雙語·居里夫人的故事 第六章　不幸中的萬幸

Chapter VI　Fortunate Misfortune

OTHER people's holidays come when the summer comes; but a governess stays at her post most of the year. She is even more useful when the boys come home, and little girls need getting out of bed winter and summer. Manya was bored. Nothing ever happened. Tomorrow was always twin sister to yesterday—work from eight to half-past eleven, work from two to half-past seven, walk and lunch from half-past eleven to two. In the evening, it was reading aloud to Andzia if she had been good; sewing and talking if she had not. At nine o'clock at last came freedom to read her own books and to study. But even then she was liable to be interrupted to do one of the hundred and one things required of a governess. For instance, Andzia's godfather needed someone to play chess with him and the governess would do quite well; or a fourth was wanted at whist and it did not matter if the governess liked whist or not. Manya grew hungrier for knowledge as the chance of it slipped farther and farther away. Her books were old fashioned and there was no one with whom she could discuss her difficulties. She hadn't an idea what she was going to do. She thought with envy of the thousands of girls flocking to colleges the world over, meeting the choice and master spirits of their age, being taught and working in laboratories. Vienna, Berlin, London, St. Petersburg, especially Paris, seemed so many Meccas to her! No, not Vienna, Berlin or St. Petersburg for they were the capitals of Poland's oppressors. But London and Paris! She was wild with longing to go to Paris, free generous Paris that oppressed no one, but welcomed exiles and invited everyone to come to her who wanted to think, who wanted to know. Despair was getting hold of Manya. It was so hard to work alone. Her money accumulated so intolerably slowly and Bronia would need help for so many years. Her father also would be wanting her to take care of him when he was really old. Would Manya ever get to the university?

She had grown deliciously pretty. Her broad, lofty brow had all the sternness taken from it by her ravishing, burnished hair; her grey eyes deepset under well-marked eyebrows seemed very large and gazed at one with gay and penetrating understanding; her wilful mouth with a suggestion of a smile forced one to look and think twice. Her skin was like a very peach. She was graceful, with exquisite wrists and ankles; and best of all her thoughtfulness gave her just that touch of mystery which makes people always want to know a girl.

Casimir, the eldest son of the house, was glad to find Manya there when he came home for the holidays. He came across her snipping off dead roses in the lovely garden. He had heard about her from his sister's letters, but he hadn't believed in her, and didn't he know all about the whole dull race of governesses?

“But… By the sword of Poland!” he exclaimed to himself, “This one is different!”

“You have given your ragged school a holiday this morning, Mademoiselle?”

“Oh, no!” said Manya, her face alive with interest as usual. “They don't come till five, when their other work, whatever it may be, is done.”

So, thought Manya, this was Bronka's adored brother, this tall, handsome, charming-mannered student, who spoke to her so friendlily and went on to take so lively an interest in her pupils whom he would insist on calling her “ragged school.”

That evening she did not go at nine to her heavy books. There was far more to be learnt by real talk with a university student about the subjects he was studying. To-morrow lost its resemblance to yesterday. Summer broke the order of work. Casimir insisted on boating picnics and Manya was especially good at the oar. She rode so that it was a delight to watch her and there was no lack of horses in the stable. There were some forty to choose from and the three chose well and rode whole days across the endless plain. There were driving picnics also and Casimir noticed that Manya's delicate wrists handled the reins of the second wagonette with skill. Casimir had sprained his left thumb so that the coachman had to drive his mother and the babies in the first wagonette.

Among the endless “geese” whom Casimir had hitherto met, none had the talk and mystery of this strange girl. When he returned to Warsaw for the autumn, he longed for Christmas.

“It ought always to be winter, Mademoiselle,” he said. And to Manya's unsuspecting “No! Why?” he laughed. “Aren't we told to worship beauty and is there anything lovelier than a girl with perfect ankles skating gracefully? And then there are the dances! You who dance so well, don't you love them and the long sledge drives under winter stars?”

Yes, Manya had returned to loving dancing, but still she preferred the summer—the summer holidays.

“The holidays? When I am here?”

Casimir had long guessed her answer. He said that he would go to his father at once. People did not generally marry governesses, but Manya was different, so entirely different. Everyone in his home loved her; his father chose her for his walking companion; his mother introduced her to all her friends; his sister adored her. They had often invited her father, her brother and her sister to stay in the home; they showered presents and flowers on her on her birthday; they were surely just waiting to welcome her with delight as a new daughter.

