Part 1

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 61618-h.htm or 61618-h.zip: (https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/61618/pg61618-images.html) or (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61618/61618-h.zip)

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/kobietywomennove00nakouoft

Transcriber’s note:

Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).

KOBIETY

(WOMEN)

A Novel of Polish Life

by

SOFJA RYGIER-NALKOWSKA

Translated from the Polish by Michael Henry Dziewicki

G. P. Putnam’S Sons New York and London The Knickerbocker Press 1920

Copyright, 1920, by G. P. Putnam’S Sons

CONTENTS

PAGE I. ICE-PLAINS 1

II. “THE GARDEN OF RED FLOWERS” 103

III. A CANTICLE OF LOVE 208

KOBIETY

I ICE-PLAINS

Girt with a girdle of morning-glory and vetches in full blossom, and twining a great wreath of heavy corn-flowers round my head, I lie upon my back in the forest glade.

It is a fine summer afternoon, and sultry. In the pines overhead there is a faint murmur, continuous, a little sad; the birches, with their slender waving boughs, utter a quiet whisper, but no breeze is to be felt.

As I lie here, I presently fall to crooning a sing-song chant—not any known air, but one made up of many tunes, heard long ago, or never heard at all. The words, too, are either remembered, or they spring up as I sing. If the rhyme fails me, I do not break off the tune to find one, but make an assonance do just as well. So I sing of a dream I have dreamt, and then of love—hot, burning love,—and I end with an invocation to the Faun of the wood; for my desire is toward him.

It is warm and still. By fits and starts birds chirp—so softly that they seem to be whispering. I half expect to see a chamois, with long horns curling back from its brow, peep out wistfully from between the birch-trunks.

The sun, shining athwart the leaves that quiver, flings mobile twinkling rounds of light upon the pine-needles. I close my eyes. A great bright stain appears, followed by a succession of rainbow hues, ending in a spot of scarlet flame.

It is warm and still. The scent of wild thyme is in my nostrils. Behold me, a woodland nymph, awaiting the Faun of the woods!

I have left my vast ice-plains, my Northern Lights, my cold silvery dreams among the stalactites of my grottoes, and have come to bask in the strong sunshine of life.

And I welcome life with a peal of laughter, the outcome of many a day of tortured thought and fruitless pondering. I yield myself up to it, not from any internal weakness, but submitting to its brutality with a supreme effort that crushes down all repulsion, all revolt.

Upon the ruins of my mystic dreams there has grown up a lush rank flower—the worship of Life and its delights.

And my resignation is ungrudging, royally complete: for I do love life, in spite of all.

My mind—my cruel, insatiable, gloomy mind—would have put happiness to death; but I now trample it down. To-day I will pluck the flame-red blossom of Life: and my song shall call upon the Faun!

No Faun comes to my call; but instead of his hoofs, I hear the gallop of a horse in the distance. Laying my ear to the ground, I make sure.

Yes, I know: it is Janusz, coming after me. So I cease from singing, and lie silent and without motion; he is riding along the forest pathway, and I hope he may miss me, hidden here among the pines. And yet I am not unaware that, should he ride past and not discover me, I should feel disappointed. Notwithstanding, I make no movement. The only deceit I care to shun is self-deceit.

Janusz, who has seen me afar amongst the birches and the pines, urges his horse forward, and approaches behind me, so that I cannot catch sight of him. He means (so I guess) to come upon me suddenly with a rush, and frighten or flutter me, or in some way or other throw me off my balance. On which account, I take care not to make the least movement, lying with my hands clasped underneath my head, and looking up at the sky.

He rides at me with a swift run, and reins in his horse only two paces away from me. He at once realizes that my attitude is a challenge; it annoys him. There is a pause. In order to make me turn my head in his direction, he keeps his horse standing in the same place: this is hard to do.

But I too remain motionless, repressing a desire to laugh. Janusz is, I know, too good a rider to let his beast tread upon me. I can hear it snorting impatiently, and its hoofs pawing the ground.

