42 Magdalena Ożarska Jan Kochanowski University, Kielce Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance”: Malvina, or the Heart’s Intuition (1816) It is a fact that Jane Austen’s novels were not rendered into Polish in the nineteenth century, the first translation being published as late as 1934 (Bystydzieńska 2007). Yet there is ample evidence to suggest that novels by Western European authors were read by educated Poles either in their original language versions or in French translations and adaptations (Zawadzka 1997). More importantly, there is evidence of the Polish upper-classes’ sufficient proficiency in the English language to read and appreciate English literature in the original (Sinko 1966), the Czartoryski family being a case in point (Gołębiowska 2000).1 It is also a fact that Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski was impressed by the anonymously published Pride and Prejudice2 to the point of trying to establish its authorship in 1814, and that the library at the Puławy seat of the Czartoryski family held 1813 copies of Sense and Sensibility as well as Pride and Prejudice. All this is crucial in viewing the romance by Maria Wirtemberska, née Czartoryska, as a text likely to have been influenced by Jane Austen’s works, as several parallels emerge in terms of the motifs and characters central to the novel’s structure. Importantly, the popularity of Austen’s work in Poland was rather limited – as Bystydzieńska explains: Austen […] did not suit the interests of Polish Romanticism with her seemingly ‘trivial’ topics, humorous tone and well-structured novels, which appeared to present an orderly, harmonious universe. […] The ‘liberation’ of women in Polish literature was achieved rather through various patriotic tasks and sacrifices. (Bystydzieńska 2007: 320) All this makes any trace of possible Austenian inspirations even more interesting. Written in 1812 and first published in 1816, Malvina or the Heart’s Intuition (Polish: Malwina, czyli domyślność serca) by Maria Wirtemberska (or Countess Maria Anna von Württemberg-Montbéliard, b. 1768, d. 1854) appeared but five 1 2 Gołębiowska lists the following novels found in the Czartoryskis’ Puławy library: Richardson’s Pamela, Clarissa and Sir Charles Grandison, Sterne’s Tristram Shandy and Sentimental Journey, Walpole’s Castle of Otranto and Lewis’s The Monk (2000: 66). “By the Author of ‘Sense and Sensibility’”. Magdalena Ożarska years after the publication of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (1811). The novel instantly won the acclaim of Warsaw’s elegant society and drew some very favourable responses even from the sterner moralists of the era, who were on the whole suspicious of the new genre, the scientist and philosopher Jan Śniadecki included (Wojciechowski n.d.: 32). Even though Malvina did not enter wider circulation (Billip 1978), it sold well through its 1816, 1817, 1822 and 1828 editions. The novel certainly did have an impact on the development of Polish literature and it was promising to become influential in wider Europe. Soon after Malvina’s first publication, a project to render it into French was initiated: it was a group undertaking by salon frequenters who had their work published first in Warsaw (1817) and then in Paris (1822).3 A Russian-language version was printed in 1834, and a translation into German was planned (Aleksandrowicz 2006: 292-3). In 1873, Hieronim Kuczalski’s The Heart’s Intuition: a Comedy in Two Acts, Adapted from French (Domyślność serca. Komedia w dwóch aktach przerobiona z francuskiego) was staged (Aleksandrowicz 2006: 290). Full of staple sentimental motifs, with ample admixture of gothic elements (Billip 1978: 16, 228), Malvina catered to contemporary tastes very well. Moreover, it offered glimpses of the nation’s splendid past to suggest (explicit expressions of patriotism being impossible given the contemporary system of censorship) that one day Poland would be restored to its former glory. Wirtemberska’s prefatory letter “To My Brother” advertises the novel as a romance,4 the first of the genre, and highlights the fact that it was written in the 3 4 The title of the Warsaw edition was Malvina, ou l’instinct du coeur; that of the Paris edition – La polonaise ou l’instinct du coeur. Both nineteenth-century and later critics tend to agree that Malvina is a romance if a romance is conceived of as a story of courtship, betrothal and a wedding-bells-type happy ending, and a specimen of the sentimental novel at the same time, i.e. “first of all a story of love, and second a story of trials and tribulations” (Foster 1949: 16, 