The Courtship
September, 1967
After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1863, many Polish noblemen were hanged; others--Count Wladislaw Jampolski among them--were banished to Siberia. The czar's soldiers led the count in chains through the streets of Jampol, the town that bore his name.
Though it was dangerous to have anything to do with an insurrectionist, the priest appeared to administer a farewell blessing, wearing his vestments and holding a crucifix. Peasants removed their caps; women wept.
There was great excitement when the count passed the cluster of huts on the outskirts of the town, where the Jews had only recently formed a community of their own, known locally as The Sands. Since Jampol was still under the jurisdiction of the Church, Jews were not permitted to live in the city itself and had to pay a toll for the privilege of entering it.
The residents of The Sands were astonished by the bearing of the aristocratic prisoner. The count, with his wind-blown white hair and mustache, his jaunty stride, flushed face and unbuttoned fur coat, with his hat at a rakish angle, seemed as unconcerned as though he were going off to a party.
Some weeks later, the town crier, after summoning the people of Jampol with his drum, read out an edict that had come from St. Petersburg. The imperial decree announced the total confiscation of Count Jampolski's estate except for the land already divided among his former serfs. Countess Maria Jampolska was given six months to vacate the ancestral manor. Eventually it became known (continued on page 200)The Courtship(continued from page 145) that Czar Alexander had deeded the count's possessions to a duke who was one of his generals.
The Jews shrugged their shoulders: Such was the way of the gentile, where might was right. Calman Jacoby, a Jew of some standing who dealt in wheat and traded with the manor, obtained from the village officials the name of the new lord of the Jampolski manor. Paying a clerk 18 groschen, he dictated a letter to the duke in St. Petersburg, stating that whereas he, Calman Jacoby, was a trust-worthy, God-fearing man and a warden of his community, he ventured respectfully to beg his Excellency to grant him a lease on the manor and all that went with it. Calman concluded with the offer of a generous annual rental.
There was no word from St. Petersburg for some time. Then one day the duke arrived unannounced in Jampol and, settling down at the manor, sent a Cossack to bring Jacoby to him. The Cossack, riding bareback on a small horse, wore a cylindrical cap, a single earring, and carried a leather thong instead of a whip. He led the way at a slow trot, while Calman walked behind. The Sands' inhabitants were close to panic. They feared that false accusations had been leveled against the community and expected retribution, disaster and bloodshed. Calman's wife, Zelda, accompanied by the children, escorted Calman part of the way, wailing as if he had already died. It was rumored a gallows had been erected in the manor courtyard; Calman was to pay for having traded with the rebels.
When Calman entered the manor hall and saw the new master, he prostrated himself to kiss his gleaming boots and plead for mercy. The duke was young, with curly hair and luxuriant side whiskers, and he was wearing civilian clothes. He ordered Calman to his feet. Calman, who could speak some Russian, answered the duke's innumerable questions and the next day returned home with the lease to the manor. Soon afterward, the duke departed, leaving Calman Jacoby in charge of the Jampolski estate.
Calman Jacoby's first move was a judicious one. He informed the Countess Maria that she was free to remain at the manor for the rest of her life. Furthermore, he would provide her with horses for her coach and milch cows for her household. He also promised to keep her supplied with wheat, barley, potatoes, groats and other staples. Calman then came to terms with the bailiff and stewards, though they were known to be drunkards and thieves. Nevertheless, the Jampol peasants resented this Jew, an infidel, who lorded it over Polish soil in the name of an alien oppressor. But at least he did not put on airs. Poland had fought and lost once again. Her finest sons were now being driven into the dismal icy tundras, where the survivors of the 1831 revolt still languished. What did it matter who ruled in the meantime?
