“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 some one 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 to-day, 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 retreat.
“But can you conceive in what the tragedy of my life consists in
reality?” I asked.
On which, in mute questioning, he raised his beautiful mournful eyes to
mine.
“In that all I have told you is untrue ... and all I have not told you
is untrue likewise. It is my style to talk of my sadness one day, and
the next to tell of my life’s cloudless philosophy.”
“And to whom of all men do you tell the truth? To Wiazewski? I don’t
know. Perhaps to no one. When I have taken off, one after another, all
the styles I wear, there is nothing more left of me.”
At this juncture, Mme. Wildenhoff, dressed in a very low-cut black
velvet gown, came up to us.
“Why has not Martha been here to-day?” she asked. “We have not seen her
for ever so long.”
“She meant to come but she is continually a victim to sick headaches.”
“Ah, yes, those sick headaches,” she remarked sympathizingly. “They are
so very hard to get rid of!”
Presently she asked if I would come and look at a beautiful screen, a
birthday gift for her, painted by Gina. Imszanski remained where he was.