The audience is over. The nuncio dons his solicitous mask. He is as pale as if he had not left this luxurious palace in ages. If you look closely, you can see that his hands have a tremor. Jacob walks through the corridor of the palace with a sure step, slapping his gloves against his hand. Moliwda trots behind him in silence. Secretaries glide silently along the walls.
It is only when they have reached their carriage that they begin to breathe freely again. And Jacob, just like whenever something pleased him back when they were in Smyrna, brings Moliwda’s face up to his and kisses him on the lips.
At Jacob’s house, Nahman-Piotr Jakubowski is waiting with Yeruhim Dembowski.
Jacob greets them in some new, bizarre fashion that Moliwda has never seen before: he raises a hand to his mouth and then places it on his heart. And with great confidence, without any hesitation—as usual—they repeat this gesture after him, and a moment later it looks as if they had been employing this greeting from the start. They are eager to hear all the details, but Jacob walks by them and disappears into the house. Moliwda, who is following Jacob like his spokesperson, like a king’s minister, says to Nahman and Yeruhim:
“He had an easy time convincing the nuncio. He spoke to him as he would to a child.”
He knows that this is exactly what they wanted to hear. And he sees what a great impression it makes on them. He opens all the doors for Jacob, and follows after him, with Nahman and Yeruhim just behind. He feels that the thing that had once been there has now been restored: the pleasure of being with Jacob and warming oneself in his extraordinary—albeit invisible to the human eye—halo.
Of Katarzyna and her dominion over Warsaw
Kossakowska goes around in a small, modest buggy, always dressed in dark colors, her beloved browns and grays, wearing a big cross on her chest. Hunched over, in her lengthy stride she crosses the distance between the carriage and the entrance to the next house she is visiting. She is capable of going to four or five of them in a single day, not minding that it is cold outside, or that her clothes are not particularly suited to social calls. To the valets at the doors she only mutters, “Kossakowska’s here,” and continues into the house, overcoat still on. Behind her, Agnieszka always tries to mollify the shaken servant. Since his arrival in Warsaw, Moliwda has accompanied them; Kossakowska introduces him as her erudite cousin. Recently Moliwda has also been helping her with her shopping, since she is going home for the holidays. On Krakowskie Przedmie?cie, in a store that sells Viennese goods, they spent an entire half day looking at dolls.
Moliwda tells her about the deaths of Reb Mordke and Hershel.
“Does Jacob’s wife know about this?” asks Kossakowska, peering underneath the wide skirts of the elegant dolls, where their long, lacefinished pantaloons reassure her. “You might think twice before telling her, especially since I believe she is expecting yet another child. All he has to do is touch her, it seems, and she gets pregnant. Given how rarely they see one another, it is quite the miracle, that.”
Kossakowska is readying the little manor house in Wojs?awice for Hana, and while she is normally quite frugal, in this instance she has been lavish. She drags Moliwda to Miodowa Street, to a place where they sell beautiful faience, little wonders from China so delicate the light shines right through the cups. They are all decorated with little landscapes—this is what Kossakowska would like to buy Hana for her new home. Moliwda tries to dissuade her—what would she want such fragile objects for, these ceramics that won’t last a single journey—but then he decides to keep quiet, as he is slowly realizing that Hana, and all the Puritans, as she calls them, have become for Kossakowska something akin to children, difficult and rebellious, but children, nonetheless. Which is why instead of remaining in Warsaw for the second ceremonious baptism in the presence of the king, she prefers to return to Podolia. The last time she saw Jacob Frank she told him to carry out his affairs here, while she took care of those he’d left behind. The little village of Wojs?awice belongs to Katarzyna’s cousin and close friend Marianna Potocka, and it is a wealthy place, with a vast market and a cobblestoned market square. The manor house belonging to Kossakowska had been leased to the local steward and has since been vacated, and the walls have all been repainted, everything renovated. The rest of Hana’s retinue can live in the grange until Jacob is able to obtain land for them to permanently settle.
“What are they going to live off?” asks Moliwda thoughtfully, watching the merchant wrap each of the cups in tissue paper and pack them in tow.
“They’ll live off the support they will receive from all of us, and off whatever they have. Besides, winter hardly gets in the way of trade. And starting in the spring they’ll receive some grain to sow.”
Moliwda winces.
“I can’t quite imagine—”
“There are a lot of fairs and stalls already in place . . .”
“. . . all of which have been occupied by other Jews for decades, maybe centuries. You can’t just release a people amongst another people and wait to see what will happen.”
“We shall see about that,” says Kossakowska, and pays, pleased.
Moliwda sees with horror what an absolute fortune the dolls cost. They go back to the buggy through snow dirtied by horse droppings.
As he arranges the packages in the carriage, Moliwda complains again about how Jacob is the only one of them presentable enough for salons. And he is alarmed by the amount of money Jacob is spending in the capital; such luxury, such glamour, is an irritant to people who see it. Kossakowska agrees:
“What is the purpose of getting a carriage for six horses? Why all those furred cloaks and hats and jewels? Here we are trying to present them as noble paupers, and meanwhile he’s going around town like that. Have you spoken with him about it?”
“I have told him, but he does not wish to listen to me,” Moliwda answers darkly, and helps Kossakowska up into the carriage. They say goodbye, and Kossakowska drives off. Moliwda is left alone on Krakowskie Przedmie?cie. A wind is blowing from Kozia Street, whipping up his kontusz. The cold is as bitter as if he were in Petersburg or somewhere.
He forgot to report to Kossakowska that Jacob hasn’t been getting his letters from Podolia. The one that came from Hana had its seal broken.
Everything is ready for the second official baptism; it will be held in the royal chapel at the Saxon Palace. It will be preceded by a solemn mass, with a choir participating, and the mass itself will be conducted by the Bishop of Kiev himself, Andrzej Za?uski. In all likelihood, the king will not be there, as he is no doubt busy in Dresden. But who cares? What need have we of any king? Warsaw manages perfectly fine without him all the time.
Katarzyna Kossakowska writes to her cousin