• • •
During the years that followed, despite the neighboring squires' advice to the contrary, Countess Maria Jampolska continued to petition Czar Alexander to pardon her husband. Her plea was that the count had been carried away by his headstrong nature and that he now regretted what he had done. She, his wife, was ill and humbly begged his Majesty to accede to the Christian charity in his noble heart and bestow forgiveness on his erring subject. The petition was supported by the governor of Lublin province, to whom the countess had obtained a letter of introduction. Daily, Maria Jampolska knelt and wept in her private chapel before the image of the Holy Virgin.
In her passionate eagerness, she did something that astounded the Jews of Jampol. She drove to the house of their rabbi, Reb Menachem Mendel, and implored him to pray to God for the liberation of her husband, Wladislaw, the son of Wladislaw. A neighbor interpreted, since the rabbi understood no Polish. The countess then donated 18 rubles for candles for the synagogue and a small sum to be distributed among the poor.
"All things rest with the Lord," the rabbi told her. But he agreed to offer up a prayer.
And it seemed as though he had actually worked a miracle. A communiqué arrived from St. Petersburg announcing that his Majesty had graciously consented to issue an amnesty to the banished Count Wladislaw Jampolski, and that the governor of Archangel province had been instructed to free the count and facilitate his journey home. Afterward, it was discovered that the count, too, had addressed a penitential letter to the czar, and that the Archangel governor had interceded in his behalf.
When the news arrived by mail, the countess fainted. Her daughter, Felicia, revived her with eau de cologne and brandy, while the nurse, Barbara, a relic with milk-white hair and a red, pock-marked face, unlaced the countess' corset. After the countess had dozed off, Felicia decided to write a letter to her brother Josef, who had fled to London after the uprising, and to her sister Helena, who was staying with an aunt at Zamosc. Her younger brother, Lucian, was either still in hiding somewhere in Poland or had perished. A Russian tribunal had condemned him to death in absentia, and nothing had been heard of him since.
Her father's exile to Siberia, Josef's escape and flight, the death sentence against Lucian had given a tragic significance to Felicia's life. She dressed in mourning, grieved over Lucian, her father and the lost fatherland. For years now, she had nursed her ailing mother and assumed complete charge of the manor house. Though their land had been confiscated, there still remained in the countess' jewel box strings of pearls, heavy gold chains, diamond-studded combs, golden hairpins. Among the vestiges of their former opulence were delicate pieces of porcelain, silverware, a gold dinner service, a harness encrusted with precious stones. The wardrobes were still packed with furs, silk and satin gowns, petticoats, jackets, capes. Books bound in velvet and silk lined the library shelves. Felicia, not entirely resigned to her fate, felt that, at 33, romance was still a possibility for her. Her luck would surely turn. A "gallant knight mounted on a white horse" might still appear, a touch of gray at his temples, gravity in his gaze, a mature smile beneath his mustache; and at a glance he would perceive her noble heart, the modesty of her soul, her untapped love. A son of the old aristocracy, he would adore poetry and prefer a cottage, a stream, the rustling of the forest, the wisdom of silence. And there would still be time to present him with a son, whom she would name Lucian Juljusz after her vanished brother and her favorite poet, Juljusz Slowacki, who wrote that wonderful song, I Am Sad, O God!
The return of the count would upset the realities as well as the dreams...
Felicia wrote a few lines, then rose and studied herself in the mirror. Her hair, which she wore in a bun, had once been a honey blonde, but now it had darkened. Her face was white and narrow and there were bluish shadows under her hazel eyes. She wore black--a high-necked blouse and trailing velvet skirt, onyx earrings, and on her left hand an onyx ring that bore the inscription of the fateful year: 1863.
She went back to her writing. She had childish caprices, sometimes unendurable even to herself. Certain letters of the alphabet appeared sympathetic to her, others odious. Even among the fowl in the poultry yard, she had her loves and hates. It was her tragedy to be incapable of indifference.
Barbara, the old nurse, knocked at the door.
"My dear, your mother's asking for you."
"I'll come right away."
