since a week, too, I have been learning to read
hieroglyphics.... Haven’t you made a study of them?... They are very
interesting.... One is carried away—other lands, other times.... And I
am so curious about everything in the world.... But I am best in
languages. It is so extremely important to be able to read every writer
in the original.”
“For you must know,” put in Mme. Wildenhoff, “that Mme. Mary is a
well-known linguist.”
“Indeed?”
“Ah,” she said, smiling modestly, “it all comes to me so easily. At the
present time, I am proficient in French, English, German, Italian,
Spanish, Swedish, Dutch, and Russian. This year I am learning the
Finnish and Japanese languages. I have, moreover, read Homer and Virgil
in the original Greek and Latin. Not one hundredth part of their
marvellous beauties can be rendered in a translation: and I am so
sensitive to the Beautiful...!”
“Do you know?” she broke off, turning towards Mme. Wildenhoff, “I have
at last managed to satisfy my husband that we must positively take a
trip to Algeria. And that will have to be in a few weeks: it is too hot
there in summer.... Ah! you can’t think how hard it is to get him away
from those flowers of his; he loves them so dearly!”
I examined Mme. Wieloleska with careful scrutiny. Her face is pale and
surrounded with scanty locks of fair hair; her eyes, small, greyish and
expressionless, and bordered with a faint pink hue, are continually in
motion to and fro; she has a tiny nose with rounded nostrils, and a
full, rather bloodless mouth, now and then moving with a quick twitch,
like a child making a wry face; and with all that she is attractive. Her
talkativeness, her tuneless voice, and a certain carelessness in her
manner, correct one’s first impression that she is pretentious, and give
the effect of a schoolgirl _désinvolture_, rather than the effrontery of
a _bona-roba_.
She stooped to caress her pet lamb, which had lain down at her feet in a
posture that suggested careful training. Then she rose, saying: “Perhaps
we may now go and look at the place.”
On our way to the conservatory, we had to pass through several rooms and
galleries full of pictures. On the right, we saw a workroom, with bright
jets of gas burning, though the night had not yet fallen. Several girls
were there, busily bending over tambour frames.
“These are my little ones,” said Mme. Wieloleska, smiling at them.
“Unfortunately, I have no children myself, so I have undertaken to bring
up these girls.”
“What are they about here?”
“They are learning embroidery, under the tuition of a German
instructress. I am particularly anxious that my philanthropic plans may
not do them more harm than good; for my husband very wisely says that
‘it is not hard to give, but to give judiciously....’”
“Well, but what do you do with the embroidered work afterwards?”
“Oh, you see, I don’t like to wear lace upon my linen—besides, it is not
the fashion nowadays—so I have everything covered over with embroidery.
Linen is far more beautiful so. I—I might perhaps show you—yes, I think
it’s all right here—only women present....”
She laughed, winking significantly, and took us farther down the
passage, where, with a swift twist and twirl, like a ballet-dancer, she
raised her dress above her knees, showing several tiers of cambric
flounces beyond her silk stockings. At no other time of our visit was
there anything to recall what she had once been.
“You, I fancy,” she said, turning to me, “wear a petticoat; I am not
sure you had not better give it up. A well-flounced undergarment makes
the dress look quite sufficiently wide; a petticoat altogether effaces
the outlines of the hips.” Then passing her hand down my waist: “It is a
pity,” she said; “for you have a splendid shape—hips like a Spanish
woman’s.”
We have found Wieloleski standing at the very end of the conservatory,
and carefully watching his gardener at work. He is a tall man, something
over forty, rather stout; very elegant-mannered, and courteous, but
distant and abstracted. He has an extensive bald place, with long thin
wisps combed over it from the left, though without any attempt at
concealment; and an abundant black beard.
As he was taking us about his greenhouse, he observed: “It is only at
present, and since I have been living here, that I have learned to
understand Tolstoi properly. It is only by a close acquaintance with
nature and with manual work, that we discover all the emptiness of
society life and its form and prejudices, and all the futility of social
dissensions and hatreds.”
I am not so well able to maintain my position as a cool observer, as
Mme. Wildenhoff is: and here I could not refrain from presenting an
objection to him.
“And nevertheless, your being able to stand thus aside in social
struggles, proceeds from the fact that you possess property; and
property itself lies within the sphere of these struggles, since they
make an object of it. So the very land you own brings you back into
these classes of society from which you flee.”
Wieloleski, rather surprised, offered me a few white kalia flowers, just
gathered, before he replied, in a calm but very dogmatic tone.
“On this point, I cannot agree with you. Those who dispute the right of
property take no account of the reality of things. Immemorial custom has
made the right of property as much a ‘category of thought,’ as Space is,
or Time.”
Mary, who was just behind us, interrupted him: “Oh, Edmund is reading
you a lecture already, I hear. My dear, you had better come and flirt
with Mme. Lola, and I’ll take Miss Janina with me.”
She came and put her arm round my waist, saying that she liked me very
much indeed. This I answered with an indulgent smile, always suitable
when women pay compliments to women.
She felt that this was not the way to win me, so she set to talk about
literature.
“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.”