Poland

by James A. Michener

  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 passed 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 partitioned 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 damned 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 title, 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 embarrassment 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 h
ad 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. God 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 nobleman 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 assembled 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 ambassador 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 circumstances. ‘The Russians have been most accommodating in this affair. Their ambassador in Vienna assured me that every courtesy would be extended.’

  When the trip started, with eight carriages in line and extra horses trailing behind, Ambassador 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 superstition, 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 assured 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 Ambassador Trilling asked Count Lubonski what Slavic Russia’s attitude was going to be if Austria made a move to annex Slavic Bosnia and Herzegovina, as some predicted might happen.

  Lubonski scowled. ‘Under no circumstances 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 pronounce 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.’