Marta. Eliza Orzeszkowa

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      Marta

      A woman’s life is an eternal burning flame of love, some people say.

      A woman’s life is renunciation, others claim.

      A woman’s life is motherhood, cry those who take that view.

      A woman’s life is pleasure and amusement, still others joke.

      A woman’s chief virtue is blind trust, all agree, speaking in chorus.

      Women believe blindly, love, devote themselves to others, raise children, amuse themselves . . . hence they live up to everything the world demands of them. Yet the world looks at them awry and responds to them now and then with reproaches or admonitions:

      “Things are not well with you!”

      The more knowing, intelligent, or unhappy women look inside themselves or at the world around them and repeat:

      “Things are not well with us!”

      For every ill there must be a remedy. Some see it in one thing and some in another, but no prescription cures the sickness.

      Not long ago, one of the most justly respected writers in our country (Mr. Zachariasiewicz in his novel Albina) stated publicly that women are morally and physically ill because there is a lack of great love among them (for men, naturally).

      Heavens! What a great injustice!

      May the rosy god Eros fly to our aid and affirm that our entire life is nothing more than incense burned incessantly in his honor!

      Since we were knee-high, we have heard that our destiny is to love one of these lords of creation. As young girls we dream of this lord and master every evening when the moon shines or the stars twinkle; and every morning when snowy lilies open their fragrant goblets to the sun, we dream and sigh.

      We sigh until the moment when we are free to turn, like lilies to the sun, toward the one who, in our imaginations, emerges from the misty morning clouds or the flood of moonlight as the figure of Adonis sleeping in secrecy. Then . . . what then? Adonis steps down from the clouds, he becomes a man, we exchange rings with him and we marry. This is also an act of love, although the author mentioned above, in his nonetheless beautiful novels, insists that it is always and unalterably a mere act of calculation.

      We do not entirely agree with him. It may be an act of calculation in exceptional circles and circumstances, but it is most commonly an act of love. What kind of love? This is a different and very delicate matter requiring much discussion, but it is enough to say that when we go to the altar, veiling our diffident faces in white muslin and coils of tulle, the charming Eros flies before us, brandishing a torch with rosy flames above our heads.

      And then? What then? We love again . . . if not the lord of creation who revealed himself in a dream to a young girl and put a wedding ring on a virgin’s finger, then a different one, and if we do not love anyone, then we long to love. We dry up, we develop consumption, we become termagants because of our desire to love.

      And what comes of all that? Some of us indeed fly through our whole lives enfolded in the wings of the god of love, honest, virtuous, and happy. But others more numerous, by far more numerous, walk on earth with bleeding feet, struggling for bread, peace, and virtue, weeping copiously, suffering greatly, sinning sorely, falling into the abyss of shame, dying from hunger.

      The remedy embodied in the word “l o v e,” then, does not cure all illnesses.

      It may be that one more ingredient should be added for the remedy to be effective.

      What ingredient?

      Perhaps a page from a woman’s life will tell.

      * * *

      On a beautiful autumn day not many years ago, Graniczna Street, a lively street in Warsaw, was filled with people. They were walking and riding, hurrying as business or pleasure dictated, without glancing to the left or to the right—without paying any attention at all to what was happening in one of the adjacent courtyards.

      The courtyard was clean and quite large, surrounded by high brick buildings on all four sides. The building farthest from the street was the smallest, yet its large windows and wide entrance, set off by a handsome porch, suggested that the dwelling inside was comfortable and attractively decorated.

      A young woman with a very pale face, dressed in mourning, stood on the porch. She was not wringing her hands, but they dangled helplessly, as if she were profoundly sad and distressed. A four-year-old girl, equally pale and also in mourning, clung to them.

      Over the wide, clean stairs leading from the upper floor of the building, people in heavy clothes and heavy, dusty shoes descended continuously. They were porters carrying furnishings from a residence that was not large and elegant, but had been pleasant and tastefully appointed. There were mahogany beds, couches and armchairs covered in crimson woolen damask, graceful wardrobes and chests, even several consoles inlaid with marble, a few large mirrors, two enormous oleander trees in pots, and a datura on whose branches a few white blossoms still hung like chalices. The porters carried all these things down the stairs, passing the woman on the porch. They arranged them on the pavement of the courtyard, placed them on two wagons standing near СКАЧАТЬ