Poland: A Novel Part 29

'Count Lubonski telegraphed me: "If you like young Bukowski, allow him to show himself to good effect. If you dislike him, encourage him to make an a.s.s of himself." Andrzej Lubonski and I served in the same regiment, you know.'

'Tell me, how was a Polish count accepted in an Austrian regiment? I mean, aren't they always second cla.s.s?'

'Yes,' the commandant replied without diverting his gaze. 'They are always second cla.s.s-unless they prove themselves to be first cla.s.s.'

'And Bukowski?'

'First cla.s.s, I think. A rider like that, with manners like that, I'd be pleased to have him in my regiment.'

Early the next morning six carriages drew up to the fortress, each with four horses, and the Trilling women were introduced to the grandeur of rural Poland. The carriages were luxurious; the horses were beautifully groomed and reined with leather tooled in silver. They were from the famous stables of Count Potocki, whose ancestor had married the only daughter of the great Lubomirska of Lancut. The tremendous palace was now his and he proposed to entertain the Americans in style.

It was about fifty miles to Lancut, and the coachmen had been instructed to drive moderately, with an overnight stop at a house which Count Potocki had ordered built especially for this occasion, so in late afternoon when a spring sun flooded the rec.u.mbent landscape the carriages pulled into a road which had been built only seven days before and up to a fine country house which had been finished only yesterday. The peasants who toiled on the old Lubomirski estate had not had new cottages for two centuries; the American visitors had an entire new mansion, which they would occupy for one night.

And they enjoyed it! Bukowski, who had himself never seen Lancut, sat before the fire, regaling the women with legends of its ancient grandeur: 'It has three hundred and sixty rooms, a collection of famous European art.' But the courier leading them to the palace interrupted: 'The Potockis added much when they took over. A new theater better than most in Paris, and those marvelous new galleries filled with Polish portraits. And have you heard about our huge stables where our horses are treated like princelings? We have fifty-five exquisite carriages, you know, and only one built in Poland. The rest? Vienna, Berlin, Paris.' Smugly he added: 'The Potockis have not been idle, you know.'

By departure time Marjorie was dizzy with images of grandeur: 'You mean, she had nineteen palaces like the one we're to see?'

'You must remember,' Wiktor said, 'she was Poland. Even when it was divided, totally, she was still Poland.'

The road now pa.s.sed through large forests whose tall trees blotted out the sun, and when the carriages halted for a noonday picnic beneath the pines, and the white cloths were spread and foods from all parts of Europe were uncovered, the manager of their journey said: 'These are the Lancut forests. They've never been harvested.' Marjorie told her mother: 'We've never seen lovelier land. It's so rich, we mustn't drop even one seed or whole fields will sprout with olives or Italian grapes.' And wherever they looked they saw Lancut fields and Lancut peasants.

They arrived at the castle at about five in the afternoon, when the sun was at its highest, and in its golden flow they saw the turrets, and the broad lawns, and the dozen smaller buildings, each the size of a minor palace. It was the tremendous stables that captured Bukowski's attention, and he went to inspect them while the women went forward to greet Count Potocki, who welcomed them to what he called 'the modest domicile of my family.'

They were led to a suite of eleven rooms, with two London-style bathrooms as modern as one might have found in New York. Everything suggested wealth unimaginable: Marjorie's room was decorated with three major Italian paintings from the best period of the Renaissance, and the floor coverings on which she walked had been woven of small-knot silk in Samarkand.

At dinner, in the grand hall, a table which could have seated eighty had been neatly part.i.tioned off with a dozen flowerpots so that it became a comfortable dining area for thirty, who ate off gold plates while eleven musicians played Mozart.

'Count Potocki,' Wiktor said with some daring, 'please, if you will, advise our guests that only a few in Galicia live like this, and not the Lubonskis or the Bukowskis.'

The Trillings received six days of such hospitality, capped by an entertainment by singers imported from Krakow who offered a concert version of Stanislaw Moniuszko's excellent opera The Haunted Manor. As Marjorie sat in the Lancut theater, with ninety seats, built into the heart of the palace, she told the other guests: 'This opera is better than anything we've been hearing in Vienna,' and Wiktor suffered a twinge of regret, because Krystyna Szprot had told him that her banishment from Russian Poland had come from her expressing such an opinion. She was right, he thought. This is better than Strauss or Lehar. But because it's Polish, it never gets a hearing.

Next morning Count Potocki took Wiktor aside and counseled him: 'Forget all others. Marry this American. She's not beautiful in the Vienna way, but she's charming and will make you a d.a.m.ned good wife.'

