Romance at the Health resort

one never knows when speaking of love 

whether the first is the last or the last is the first

At first glance

Ostatnia miłość by Eliza Orzeszkowa does not seem like a work with complex themes or difficult to read. Quite the opposite: the story of Regina Tarnowska’s two loves (the first: for Alfred Różyński, and the other: for Stefan Rawicki), outlined in the novel, unfolding against the backdrop of a provincial health resort town and the Różanna estate in Volhynia, amidst conventional events and conversations, is easy to predict and has a clear circle of values delineated by the author. The negative characters are ridiculous, pathetic, and ineffective. From the bombastic Countess X. to the servant Michałek – they are drawn with a bold, satirical line. The positive characters – flawless in every respect (from appearance to opinions), and therefore not very authentic. The figures described are either “noble” (like Doctor K.) or “unnecessarily round” and “plump” (Frycio, the countess). A person is not a mystery to another person if his or her character and value can be read at first glance from his face and shape (“classic” or not).

The banality of the plot, the thinness of the characters, and the one-dimensionality of the subject matter were already noted by early reviewers. Even if we remember that this is the young writer’s debut novel, that she draws on the European tradition of the environmental novel and the “water romance” template (as in Jane Austen’s novels), and that more than one scene hints at her talent, it is impossible to avoid the thought that Ostatnia miłość is an uneven, overwrought work, sometimes glaringly lacking in authenticity, often exaggerated and exalted, as well as a simplified yet repetitive moralizing interpretation.

It seems that the ambitious debutante wanted to fit everything into her novel that could appeal to readers: an environmental study and technical (even engineering) themes; discussions about models of femininity and women’s rights, and an attack on the hypocritical world of salons; the assumptions of biased literature and verbal and situational comedy; a reflection of social mechanisms and an intimate portrait of an unhappy woman; a novel written in the third-person narrative, moralizing tirades of the narrator who clearly reveals his presence, an intimate diary novel and epistolary prose; humorous (and even at one point trivial) scenes of social life involving “common folk” and pathetic fragments about an ideal marriage; a psychological study of a person forfeiting illusions and lofty paeans to science and technology; caricatured portraits of society figures and statuesque images of model characters; as well as a systematic classification of human types and references to the works of John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Franklin, and Henry Buckle.

All of this is evident in the novel at first glance, and the reader has no problem accepting it correctly – in keeping with Orzeszkowa’s own intentions. This layer of the work is under the author’s control. This is material she consciously selects for its usefulness in proving her thesis and telling the story. She reveals her ideological and aesthetic views as much as she desires. This first layer of the novel under analysis raises no doubts – it is understandable and… rather banal.

The only thing that might mislead the reader on the surface is the title. Anyone who sees the phrase “last love” on the cover before reading might expect a tragedy with a disastrous outcome and a bleak ending. Instead, the novel optimistically rewards good, metes out justice to evil, and leads the characters starved for affection to the altar, uniting in a happy harmony what may be their last love, but above all, their first. The romance that begins at the health resort (though the lovers already knew each other from previous accounts about them) turns out to be a happy fairy tale about the “chimney sweeper” (“craftsman” – engineer Stefan Rawicki) and the “princess” (Regina Różyńska). Therefore, the reader shouldn’t be bothered by the occasional instances of obvious nonsensicality and illogicality in the plot. Why, for example, does Regina, so disappointed with her marriage and full of resentment towards her ex-husband, still bear his surname after the divorce and carry her wedding ring with her on vacation? And why does her brother, in turn, take her diary and the Tarnowski family archives with him on his trip to the health resort (as if requested)? The scene of Stefan’s proposal, when Regina kneels before her beloved, is absurd. Orzeszkowa must also have lost self-control when, unintentionally provoking laughter from the reader, she compares love – an angel with one wing – to a fly that, with a broken wing, “crawls, thrashes, and squeals only to get stuck in butter.” There are more such absurdities. Ostatnia miłość is a work written by a follower of a new paradigm (the model of the novel, the model of marriage, social life, and one’s own life), by an enthusiast of the future (technical inventions and female independence), and in the face of such fervour and missionary zeal, self-control and concern for realism weakened.

At first glance, this is an optimistic and affirming novel. Even if the love of two other lovers (Henryk Tarnowski and Wandzia, who is suffering from tuberculosis) is put to the test, it seems that a happy future awaits this couple as well. The arrogant, vain, and foolish characters will not only not receive the expected gratification, but will also be forced (e.g. Mrs. Izabella) to look in the mirror of their own insignificance. So, although for now, society is dominated by women who are dolls and geese, and men who are worms, monkeys, and wolves (according to Regina’s system), the novel is intended to offer hope that eventually, women and men – humans – will begin to set the proper tone for social life. Such people will be served by the new, magnificent civilization of railways and other technological inventions.