160). The merits of Wirtemberska’s novel, however, were not always properly recognised. In the 1930s, Malvina was pronounced to be no proper work of literary art but a pleasing primitive. As such, it was appreciated as the first expression of feminine affections in Polish literature and one of the earliest attempts to create Polish vocabulary of feeling (Borowy 1932: 90). Five decades later, Malvina was declared the first Polish full-fledged sentimental novel (Kleiner 1981: 158). In the 1990s, Malvina was classified with sentimental novels (Zawadzka 1997). At the turn of the twenty-first century, Borkowska, Czermińska and Phillips defined the novel as a sentimental romance with Sternean influences (Borkowska, Czermińska and Phillips 2000: 40-1); in 2001, Malvina was “generally considered as falling into the ‘sentimental’ genre’” (Phillips 2001b: 66). Needless to say, when the text first appeared, it was – in accordance Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 43 Polish language. All the same, the writer resorts to the familiar modesty topos of eighteenth-century women novelists. She defines the romance as a genre not merely preoccupied with plots of a heroine’s successful courtship, but one that is combined with a critical portrayal of contemporary society. It is the incompleteness and imperfection of the latter aspect that Wirtemberska laments in her opening letter. She sums her apology up with an expression of hope that her romance may prove didactic and thus useful to her readers. In this way, Wirtemberska approximates Jane Austen’s practice of combining what is now called the novel of manners with the social novel. Her English predecessor was however more reserved when it came to revealing her “eighteenth-century didactic end, moral and emotional instruction” (Fergus 1983: 10): she shunned conspicuous didacticism. To complete the generic label, the Polish writer subtitles her novel “An Original Romance”. The sources of the “originality” of Wirtemberska’s romance can easily be traced to major European written works of the late eighteenth century. Of course, it must be remembered that Poland was a couple of decades behind major European centres of culture. That is why any act of drawing on novelistic models well-known in the rest of the Continent, but not in Poland, was still an innovation. It is on these circumstances that Maria Wirtemberska capitalised. Her major European inspirations, which have long been identified, include Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774), Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Julie, or the New Heloise (1761) and Madame Cottin’s Malvina (1801), as well as James Macpherson’s Ossianic poetry (the 1760s) and Lawrence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1768) (see Wojciechowski n.d.; Zawadzka 1997; Aleksandrowicz 2006; et al.). To date, however, Jane Austen’s influences on Wirtemberska’s writing have not been given the benefit of sustained investigation. This is a curious fact, given their conspicuous presence in Malvina. Wirtemberska’s Austenian inspirations seem to have come most directly from Sense and Sensibility as well as Northanger Abbey. This is manifested most clearly in the central concern of both novels, i.e. the question of whether the heart or the rational mind ought to be accepted as the driving force in human, particularly female, lives and affections. While in Sense and Sensibility Austen evades shifting the balance to either side and advocates the need for a golden mean (in itself a demonstration of common sense), with its author’s intention – hailed as the first Polish romance (Śniadecki 1816; until Tarnowski 1870). Many twentieth- and twenty-first century critics appreciate it as the first Polish psychological novel (Wojciechowski n.d.; Borowy 1932; Budzyk 1966; Bilip 1976; Kleiner 1981; Szary-Matywiecka 1994; Zawadzka 1997; Phillips 2001, 2001a; Aleksandrowicz 2006; et al.). 