Felicia found her mother with her head propped up on two pillows in the four-poster bed. Two gray strands escaped from her nightcap; her flushed cheeks were crisscrossed with tiny purple veins. Her small nose and thin lips were bloodless above a pasty double chin. Only an extremely perceptive person could have discerned in her the traces of former beauty. The countess' eyes flickered open as her daughter approached the bed.
"I haven't a thing to wear for your father's arrival, Felicia. You'll have to see Nissen, the tailor."
Felicia was astonished.
"Why, how can you say that, Momma? Your wardrobes are bulging with clothes."
"What clothes? Rags!"
"Father won't be here for weeks yet."
"I don't want to look frightful when he returns. See how gray I am!"
Felicia made no comment. Who would have thought that her mother, old and ill, would still cling to feminine vanity?
"What do you want me to tell Nissen?"
"Bring him here. I shall order new things for you, too. We won't look like paupers when your father arrives."
Felicia's eyes filled with tears.
"I'll do as you say, Mother, dear."
• • •
In the month of March, the quite of Jampol was upset by the news of the count's return from Siberia. He had arrived driving a low sleigh, wearing a peasant's sheepskin coat, felt boots and a broad-brimmed fur hat. He had grown perceptibly stouter. His face was flushed, his eyes glowed with mirth and his walrus mustache sparkled with icicles. In the sleigh sat a woman in a squirrel coat, with a man's black fur cap on her head and rugs wrapped around her shoulders and knees. Halting before Calman's tavern, the count helped his companion down. He removed his fur coat, draping it over the horse, and entered the tavern boisterously, as though already drunk.
Getz, the manservant, happened to be behind the bar when the new arrival called out: "Hey, Jew, how about some vodka?"
The woman, meanwhile, had taken off her fur coat and hat. She seemed to be in her 30s, a brunette with black eyes, dazzling teeth and a beauty spot on her left cheek. She walked mincingly on high-heeled boots. The townspeople, who had gathered to welcome the count, stared as the woman rolled a cigarette of thin paper and tobacco, lit it and began to exhale smoke through her nostrils. She lifted her drink, clinked glasses with the count, and the two exchanged remarks in Russian.
"Idiots! What are you staring at?" the count finally shouted at the spectators.
"Do you think this is a circus?"
The count stood up, whispered something to Getz, escorted the woman to Itche Braine's inn and proceeded on his way to the manor. The count's family were not expecting him for several days. His wife was asleep; Felicia was reading poetry in the library; Helena, who had just returned from Zamosc, was at the pianoforte in the drawing room. The gate stood open. As the sleigh pulled into the yard, the count's two hounds, Wilk and Piorun, rushed toward it, yelping frantically. Wojciech, the family coachman, whose duties now included those of butler and valet, came out. Mumbling and damp-eyed, he advanced, cap in hand, toward his master. The old nurse appeared, giggled nervously, clapped her hands and then broke into loud wails, like a peasant mourning the dead. Helena stopped her music and rushed out in her negligee. Her father, measuring her at a glance, remarked that she had become a beauty. The two embraced. Felicia joined them, and her father kissed her cheeks. She paled: The squire had come home drunk.
"Well, where's your mother?" the count demanded impatiently.
"Mother's in bed ill."
"What's wrong with her? I'll go and see her."
Still in his hat and coat, tracking carpets with mud, he strode toward the countess' room. Aroused by the commotion, she was sitting up in bed, flustered, clutching the silver handle of a mirror. The count halted at the door, momentarily confused. Was that his wife or her mother? In the excitement, he had forgotten for a second that his mother-in-law was dead.
"Maria!" he shouted.
"It is really you," the countess cried. "Now I can die in peace!"
"Why die? You're not that old!"
Drawing near, he kissed her hair, brow and cheeks. She grew limp and her face flushed. During the ten minutes the count spent with his wife, Wojciech unharnessed the horse; Magda, the cook, caught a goose and unearthed a clay-covered bottle from the wine cellar, a relic of the old days. The count emerged from his wife's room, having removed his overclothes and changed his felt boots for high leather ones. Opening doors, he came upon Felicia.