The flies in the wood torment it so much that presently it is unable to restrain itself, and frets forward a few paces, to my side. And so I can see Janusz. A handsome man, in a light-coloured jockey’s cap, tight-fitting trousers, and long patent leather boots; just now so vexed that his nostrils are quivering.

Bowing stiffly, he takes his right foot out of the stirrup, and prepares to dismount.

“You might have failed to see me, and ridden farther. I thought you would,” I remark, with a faint uninterested smile.

“As it happened, I did not fail.”

“So I see.”

“Did you want me to fail?”

“I did.”

“For what reason, pray?”

“I was in a very pleasant mood—a sort of pantheistic mingling with Nature, that requires solitude to be enjoyed.”

“All the same, I am going to stay,” he says with a determined air, and carefully ties his horse’s reins to a pine-branch.

A silence follows. Janusz brushes a few pine-cones out of his way, and then seats himself by my side. I sit up likewise, arrange the wreath of corn-flowers on my head, and lean back against a trunk.

“Do you not see that we are at odds?” he asks at length.

“That may very well be,” I answer with some disdain. “And how did you find out where I was?”

“I followed you.”

“Did you, indeed?”

“My balcony commands an extensive view. Your rose-coloured dress was plainly to be seen, as you went along the meadows and fields. You followed the path that skirts the ditch, did you not? And so on to the wood, where you disappeared. I followed on horseback along the highroad: a far shorter way.”

“Yes, your way; straight on, but less picturesque than mine.”

“Am I to see some hidden meaning in this?”

“Oh, no, you need not—as you choose.”

Janusz is of those who love “intellectual” talk; I put forth all the social tact that I have, and do my best to keep down to his level. I strive to attract him, not with my good looks, but with my mental charms, which I have now enlisted in the service of my physical self. My coquetry varies in quality as does the psychical character of its object; and thus it never fails in artistry. Here I am guided by the Law of Contrast. For instance, when I first flirted with Roslawski, I brought into play the primitive elemental sides of my nature; though indeed I had later to change all my tactics. And it is my quality as a woman—with my womanly wisdom and wit and originality—that I am acting upon Janusz; should I lose half my good looks, I should still, as a woman, be not less lovable in his eyes. In the psychology of contemporary love, this is a significant fact.

Over his handsome clean-cut face, a glow passes now and again. His eyes are fixed upon my features. I meanwhile, swift in change as a chameleon, and bright with radiant looks and glances, am watching him with artistic and quite impersonal interest: with those quivering sensitive nostrils, he makes me think of some beautiful high-bred animal. His eyes, which usually beam and glisten, are at present dimmed and glazed over, as if their fire had been extinguished, burned out by the passion within him. Now and then his eyes fall before mine, and he attempts to call up a pleasant smile; but in the attempt his white teeth glitter dangerously.

A gnat has settled on his forehead, and I tell him so. He waves it away listlessly.

“Let it bite,” he says with a smile; “it matters little. I have blood enough and to spare.”

There is a touch of self-satisfaction in his voice as he says this. It was then a mistake of mine to have supposed him unaware of the nature of his strength. Knowledge of one’s strong points makes for happiness; he is enviable.

Now he takes up some pine-cones, with which he pelts his horse playfully. It begins to kick and stamp. Instead of teasing the poor brute to no purpose, he ought (I say) to take one of the trees for his mark; and with that I go up to the horse. It gives me a distrustful look out of its beautiful eyes, while I stroke and pat its neck.

“Miss Janina, do not go so near my beast; it may hurt you.”

“You were not afraid when it was but now standing close to my head,” I reply laughingly.

“But I was holding it in then,” he mutters between his set teeth.

Up he comes, stretching out his hand to pull me away by force; but I flash him a quick glance of surprise, and at once he is subdued.

“I beg you,” he says in a voice half-strangled with emotion, “I beg you to let me kiss your hand.”

He is quite close to me. One instant I am hot as fire; but I do not draw away from him, nor put my hands behind me. Standing motionless, with my half-averted head bent down close to the horse’s mane, I answer calmly:

“I will not.”

Janusz, with dog-like obedience, shrinks back, and stands a few paces away.

“Let us go home now,” I say after a short silence; “but you must let me ride your horse.”

