“After you, my good lady.”
The presbytery stands just off the dilapidated road. It’s a small wooden manor house, whitewashed nicely and well cared for. You can see that in the summer it was encircled by clusters of flowers, which now lie slumped and yellow, low to the ground. Already someone’s hand has gone about putting things in order, placing a portion of the stalks in a pile that is only smoldering—the fire evidently feels unsure of itself in such damp air. Among the stalks roam two proud peacocks, one of them old and resigned, with not much of his tail left. The other is confident, even aggressive, he runs up to Dru?backa and butts into her dress again and again until the frightened woman steps aside.
She looks around the garden—it’s beautiful, every flower bed delimited with clean, straight lines, round stones placed along the path, and everything planned out according to the finest botanical art: by the fence are roses for vodka and no doubt for church wreaths, too; farther down, angelica, anise, plants for incense. Over the stones creep thyme, mallow, hazelwort, and chamomile. Not many of the herbs are left at this time of year, but their presence can be gathered from the little wooden tablets placed before them, containing their names.
From the presbytery, a meticulously raked path leads into the heart of a small park, and on either side of the path, there is a somewhat primitive bust with a caption carved underneath it. Over the entrance to the garden, there is a clumsy inscription on a slat, which the priest very obviously attempted himself:
To preserve the body from foul stench, Here is this garden’s healthy fragrance.
Such verses make Dru?backa wince.
The grounds are rather small; at some stage, the embankment slopes sharply down toward the river, but there, too, the priest has readied a surprise: stone steps, a little bridge over a tiny stream, past which point stands the church: high, imposing, and gloomy. It towers over cottages with thatched roofs.
Going down the steps, you can see the lapidarium on either side. You are supposed to stop at each stone and read its caption.
Ex nihilo orta sunt omnia, et in nihilum omnia revolvuntur: From nothing came everything, and to nothing will everything return, reads Dru?backa, and suddenly a shudder passes through her, both from the cold and from that caption, somewhat awkwardly engraved into the stone. So what was the point of it all? she wonders. Of all this effort? These paths and little bridges, little gardens, wells, steps—these inscriptions?
The priest now leads her to the road along the rocky path, and in this way, they complete their orbit around the modest property. Poor Dru?backa—she seems not to have expected such a turn of events. She does have good shoes, leather shoes, but she nearly froze in the carriage and felt more like warming her old back at a stove than scampering about in the wilderness. At last, after this forced promenade, her host invites her inside; at the door to the presbytery, another inscription, engraved on a large plaque:
Benedykt Chmielowski, the priest
Firlejów’s sinner now deceased
Just a parson in Podkamień
Vicar forane of Rohatyn
Not worthy, and gone in a flash
Not canon now, but dust and ash
For his sins he begs for prayers
That they not gore him there like mares
Almighty Father, who art sublime,
You have fulfilled him for all time.
She looks at him in astonishment.
“What can this be? Are you already preparing for death?”
“Better to have it all ready in advance, so as not to unnecessarily burden bereaved relatives later on. I want to know what will be on my tombstone. Otherwise it would be some foolishness, no doubt—not what I would write myself. At least this way I know.”
Dru?backa, too tired, takes a seat and starts to look around for something to drink, but the table in the room is empty, not counting papers. The house smells of damp mixed with smoke. The chimneys have probably not been cleaned in some time. And the draft is cold. In the corner stands a stove lined with white tiles, and next to it a basket filled with wood, so much that she can tell the stove was only just lit—no wonder the room hasn’t heated up yet.
“I really froze out there,” says Dru?backa.
The priest, wincing like he’s just swallowed a piece of rotten food, quickly opens a cupboard and takes out a cut-crystal carafe and two glasses.
“Mrs. Kossakowska looked very familiar to me . . . ,” he begins uncertainly, pouring the liqueur. “At one time, I knew her eldest sister . . .”
“Mrs. Jab?onowska, you mean,” Dru?backa says, distracted, flooding her mouth with the sweet drink.
A jaunty, rotund woman enters the room—she must be the priest’s housekeeper—carrying two bowls of steaming soup on a tray.
“Whoever saw a guest flitting around in the cold so,” she chides the priest, and he evidently feels uncomfortable under her reproachful gaze. Dru?backa, meanwhile, is slowly coming back to life. Blessed be that stout lady savior. The soup is thick, vegetable, with potatoes and noodles swimming in it. It is only now that the vicar forane notices Dru?backa’s muddied shoes and her hunched back; now he realizes she’s shivering all over, and out of instinct he makes a gesture as if to embrace her, although of course he doesn’t follow through with it.