"Why are you wearing black? No one has died."
"I'll change soon."
"What's that you're reading--more sentimental nonsense?"
"Please, Father, don't speak like that. The author is a distinguished poet, a prophet."
"A prophet, eh? You'd better find yourself a man and get married. Hook the first fool that comes along."
The tears instantly welled up in Felicia's eyes. Her father had, indeed, grown coarser in exile. Even his boots had a vulgar squeak. He wore a rough black shirt and a brass watch chain spread across his vest. He resembled one of the Russian secret police who had ransacked the manor in their search for Lucian.
"God in heaven, please forgive him," she mumbled.
"Don't you ever crave a man?" The count propped one foot on the upholstered seat of a chair. "What do you have in your veins: blood or sour milk?"
"Father, dear, please don't start teasing right away. We were praying to God for you all the time."
"It wasn't God but the czar who granted me an amnesty."
"Please, Father, have pity. Don't spoil the joy of your homecoming."
"An honest-to-goodness old maid, that's what you are. There's no God, and Jesus was nothing but a lousy Jew. The Apostles made religion a business. Haven't you ever heard of Darwin? Answer me!"
"Father, let me be."
"Don't run away. Man is descended from the ape. For your information, one of our forebears was nothing but an orangutan." The count laughed uproariously. "Our ancestors perched in trees and caught fleas. That's the undiluted truth. There's more progress in frozen Siberia than in all of your Poland. Vanity. Stupidity. Bah!"
• • •
The countess' health continued to decline, and after some lingering months, she died at last. She never learned that Lucian returned to marry Miriam Lieba, Calman's daughter, and of his escape to France. With this new sorrow, Felicia's first thought was to enter a convent, and she even began correspondence with the mother superior of a cloister. In the end, nothing came of it. Felicia wasn't really prepared to take the veil. She had not entirely given up hope of marrying and having children. In addition, she realized that in a nunnery she would be constantly surrounded by other women. If her life was to be lived in isolation, she wanted to have her thoughts as her sole companions, and in the manor she had both a chapel and a library that were completely her own. Furthermore, it would be a sin to desert her father, and though he most certainly did not conduct himself like a Christian, she knew it was not the place of his daughter to pass judgment on him.
So both she and the count stayed where they were. His conduct continued to be the talk of the neighborhood. He openly consorted with his Siberian mistress, Yevdotya. At length, Yevdotya deserted her house in The Sands and left town. Barbara, the old nurse, died. The cook, Magda, found a more lucrative job at another manor, and only the coachman, Wojciech, stayed on. He was of no value. As soon as he'd saved up a few groschen, he spent them on drink. Cataracts formed on both his eyes and he became half blind. Felicia would have willingly kept house for her father, but the count managed to find himself a servant, Antosia, a soldier's wife. Felicia did not want to allow Antosia, who had a bad reputation, into the house, but the count insisted that he needed her and that if Felicia didn't like it, she was old enough to pack up and leave. Once again he insulted his daughter, calling her an old maid who had sour milk in her veins instead of blood. Felicia, as always, suffered in silence.
Both the neighboring gentry and the Jews of Jampol and Skaryszew insisted that the reason the count stayed locked up in his house all day was that he was ashamed to meet Calman. An attic room whose windows faced to the rear became the count's sanctum; he almost never opened the shutters. He spent his time drinking and reading, and for months on end was seen by no one. Even Felicia saw him only rarely. The only one for whom he would unlock the door was Antosia. Although the countess' jewelry had been divided among her children, other assets were still controlled by the count. He sold a valuable harness for next to nothing. Whenever he needed money, he sent Antosia off to Jampol to pawn various articles. He poured himself whiskey by the glass, but didn't get drunk. Fully clothed, in bed, he browsed through old books or worked out various gambits on a chessboard.