44 Magdalena Ożarska Wirtemberska’s stand is to the contrary: her heroine is an embodiment of the eponymous intuition, which gives her the winning edge over Fate’s adversities. Hence, as Aleksandrowicz aptly puts it, the novel which praised unrestrained reliance on one’s insight went on to become a manifesto of Polish pre-Romanticism, and a Polish New Heloisa (Aleksandrowicz 2006: 294). The plot of Maria Wirtemberska’s Malvina is considerably more complicated than those of Jane Austen’s. A young Polish noblewoman is married off to a rich old man. When Malvina’s spouse conveniently dies as a result of alcohol abuse and reckless horse-riding, her only comfort is reading romances and gothic tales, which enables her to fantasise about love, chivalry, and perfect male companions. A young widow, she returns to her family home to live with her younger sister, Wanda, and a dearly loved aunt, both enthusiasts of romance fiction. All of a sudden, a handsome young man called Ludomir appears to help save a peasant child during a providential fire in one of Malvina’s villages. He joins the ladies’ household for a while, and Malvina instantly takes to him although Ludomir is unwilling to talk about his parentage. Having barely expressed his affection for the heroine, he leaves, and a note she finds tells her he deems himself no match for her. Malvina pines after her beau but is sent to Warsaw for the winter season to be duly diverted. At a ball, she meets Ludomir who appears a changed man, failing to recognise her or relate to their shared experiences. Malvina is confused as the Warsaw Ludomir proposes to her. His grandfather, Prince of Melsztyn, approves of the marriage. Thanks to her intuition, Malvina gradually comes to realise that her admirer is but a look-alike of the Ludomir she met before. The Warsaw Ludomir is not free from moral weaknesses absent in the original, although he bears the same name. The mystery thickens, another dramatic fire5 occurs in Malvina’s presence to let her catch a glimpse of the genuine Ludomir (or so she imagines), allowing the heroine to rely on her intuition again. When the mystery is finally unravelled, it transpires that years ago, the Prince of Melsztyn had banished his only daughter from his sight for her choice of the wrong marriage partner. He was never informed that she had borne twins before her and her husband’s deaths. One of the twins (Ludomir No. 1 – the original) had been stolen by a party of travelling Gypsies. Ludomir No. 2 was the other twin, both having been given the Christian name of their late father, unlikely as this sounds. Following a properly emotional anagnorisis scene, the happy ending comes complete with a double 5 Kleiner remarks on this profusion of fires in the novel’s plot and their naively comical effect (Kleiner 1981: 174). Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 45 wedding – Malvina marries Ludomir No. 1, and her sister Wanda No. 2. This is how Malvina’s intuition ultimately wins, having rewarded her with an appropriate marriage partner. In the early days of the development of the novel, when its status was dubious and subject to debate, several strategies were used to corroborate novel plot authenticity, as Ian Watt claims in his now classic The Rise of the Novel (1957). As is well known, the reading of romances (a favourite pastime of both Malvina and a number of Austenian heroines) had the dangerous potential to harm the impressionable minds of young women and consequently needed to be restricted (Szary-Matywiecka 1994: 12; Witkowska and Przybylski 2002: 145). This view persisted both in England and in Poland, and the moral ambiguity attached to texts of the romance type was likewise remarked on by contemporary critics (see Grogan 1999; Binhammer 2003; Auerbach 2004). Yet, importantly, according to the OED definition, from the seventeenth century onwards, the term “romance” was used to mean simply “a fictitious narrative in prose of which the scenes and incidents are very remote from ordinary life”. Soon, it was to become a “dismissive term, especially in English usage; other European languages have admitted the unity of Romance and Novel: a novel is le roman, der Roman, il romanzo” (Doody 1997: 15-6). In Polish, too, the term “romance” was not infrequently used as equivalent to the “novel”, without the stigma of inferiority which it had already acquired in Western Europe (Witkowska and Przybylski 2002: 144). The Polish notion of “romance”, as used in Maria Wirtemberska’s times, denoted a fictional text, packed with improbable developments (Witkowska 1971: xv). The close-knit relationship between early novel/romance writers and their readers was, not surprisingly, frequently reflected in the fiction of the turn of the nineteenth century. The novelists picked on the romance reading motif, not only in view of the already-mentioned public debate on its doubtful propriety, but primarily because of the growing popularity of romance reading. This was the situation in both England and Poland, well reflected by the following quote from Thomas Gray: “Now as the Paradisiacal pleasures of the Mahometans consist in playing upon the flute and lying with Houris, be mine to read eternal new romances of Marivaux and Crebillon” (from Letter iv to Mr. West; quoted after Bartlett 1856: 