GOSSIP.
The Countess Wielopolska was alone in her room. She walked to and fro;
sometimes stopping before a large pier-glass to survey her own person,
sometimes hastening to the window, at the sound of a carriage passing
by; then retiring disappointed as the vehicle went on.
"He comes late," thought she. "Perhaps he has forgotten that he promised
to come. Gracious Heaven! what, if he should be proof against the
blandishments of woman! I fear me he is too cold--and Poland will be
lost. And yet his eye, when it rests upon me, speaks the language of
love, and his hand trembles when it touches mine. Ah! And I--when he is
by, I sometimes forget the great cause for which I live, and--no, no,
no!" exclaimed she aloud, "it must not, shalt not be! My heart must know
but one love--the love of country. Away with such silly, girlish
dreaming! I am ashamed--"
Here the countess paused, to listen again, for this time a carriage
stopped before the door, and the little French clock struck the hour.
"He comes," whispered she, scarcely breathing, and she turned her bright
smiling face toward the door. It opened, and admitted a young woman
whose marvellous beauty was enhanced by all the auxiliaries of a superb
toilet and a profusion of magnificent jewels.
"Countess Zamoiska," exclaimed the disappointed hostess, coming forward,
and striving to keep up the smile.
"And why such a cold reception, my dear Anna," asked the visitor, with a
warm embrace. "Am I not always the same Luschinka, to whom you vowed
eternal friendship when we were school-girls together?"
"We vowed eternal friendship," sighed the Countess Wielopolska, "but
since we were happy school-girls, six years have gone by, and fearful
tragedies have arisen to darken our lives and embitter our young
hearts."
"Pshaw!" said the lady, casting admiring glances at herself in the
mirror. "I do not know why these years should be so sad to you. They
have certainly improved your beauty, for I declare to you, Anna, that
you were scarcely as pretty when you left school as you are today. Am I
altered for the worse? My heart, as you see, has not changed, for as
soon as I heard you were in Vienna, I flew to embrace you. What a pity,
your family would mix themselves up in those hateful politics! You might
have been the leader of fashion in Warsaw. And your stupid husband, too,
to think of his killing himself on the very day of a masked ball, and
spoiling the royal quadrille!"
"The royal quadrille," echoed the countess, in an absent tone; "yes, the
king, General Repnin, he who put to death so many Polish nobles, and the
brutal Branicki, whose pastime it is to set fire to Polish villages,
they were to have been the other dancers."
"Yes and they completed their quadrille, in spite of Count Wielopolska.
Bibeskoi offered himself as a substitute, and sat up the whole night to
learn the figures. Bibeskoi is a delightful partner."
"A Russian," exclaimed the countess.
"What signifies a man's nation when he dances well?" laughed the lady.
"Tris done, ma chere, are you still mad on the subject of politics? And
do you still sympathize with the poor crazy Confederates?"
"You know, Luschinka, that Count Pac was my father's dearest friend."
"I know it, poor man; he is at the top and bottom of all the trouble. I
beseech you, chere Anna, let us put aside politics; I cannot see what
pleasure a woman can find in such tiresome things. Mon Dieu, there are
so many other things more pleasing as well as more important! For
instance: how do people pass their time in Vienna? Have you many lovers?
Do you go to many balls?"
"Do you think me so base that I could dance while Poland is in chains?"
said the countess, frowning.
The Countess Zamoiska laughed aloud. "Voyons--are you going to play
Jeanne d'Arc to bring female heroism into fashion? Oh, Anna! We have
never had more delightful balls in Warsaw than have been given since so
many Russian regiments have been stationed there."
"You have danced with those who have murdered your brothers and
relatives?--danced while the people of Poland are trodden under foot!"
"Ah, bah! Ne parlez pas du people!" cried the Countess Zamoiska, with a
gesture of disgust. "A set of beastly peasants, no better than their own
cattle, or a band of genteel robbers, who have made it unsafe to live
anywhere on Polish soil, even in Warsaw."