He made no secret of the fact that he was cohabiting with Antosia, and Felicia heard the maid on her way to him each night. In his old age, her father had turned into an animal. He did not go to church on Sundays, observed no Christian holidays, seldom changed his clothes, slept in his jacket and boots. Antosia, rather than the barber, trimmed his beard. His mustache became ragged. His language grew as coarse as a dogcatcher's. He never went near a religious book, but read the works of Voltaire, Diderot, Byron, Heine and George Sand, as well as a huge history of Freemasonry and books about the French Revolution and the Italian Mafia.
Gradually Felicia realized that the longer she lived with this uncouth man, the more she would deteriorate physically and spiritually. She no longer slept at night. Though she ate, she kept growing thinner. The mother she grieved for had been exchanged by her father for a slovenly, almost idiotic peasant. He blasphemed against God, ranted against the Pope. The news that Helena had married a cousin in Zamosc left her father indifferent, and when she gave birth to a son, the grandfather did not even congratulate her.
One Sunday in April, as Felicia left church (Wojciech was waiting outside in the britska), someone overtook her, bowed to her and introduced himself. He was a man of about 40, small, thin, with a sallow face, sharp eyes and a pointed mustache. He wore a scanty summer coat and a derby. A colored scarf covered his throat. For some reason, Felicia assumed he was a foreigner. He removed his hat, revealing curly, chestnut hair already graying at the temples. His tone was familiar, as if he knew her. He said that his name was Dr. Marian Zawacki and that he had come from Paris. Lucian had asked him to convey regards to his sister. Zawacki also mentioned that Lucian was in need of financial help, that he was in danger of being deported as a public charge. Felicia, unaccustomed to standing in the street with a strange man, was afraid people would laugh at her. After some hesitation, she invited Zawacki to join her in the britska and accompany her to the manor. It was the first time the Countess Felicia had ever been seen in the company of a man. Everyone looked and snickered, even the Jews.
• • •
Although the old count did not generally come downstairs for dinner, he informed his daughter through Antosia that this time he would dine with their guest. Felicia was apprehensive, for her father had forgotten his manners completely. Not only was he liable to come to the table in a housecoat and slippers, but he might appear simply for the purpose of insulting Zawacki. Felicia therefore warned the doctor beforehand that her father was not entirely well. "I know, I know," Zawacki replied. "Lucian takes after him. Your mother was the normal member of the family."
Felicia had never heard a total stranger speak this way before. But who knew what the world was coming to? Zawacki had admitted without embarrassment that his father was a Warsaw cobbler and that his maternal grandfather had been a blacksmith in Pultusk. While finishing medical school in Paris, Marian had supported himself as a tourist guide and for a short time had managed a soup kitchen for Polish refugees. It was at the soup kitchen that he had met Lucian. Felicia shuddered at every word he spoke. He related how the people of Paris had eaten mice at the time of the Prussian siege of 1870 and how he himself had caught a cat and skinned and roasted it.
It made Felicia feel sick and she said, "I would rather die than eat anything so disgusting."
"What's disgusting about it? We're all made of the same stuff."
"You don't believe that man's soul is divine?"
"Absolutely not," Zawacki replied.
The count, though generally impatient with people, took to Zawacki immediately. Felicia, who had helped prepare the Sunday dinner, had covered the table with an elegant cloth and the finest china and silverware. But the conversation during the meal revolted her. The men began with a discussion of shoemaking and tanning, the count wanting to know how leather was tanned, why oak bark was needed, which hides were used for soft leather and which for hard. When they had finished with the manufacture of shoes, the count's curiosity turned to autopsy. Zawacki described the methods used in opening abdomens and skulls. Anatomy, he explained, had always been his specialty. Moreover, he had a steady hand and wasn't in the least sentimental. When Zawacki described in detail how, after having first removed the fetus from her womb, he had cut open a pregnant woman who had drowned herself in the Seine, Felicia turned white and had to be excused. Zawacki didn't bother to apologize. "After a while, you get used to such things," he said. "Why, I sometimes had to boil human heads on my own stove."
