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 hotly. “The number
looks very great indeed, but this is because I have in many cases
several portraits of the same person.”
I looked it over for a time, enthralled and captivated by these faces,
each of a different type, some laughing, some grave, some pathetic,
others comical or exotic or commonplace, these full of fire, those
ethereal-looking; many attired in the strangest raiment, or posing in
voluptuous attitudes, and stretching out their half-nude limbs with
serpent-like grace,—all these surrounded with Oriental magnificence: and
again exquisite women, very _lady-like_ in their British stiffness, and
the sexless elegance of their tailor-made dresses simple but striking. A
multitudinous chaotic assembly of many a style and many a nationality,
down to one monstrously sensual negress, no doubt a singer in some
music-hall.
“Since you have been away,” she said, “it has been a custom with me to
pore over this album. Those different faces remind me of the different
periods of my life. I possess but few belonging to the old times of
Witold’s love-making; but of those he loved since he married, not one is
wanting here. Some of them I purchased myself.”
“That,” I observed, “was of old a custom of yours. I remember well how
as a girl the collections you liked best to make were post-cards with
photographs of handsome actresses.”
“Oh, but that was quite different,” she replied with a shake of the
head. “I feel such a pleasure in gloating over this collection!”
“Yes, the pleasure you take in self-inflicted torture!”
“No, not even that. You see, I gaze at those beautiful faces, those full
red voluptuous mouths, those white rounded shoulders, so pleasantly
smooth and soft; I look through the garments and see the colour of the
flesh beneath: and each of these women I fancy delirious, swooning in
his arms; and so I feed my mind with the thought of their delight in
him—or perhaps (I am not quite sure which) of his delight in them!”
Her nostrils were quivering. She settled herself in her soft-cushioned
seat, and closed her eyelids; they were red with tears.
On one of the first pages of the album I found Mary Wieloleska, clad as
an Algerian girl, blithe and blandishing, and far better-looking than in
reality. Towards the end there were about a dozen photographs of Mme.
Wildenhoff, and one—a small one—of that French actress whom we had seen
at Lipka’s restaurant. The thought flashed upon me—a very unflattering
one assuredly—that she had already placed me there too; but, sitting as
I was by Martha’s side, I could not possibly look at the last page.
Besides, she herself held the album, and showed me no photographs after
those of Mme. Wildenhoff and of the French actress.
The same thought occurred to us both at once, and it cast over us the
shadow of a moody silence.
She laid her head on my bosom, and closed her eyes with an expression of
the utmost fatigue.
“Don’t go on like that,” I said to her soothingly. “That way madness
lies, and you might easily get there.”
“Oh, that is very likely. Indeed I wish I may. Oh, to lose memory, and
consciousness, and all feeling!” And then: “For I am everlastingly
wringing my own heart, Janka!” she added, very sorrowfully.
Silently, I stroked her long dishevelled hair, and all the while, with
tender craving and emotional entrancement, my mind was reverting to
Witold.
“Are you my husband’s paramour by now?”
It was with some surprise that I was aware the question evoked in me a
reaction of outraged dignity. But I choked down the feeling, and
unembarrassed, though with downcast eyes, I answered, in a low voice:
“No, not as yet.”
“That is better. You may then presently become his wife.”
Her mouth was slightly twitching. She has that most unpleasant habit of
melting with compassion over her own woes.
“Only, please, Martha, not death! Don’t let us hear about death!”
“I am in a very bad way.”
“The idea! You always have been so terribly afraid to die; you told me
so. Do you remember?”
“Oh, but it’s quite another thing now!—Afraid of death, I?—No, I desire
it with all the desire of my wretched heart. Yes, I desire it that you
may become his wife, that you may yourself fathom the depths of the
tortures I have gone through, and bask (as I am doing) in the beams of
the bliss they give; that you, like me, may taste the delight of them by
cupfuls brimming over!—Yet more, yet more!—May you quaff your fill of
wormwood, till you overflow with it!—be suffocated with the mortal scent
of those flowers of his—drink in their odoriferous delight and the
poisonous steam of them, even to agony, even to death!—May I be avenged,
when you are forced to yield him up to another! And may the knowledge
that even death itself is no sufficient expiation, make the bitterness
of your last hour bitterer still.... Oh, God!”
She hid her face in her hands; she was trembling all over with the
violence of her spasmodic outburst. Finally, she fell on her knees
before me, covering my hands with kisses that I felt burning hot.
“No, Janka, these words of mine are not true: they are lies,—lies! There
is no longer any hatred at all, nor any thirst for vengeance: there is
none—I love you!... I shall die, that you may be happy—in his Red
Garden—and that he too may be happy by your side. Don’t you believe me?