"You are right," sighed the Countess Wielopolska, "let us drop politics
and speak of other things."
"A la bonne heure. Let us have a little chronique scandaleuse. Ah, ma
chere, I am at home there, for we lead an enchanting life in Warsaw. The
king is a handsome man, and, in spite of the Empress Catharine, his
heart is still susceptible of the tender passion. You remember his
liaison with the Countess Kanizka, your sister-in-law?"
"A base, dishonored woman, who stooped to be the mistress of the man who
has betrayed her country!"
"A king, nevertheless, and a very handsome man; and she was inconsolable
when he ceased to love her."
"Ah! she was abandoned, then, was she?" cried the Countess Wielopolska.
"Oh no, dear Anna! Your sister-in-law was not guilty of the belise of
playing Queen Dido. As she felt quite sure that the king would leave her
soon or late, she anticipated the day, and left him. Was it not
excellent? She went off with Prince Repnin."
"Prince Repnin!" exclaimed the countess with horror. "The Russian
ambassador!"
"The same. You should have seen the despair of the king. But he was
amiable even in his grief. He tried all sorts of lover's stratagems to
win back the countess; he prowled around her house at night singing like
a Troubadour; be wrote her bushels of letters to implore an interview.
All in vain. The liaison with Repnin was made public, and that, of
course, ended the affair. The king was inconsolable. [Footnote: Wraxall,
"Memoirs of the Court of Vienna," vol. ii., p. 96.] He gave ball after
ball, never missed an evening at the theatre, gambled all night, gave
sleighing parties, and so on, but it was easy to see that his heart was
broken; and had not Tissona, the pretty cantatrice, succeeded in
comforting him, I really do believe that our handsome king would have
killed himself for despair."
"Ah, he is consoled, is he?" said the countess with curling lips. "He
jests and dances, serenades and gambles, while the gory knout reeks with
the noblest blood in Poland, and her noblest sons are staggering along
the frozen wastes of Siberia! Oh Stanislaus! Stanislaus! A day of
reckoning will come for him who wears the splendor of royalty, yet casts
away its obligations!"
"Vraiment, dear Anna, to hear your rhapsodies, one would almost believe
you to be one of the Confederates who lately attempted the life of the
king," cried the Countess Zamoiska, laughing.
"Who attempted the king's life?" said the countess, turning pale.
"Why three robbers: Lukawski, Strawinski, and Kosinski."
"I never heard of it," replied the countess, much agitated. "Tell me
what you know of it, if you can, Luschinka."
"It is an abominable thing, and long too," said Luschinka, with a shrug.
"The conspirators were disguised as peasants, and actually had the
assurance to come to Warsaw. There were thirty of them, but the three I
tell you of were the leaders. The king was on his way to his uncle's
palace, which is in the suburbs of Warsaw. They had the insolence to
fall upon him in the streets, and his attendants got frightened and ran
off. Then the conspirators tore the king from his coach and carried him
off, swearing that if he uttered one cry they would murder him. Wasn't
it awful? Do you think that the dear king didn't have the courage to
keep as quiet as a mouse while they took him off with them to the forest
of Bielani? Here they robbed him of all he had, leaving him nothing but
the ribbon that belonged to the order of the White Eagle. Then they
dispersed to give the news of his capture to their accomplices, and
Kosinski was left to dispatch him. Did you ever!"
"Further, further!" said the countess, scarcely able to speak, as her
old school-mate paused in her narrative.
Luschinka laughed. "Doesn't it sound just like a fairy tale, Anna? But
it is as true as I live, and happened on the third of November of this
blessed year 1771. So Kosinski and six others dragged and dragged the
king until he lost his shoes, and was all torn and scratched, and even
wounded. Whenever the others wanted to stop and kill the king, Kosinski
objected that the place was not lonely enough. All at once they came
upon the Russian patrol. Then the five other murderers ran off, leaving
the king and Kosinski alone."
"And Kosinski?" asked the countess, with anxiety.