'She likes your Lancut, yes. But will she accept my Bukowo?'

'She's a romantic, Wiktor. And such women are capable of anything.'

'Sometimes I'm afraid of her.'

'I married a Radziwillowna.' To a fellow Pole he used the feminine form of the name. 'She's much like your American. And I've been afraid of her ever since.'

'Could it succeed, do you think?'

'If you show her your ruined castle, which I admire immensely, and if you indicate that she can rebuild your mansion ...'

'It's not a mansion, sir.'

'You must make her see it as one, because if she does, she'll marry you. And you could be very happy with a girl like that.' He paused. 'I've certainly been happy with my Radziwillowna.'

The count drove them to the railway station, where they boarded a train, unbelievably slow, which would carry them to their destination, a day's ride away. To their delight, Countess Katarzyna was waiting there with a convoy of carriages, and after many kisses the entourage started for lonely Castle Gorka, which had guarded the Vistula for so many centuries.

When Marjorie saw it, standing bleak against the skyline, she cried: 'This is what I've always imagined,' but Wiktor was at her elbow, reminding her in French: 'This is not my castle. Not by a wide margin.' She started to reply: 'This would be far too grand for us,' but she thought better of such a statement and ended: 'Far too ancient for any American.'

Countess Lubonska was a much more congenial hostess than the people at Lancut had been; she organized picnics and a boating on the Vistula and carriage trips to small towns where interesting fabrics were woven. And always she attended to the preferences of the two Trilling women, sharing with them all the secrets she had collected while serving as chatelaine of this old and sometimes drafty castle.

It was obvious that she loved the place, for no corner was too trivial for her to display: 'From these parapets one of Andrzej's ancestors saw the Tatars coming on their second or third invasion. He brought everyone inside the walls, and although his people nearly died of starvation and lack of water, he held the devils off. He didn't defeat them in battle, but he did frustrate them, and sometimes that's just as good.' Then she said something quite undiplomatic: 'In Vienna the Germans often try to humiliate my husband, but he's a crafty one, and he feigns not to understand what they're up to, until he gets a chance to sink in the knife.' She made a slashing gesture, then added: The emperor appreciates Andrzej as one of his soundest men.'

'My husband says the same,' Mrs. Trilling confided.

'What does he say about that one?' and she pointed down to where Wiktor was testing a horse.

'Oscar is a very practical man, Countess. He says the history of a daughter is a drama in three acts. One: from age three to nineteen you will kill any man who touches her. Two: from age twenty to twenty-five you hope that one at least of the young men nosing around will prove satisfactory. Three: from age twenty-six on you pray that any man at all, even a train robber, will take her off your hands. Marjorie is twenty-three and my husband no longer dreams of a perfect husband. Just an acceptable one.'

'I like your husband more and more.'

'So do I.'

'But in Vienna we see many splendid American girls like your Marjorie ... and she is splendid, I've watched her. We see them make the most appalling marriages. Any young fellow with a t.i.tle, no matter how insignificant.'

'Are you saying that Bukowski ...'

'I'm saying that if you two don't grab him, I'm sure you'll accept someone terribly worse. I've known him all his life ... his ruined castle just down the river. You could do infinitely worse, Mrs. Trilling.'

'I suppose you know he's ...' In some embarra.s.sment she hesitated.

'Marrying her for her money? Mrs. Trilling, we teach our sons to do that. How do you suppose the Potockis got hold of Lancut, that fairy-tale castle? A handsome son with few prospects married the daughter of the great Lubomirska. And how did they cement their fortune? Another handsome son married one of the most powerful Radziwill daughters. And how will young Bukowski save his estate? By marrying your daughter.'

When Mrs. Trilling started to protest, the countess cut her short: 'Wiktor Bukowski is extraordinarily thoughtful of his horses, and one can hardly say anything better about a young Pole.'

Countess Lubonska did not go with them when they made the short trip to Bukowo, but she had not, so far as the Trillings learned, made any plans for returning to Vienna, and they supposed that she intended waiting at the castle until Count Lubonski arrived there on his summer vacation. But she did send the young people off with what amounted to her blessing: 'Have a splendid visit at Bukowo, Marjorie. It could be a very congenial place.'

It was midmorning when they approached the castle ruins from the south, and when Marjorie saw them, gaunt and broken from centuries of abuse, she clutched Wiktor's hand. 'It's magnificent. It's Lord Byron at his best. Mazeppa might have ridden to this castle.' She studied it for several minutes, then said: 'No, this is where Taras Bulba came.'

