“Does that surprise you, madam? Is there something wrong in wanting a better life? If only you could see these towns of theirs, all mud and poverty and stupefaction . . .”
“Now, that’s interesting, because I don’t know any Jews like that. The kind I know are all quite cunning indeed, rubbing their hands together in glee, just looking for a way to swindle you out of a grosz, water down your vodka, sell you some rotten seeds . . .”
“How could you know any Jews like that when all you do is sit around palaces and mansions, writing letters and, in the evenings, shining in the pleasant society of . . . ,” says her husband.
He was going to say “wastrels,” but he stopped himself.
“. . . wastrels,” she says for him.
“Your network, madam, is vast; you know Branicki well, and even at court you have many trusted acquaintances. No nation can allow such lawlessness to occur, can allow Jews to attack other Jews. The king, in doing nothing, is in essence giving his permission. Meanwhile, they come to us like children. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of them are stuck along the Dniester, gazing over at the Polish shore, terribly homesick, since as a result of the riots and the lawlessness they have been cast out of their homes, robbed, assaulted. Now they’re stuck there, exiled by their own people from their own country. After all, they do belong to this country, but now they’re camped out in dugouts all along the river, desperately looking north, hoping to come home, although their homes are now occupied by those other Jews. The land they ought to receive from those of us who have too much of it—”
But Moliwda sees he’s gone too far and breaks off his tirade.
“What is it you want?” Mrs. Kossakowska asks, slowly and suspiciously.
Moliwda saves the situation:
“The church should take care of them. You’re on good terms with Bishop So?tyk, they say you are a dear friend of his . . .”
“A dear friend, am I? You know what they say, I wot well how the world wags, he is most loved that has the most bags,” Mrs. Kossakowska retorts. “Certainly goes for his affections.”
Castellan Kossakowski, bored, sets down his empty glass and rubs his hands together to give himself back a little energy.
“I must make my excuses, for I am off to the kennel. Femka is to whelp. She slutted about with that priest’s dog with the long, messy fur, and now we’re going to have to drown the pups . . .”
“I’ll have them drowned for you. Don’t even think about trying to do it yourself, my dear. Soon you’ll be saying they take after me in loveliness and are clever and useful as hunting dogs.”
“Then you take care of them. I guess I won’t,” says Kossakowski, angry that his wife would treat him so unceremoniously in front of a stranger.
“I’ll take care of them,” Agnieszka pipes up suddenly, her face flushing. “If His Lordship would be so kind as to stay their execution . . .”
“Well, if Miss Agnieszka wishes it . . . ,” Kossakowski begins gallantly.
“Go already,” Mrs. Kossakowska mutters, and her husband disappears from the doorway without finishing his sentence.
“I have already brought this matter to the attention of the new bishop, ?ubieński,” Moliwda continues. “There are more of them than you all think. In places such as Kopyczyńce, Nadwórna. In Rohatyn, Busk, and Glinno they’re the majority now. If we were smart, we would welcome them.”
“So?tyk is the one you need. He can get things done, although only if it’s in his own interest. He doesn’t like the Jews—he’s always running into trouble with them. How much can they pay?”
Moliwda is silent for a moment, considering.
“A lot.”
“Is a lot enough to buy back the bishop’s pawned insignia?”
“What do you mean?” Moliwda starts.
“He pawned it again. The bishop is perpetually generating new debts at cards.”
“Maybe so, I don’t know. I’d have to ask. We could all meet together—them, the bishop, Your Ladyship, and me.”
“So?tyk is aiming for the bishopric of Kraków now, as the bishop there is dying.”
Katarzyna stands and puts out her hands in front of her, as though stretching. The joints crack. Agnieszka looks at her with concern from over her embroidery hoop.
“You’ll have to forgive me, my dear sir, that’s the drumbeat of old age in my bones,” she says, and smiles from ear to ear. “Tell me, what do they believe in? Is it true that they only favor Catholicism on the surface, that deep down they remain Jews? That’s what Pikulski says . . .”
Moliwda sits up straighter in his chair:
“The religion of those traditional Jews consists in fulfilling the orders of the Torah, of living according to the old rituals. They don’t believe in any sort of rapture, the prophets came a long time ago, and now it’s time to wait for the Messiah. Their God won’t reveal Himself again, He has fallen silent. While with the other ones, the Sabbatians, it’s all the other way around—they say we live in Messianic times and that all around us we can see signs presaging the arrival of the Messiah. The First Messiah has already come, that was Sabbatai. After him came the Second—Baruchiah—and now comes the Third . . .”
“Pikulski told me that some people say it might be a woman this time.”
“I will tell you, Your Ladyship, that I honestly do not care so much about what they believe. What I care about is that they are being treated like lepers. When Jews are wealthy, they can attain the greatest heights, like the one who advises Brühl, but the poor ones live in misery and are abused by all. The Cossacks treat them worse than dogs. Nowhere else in the world is it like that. I was in Turkey, and they have better rights there than they do here with us.”
“Well, they did convert to Islam . . . ,” Mrs. Kossakowska notes ironically.
“It’s different in Poland. Just think, cousin. Poland is a country where freedom of religion and religious hatreds meet on equal terms. On the one hand, Jews can practice their religion as they wish here, they have civil liberties and their own judiciary. On the other, hatred toward them is so great that the very word ‘Jew’ is derogatory, and good Christians employ it as a curse.”
“You’re right about that. The one and the other are the results of the laziness and ignorance that predominate in this country, rather than of any innate evil.”
“We all want that to be the explanation. It’s easier to be stupid and lazy than evil. Someone who never pokes his nose out of his own backwater, who believes to the letter whatever the semi-educated priest tells him to believe, who can barely string two letters together and reads no more than the calendar, readily gives his mind over to every sort of nonsense and prejudice, as I saw recently at Bishop Dembowski’s, when he would not stop singing the praises of New Athens.”
Mrs. Kossakowska looks at him in astonishment.
“You find fault with Father Chmielowski and his New Athens now? Everyone is reading it. It is our silva rerum. Do not find fault in books. The books themselves are innocent.”