Five Easy Pieces? What Eliza Orzeszkowa’s early works presuppose
Gaczycki, who has a romantic interest in Mrs Rodowska, gives her a harsh lesson, telling her how she should respond to the emerging feelings and what her married partner should do. “Mr Przybicki will abandon X” (C, chapter XVIII), he states authoritatively. In order to make it easier for August to make a decision, he offers him a lucrative position in distant lands. He declares his love for Wanda in a peculiar fashion that is nonetheless typical of him: by reciting an improvised, quasi-Hindu fairytale about a while magnolia and the sunshine. (He also reveals the identity of the parents of the abandoned child raised by Mrs Starowolska using a faux-Chinese fairytale). Mr Przybycki does indeed leave X. After some time, Wanda accepts Gaczycki’s declarations of love. When the widowed August visits her six years after separating, she is happily fulfilling the role of head of the household in her husband’s absence:
“Look,” she said, “lots of people live there and they all owe their existence, peace and electricity to him. This is the factory that he built and which nobly drives the industrial growth of the whole province, giving work to lots of people, work that secures their physical existence while increasing their moral dignity. And over there, a school is being built that he founded, where the children of workers and villagers acquire knowledge and learn to be honest citizens. And here is a hospital that he created, offering shelter to those suffering physically and exhausted by many years’ labour. And over there are the villages full of poor and unenlightened folk for whom he, wealthy and noble-born, serves as an example of honesty and hard work; they all respect him and call upon him to settle their arguments, supporting them in their misfortune and providing guidance in their difficulties” (C, chapter W sześć lat potem [Six years later]).