But about that, Casimir was mistaken. When he told his parents that he wanted to marry Manya, his father was furious and his mother nearly fainted. Should their eldest son, he on whom all their hopes were fixed, who could bring home as bride the richest, noblest girl of all the country, should he marry a penniless governess? Marry a woman who earned her living by selling her work in other people's houses!

“Casimir, you're mad! People don't marry governesses !”

“People don't marry governesses! What a good thing!” hummed the old Earth as it whizzed round the Sun bringing Summer after Winter and Marie Curie for all of us instead of Madame Manya Casimir Z—.

But Manya who could not foresee the future, was very unhappy. Everyone in the house grew cold to her; yet she could not throw up her post and go away, because she had to send Bronia twenty pounds a year. All she could do was to make up her mind that never, never again would she ever love any man. All the tomorrows took on again their resemblance to all the yesterdays. She gave her lessons, scolded Andzia, shook Julek awake, because every book sent him to sleep, taught her ragged school, read chemistry, played chess, danced, walked. Only one thing sometimes introduced a little excitement: the roads were so badly marked that they would disappear entirely under the snow and the sleigh and its occupants would find themselves buried in a snow-filled ditch. On such occasions, laughter would bring back some of the old gay friendliness.

At that time, her letters home grew longer, but she often hadn't a stamp to send them with or the money to buy one. “I haven't heard from Bronia,” she complained, “but perhaps she hasn't a stamp either.” Because of her own sadness she was more able to enter into the troubles of her father, her brother and Hela. To her father she wrote: “Don't worry about us; you have done everything a father could do for us; after all, haven't you given us quite nice characters? We'll be able to earn a living all right, you'll see.” And to her brother: “Joseph, borrow a hundred roubles and stay in Warsaw. Don't bury yourself in the country and don't be angry if I do give you advice. Remember our agreement to say anything that comes into our heads. Everybody thinks that to practise in the country would be to bury yourself in a hole and have no career. A doctor without a chemist's shop, a hospital or books will just become a dud, however good his resolutions maybe. If that happened to you, darling, I should be desperately unhappy, because now that I have lost all hope of ever being anything myself, all my ambition is fixed on you and Bronia. You mustn't bury the gifts that our family undoubtedly possess. They must come out in one of us. The more I despair about myself, the more I hope for you.” Manya was also feeling great sympathy for Hela, who had been given up by her lover, and great indignation against young men in general: “Truly,” she wrote, “one is learning to have a good opinion of people! If they don't want to marry poor girls, they can go to the devil. No one asks them to do it, but why fall in love with them and then upset them?”

It was a bad moment in Manya's life. She said she was afraid she was catching stupidity from her pupils, which is a fear that comes to many teachers. Her great dreams seemed foolish. “The only dream I have now,” she wrote, “is to have a corner of my own where I can live with my father. to get a little independence and a home, I would give half my life. If by any possibility I can leave Z—s, which does not seem very likely, I will get a post in a boarding school in Warsaw and earn a little extra by private lessons. That's all I hope for. Life isn't worth bothering so much about.” It was, indeed, a bad moment. But a novel called On the Banks of the Niemen fortunately reminded her that ideas like that were not the real Manya. “Where have my dreams gone?”she wrote to Bronia. “I wanted to work for the people, and I have scarcely been able to teach a dzen village boys and girls to read. As to awakening in them a thought of what they are and of what they might do in the world! You couldn't dream of such a thing. Life is hard. I am becoming so mean, so common. Then suddenly a book like this novel gives me a shock and I am miserable about it all.” At the same time she wrote to her cousin: “I am in a black humour, for our daily company are frightful west winds, seasoned with rain, floods and mud. There's not a thought of frost and my skates hang sadly in the wardrobe. Perhaps you don't know that in our small hole frost and its advantages are as important as a debate between Conservatives and Liberals in Galicia! Don't think that your tales bore me. On the contrary it is a true delight to hear that there are places on the earth's surface where people move and even think! I feel things violently with a physical violence! Then I shake myself and get back to myself out of a nightmare and tell myself ‘Don't be crushed either by people or by events.’ But the need of new impressions, of change, of movement seizes me at moments with such force that I want to do something utterly, utterly foolish to put an end to this eternal sameness. Happily I have so much work that this folly doesn't get hold of me often.”