From the very first page, the main character of the novel is the railway: animated and anthropomorphized (“a black comet, made of iron, with a thick and long tail of smoke”; “a comet whose body is iron, whose spirit is steam”; “a strong spirit gives lightning speed to the iron body”; “the locomotive was soon to spread its tails of grey smoke” – chapters I and VI), surrounded by magic and cult (“a magical expression”; “everyone sings in chorus the praise of this serious lady”; “they gratefully offer a kind tribute to the queen of the nineteenth century” – chapter I), treated as a remedy for poverty and ignorance (“the railway is an important factor of civilization”; “an iron and steam factor of civilization”; “spaces disappear – nations […] are uniting”; “not only your bodies, but also your spirit will move further and further like a locomotive; you will get off the wagons of ignorance” – chapters I, II and VI). The reader receives information on a micro scale: about the construction of a specific line and station (on the Vilnius–Warsaw section of the Warsaw–St. Petersburg Railway) and experiences the incredible hardships of the long journey through sand and bumps before the railway is built; and on a macro scale: about the impact of the railway on future economic and social relations. It should be emphasized, however, that enthusiasm for railway construction is not merely a programmatic component of the novel’s thesis, which is intended to depict the state of affairs before and after the proposed reforms were implemented. Orzeszkowa documents the civilizational backwardness of the western peripheries of the Russian Empire, visible in every field (deepened especially after Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War, which is the setting of the novel shortly after), where the appearance of a locomotive could mean a sensation for some (“A locomotive! Such a large wagon that will carry people without horses”, “a satanic force” – see chapter VI), but for others it could mean the fulfilment of dreams and long-awaited access to the benefits of civilization long known in the West.

It is no coincidence that the hero of this brave new world and the saviour of a lonely woman is an engineer – a hero of the new era. Stefan Rawicki’s speech in honour of the engineer portrays him as both a demiurge and a worker in the realm of utility, leading humanity to happiness. He overcomes the forces of nature and transcends its laws, realizing plans that transcend the bounds of imagination: “For an engineer […] is humanity itself in its irresistible aspirations toward everything great, beautiful, and good” (chapter VI). Engineer Rawicki exudes majesty and an air of extraordinary. When the reader first comes across him, he is enveloped in the brightness of a sunny morning (chapter II). The elite gathered at the water’s edge, so quick to criticize and maliciously gossip, treats only him – for some reason – always with submission and respect, even though he repays them with cold detachment. Orzeszkowa has not sullied his monumental image with any weakness. In the extensive descriptions of Rawicki’s face and figure, the reader, skilled in physiognomy, could find only signs of greatness and genius, masculine beauty, and spiritual perfection. And if they had not interpreted his portrait accurately enough, the obliging narrator (as often happens with many of the characters in this novel) had the right comment on hand: “the whole appearance of this man attracted one with a kind of magnetic influence that those of a powerful presence usually exert around them” (chapter II).

Only Rawicki receives such distinction in society. The elite who descend on Druskininkai are largely a mix of slackers and boasters, gossips and scoffers, dowry hunters, and those seeking fleeting relationships. They do not need physical health, but moral health, and they cannot achieve that by drinking water. Besides, they do not realize how “sick” they are. Orzeszkowa wrote in a letter to Józef Sikorski that their images are not exaggerated solely to reinforce social criticism, but taken “from nature.” However, the novel offers little information about the Druskininkai entourage and treatments. Salon gatherings filled with banal conversations, gossip, and music, along with boat cruises on the Neman and walks in the park, bizarre entertainment (like teaching a talking parrot), and futile competition for favour or social standing fail to create an image of the health resort, either as a therapeutic community or as a space for recuperating. Boredom reigns supreme in the salons and boudoirs. Sometimes the void is filled by a seeming dilemma (which tie to wear), sometimes by an internal struggle with a predetermined outcome (the battle between the demon and angel in Mrs. Izabella’s soul). Among the health resort guests, there are also contrastingly positive figures: an engineer, a doctor, a decent landowner and his prudent wife, and a young nobleman not quite “skilled in the art of tying a tie” (chapter IV). Already in her first novel, Orzeszkowa used her later favourite pattern of “two poles” (which is also the title of one of her works) – characters or environments juxtaposed in extreme contrast and endowed with signs of opposite values: without chiaroscuro and metamorphoses. She also used contrasting or parallel motifs, repetitions and reversals of situations, which would soon become a convention in her arsenal of means of expression.