197). Seemingly, having little in common with women’s romance fiction, this passage (an adaptation thereof, to be precise)6 was – tellingly – taken 46 up somewhat later by one of the major Polish historical novelists, Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1812-1887). It provided a motto for Kraszewski’s 1836 article “On Polish Romance Writers” (“O polskich romansopisarzach”), critical – if not contemptuous – of the state of the Polish novel (Witkowska 1971: xiv) and especially sceptical about the genre of the sentimental romance. In Polish, sentimental prose works may have been referred to as romances, but the genre’s alleged inferiority was not always the focal point. Nevertheless, the romance was sometimes pigeonholed as a potentially harmful genre on the same grounds as in the rest of Europe: it was claimed to promote affectation and foster moral degradation. But, to many a mother’s relief, in 1820, Polish readers were informed that they did not have as many romances to be alarmed about, compared with other nations (Witkowska and Przybylski 2002: 144-5). This happy-go-lucky attitude differed markedly from eighteenth-century views. For instance, Bishop Ignacy Krasicki, Poland’s leading Enlightenment poet and moralist, had expressed a critical opinion of sentimental romances (Sinko 1966: 599).7 In 1784, the Warsaw Magazine had widely discussed what was referred to as the contemporary epidemic of romances, under the title of “Castles in the Sky, or Female Delusions” (“Zamki na powietrzu, czyli urojenia kobiet”; quoted after Sinko 1966: 585). This critical and somewhat contemptuous attitude had persisted from the 1770s (cf. Franciszek Zabłocki with his “Advice to Young Dorothy” – “Rady młodej Dorotce dane”) onwards, well into the 1790s (A. M. Prokopowicz, “A New Way of … Writing and Reading for Young Ladies” – “Sposób nowy… pisania i czytania, dla panienek”). Polish statistics show that the romance enjoyed considerable popularity mainly among eighteenth-century noblewomen,8 while gentlewomen’s libraries only held about 20% romances, which was roughly equivalent to the percentage present in contemporary booksellers’ catalogues (Sinko 1966: 612). It is interesting that in 1870, in a lecture delivered at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, Dr Stanisław Tarnowski declared the nineteenth century to be the age of the journal and the romance. Having elaborated on the contrast between Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778) or Sophie Cottin’s Mathilde (1805), and the contemporary Polish novel, Tarnowski concluded that Malvina, although important as the first Polish romance, already appeared ridiculous to his contemporaries (Tarnowski 1871: 7 6 The Polish version, as used by Kraszewski, reads: “W raju będziemy od rana do wieczora czytali romanse” (“In paradise, we will be reading romances from morning till night”) (Witkowska 1971: xiv). Magdalena Ożarska 8 Cf. Krasicki’s verse satire on “A Lady of Fashion” (“Żona modna”), of 1784, where lamenting “the tribulations of Pamela and Heloise” (the original: “nad nieszczęściem Pameli albo Heloisy”, l.132) is gently mocked. Cf. the libraries of Izabella Potocka (32%), Elżbieta Lubomirska (53%), M. T. Tyszkiewiczowa (82%), or Anna Szaniawska née Scypion (63.2%) (Sinko 1966: 612). Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 47 3-13). So much had changed within but a couple of decades after the publication of Wirtemberska’s work. Overall, however, the function of early European novels is not to be underestimated: they “not only filled the leisure of those [middle- and upper-class women] without serious work but provided romantic fantasies to give meaning to their lives” (Perry 1980: 166). This was particularly true when novels focused on the “trials of love” (Doody 1980: 8), i.e. when they followed the pattern of what is now called courtship novels. The subject of the latter type had been defined as “the delaying actions that dot the road between a young woman’s emergence from her father’s protection and the subsumption of her identity into that of her husband” (Epstein 1996: 199). Malvina, like Jane Austen’s works, fulfils these conditions with a vengeance, but goes beyond a simple account of the heroine’s passing from the authority of one man to that of another (this much is succinctly summarised in Chapter Three, “In which the Reader Learns more Clearly who Malvina was” (18).9 As the synopsis of the Malvina plot has shown, the work features all the stock romance motifs. It is peopled with a heroine and a hero of sensibility (the protagonist’s name duly appearing in the very