“And the mouth—”
In a surge of passion I threw my arms around the beautiful cruel woman,
and covered her face, arms, and breast with glowing kisses. She
returned them with equal fervor—the eyelids closed as in a dream. It
was after midnight when she left.
* * * * *
At nine o’clock sharp in the morning everything was ready for
departure, as she had ordered. We left the little Carpathian
health-resort in a comfortable light carriage. The most interesting
drama of my life had reached a point of development whose denouement it
was then impossible to foretell.
So far everything went well. I sat beside Wanda, and she chatted very
graciously and intelligently with me, as with a good friend, concerning
Italy, Pisemski’s new novel, and Wagner’s music. She wore a sort of
Amazonesque travelling-dress of black cloth with a short jacket of the
same material, set with dark fur. It fitted closely and showed her
figure to best advantage. Over it she wore dark furs. Her hair wound
into an antique knot, lay beneath a small dark fur-hat from which a
black veil hung. Wanda was in very good humor; she fed me candies,
played with my hair, loosened my neck cloth and made a pretty cockade
of it; she covered my knees with her furs and stealthily pressed the
fingers of my hand. When our Jewish driver persistently went on nodding
to himself, she even gave me a kiss, and her cold lips had the fresh
frosty fragrance of a young autumnal rose, which blossoms alone amid
bare stalks and yellow leaves and upon whose calyx the first frost has
hung tiny diamonds of ice.
* * * * *
We are at the district capital. We get out at the railway station.
Wanda throws off her furs and places them over my arm, and goes to
secure the tickets.
When she returns she has completely changed.
“Here is your ticket, Gregor,” she says in a tone which supercilious
ladies use to their servants.
“A third-class ticket,” I reply with comic horror.
“Of course,” she continues, “but now be careful. You won’t get on until
I am settled in my compartment and don’t need you any longer. At each
station you will hurry to my car and ask for my orders. Don’t forget.
And now give me my furs.”
After I had helped her into them, humbly like a slave, she went to find
an empty first-class coupe. I followed. Supporting herself on my
shoulder, she got on and I wrapped her feet in bear-skins and placed
them on the warming bottle.
Then she nodded to me, and dismissed me. I slowly ascended a
third-class carriage, which was filled with abominable tobacco-smoke
that seemed like the fogs of Acheron at the entrance to Hades. I now
had the leisure to muse about the riddle of human existence, and about
its greatest riddle of all—_woman_.
* * * * *
Whenever the train stops, I jump off, run to her carriage, and with
drawn cap await her orders. She wants coffee and then a glass of water,
at another time a bowl of warm water to wash her hands, and thus it
goes on. She lets several men who have entered her compartment pay
court to her. I am dying of jealousy and have to leap about like an
antelope so as to secure what she wants quickly and not miss the train.
In this way the night passes. I haven’t had time to eat a mouthful and
I can’t sleep, I have to breathe the same oniony air with Polish
peasants, Jewish peddlers, and common soldiers.
When I mount the steps of her coupe, she is lying stretched out on
cushions in her comfortable furs, covered up with the skins of animals.
She is like an oriental despot, and the men sit like Indian deities,
straight upright against the walls and scarcely dare to breathe.
* * * * *
She stops over in Vienna for a day to go shopping, and particularly to
buy series of luxurious gowns. She continues to treat me as her
servant. I follow her at the respectful distance of ten paces. She
hands me her packages without so much as even deigning a kind look, and
laden down like a donkey I pant along behind.
Before leaving she takes all my clothes and gives them to the hotel
waiters. I am ordered to put on her livery. It is a Cracovian costume
in her colors, light-blue with red facings, and red quadrangular cap,
ornamented with peacock-feathers. The costume is rather becoming to me.
The silver buttons bear her coat of arms. I have the feeling of having
been sold or of having bonded myself to the devil. My fair demon leads
me from Vienna to Florence. Instead of linen-garbed Mazovians and
greasy-haired Jews, my companions now are curly-haired Contadini, a
magnificent sergeant of the first Italian Grenadiers, and a poor German
painter. The tobacco smoke no longer smells of onions, but of salami
and cheese.
Night has fallen again. I lie on my wooden bed as on a rack; my arms
and legs seem broken. But there nevertheless is an element of poetry in
the affair. The stars sparkle round about, the Italian sergeant has a
face like Apollo Belvedere, and the German painter sings a lovely
German song.
“Now that all the shadows gather
And endless stars grow light,
Deep yearning on me falls
And softly fills the night.”
“Through the sea of dreams
Sailing without cease,
Sailing goes my soul
In thine to find release.”
And I am thinking of the beautiful woman who is sleeping in regal
comfort among her soft furs.
* * * * *
Florence! Crowds, cries, importunate porters and cab-drivers. Wanda
chooses a carriage, and dismisses the porters.
“What have I a servant for,” she says, “Gregor—here is the ticket—get
the luggage.”
She wraps herself in her furs and sits quietly in the carriage while I
drag the heavy trunks hither, one after another. I break down for a
moment under the last one; a good-natured _carabiniere_ with an
intelligent face comes to my assistance. She laughs.
“It must be heavy,” said she, “all my furs are in it.”
I get up on the driver’s seat, wiping drops of perspiration from my
brow. She gives the name of the hotel, and the driver urges on his
horse. In a few minutes we halt at the brilliantly illuminated
entrance.
“Have you any rooms?” she asks the portier.
“Yes, madame.”
“Two for me, one for my servant, all with stoves.”
“Two first-class rooms for you, madame, both with stoves,” replied the
waiter who had hastily come up, “and one without heat for your
servant.”
She looked at them, and then abruptly said: “they are satisfactory,
have fires built at once; my servant can sleep in the unheated room.”