“With the utmost pleasure; but then, how will you manage for a saddle?”

“Oh, that’s all right. Even on your saddle, I can contrive to ride woman-fashion. Only you will have to arrange the stirrup.”

I leap into the saddle, my foot just touching his hand. Janusz himself settles it in the stirrup, which he shortens for me. As he does so, I once more see a glow sweep over his face.

“Pray allow me to lead the horse. It is restive, and may throw you.”

“No, thanks; I am not in the least afraid.”

On a sudden, with an unexpected movement, he catches hold of me, and presses his face hard against my knees.

At the same instant nearly, I give the horse a smart blow with my whip, and gallop away, not looking behind me; it is not easy to keep my balance on that saddle.

This I have done, not to escape from him, nor as being in any sort of fear. It was only that he should not perceive my flushed face—flushed neither with indignation nor with shame.

Janusz has gone to L. for some days. I am alone with Martha, with whom I enjoy myself very much. There is no one else on earth with whom I can share the delight of reading together wise and beautiful books. As we read, we become lost in mutual admiration at the depth and subtlety of the remarks we make: whence arises a delightful state of mind in which each loses consciousness of the other being present. Our impressions are equally instantaneous, equally immediate; a look, a gesture, suffices for one to understand the other. We are growing absolutely similar, all but identical. Set apart from all that surrounds us, our minds meet on dizzy heights, spanned by aërial bridges which bring our souls together, over the tremendous gulfs that stretch beneath us; thereon few can walk, for the bridges are of gossamer threads. In the valleys of the mind it is not hard for two souls to come together; but as one reaches the mountain-tops, each is farther and farther apart, and the chasm between them becomes more and more profound; besides, at the tread of the first ponderous foot, those bridges of cunning workmanship, running from peak to peak, are broken and fall to pieces.

Nevertheless, there is no love, nor even much liking, between Martha and myself. We do not so much as call each other friends. We both agree that, between one woman and another, no true love is possible; and so we do not try to cheat ourselves with a counterfeit. But, though we do not say everything openly and in words, still we know and understand one another to perfection.

The one thing that could drive us apart would be mutual rivalry in love for a man. Happily, however, Martha holds this to be out of the question. Ascetically disposed, she prides herself on the fact that no one has ever loved her. She likes as a rule to play the part of one that the world and that men misunderstand and fail to appreciate. This part, moreover, she plays very gracefully, she being a pretty girl, and no one taking her too much in earnest.

“My life,” she is wont to say, “is as pure as a blank page; no thrill is recorded there, no kiss, no blush. I have no faith save in this crystal transparency of my being; save in the knowledge that Life passes close to me, touches me, grazes me, and yet by some miracle never leaves upon my long white robe one streak from the golden pollen of the flowers she bears; no faith save in the immaculateness of this my soul, that can travel through a coal-mine, and yet come out white as snow. The only article of my faith, the sole thing I care for, is the conviction that I shall go through life nobly and beautifully, in sweetness and tranquillity infinite; that my passage upon earth will be all sunshine and loveliness: the blossoming of a rare and goodly flower. So may I die! Even though love could give me happiness, I still would stand aloof from it....”

Yes, but now and then in the dim blue twilight, she plays _Der Frühling_ of Grieg: and then I feel that what she says is not the truth. In her notes there is a tone of longing unspeakable, that begs, with gentle half-audible entreaty ... for _something_. And that fair white soul of her is always sobbing with pain, and dreaming—ever dreaming—of love.

When all is said, I am clever, young, and good-looking: so I want to live my life. Nietzsche will not have us forget the law: _For a woman, a stick_. Amiel declares she must love one only, and obey a sex-morality that has been made for her alone. Garborg tells us that she ought not to go anywhere without a governess, so that her future husband may find suspicion impossible. In spite of all which, I am resolved to live my own woman’s life.

Hitherto I have not found out what femininity essentially is. In the Roslawski period, I piously believed æsthetic feeling to be the great typical quality of womanliness. But now—Ellen Key asserts that the woman always shapes herself as the man desires. If then he, the Only One, be a primitive, masterful, despotic man, am I to season his siesta and cigar with witty conversation, and bind my hair and dance and sound the timbrel for him, whilst to all others my eyes alone are to be visible, my face hidden under a veil? I want to live my woman’s life ... nothing more. Until, perhaps....

