Moliwda feels worn out in Warsaw. He passes his time in the company of not especially demanding people, where the wine flows freely, and where he can tell his implausible tales, especially when he has drunk a lot of alcohol. Tales of calm at sea, or the opposite, of terrible squalls that cast him naked onto a Greek island, where he was found by women, and he doesn’t remember what happened next, and when he is asked to repeat a story in different company, he doesn’t know what he said before, where his adventures last led him. Of course he never strays too far, just circles around holy Mount Athos and the tiny islets in the Greek sea, along which a giant could step all the way to Stamboul or Rodos.
About the origins of his new name, Moliwda—for he tells people to call him Moliwda now—he tells different stories, but in Warsaw it makes a real impression when he tells people that he’s the king of a small island in the Greek sea called Moliwda. The same place where two women discovered him, naked as the day he was born. They were sisters, of noble Turkish lineage. He has even invented names for them: Zhimelda and Edina. They got him drunk and seduced him. He ended up married to them both, for such is the custom there, and after the almost immediate death of their father, he became sole ruler of the island. He reigned for fifteen years and had six sons, and to them he has left that little kingdom, but when the time comes, he will invite them all here, to Warsaw.
The company applauds in delight. The wine flows.
When he finds himself in more educated company, he alters his tale slightly, with it turning out that by chance and by virtue of his otherness, he was recognized as ruler of the island, an advantage that served him well for years, and things were good for him there. Here he starts describing its customs, making them sufficiently exotic as to be interesting to his listeners. He says that his name was given to him by Chinese merchants he met in Smyrna, traders in silk and lacquerware. They called him molihua, Jasmine Flower. When he says this, he always sees a smirk appear on his listeners’ lips, at least on the lips of the more malicious ones. Nothing resembles jasmine less than Moliwda.
He tells another story when it starts to get late, and a booze-soaked haze of intimacy has set in. In Warsaw, people party until morning, and the women are willing and not at all as shy as might seem at first, when they’re all playing the dainty little noblewomen. Sometimes this shocks him—it would be inconceivable amongst the Turks or in Wallachia, where women keep separate and far from men, for ladies to flirt freely in this way, while their husbands do the same in a far corner of the room. Here it’s not uncommon to hear—in fact, the higher the orbit, the more often you hear it—that the father of some child is not the one who acts as his father, but rather a friend of the family, some important person, an influential cousin. And no one is surprised by this, no one condemns it—quite the opposite, especially if the actual father is well-connected or holds a high position. That is, for instance, what all of Warsaw is gossiping about with respect to the Czartoryskis’ child, that the father is Prince Repnin, a fact about which Mr. Czartoryski appears not even a little bit displeased.
Finally, at the end of November, Moliwda is granted the honor of an audience with Bishop So?tyk, who is now at court seeking the bishopric of Kraków.
The man he encounters is perfectly empty and conceited. Dark, impenetrable eyes bore into Moliwda, trying to decipher to what extent he might be useful. The bishop’s cheeks, which are slightly pendulous, lend him an air of gravity; has anyone ever seen a skinny bishop? Unless he has tapeworm . . .
Moliwda presents the matter of the Sabbatians to him, no longer in a tone of caritas, no longer attempting to evoke concern about their fate or aiming for his listener’s heart with beautiful sentiments. For a moment, he searches for the proper approach, and then he says:
“Your Excellency would hold a perfect trump card. Several hundred, maybe even thousands of Jews, who crossed over to the bosom of the Church, converted to the one true faith. Many of them are also wealthy.”
“I thought they were paupers from the street.”
“There are wealthier ones among them. They are fighting for titles, and titles are worth mountains of gold. According to the laws of the Republic, a neophyte can apply for a noble title with no great impediment.”
“That would be the end of the world . . .”
Moliwda looks at the bishop, who seems restless. His face is impenetrable, but his right hand makes a strange, involuntary gesture, his thumb, index finger, and middle finger rubbing nervously together.
“Who is this Frank, anyway? Some ignoramus, some lout . . . They say that’s what he calls himself.”
“He does call himself that. He calls himself an amuritz, a simpleton. It’s from Hebrew, am ha’aretz . . .”
“You know Hebrew?”
“I know enough. I can understand what he’s saying. It isn’t true that he’s a simpleton. He has been taught quite well by his people, he knows the Zohar, the Bible, and the Mosaic law; he might not be able to say many things well in Polish or in Latin, but he is a well-educated man. And clever. Whatever he sets out to do, he will accomplish. With the help of this person or that . . .”
“So just like you, Mr. Kossakowski,” says Bishop So?tyk, in a flash of perspicacity.
Of useful truths and useless truths, and the mortar post as a means of communication
Much of that year of 1758 Bishop Kajetan So?tyk spends in Warsaw. It is a pleasant time, since Warsaw offers abundant diversions. It is autumn, and everyone is coming back into town from their country estates—the social season could now be said to be under way. The bishop has many things on his mind. The first and most important is the expectation—the joyful expectation—that he will be appointed the next bishop of Kraków. The cards have been dealt, he tells himself over and over, and this means that his nomination will take place once the poor, sick Andrzej Za?uski—his friend, Bishop of Kraków, and Joseph’s brother—has died. In some senses everything has already been settled among these three: Andrzej knows that he will die soon and is reconciled to death, like a good Christian who knows he has lived a holy life, and he has already written to the king recommending the appointment of So?tyk as his replacement. Although now he has been unconscious for a fortnight, and earthly matters no longer concern him.