Won’t you look into my heart? My only wish is for your happiness: beyond
this, I have no wish whatsoever.... I humble myself at your feet thus,
see! and bless you that in your turn you have taken away from me what to
me is dearer than life itself; that you have poured into the cistern of
my bliss the last drop of that nectar which inebriates unto death. I
love you: it was Christ, was it not? who gave the command that we ought
to love our enemies.... Hear me!—I am dying that you may be happy with
him. I wish you all happiness. I want to receive death at your
hands,—your beautiful hands, so soft to caress. I would not have you
feel any twinge of remorse: I would you could kill me, and yet not know
that my death has cleared the way for your triumphal chariot.—Oh, Janka!
be happy!”
Her head fell back; her eyes closed fast, and her teeth were clenched,
showing between her half-open lips.
“Slay me, Oh, slay me!”
Now she has fainted. I lift her up, and lay her limp and lifeless body
on a couch.
The purple chamber grows dark in the gathering twilight.
III
A CANTICLE OF LOVE
“I expect you will be here in a day or two; so this letter will never be
sent. I am writing only to be alone with you this evening; and if I
write it, it is but for my own sake.
“It is an autumn evening, most marvellously fine. I want to be with you.
For I do love you, my dear, my only one!
“The earth is black, the sky is blue, the gloom is deepening. A little
while since, Idalia handed me a letter from you; and now I am in a vein
of tenderness. I will not even chide you for excess of openness in your
naturalistic way of expressing your desires. There are moments when I
can pardon everything.... I want to show that I love you, very truly and
very much. The days of my ill-humour, the days of my dark misgivings,
have passed away now, and the days of bright vision are come. This very
morning I was saying to Idalia that I should advise her not to fall in
love, for I am so far gone that I cannot fancy myself capable of loving
anybody but you....
“I should be a hundred times better to you than I am, if I were not
afraid. For now, since you made your confession, I feel afraid lest you
should get the upper hand: and in love, I do not believe that two can
both be on an equal footing. And if I but yield up to you one jot of my
rights—anything whatever—you show no generous feeling at all, but
triumph over my self-abasement, as if it were abjection. Witold, have
some little generous feeling; allow me to rest for a moment from this
eternal watch I must keep over myself; let me love you in peace, were it
only for a short while.
“Again and again, the painful thought is borne in upon me, that—this
time as well as the last—the pleasure of meeting you will not compensate
for the pain of longing when apart. My mind misgives me, too, that you
might have come to-day, but did not: ‘Why? you really didn’t know,’ as
once before. I make no reproaches, but am a little piqued, and may once
more go off, as I did last spring, in order to get away from you, so
that you may learn better how genial, how clever, how incomparable I am.
“There is no doubt about it: you love me more than I love you. And if I
say this so frankly, that is only because it is not absolutely true. Now
I am going to tell you a most important thing, which I never yet pointed
out to you quite clearly, and to which you have to give a direct answer.
So, attention!—We might love each other equally, but I love you less:
why?—Because you do not make yourself in the least uneasy about my love,
neither as to what you confess you have done, nor (which is far more
important) as to the disposition you may be in at the time. You have
done what you have done, and you feel as you feel; and you find
frankness a more convenient thing than concealment. And so I must
constantly keep your love at high pressure, forcing my disposition, and
not showing what I really feel. Now this is unjust. Once you said to me:
‘Never allow me to get the upper hand, for I should make a slave of you:
as soon as Martha became my slave, I ceased to love her.’ I then
resolved to hold my position of superiority, became more secret, less
natural; and all that is in me of feebleness, abasement, poverty of
spirit,—the _ewig Weibliches_—I most carefully locked up and kept to
myself alone, in order to provide our love with a longer existence,
which surely concerns you as much as myself. If now I told you not to
press your cheek against my dress, nor humble yourself before me,
because I cannot love where I do not honour—you would begin to sulk and
to tell me, with the air of a cross sullen child, that you are the one
of us two who loves most, and that I have shown myself a selfish
girl.—In my opinion, the preservation of our mutual love is the affair
of us both, and like an altar on which we should both of us sacrifice
absolute sincerity, especially as concerns passing dispositions, and
more especially such as imply self-abasement; we must play a part, wear
a mask, and keep strictly to ourselves all such grievances as might
lower one in the eyes of the other. So I ask you, who know this well by
the experience of your own life: am I right or not? If I am, then: Do
you intend to make me love you as much as you love me, or would you
lower the level of your love to that of mine? That is: will you bear the
burden of constant watchfulness with me, or do you deliberately consent
that I should set it aside?—Answer me that. And do not forget all about
it in ten minutes.—And, in spite of all, I love you very much.