He brought regards from Lucian--if Lucian's bitter message could be considered a greeting. Lucian, he said, was a drunken idler and a psychopath to boot. His wife and the child were starving. Lucian's latest plan was either to enlist in the Foreign Legion or to go off to America. When dinner was finished, the count brought out his chessboard and lost three games in a row to the doctor. As they played, the men rocked back and forth in their chairs, smoking pipes and cursing. Every third word they uttered was psiakrew--dog's blood. Felicia could scarcely endure being in the presence of this coarse little man in whom all the defects of her father were duplicated. She wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible, but the count had other ideas and invited Zawacki to stay on for a day or two.
After the count had gone to bed, Felicia walked out into the night; suddenly she found herself confronted by Zawacki. The doctor was carrying a crooked cane.
"Oh, it's you." Without further ado, he joined her as if they were the oldest of friends. He had gone to school in Kraków, he told her, but had found himself at odds with the other students. Unlike them, he had been opposed to the 1863 uprisings, which he had regarded as nothing less than lunacy. He had known even then that General Mieroslawski was the worst of charlatans and Prince Lubomirski nothing but a pickpocket. As for Mickiewicz' son, what could one say of him other than that a great man had sired a midget? According to Zawacki, not even Prince Czartoryski was worth much, the truth being that the whole bloody business had been nothing but a filthy adventure led by a group of sentimental idiots, irresponsible parasites and barbaric women. Felicia was appalled. The count himself was not so disrespectful. Finally Zawacki left the subject of politics and began to discuss his own affairs. His medical career had started late because he had had to move from university to university. Then, too, Napoleon III's insane war with Prussia and the crazy antics of the Paris Commune had intervened. Thank God, he was at last a certified physician. As he spoke, he constantly shifted from Polish to French and back to Polish again.
"What's going to happen to you, living here among these ruins?" he asked. "A person could easily lose his mind in such an atmosphere."
Felicia defended herself, although she scarcely knew why. "I can't leave my father."
"Let's face it, your father's senile and slightly degenerate besides."
Although it was not her nature to be rude, Felicia found it difficult to control her temper. "You're speaking about my father."
"What's a father? I hadn't seen my father in years; I went home on a visit, kissed him and then I didn't have three words to say to him."
"Is there anyone who doesn't bore you?"
"Frankly, no. Some people are absolutely mad about dogs, but I hate the animals. A dog is nothing but a flatterer, a sycophant. I prefer canaries or parrots. Monkeys are interesting, too."
"All animals are interesting."
"Well, at any rate, they don't talk nonsense, and they die more gracefully than men. People cling to life as if it were all marzipan and rose water."
"What an odd comparison."
"How is it that you've never married?" Zawacki asked suddenly.
The blood rushed to Felicia's face. "No one wants me."
"I'd want you."
Felicia paled. "I'm afraid you're making fun of me."
"Not at all. It's true you're not young, but neither are you old. Besides, you're a good-looking woman. Lucian showed me the photograph you sent him. He also told me about your eccentricities."
"What eccentricities?"
"Oh, your piety and all that. I can't stand women who are too clever--the cunning ones, I mean. Now, don't be offended. It's just my way of speaking."
"I see."
"I want to open an office and I need a wife."
Felicia lowered her head. She realized that the man was in earnest. She had received her first proposal.
• • •
Although Count Wladislaw Jampolski constantly stressed the bankruptcy of the Polish nobility, proclaiming their inferiority to the merchant class and even to the Jewish storekeepers, he was unwilling to have the wedding of his daughter Felicia to Dr. Marian Zawacki take place at the castle. The count stated it plainly: It was no concern of his that Felicia was marrying the son of a shoemaker--he even regarded it as an honor--but it was impossible for him to meet the shoemaker and his family at the manor or to dine or spend time with them. To Felicia he said: "I'll give you my blessing; go with him where you wish. But I'm not in the mood for any shoemaker parties!"