The only person actually sick is the Marshal’s granddaughter, Wandzia. And only about her treatment do we learn that the local climate and waters are not conducive to a tuberculosis patient. Beyond that, the town’s health resort value is enigmatic. Regina comes there to calm her nerves and get a change of scenery, others for entertainment, others still for relaxation. The novel lacks any details about the treatment: people drink the water and bathe, but “mineral waters” and “healing waters” are more a conventional symbol of lifestyle and time management than therapy. The therapeutic power of the waters there is entirely different. It is “the Neman like a blue, wide ribbon” chapter I), “the Neman waves with a quiet murmur […] flowing” (chapter V), “the blue Neman” (chapter VI), “flowing […], flashing with millions of rays breaking in its waves” (chapter VI), “flowing with streaks of purple and silver” (chapter VII), “the serious and dark blue […] ribbon of the Neman, at the edge of the horizon fused with the sky” (chapter V), and “the violent clatter of Rotniczanka running towards her lover over the stony barriers” (chapter VI), which “swished and roared as if arguing with the serious Neman, which quietly and calmly took her into its arms and continued flowing majestically” (chapter I). The river lovers, the masculine Neman and the feminine Rotniczanka, are the purest and most healing element of nature in the novel. In Ostatnia miłość the river water is both the water of healing and the water of love. The Neman is, moreover, a hidden hero: linked to Grodno and the towns of D*** and N***, it constantly accompanies the noble heroes in their work and dreams. The river water, therefore, alive and flowing, brings Regina hope for a change of fate and love, in contrast to the water of the lake near her husband’s house, a lake that Regina often calls “glass”, smooth and lifeless. The image of the lovers floating on the river in a boat (Stefan and Regina, Henryk and Wandzia) returns twenty years later, when Orzeszkowa endows the Neman with a similar function as a backdrop and catalyst for love in her most famous novel.

Nature also resonates with the characters’ emotions through flowers and green plants. The garden in D*** is no ordinary health resort park, but a space marked by a special order – framed by two arms: the Neman and the Rotniczanka River flowing into it, full of lush vegetation, where, even beyond the Neman, “a broad carpet of green meadows, here and there overgrown with low pine trees” (chapter I). It is no accident that this fragment echoes the Invocation from Pan Tadeusz. The garden: the kingdom of plants and the “property” of the Neman, marked in the description by the presence of the sacred (“the church spire; poor, but slender and gleaming with a cross, shot up to the sky” – chapter I) and subtle sounds (the murmur of rivers and leaves, “a nightingale, somewhere beyond the church, tried to reach its last notes” – chapter I), is for Regina a solace in her sadness and a respite from the ritual of salon conversations and visits. Important moments of reflection and life reckoning for her take place on the balcony overlooking the garden (“ivy leaves, silvered by the moonlight, fell from the balcony pillars onto her head and hands” – chapter IV), also in the “flower-filled and fragrant garden” (chapter III) of Marshal’s wife Z. and the garden near Rawicki’s house, and earlier – in the garden of the Milecki family in Zajeziorna. At the health resort, healing (more of the spirit than the body) occurs not through conventional treatments, but through contact with nature and art. Love is professed through flowers (a white rose symbolizes Regina and Stefan’s love; a crimson rose symbolizes Wanda and Henryk’s love). Art, in turn, affects the characters in many ways: they discuss it (the conversation about the Dresden Gallery, art theory, and the history of beauty), contemplate its works, but also create it themselves: engineer Rawicki is a painter, Regina a talented singer, Henryk plays the theorbo. The elite of the “morally ill” also have their own “nature and art,” but these are merely parodies of the originals: a parrot is taught to speak, horses are bet on races, flowers are arranged from ribbons, hair is painted and cheeks are rouged, and one plays someone one is not. They clumsily imitate nature and reduce it. They imitate youth and feelings, and feign social standing.

Ostatnia miłość is a kind of self-therapy guide – achieved not through medicinal means and procedures, but through contact with unadulterated nature and art, and – equally important – discovering within oneself the strength to endure difficult experiences. The guide in this therapy is the American Romantic poet and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, whose thoughts are echoed by Stefan and Regina. Emerson points to a simple, though difficult, path of self-reliance, of relying only on oneself, rather than imitating someone else: “Insist on yourself; never imitate,” which – as retrospection reveals – both Stefan – for a long time – and Regina – since leaving her husband – have practiced. Rawicki supplemented Emerson’s advice with a stated goal: “Rely on yourself and climb ever higher!…” (chapter VI). He wrote this sentence on the frame of a painting he had created, a reflection of the situation of a lonely man, condemned by circumstances to a life of resourcefulness and self-sufficiency, striving to reach for ever more daring goals. It is an image of a mountain climber: “The strain of his hands, with which he tried to grasp the convexities of the steep wall, revealed the effort he was making; but his face, profile turned toward the viewer, seemed to be gazing at the sun shining above and itself glowing with hope and courage” (chapter VI).

This is a self-portrait of Stefan Rawicki, and it also represents a promise of reaching the summit. The climber in Stefan’s painting is not (contrary to appearances) Sisyphus. We know he will achieve his goal. Was it also a self-portrait of Orzeszkowa herself, who was then almost exactly the same age as her character?