Now the bad moment that Wiktor had feared approached, for the carriages proceeded beyond the castle ruins to the rise from which the Bukowski house would first be visible, and he realized that Marjorie and her mother must view it in comparison with the fine Lubonski home east of Lwow, or the military quarters in Przemysl, or the glories of Lancut, or the ancient stability of Castle Gorka, which they had just left, and he was humiliated.

Leaping from his carriage and running ahead, he called for the driver of the first carriage to halt, and when he reached the Trilling women he said: 'At the top of this rise you will see my house. It is not a castle. G.o.d knows, it is not a castle.'

Marjorie, having heard from Countess Lubonska what she must expect at Bukowo, touched her mother's hand and said: 'Wait here. Wiktor and I will walk the rest of the way.'

They walked in silence, she not fully prepared for what she was about to see, he mortally afraid that when she did see it, she would laugh. Though the rise was not steep, they both held back, so that the journey required some minutes, but at last they reached the spot from which they simply had to look ahead at the rambling house and the ramshackle barn in which the prized horses were kept, and it was pitiful: the home of a disadvantaged Polish n.o.bleman who had little to commend him except his ancient and unsullied lineage, his love of horses.

They looked for a moment, each seeing the house as it truly was, and then Marjorie took his left hand in both of hers: 'With my help we can make Lubonski's castle look like a barn.'

'We?'

'Yes.' And in the six halted carriages the other travelers could see the couple embracing, tentatively at first, and then with great enthusiasm.

Countess Lubonska now disclosed the reason why she had refrained from returning to Vienna. Appearing one morning at Bukowo, where Auntie Bukowska was delighted to be serving as hostess to a real countess, she a.s.sembled everyone concerned and announced: 'The wedding's to be held in the old family church at Zamosc, where Andrzej and I were married. I've telegraphed Vienna, and my husband and the amba.s.sador are leaving at once for Krakow.'

'How will we get to Zamosc?' Wiktor asked, and the countess said: 'The way we always have. By the old roads.' She had already spoken to her own coachmen, who were now in the village talking with Janko Buk, who would lead the Bukowski carriages.

'But isn't Zamosc in Russian Poland?' Mrs. Trilling asked.

'It is, but we've telegraphed St. Petersburg and they'll be sending diplomatic officials from Lublin.'

'I'm not Catholic, you know,' Marjorie said.

'And who counts that a difference? To drive through the little country roads will be exciting. To be married in an old walled city will be more exciting. Child, it's like a fairy story.'

'It is,' Marjorie said, pleased by what the countess was proposing, awed by its international, interfaith complexity.

When the two dignitaries from Vienna arrived, serious plans were devised, with the imposing countess making all decisions: 'The Lubonskis will take four carriages, the Bukowskis four.'

'We have only two,' Wiktor said.

'You have two of ours,' the countess replied. She then said that she and the count would be taking seven servants, three of whom would tend the Trillings, and that Wiktor should bring four for himself and Auntie Bukowska. And without serious consultation she nominated the maid Jadwiga Buk, not yet big with child, to head the Bukowski servants.

'It'll be eighty miles,' she said, 'so I've corresponded with four families en route. We'll be taken a little out of our way, but who cares? You have a wedding like this only once in a century.'

Although Mrs. Trilling was fatigued by even the discussion of such a venture, her husband was pleased at the prospect of having his daughter married under such romantic circ.u.mstances. 'The Russians have been most accommodating in this affair. Their amba.s.sador in Vienna a.s.sured me that every courtesy would be extended.'

When the trip started, with eight carriages in line and extra horses trailing behind, Amba.s.sador Trilling and Count Lubonski rode together, discussing political problems of the empire, while their wives followed in the next carriage, speculating on the social politics of the capital. Obedient to rural superst.i.tion, the countess refused permission for Wiktor and Marjorie to travel to their wedding in the same carriage, so during the four days the Polish bridegroom rode with Auntie while Marjorie shared a carriage with her maid, Jadwiga, wife of the man who was driving, and this could have been tedious, because Jadwiga had only a few rudimentary words of German and English, while Marjorie was not advanced in her dogged study of Polish. But each woman found her deficiency only a limited drawback, because each was determined to master the other's language.

Jadwiga was an excellent teacher, alert and inventive. She spoke with exaggerated sign language, and often their carriage rollicked with laughter as the two young women used words and gestures and facial expressions to convey meanings. Jadwiga explained how in their village the opinions of only two men mattered: The priest ... long robe ... flat hat ... long sermons ... eat free at every cottage. The master ... good man ... no money ... now lots of money ... horses, always horses ... maybe build house new.'