There was nothing for Felicia to do but weep. Her tears soaked the earth at her mother's grave. She had already knelt for a long time in the chapel before the picture of the Holy Mother, prayed, crossed herself, murmured her supplications. Felicia had no illusions about her coming marriage: Zawacki was a despot, kneaded from the same dough as her father; he would insult her and deride her in the true manner of a plebeian, and he would bring her and his boorish family together. Yet though she would suffer in this milieu, it was preferable to remaining alone with a half-demented father on a manor that belonged to a Jew. If she must submit to a tyrant, why not one of her own age? Who could tell? He might even be good to her, perhaps she could still have children. Her father maintained that sour milk ran in her veins, but it was far from the truth. More than once, at night, Felicia had felt that the blood with in her was his.
Lying in bed until dawn, Felicia took stock of herself. She could not become a nun, even if she forced herself to enter a convent. She would be in danger of breaking her vows, and instead of pleasing God she would anger Him. But she could not remain at home. Clearly, heaven had destined her to marry. If she was meant to suffer, this marriage would be her cross. During sleepless nights, Felicia vowed to be faithful to Marian Zawacki, to love him like a wife and sister, to try to soften his bitterness and to show him and his relatives an example of Christian devotion. Why run away from temptation?
But it was not entirely convenient to marry without a mother, a sister or a brother. Felicia certainly must have a trousseau, but she had no idea what she needed or how to prepare it. Her father's refusal to attend the wedding was an insult both to Felicia and to Marian's family. Marian wanted to get it all over with quickly; his impatience and contempt for ceremony were similar to her father's. Nevertheless, Felicia could not allow her wedding to turn into a farce. Meditating long and uncertainly, she decided to ask help from others. She wrote a long letter to her sister Helena, asked advice of the Jampol priest and his housekeeper, made inquiries of her aunt Eugenia and her cousin Stephanie. Felicia could not go to her husband like a pauper without a wardrobe.
The anxiety, nocturnal weeping spells and lack of sleep undermined her health. She lost her appetite. Instead of gaining weight, she grew thinner, was perpetually constipated. Her periods became irregular. Every few minutes she washed her hands. At night she was tormented by feelings of doubt, turned in her bed, tossed, sighed: Would she be able to satisfy a man? Would Marian be disappointed with her the very first night? Would his relatives conspire against her, ridicule her, would she have to return in shame to her father? There were moments when Felicia wanted to scream and tear her hair. But her belief in God, in His providence and His absolute goodness kept her from acting desperately.
Felicia discovered that when one seeks help, there are always those who will respond. Old noblewomen, former friends of the countess, began to show up at the manor, bringing daughters and daughters-in-law. These friends from the past recommended tailors, seamstresses. Nissen, the Jampol tailor, again came to the manor, took Felicia's measurements, fitted her, wished her luck. At every opportunity he mentioned the goodness and generosity of the late countess. Felicia's decision to marry Dr. Zawacki had in some mysterious way brought her closer to people, even to those who had never known her before.
• • •
Her fiancé's father, the shoemaker, Antony Zawacki, had an old house on Bugay Street in Warsaw. It wasn't easy for Felicia to enter a shoemaker's shop and see her future father-in-law, the cobbler, sitting at his bench in a leather apron, sewing a shoe with a swine-bristle needle, surrounded by his five helpers. One bored holes with an awl, one pounded in tacks with a hammer; another rubbed a heel with a piece of glass and a fourth trimmed a sole with a curved shoemaker's knife. Antony Zawacki, in his 60s, seemed younger than his years. His thick black mustaches coiled up at the ends, and though the comparison embarrassed Felicia, his eyes had the gleam of polished shoes. His hands were hairy, his fingers short, the square nails ringed with dirt. He did not even rise when Felicia entered. Measuring her with an experienced gaze, he called to his wife in the kitchen, "Hey, Katarzyna, we've got a visitor!"