Oh, how hard it is for a girl to bear, upon her white and shapely shoulders, the awful burden of conscious humanity!

At times, Janusz is as gentle as a tame young wolf, and that ravenous look has faded from his eyes. Then I permit him to kiss my hands and lay them to his sunburnt cheeks. When the wild beast within him has for a while fallen asleep, he has all the kindness, all the sweetness of a child. Yet even then I feel the presence of a latent force which may break out at any time: a force which—I cannot tell why—seems to me antagonistic.

“How I wish you would allow me to call you my darling!” he said to-day, when sitting at my feet on a bank of turf, and touching the border of my skirt caressingly, like a favourite cat.

I looked from above at the long lashes of his downcast eyes, at his scarlet lips, at his beautifully chiselled nose, and said within myself: “Why don’t you then? I should only just set one long loving kiss—two perhaps—upon those lips of yours and leave you without one word of regret.”

“Are you offended then?” he asked, looking up at me.

I knitted my brows slightly, but could not keep the corners of my mouth still.

“Yes, I am.”

“But you are smiling. Why do you smile so strangely?”

And his eyes gaze at me from under his thick brows—gaze slyly and sweetly, while the hot blood burns in my cheeks. Never, in the days of Roslawski and our long-learned conversations about literature, did I feel such a sensation as this.

An evening party at the Sedniewski’s, Topolow: somebody’s name-day. All four of us go, Martha and I, the grandfather, and Janusz. Rather a large gathering: girls like flowers, fresh and bright-hued. Some of the young men have been brought for the occasion from as far as Lodz.

I go in, with my cheeks fresh and ruddy from our drive along the windy road: my dress is of a beautiful sea-green hue. The party is quaintly and prettily framed in a large low-ceilinged drawing-room, lighted from above by an antique chandelier, with tiers of branches that shed sparkling many-coloured light around. Along the walls stand many fine old pieces of furniture, and on the veranda outside an orchestra is softly tuning up.

As I enter, I make an impression—the usual one. For a time, whilst every glance is turned in my direction, I feel as if pitted against them all. But, though I scarce know any one here, I am not embarrassed even for one instant. The sensation of unfriendliness, borne in upon me from those around, the feeling of my loneliness in this throng, only produces in me a reaction of haughty defiance. I should feel more embarrassed if I did not make this impression, and should come in without attracting any attention at all.

As Madame Sedniewska welcomes me, I overhear a whispered remark on my left. “Dressed like a third-rate actress.”

This interests me, and I turn round; for I think the observation, though quite beside the mark, rather neatly expressed. A tall girl, dressed in white, English style from head to foot, meets my eyes, and silently gives me back glance for glance. Beyond question it is she. After all the introductions have been made, I proceed by choice to converse with her.

Her name is Imszanska; she has an ugly _fiancé_ and a handsome brother; the most interesting (I think) of all the young men present. He asks me politely how I like the country-side here, and then goes on talking to Martha, who in her evening dress looks less comely than her wont, her face being pale and wearing an expression of unnatural constraint.

We take tea; after which dancing begins.

Dancing is to me a pastime as pleasant as riding; and I dance splendidly. Again and again, in one of the long mirrors that reach to the floor, I see myself and the black arms which encircle me, my listless form thrown backwards indolently, sleepily as it were, my red lips contrasting with the white of my set teeth, and sea-green gauze floating round me in loose watery undulations; while about my figure twine the elastic snake-like stalks of great white nenuphar blossoms.

I am soon aware that I have made an impression—an impression so palpable that the women themselves pretend to be, not only unconcerned, but pleased at my success. One of them is so kind as to set a hairpin straight for me. At such an entertainment, the struggle to be first, though depriving it of some of the pleasure which it should directly give, affords us the interest of a game in which, the harder it is to win, the more intoxicating the victory becomes.