She explained that she was pregnant. Her husband was the coachman. Yes, they had a cottage and a field about as big as that one. Good crops. No money, but maybe now some money.

In answer to Marjorie's question, Jadwiga said that she hoped her child would be a girl. 'Poland, not many want girls ... girls grow stronger every year ... men sometimes weaker ... a girl is like the oak tree.'

'I think so, too,' Marjorie said with many noddings of her head. 'Look at the countess. At a party in Vienna'-and she indicated the ballroom, the musicians playing, the excellent food-'Count Lubonski seems the important one ...' and she became a minister of the government. 'But at Gorka'-and she showed the castle rising by the river-'the countess tells what to do.'

Jadwiga said: 'You will tell Wiktor.' When Marjorie demurred, the servant said: 'Wiktor, he needs someone to tell him. He knows nothing to tell.' And she depicted him on horseback, chasing over the fields.

At the close of the first day the pilgrims halted at the country place of the last magnate on Austrian soil, and it was a robust hunting lodge filled with the horned heads of animals shot by the owner and artifacts many centuries old. The magnate himself had not been able to join the party but had sent eleven servants to make the place comfortable, and although it was already spring, they had three fires blazing and meat upon the spits.

In the morning the countess proposed that Marjorie ride with her, since the maid spoke no English or French, but Marjorie surprised her hostess by insisting: 'I'll ride with Jadwiga again. She's teaching me Polish.'

On this day Jadwiga, still using her hands and her smile, told Marjorie that after the marriage she would like to serve as her maid, and later she explained why: 'If I have a daughter ... to read ... to write ... I wish that she can read and write.'

'Can't you read?' She took from her belongings a book in French and handed it to the servant. 'You ... these words ... nothing?'

'Nothing.'

'Of course your daughter will learn to read. Auntie Bukowska has a daughter. Five or six now ...'

'Good girl ... very gentle ... name Miroslawa ... she reads.'

'She'll teach your daughter. They can learn together.'

Jadwiga frowned. 'Priest'-and she gave a vivid description of the village dictator-'priest says no women to learn.'

Marjorie was not going to be trapped into any protest against a church with which she would have to live. As an Illinois Protestant she was already apprehensive about being married by a Catholic clergyman, but the countess had a.s.sured her that this was a formality easily accepted: 'Besides, at Zamosc the ritual will be in Latin and Russian, and who understands either?'

'We will teach your daughter to read,' Marjorie promised.

At about four o'clock on the second day they crossed the border into Russia; there was no guard, no customs officer, no soldiers, simply a rudely lettered sign which warned travelers to report to the police at the next town. As they entered this great empire, stretching from Warsaw across two continents to the Pacific, the travelers were variously affected: the Trilling women were awed and asked that the carriages be halted so that they could alight and savor this historic moment; Bukowski was appalled by the poverty allowed and even sponsored by the Russian government in what had once been prosperous Poland; and Amba.s.sador Trilling asked Count Lubonski what Slavic Russia's att.i.tude was going to be if Austria made a move to annex Slavic Bosnia and Herzegovina, as some predicted might happen.

Lubonski scowled. 'Under no circ.u.mstances should Austria reach out for additional territories that would give her only more minorities to placate.'

'But she will try to grab them, won't she?' the American pressed, but Lubonski refused to answer.

On the last night before reaching Zamosc, the eight carriages halted at a small castle on the outskirts of a town bearing the incredible name Szczebrzeszyn, and the countess had fun teaching the American women how to p.r.o.nounce it. Following the lesson, as the fireplace crackled and the wine was soft, she told the Americans how one of her ancestors-'the Zamoyskis, not the Lubonskis, remember'-had come in the year 1580 to open fields and said, 'Here we will build the city,' and with his own funds had imported Italian architects, who built a city for twenty thousand citizens: 'Every house was owned by Zamoyski, every laborer worked for him.'

They rose early so as to make entry in good light, and when the carriages at last reached the huge central square surrounded by arcaded houses such as might be found in Bologna, Marjorie cried: 'Mother, it's like the Campo in Siena,' and it was, except that it showed a northern touch. The surrounding houses were square and made of solid stone; and each seemed to have been built by the same hand, which was the case. The town walls were thick enough to have withstood eleven sieges and looked as if they were ready for eleven more. But the most ingratiating aspect was the gloriously ugly central palace.

Tall, ma.s.sive, it looked as if some inspired Italian had wrestled with the northern landscape and lost. Its proportions were wrong: its tower blended with nothing in the huge square; its windows were jammed together impossibly; and the final effect was of a pile of ma.s.sive stones not yet a.s.sembled into a real building. But even as Marjorie laughed, she saw to the left the very old church in which she would be married, and it looked as if it had been placed there by G.o.d Himself, so perfect was its appearance.