"Kusinski went on with his sword drawn over the king's head, although he
begged him for rest. But the king saw that Kosinski looked undecided and
uneasy, so as they came near to the Convent of Bielani, he said to
Kosinski, 'I see that you don't know which way to act, so you had
better let me go into the convent to hide, while you make your escape by
some other way.' But Kosinski said no, he had sworn to kill him. So they
went on farther, until they came to Mariemont, a castle belonging to the
Elector of Saxony. Here the king begged for rest, and they sat down and
began to talk. Then Kosinkski told the king he was not killing him of
his own will, but because he had been ordered to do so by others, to
punish the king for all his sins, poor fellow! against Poland. The king
then said it was not his fault, but all the fault of Russia, and at last
he softened the murderer's heart. Kosinski threw himself at the king's
feet and begged pardon, and promised to save him. So Stanislaus promised
to forgive him, and it was all arranged between them. They went on to a
mill near Mariemont, and begged the miller to let in two travellers who
had lost their way. At first the miller took them to be robbers, but
after a great deal of begging, he let them in. Then the king tore a leaf
out of his pocket-book, and wrote a note to General Cocceji. The
miller's daughter took it to Warsaw, not without much begging on the
king's part; and you can conceive the joy of the people when they heard
that the king was safe, for everybody seeing his cloak in the streets,
and his hat and plume on the road, naturally supposed that he had been
murdered. Well, General Cocceji, followed by the whole court, hurried to
the mill; and when they arrived, there was Kosinski standing before the
door with a drawn sword in his hand. He let in the general, and there on
the floor, in the miller's shirt, lay the king fast asleep. So Cocceji
went down on his knees and kissed his hand, and called him his lord and
king, and the people of the mill, who had never dreamed who it was, all
dropped on their knees and begged for mercy. So the king then forgave
everybody, and went back to Warsaw with Cocceji. This, my dear, is a
true history of the attempt that was made by the Confederates on the
life of the handsomest man in Poland!" [Footnote: Wraxall, "Memoirs,"
vol. ii., p. 76.]
"A strange and sad history," said the Countess Anna. "However guilty the
king may be, it would be disgraceful if he were murdered by his own
subjects."
"Oh, my love, these Confederates refuse to acknowledge him for their
king! Did you not know that they had been so ridiculous as to depose
him?"
"What have the Confederates to do with a band of robbers who plundered
the king and would have murdered him?" asked Anna indignantly." Are they
to be made answerable for the crimes of a horde of banditti?"
"Ma chere, the banditti were the tools of the Confederates. They have
been taken, and every thing has been discovered. Pulawski, their great
hero, hired the assassins and bound them by an oath. Letters found upon
Lukawski, who boasts of his share in the villany, shows that Pulawski
was the head conspirator, and that the plot had been approved by Zaremba
and Pac!"
"Then all is lost!" murmured Anna. "If the Confederates have sullied the
honor of Poland by consenting to crime as a means to work out her
independence, Poland will never regain her freedom. Oh, that I should
have lived to see this day!"
She covered her face with her hands, and sobbed aloud.
"Vraiment, Anna," said the Countess Zamoiska pettishly, "I cannot
understand you. Instead of rejoicing over the king's escape, here you
begin to cry over the sins of his murderers. All Poland is exasperated
against them, and nothing can save them. [Footnote: Lukawski and
Strawinski were executed. They died cursing Kosinski as a traitor.
Wraxall, vol. ii., p. 83.] So, dear Anna, dry your eyes, or they will be
as red as a cardinal's hat. Goodness me, if I hadn't wonderful strength
of mind, I might have cried myself into a fright long ago; for you have
no idea of the sufferings I have lived through. You talk of Poland, and
never ask a word about myself. It shows how little interest you feel in
me, that you still call me by the name of my first husband."
"Are you married a second time?" asked Anna, raising her head.
"Ah, ma chere, my name has not been Zamoiska for four years. Dear me!
