“Well said,” comments ?ab?cki.
It seems to Father Chmielowski that a whole team of people ought to be deployed and ought to act as they would in an army—establish a hierarchy amongst themselves and divide into regiments, give the books ranks according to value and rarity, and finally supply them with provisions, gluing together and sewing up those that are ailing and damaged. It would be a great undertaking, but how worthwhile it would be. For what would we do without books?
What irritates the priest most is that this is supposed to be a public library, meaning an open library, which he cannot understand—for what can they mean by it? That just anyone can come and take a book back to his home? This seems to him a mad idea, one of those Western ones, French, which will bring greater harm to book collections than it will benefit anyone. He has observed that the books at the Za?uskis’ are borrowed via a rotten lending form, which then, put away in a drawer, might get mislaid or disappear forever, as slips of paper have the habit of doing. And when a more distinguished guest comes in, they will just give him a book without even having him sign the lending form, out of timidity. There is no record of where the borrowed books have gone or of who has them.
The priest clutches his head theatrically.
“Father Chmielowski, you seem to care more about books than you do about people,” says Kossakowska with her mouth full.
“I permit myself to contest Your Ladyship. Not at all. I also saw our capital and the people living in it.”
“And your reflections?” ?ab?cki asks politely in French.
Father Chmielowski is thrown by the French; Miss Agnieszka whispers a translation to him, but he has already turned red.
“What surprises me the most is that people desire to be so crowded into small apartments, onto narrow little streets, when they could all enjoy such luxury in the countryside and consume fresh air in any quantity.”
“That is the God’s honest truth. There is nothing like the country,” says Kossakowska.
Now the priest tells them about how Za?uski took him to a baptism in the royal chapel at the Saxon Palace, where the most important of the neophytes were baptized.
Here Kossakowska livens up:
“But that’s amazing! You were there? And you’re only mentioning it now?”
“I was standing toward the back and could only see when I leaned around. But this was the second baptism of that Jacob Frank I saw, the first was in Lwów.”
Father Chmielowski recounts how a murmur arose among those gathered in the church when Bishop Za?uski leaned in over the baptized Frank, and his miter fell from his head onto the floor, which some took for a bad sign.
“Because what was the point of baptizing them twice—was once not enough? That’s why the miter fell,” says their host.
“Mrs. Brühl was the godmother, wasn’t she? How did she look?” asks Kossakowska. “Still stocky?”
The priest thinks for a moment.
“She’s a woman of a certain age like any other. What can I say? I have no memory for women.”
“Did she say anything? How was her performance, what was she wearing, was she dressed in the Polish fashion, or the French, perhaps? Just the usual things.”
The priest strains his memory, looks around as if an image of Mrs. Brühl were hanging there in the air somewhere.
“Please forgive me, Your Ladyship—I don’t remember. But I do remember that Your Ladyship’s dear friend Bishop So?tyk attended the baptism of two of Frank’s assistants—one was Jakubowski, and the other was Matuszewski, along with Princess Lubomirska.”
“You don’t say!” Kossakowska rubs her hands together. In situations such as these she really feels alive. So she did manage to talk So?tyk into being godfather to the neophytes! And Princess Lubomirska, who in general shies away from such displays. The participation in the baptisms by such high-ranking persons convinces her husband about the matter.
“This reminds me that we have here in Podolia quite a few still to baptize,” says Kossakowski, silent until now.
“My God, gracious Lord, how many of them there are! And what is the story with that big Jew with the terrifying face whom you baptized, Father?” asks Kossakowska. “He is a mute, is that right? And what happened to his face?”
The priest seems a bit embarrassed.
“Oh, you know . . . They asked me, so I agreed. He is apparently from Wallachia, an orphan, who worked for the Shorrs as a carter, and now he’s helping me out at my place . . .”
“The silence that fell in the church when you brought him in! He looked like those Jews had slapped him together out of clay.”
When they finally get up from the table, it is completely dark. Father Chmielowski thinks of his driver Roshko. He is anxious to find out whether they have given him anything hot to eat from the kitchen, and whether since then he hasn’t frozen solid. They reassure him, and he stays for the pipe. ?ab?cki always treats his guests to the finest tobacco, from the Shorrs in Rohatyn, who have the best tobacco in Podolia. No one evinces surprise when Kossakowska smokes with them—after all, she isn’t a woman, she’s Kossakowska. She can do as she likes.
On January 18 and 19, Stanis?aw Kossakowski, convinced by his wife, oversees the baptism of several so-called “Puritans.” The first to become his goddaughter is the crippled Anna Adamowska, formerly Chibora, wife of Matys of Zbry?. Those in the church who see godfather and goddaughter both lame and limping wonder who came up with such a perfect pairing. The lame leading the lame—how not to laugh at it? Maybe it’s a good thing: there is a certain logic to it, the broken tending to the broken. But it does seem to make the castellan somewhat uncomfortable.
The next day he will also oversee the baptism of Anna, a seven-yearold girl, daughter of the previously baptized Zwierzchowskis, formerly Leybko Hirsh of Satanów and his wife, Hava. The little girl is lovely and polite. Kossakowska arranged a white dress for her, modest but of good material, and cream-colored shoes made out of real leather. Kossakowski has also set aside a certain amount of money for her education. The Kossakowskis even thought of taking her to raise themselves, so clever and amiable is she, had her parents agreed to it. But the parents politely thanked them for all their kindness and took the child home with them.
Now these Zwierzchowskis are standing in the church, intimidated, their foreheads wet with holy water, which the priest has certainly not skimped on. He reads aloud their opulent-sounding last name. They look at that little angel led in by Mr. Kossakowski in his church kontusz. The girl’s father, Josephus Bartholomeus Zwierzchowski, as his name is written in the baptismal books, is thirty-five years old, while his wife is only twenty-three and pregnant yet again. Little Anna is the only child they have who’s still alive. All the others died of the Lwów plague.
Father Gaudenty Pikulski, a Bernardine, interrogates the naive