She wanted very much to see how the church looked on the inside, but the countess restrained her: 'Bad luck!'

The party of Russian officials, who had come down from Lublin to the north, saw the Lubonski group and hurried across the great square to greet them; they were led by the son of the grand duke who governed Russian Poland, and he was gracious in his welcome. He appreciated the fact that Amba.s.sador Trilling had come so far; he was pleased that Minister Lubonski was gracing the affair; and he was delighted to meet the countess and Madame Amba.s.sador; but his real charm was reserved for Marjorie, whom he invited to be his companion at dinner.

It was an affair which only the son of a Russian grand duke could have arranged, for it seemed as if the entire population of Zamosc was engaged. Many of the townspeople remembered that it had been a Zamoyski who had built this fortress on the frontier, and they were honored to have a member of that distinguished family choose their town for this occasion; others of lower caste wanted to see the visitors from America, for they had relatives who had emigrated there to escape the gnawing poverty of these Russian lands.

Some eighty residents of the area attended the dinner; some hundred and eighty townsmen and peasants worked to make it possible-and when the exhausting affair was over and the nineteen Jewish musicians had gone home, Marjorie asked her mother, on the last night of her spinsterhood: 'Can this go on much longer? I mean the extravagant wealth? The grinding poverty we saw in the countryside?'

'Nothing can go on forever,' Mrs. Trilling replied. She, too, had attended Oberlin College in Ohio and had absorbed its liberal cast. 'Now go to sleep and don't talk politics on your wedding eve.'

Suddenly Marjorie broke into tears. 'It was gorgeous. It was simply gorgeous. A wedding party that no one ...' She clasped her arms across her breast and shivered. 'But the contrast is too much to absorb. I wonder if I'm capable ...'

'We make ourselves capable, Marjorie.' Her mother pulled her onto the bed and sat beside her. 'I was the daughter of a farmer. All he ever read was the almanac. How could I possibly have prepared myself for Vienna? For a grand duke's reception like this in Zamosc, a town I never heard of? Marjorie, we make ourselves capable, and if you don't, I'll be forever ashamed of you.'

'But in a fortress city like this I hear the sound of drums.'

'That's why they made it a fortress.'

The wedding was held at ten in the morning, before three Russian priests, and it seemed as if all Zamosc was at the church, for the countess had arranged for twelve little girls to scatter flowers and eighteen others to sing as Marjorie came down the aisle on the arm of her father. The Russian diplomats occupied the major seats, Auntie Bukowska the place of honor to the right. Countess Lubonska was not visible, for she was stage-managing everything, and when sixteen young officers in full uniform, Russian and Austrian, marched out to accompany Wiktor, the ancient church was filled with music and flowers and brightness.

But when Marjorie received her wedding certificate she was not pleased: 'It's in Russian! And I had dreamed of learning Polish from my own certificate.' Countess Lubonska consoled her: 'Zamosc is Russian now. I feel the contradiction as much as you.' But she would say no more, and she halted Marjorie when the latter tried to protest further.

The first days of Marjorie's marriage to Bukowski were more pleasant than she had antic.i.p.ated. Wiktor was proving to be considerate and warm-hearted, a young man without any conspicuous fault, but after she had been in residence at Bukowo for two weeks, with her parents down the river at Castle Gorka with the Lubonskis, she stumbled upon two aspects of her future life which rather disturbed her.

The first came as the result of a picnic excursion organized by the indefatigable countess, who seemed never to enjoy herself unless six or eight carriages were involved. 'My dear child, you simply must see Krzyztopor. It's magnificent and played a major role in my husband's history ... that is, the history of his family.' And she prevailed upon the count to relate the story of Barbara Lubonska and the building of the Ossolinski castle.

He related the tragic affair with quiet simplicity: 'She was, by all accounts, the most beautiful child our family had ever produced, and she married the son of the richest magnate in the country. For her he built the finest castle ever seen in Poland, and they enjoyed it for seven years. Then Swedes came down and destroyed it, and killed Barbara and her husband and her children, then came here to knock down my castle and burn Bukowski's-and the land was desolate.'

'You must see Krzyztopor,' the countess said, 'to understand Poland.'

So a traditional Countess Lubonska excursion was planned, with six carriages this time ferried across the Vistula for the relatively short ride to the castle ruins, and once again Janko Buk drove the Bukowski carriage, with Jadwiga attending the new mistress.