After the cotillon, which I danced with Imszanski, I stood up with Janusz for the “Oberek.” He is a perfect master of ceremonies, and as such he is _sans peur et sans reproche_.

I like to dance with him most of all. He bears me along like a runaway steed. Careering in a tiny orbit, towards the centre of which we lean all the time, we turn round and round with vertiginous speed, like two planets run mad. Locked in each other’s arms, carried onward by our own impetus, we glide along with half-closed eyes, involuntarily, all but unconsciously, with a passive motion, as if by ourselves unable to keep so tremendous a pace. Around us we perceive only a confused mass of thick clotted brightness; the lights, the mirrors, the brilliant circle of lookers-on, are no longer distinguishable as they fly round us: all is merged in one maze of colours.

A wild flame is gleaming in my partner’s eyes, and their pupils are sparkling like sunlit diamonds. Our maddening pace, together with that dancing tune, boisterous with its musically monotonous din, are acting upon him as a war-dance acts upon a primitive race.

As for me, though his hot breath is on me like a flame, I feel quite calm. Tired out, almost fainting, I meekly let his wild “ravishing strides” carry me along as he chooses.

At last I go back to my seat; a deafening thunder of applause greets us both; I bow my head to thank them, but can for some time distinguish nothing. Meanwhile I hear Janusz, who has regained his self-control, and is now ordering the orchestra to play the “Mazur.”

Miss Imszanska, coming up and seating herself by my side, says to me: “You dance with all the grace of a swan; my brother says he never saw anything like it.”

In the intervals between the dances, we walk in the garden, which is extensive and full of trees. The white flowers of the tobacco-plants, just visible at night against the blackness of the sward, breathe forth their strange and intense aroma. A sort of drowsy hallucination takes possession of me: I fancy I am on earth no longer, but in some Hades of flowers, of sweet sounds, of beautiful things, and of Night triumphant. I lean heavily on Janusz, almost nestling in his arms. My smile gleams white in the dusk, and my long eye-lashes quiver as with sleep. Janusz bends over me, and his gaze seeks to meet mine.

“Look at me!” he whispers, glowing with impatience.

I too am all aglow; yet I turn my head away, and look stubbornly at some cluster of bushes at a distance. But all the time my heart is beseeching him, and saying over and over: “Kiss me, kiss me—now—now—now!”

A moment before, a dress was still looming in the dark in front of us; now we are quite alone. Our eyes have begun to make out the shapes of things; we can discern the trees, and the long narrow strip of pathway where we are walking between two hedges of quickset. Black cloudlike shadows seem now to flee away, now to gather and close upon us.

Suddenly a spasm of horrible unearthly dread clutches at my heart.

“Good God! Look there!” I cry.

“What—what of it?”

I raise my hand to my eyes, and shudder all over with fear, and press close to him.

“There—just beneath us, far, horribly far down—there is water!”

“Well, what of that? There is nothing to be frightened at. I know the garden; it is only a brook which feeds the pond.”

“Let us go away—away at once. I saw it glitter through the leaves in the dark: it was so strange! And so deep down: an abyss where I never dreamed the ground sloped at all.”

“But we could not fall in: there is a stone barrier.”

“No matter,” I whisper, half-frantic with dread. “Let us go!”

We make the best of our way back. Janusz is silent, but I feel, as I am holding to his arm, that he too is trembling. He might have quieted me with the words: “Fear nothing by my side!” For but a minute ago, I had boundless confidence in him. Now I know that he can be frightened.

We hear the sounds of the harp and the violin, and a row of lit windows shines on the pitch-black trees.

Janusz breaks the silence. “I have no fear in a forest at night; I fear neither robbers nor wild beasts: but things one cannot explain are not to my liking.”

Yes, I quite understand, and share the same dislike: but somehow I had a fancy that....

We dance merrily till morning; my painful impression has quite faded.

As we return, we change places; Martha goes with her grandfather, and I am with Janusz. Daybreak shows us a lovely landscape: hills covered with dark woods, fields white with stubble. The sky grows rosy, and we catch ever new glimpses of dim heights, of solitary pear-trees scattered in the fields, of tall sombre poplars in rows, marking the highways in the plain.