Katarzyna was a small, thin woman with sharp limbs and angry eyes, who resembled her son. Seeing Felicia, she quickly wiped her fingers on her apron, executed something like a curtsy and extended a dirty hand. Felicia had come alone. Marian had not wanted to be present when Felicia met his parents.
"The gracious countess!"
Felicia walked past a kitchen where large pots boiled on the stove. The helpers received food in addition to their wages. On the table there was a loaf of black bread larger than any Felicia had ever seen. In the living room there was a dresser with a mirror and a vase full of artificial flowers. A roll of flypaper dangled from the lamp. Two framed photographs of husband and wife together and a photograph of Marian in the uniform of a high school student hung on the wall. Although it was midsummer, the windows were nailed shut, and for a moment the smell of dust and leather nauseated Felicia. She sat on the sofa upholstered in some shiny material, and green wheels spun before her eyes.
"Would it inconvenience you terribly to open the window?" Felicia asked.
"Window? What for? It's still nailed up for the winter."
"My wife is afraid of fresh air," Antony Zawacki said accusingly. "Excuse my language, Countess, but it stinks here!"
He leaped to the window and, tearing it open, pulled out the length of straw that had sealed it against the wind. A mild breeze smelling of refuse and pitch blew in from the courtyard.
"Well, why are you so quiet?" Antony asked his wife. "Offer the countess something!"
"I don't need you to teach me manners, Antony! I wasn't brought up in the gutter."
"The countess must be thirsty."
"Oh, no, thank you."
Husband and wife both went into the kitchen. Felicia heard them wrangling. When Antony Zawacki returned, Felicia saw that he had replaced his apron with a skimpy jacket. It made him look clumsy. A tin stud was buttoned into his shirt collar. There was an air of plebeian uncouthness in his gaze, his mustaches, his unshaven jaw and thick neck with its swollen veins. He carried in a wooden tray with a carafe of wine, glasses and cookies. Katarzyna had by this time also changed her clothes. She wore a yellow dress with a pleated bodice. Felicia regretted that she had allowed Marian to persuade her to visit his parents unexpectedly.
Although in no mood to drink wine, Felicia sipped it and remarked that it was good. The cookies were hard as pebbles. Katarzyna kept returning to the kitchen and her pots.
"The esteemed countess sees us for what we are: common folk," Antony Zawacki said. "We've earned everything with our own hands--the house, the workshop. Marian had a good head for books. I wanted to make a shoemaker out of him, but he said: 'Poppa, I haven't the patience for heels and soles.' 'What do you want?' I asked him. 'To become a priest and have maidservants confess to you?' In short, he wanted an education. 'Well, go ahead and study,' I said. He filled the whole house with books. I gave him everything he needed, but he got hold of a boy, some lame-brain who needed help with his lessons and whose parents could pay. Well, let him be a student, I thought. In this way, he got through high school and earned a gold medal. He could have studied at the university here, but he insisted on going to Kraków. His mother began to carry on: 'So far away!--my only son.' I had another son, too, but no more. Well, to make a long story short, I sent him to Kraków and he studied there. Afterward, he went to France. A war started there and I read in the papers that a rabbit cost fifty francs. There the currency is francs, not guilders. A cat was fifteen francs, and one egg five francs. They have a park where they keep animals, and all the bears and peacocks and the others were eaten. My wife began to wail: 'Our Marian will starve to death!' But, somehow, he came back healthy, if emaciated. He said: 'Poppa, I want to marry Countess Jampolska.' 'Where did you meet a countess?' I asked. 'You may be a doctor, but your father is a shoemaker.' 'Well,' he said, 'times have changed.' What do they call it? De-moc-racy. He said, 'Naked, we all stem from apes.' 'Well,' I said, 'if it's all right with her parents, It's all right with me. Your wife,' I said, 'will be like a daughter to me----' "
Katarzyna returned from the kitchen. "What's the difference what you said? If our boy loves someone, we like her, too."
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