“If my uncle will not abide by the settlement, he has only to cancel it, and give me back my lands. But to take possession of my estates, and give me nothing in return, is really too unjust, and I cannot believe my uncle will let me die of hunger. It would be infamous if, with the immense fortune I possess, I were reduced to poverty by so cruel an injustice, notwithstanding every law to the contrary. God grant that I may escape the clutches of Silvestrowicz[101] with a sufficient income to be a burden to no one! But where is my uncle? Can I despatch any one to him, to explain my position and the ill-will of Silvestrowicz? I shall find myself without a sol,[102] and then what shall I do? tell me. But how could it be possible for my uncle to rob me so completely, without my obtaining any redress? It is only in this country that such a thing could take place. I am indeed very unhappy, but I am so affected by your absence that it prevents my dwelling upon my other griefs, which, at this moment, are but a minor part of my sorrows. Good-bye, Vincent; love me, for your love is all I have left.”
The Count had just arrived in Poland, but seemed in no hurry to return to Ukrania.
He wrote to Hélène that his own business kept him away from her, but that she had nothing to fear from the influences she had mentioned in a former letter. “I am greatly relieved,” she answers, “to hear at last that you are in Poland, and to know that I have nothing to fear from the Krajczy; his wife, his daughter, and his sons are all intimate friends of MM. de Ligne, and I dreaded lest he might meddle with our affairs. As for myself, I consider the engagement which bound us to have been a fatal error, seeing we were so young, and that our only fitness consisted in a mere similarity of birth and fortune. To you alone I have given my pledge, my real love, the most chaste and sacred of all ties.”
A short time after Hélène had fresh cause for anxiety. “Fancy,” she writes to the Count, “I have read in the Gazette de Hambourg that Prince Charles is about to return to the Russian army by Léopol; he must therefore pass by Niemirow, or at least quite near it. I assure you that your Cossacks are barely a sufficient protection to reassure a coward like myself.”[103] But the Prince passed through without troubling himself about her.
At last the Count announced his arrival. “How my heart beats,” writes Hélène, “when I think that the moment is drawing near which will bring you back to me. I am so taken up by your return that whether you have successfully or unsuccessfully settled my business is a question which does not interest me as it would at any other time. I count the minutes, and can only speculate on the hour at which you started, and the hour at which you may arrive, and it seems to me as though I had centuries to wait.
“I hope you will receive this letter on your way. I have just received one from my uncle; it appears that he is not angry with me, and, with the exception of helping me by his influence or his money, is entirely devoted to me. What irony! But what can I do? If my family is indifferent to me, I am quite the same towards them; provided that you always love me, I shall have no wish left in the world; I have neither vanity nor ambition, I have only love.”
The Count arrived at Niemirow very much dissatisfied with his journey, and anxious about the future. He had thought, from what Hélène had said, that he would meet with no opposition to a divorce on the part of the Lignes, and instead of the consent he expected, he had only received a very decided refusal, accompanied by a severe criticism of his own conduct, and of the interested motives which, rightly or wrongly, were attributed to him.
He had also fancied he would easily obtain his wife’s consent by leaving her his two sons; instead of this, his schemes were baffled on all sides by very serious difficulties.
On the other hand, the position of the Princess, who was living an isolated life, almost hidden, it may be said, in one of the Count’s residences, in the neighbourhood of Niemirow, could no longer be endured without serious inconvenience. The Comtesse Anna was very much beloved in the country, her two children inhabited Niemirow, and everybody was beginning to wonder at her prolonged absence; how much more extraordinary would it appear when her husband should return! All these reflections threw the Count into a gloomy state of mind; he made a short stay at Kowalowska, but Hélène was pained by the coldness of his manner, and the embarrassment he showed during their first interview; he briefly narrated the unsatisfactory results of his journey, intimating that he could not remain at Niemirow, and advising her to go to her uncle’s and wait there for a solution which was probably very remote.
Although the Count made these announcements with a certain precaution, they produced a terrible impression on the Princess. She had behaved with the utmost good faith, persuaded that, to obtain a divorce and marry directly after, was the easiest thing in the world. Her marriage would cover the imprudence of her flight, and make every one forget the conclusions they had drawn from it. Suddenly she saw her dearest hopes vanish, her honour compromised, and the man for whom she had sacrificed everything calmly suggest that she should leave him, perhaps for ever. The strain on her over-wrought mind was too great, and she fainted. When she came to herself her women only were around her bed, for the Count had returned to Niemirow. She wrote to him at once: “When you left me I was in the greatest despair, yet you never showed the slightest feeling of pity. I can only say that I shall find my life odious if you persist in your intention of abandoning me. I appeal to you for an account of my destiny thus committed to your charge. Is it possible you could dispose of it with so little reflection?”