Five Easy Pieces? What Eliza Orzeszkowa’s early works presuppose
She dealt with other aspects of this situation in the novel Ostatnia miłość [The Last Love], demonstrating the deep-rooted prejudices towards the new era and the hominis novi. There is significant discussion in the novel over whether the engineer Stefan Rawicki, the construction chief on the railway line linking the Vilnius-Grodno region with other parts of the Kingdom, can be received in the summer residence of the countess X. in D. (Druskieniki). Were it not for the engineer’s Europe-wide renown, he might not have received an invitation. Another problem troubling him while recuperating is the arrival of siblings from Ukraine – Henryk Tarnowski and Regina Różyńska. The latter’s status as a divorced woman determines her social position. In describing Stefan Rawicki, Orzeszkowa uses words showing that he towers over his surroundings. Regina, however, is depicted as a martyr, demonstrating remorse for her decision to leave her husband who had proved to be a great disappointment. These two figures maintain their distance from the salons and are pushed into each other’s company by circumstances. Soon, they fall in love. She has been through a lot while he also has a past, having been widowed many years ago. Her suffering is intended to strip away the idea that she might enjoy any pleasure in marriage. Rawicki, meanwhile, buried his wife so long ago that any memories of her must have faded. Using these devices, Orzeszkowa could solve the dilemma of how to depict older people in a new relationship. Although their first erotic experiences came with other partners, they are marked here by purity and innocence, seemingly making the impossible possible.
Rawicki once helped Henryk by getting him out of Paris, “the modern Babylon” (OM, chapter II), where he had become a gambling addict. Rawicki convinced him to head to the Alps in order to cleanse himself of grime of the city. Regina reconstructs these events in her imagination:
And she saw in her mind’s eye the peaks of towering mountains. In the air, hang blocks of granite, capable of collapsing at any point; from the peaks fall shards of ice with a dull rumble into eternal voids. And among these sounds and views, threatening and beautiful, two people climb the rocky walls and reach the peaks […].
And delving deeper into her imagination she saw a ship plying the blue Adriatic. A violent gust tears the sails with a scream and bang. The waves of the sea rise monstrously, the sky booms with an endless thunderclap as lightning bolts shoot down. On board, chaos and cries of despair. Only two brave souls look on without turning pale, staring down the elements engaged in deadly battle. It is again her brother and his friend. Henryk shows no fear as he is brave, drawing strength from his companion’s valour. But in the moment before death, he thinks of his family’s homelands, his parents’ grave and his sister to whom he bade farewell when she was still a child. Tears of farewell and filled with regrets about what he will never see welled in his eyes. There are no tears in the eyes of the other man. They burn with a flame that seems to be drawn from the lightning bolts crashing to earth. The battle of the elements brings a solemn calm to his face (OM, chapter II).