The king knows what misery it is to be tied to a person that loves you
no longer; and luckily for us, he has the power of divorce. He does it
for the asking, and every divorce is a signal for a succession of
brilliant balls; for you understand that people don't part to go on and
pout. They marry at once, and, of course everybody gives balls, routs,
and dinners, in honor of the weddings."
"Have you married again in this way?" asked the countess, gravely.
"Oh yes," replied the unconscious Luschinka; "I have been twice married
and twice divorced; but it was not my fault. I loved my first husband
with a depth of passion which he could not appreciate, and I was in an
agony of despair when six months after our marriage he told me that he
loved me no longer, and was dying for the Countess Luwiendo. She was my
bosom friend, so you can imagine my grief; mais j'ai su faire bonne mine
a mauvais jeux. I invited the countess to my villa, and there, under the
shade of the old trees in the park, we walked arm in arm, and arranged
with my husband all the conditions of the separation. Every one praised
my generous conduct; the men in particular were in raptures, and Prince
Lubomirski, on the strength of it, fell so desperately in love with me,
that he divorced his wife and offered me his hand."
"You did not accept it!" exclaimed Countess Anna.
"What a question!" said the ex-countess, pouting. "The prince was young,
rich, charming and a great favorite with the king. We loved each other,
and, of course, were married. But, indeed, my dear, love does seem to
have such butterfly wings that you scarcely catch it before it is gone!
My second husband broke my heart exactly as my first had done; he asked
me to leave him, and of course I had to go. Men are abominable beings,
Anna: scarcely were we divorced before he married a third wife."
[Footnote: Wraxall, ii., p. 110.]
"Poland is lost--lost!" murmured the Countess Anna. "She is falling
under the weight of her children's crimes. Lost! O Poland, my unhappy
country!"
"Au contraire, ma chere, Warsaw was never gayer than it is at present.
Did I not tell you that every divorce was followed by a marriage, and
that the king was delighted with the masquerades and balls, and all that
sort of thing? Why, nothing is heard in Warsaw at night but laughter,
music, and the chink of glasses."
"And nevertheless you could tear yourself away" said the Countess
ironically.
"I had to go," sighed the princess. "I am on my way to Italy. You see,
ma chere, it would have been inconvenient and might have made me
ridiculous to go out in society, meeting my husbands with their two
wives, and I--abandoned by both these faithless men. I should have been
obliged to marry a third time, but my heart revolted against it." "Then
you travel alone to Italy?"
"By no means, mon amour, I am travelling with the most bewitching
creature!--my lover. Oh, Anna, he is the handsomest man I ever laid my
eyes upon; the most delightful! and he paints so divinely that the
Empress Catharine has appointed him her court painter. I love him beyond
all expression; I adore him! You need not smile, Anna, que voulez-vous?
Le coeur toujours vierge pour un second amour."
"If you love him so dearly, why, then, does your heart revolt against a
marriage with him?" asked the Countess Anna.
"I told you he was a painter, and not a nobleman," answered the
ex-princess, impatiently. "One loves an artist, but cannot marry him. Do
you suppose I would be so ridiculous as to give up my title to be the
respectable wife of a painter? The Princess Lubomirski a Madame Wand,
simple Wand! Oh, no! I shall travel with him, but I will not marry him."
"Then go!" exclaimed the Countess Anna, rising, and casting looks of
scorn upon the princess. "Degenerate daughter of a degenerate
fatherland, go, and drag your shame with you to Italy! Go, and enjoy
your sinful lusts, while Poland breathes her last, and vultures prey
upon her dishonored corpse. But take with you the contempt of every
Polish heart, that beats with love for the land that gave you birth!"
She turned, and without a word of farewell, proudly left the room. The
princess raised her brow and opened her pretty mouth in bewilderment;
then rising, and going up to the mirror, she smoothed her hair and began
to laugh.
"What a pathetic fool!" said she. "Anybody might know that her mother
had been an actress. To think of the daughter of an artiste getting up a
scene because a princess will not stoop to marry a painter! Queulle
betise!"
With these words she went back to her carriage and drove off.