title), originally representing various social strata, as well as a male tyrant – Malvina’s first husband. The love story is wrought with obstacles bringing pain and suffering to the worthy heroine, who will nevertheless be rewarded with the inevitable happy ending. The plot progresses through the natural cycle of the seasons, starting from the spring, when the lovers first meet. It embraces the motif of “virtue rewarded” and expresses a preference for rural life as opposed to the corrupt city (cf. Zawadzka 1997). It also makes use of a contrast between two sisters (Kleiner 1981: 171). Several of these motifs are also found in Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility or Northanger Abbey (the separation of lovers, the heroine’s resulting confusion, the importance of wintering at the capital or a popular resort, the wedding bells ending, etc.). So to what extent is Maria Wirtemberska’s Malvina a take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility? Let us consider the significance of Wirtemberska’s novel title, where this capacity is highlighted. From roughly the 1760s until the late nineteenth century, “intuition” was used in English to mean, in a general sense, “direct or immediate 9 All quotes from Malvina come from the following edition: Maria Wirtemberska. 2010. Malvina or the Heart’s Intuition. Translation with an Introduction by Ursula Phillips. London: Polish Cultural Foundation, and will hereafter be denoted by page number only. 48 Magdalena Ożarska insight; or an instance of this” (OED).10 It is indeed a very apt translation of Wirtemberska’s eponymous “domyślność serca”, close to “the heart’s perspicacity” or “the heart’s penetration”. This focus on the heart brings Wirtemberska’s text particularly close to Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, in which, as Auerbach remarks, Austen used the noun “heart” most often (Auerbach 2004: 102). What then is the significance of the heart in relation to intuition? Can a heroine’s reading affect her heart’s intuition too much or only as much as necessary? Can the heart’s intuition be (mis)guided by her reading? One of the major issues in Austen’s Sense and Sensibility (and even more so in her Northanger Abbey, 1818) is the perils of romance reading. Wirtemberska also takes a stand in the contemporary debate on this subject – but to a different effect. Marianne Dashwood’s reading of romance literature may equip her with behaviour patterns for moments such as that when Willoughby jilts her, but it ultimately contributes to her inability to relate meaningfully to real life around her. It does not, however, land her in situations as ridiculous and embarrassing as those in which Catherine Morland finds herself. In Malvina, indiscriminate readers and enthusiasts of the romance are indeed numerous: they include the protagonist herself, her beloved aunt and sister Wanda. To some extent, Malvina resembles Austen’s Marianne Dashwood. The reader is told that Malvina also read Ossianic poetry and gothic fiction, which fed her passion for the glorious, chivalric past of her nation (cf. Phillips 2001: xxvii). This combination of reading interests strengthens the protagonist’s innate intuition rather than making her a nuisance to other characters or the narrator’s regular source of amusement (Lamont 1989: viii; Auerbach 2004: 106), as is the case with Austen’s Marianne. Marianne Dashwood, Catherine Morland and Malvina are all avid readers of romances. Only the latter’s heart is not misled, although Wirtemberska’s narrator makes it clear that Malvina “devoured romances with great avidity, and perhaps devoured rather too many. This insignificant fact was to influence to some extent her entire life, since it gave a particular bent to her thoughts, to her way of seeing things and judging people” (20). Yet Malvina’s mind, or heart, or both, had not been completely unformed when she embarked on romance reading. When unhappily married, she found her main consolation in her husband’s 10 In Polish, the noun does not seem to have been in use at the time, as it is missing from period-related entries in Polish-language dictionaries (J. Karłowicz, A. Kryński, and W. Niedźwiedzki’s 1902 Słownik języka polskiego; M. S. B. Linde’s 1960 Słownik języka polskiego; Franciszek Sławski’s 1952-1956 Słownik etymologiczny języka polskiego; Stefan Reczek’s 1968 Podręczny słownik dawnej polszczyzny; and Krystyna DługoszKurczabowa’s 2008 Wielki słownik etymologiczno-historycznego języka polskiego). Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 49 well-stocked library. […] Young and ignorant of many things, she read a lot and with great attention; one might even say she educated herself. She embellished her natural intelligence whilst she moulded her character, I hesitate to say still childish, according to certain principles. (19) It is then prior acquisition of knowledge that helps inculcate any value that is to be derived from romance reading and enables the heroine to avoid corrupting her intuition. This moral, promoting a rather balanced view, is clearly concurrent with the author’s moralistic intention, expressed in the prefatory letter, and indicates a blend of ideas representative of the Enlightenment and the Age of Sensibility at the same time. In this sense, the novel embodies the transition from the Age of Reason to Romanticism. But the moral does not do full justice to Wirtemberska’s intention implicated in the title. The effects of Malvina’s reading differ from those which reading may have on less formed individuals. Malvina’s more naive aunt and sister are affected in a manner that would hardly allow an Austenian narrator to contain her irony. The aunt, for example, repeatedly remarks on not having read about certain facts or situations in romance books. “‘It’s true,’ her aunt said on one occasion, ‘that this concealment of his social position, of his name, this sudden departure, are things which remain unclear, and I have never read anything like them in any romance’” (46). “Never had our good aunt read of such a case in any romance” (115), the narrator remarks when the aunt is puzzled by Malvina’s reluctance to marry Ludomir No. 2. Austen’s Mrs. Dashwood may not be heard to make utterances of this kind, but she flaunts her rampant immaturity when it comes to making arrangements for the future of her daughters: [Marianne’s] mother too, in whose mind not one speculative thought of their marriage had been raised, by his prospect of riches, was led before the end of a week to hope and expect it; and secretly to congratulate herself on having gained two such sons-in-law as Edward and Willoughby. (47)11 At another point, looking at Marianne and Willoughby with maternal affection, “Mrs. Dashwood entered into all their feelings with a warmth which left her no inclination for checking this excessive display of them. To her it was but the natural consequence of a strong affection in a young and ardent mind” (51-2). Both Austen and Wirtemberska make use of the rather conventional motif of two sisters (cf. Kleiner 1981: 171): Elinor and Marianne, Malvina and Wanda. 11 All quotes from Sense and Sensibility come from the following edition: Jane Austen. 1994. Sense and Sensibility. London: Penguin Books, and will hereafter be denoted by page number only. 50 Magdalena Ożarska The two sets of sisters serve an explicit contrastive purpose to Austen; in Wirtemberska’s novel, their function is to corroborate the duplicities central to the novel (the largely unlikely story of two Ludomirs among the most conspicuous). Wirtemberska’s two sisters are needed for the final twin wedding at the end and the ensuing double happy-ever-after. Both novelists also use the mother figure in a similar manner – making her either inefficient at mentally equipping her daughters for the future (Austen), or plainly dead and replaced with a good-natured but silly relative (Wirtemberska). As Juhasz elucidates, these two options of presenting the mother figure are typically found in the romance (Juhasz 1988: 241). Yet, apart from the effects of reading, the heroinehood of Wirtemberska’s Malvina and Austen’s Dashwood sisters reveals several points of similarity. Marianne consciously strives to be a perfect romance heroine. From the start, the reader is told, “her sorrows, her joys, could have no moderation. […] The resemblance between her and her mother was strikingly great” (5). Her views of love and life are naive and childish, which Austen’s narrator hardly ever omits to bring to the reader’s attention. Suffice it to mention Marianne’s failure to recognise a valuable individual in Edward Ferrars just because he is no great reader of poetry, or a worthy companion in Colonel Brandon because of his infamous flannel waistcoats – to Marianne, an emblem of ultimate senility. This is but one of the ways in which Marianne resembles her mother and projects an image of being unable to control her sensibility. Malvina, in turn, is thus characterised by the omniscient narrator: “Malvina, however, was far from perfect […]. [She] possessed a sensitive heart rather than violent emotions. She also owned a vigorous and perhaps too exuberant imagination, the product of […] a mind nourished by poetry and by romances” (26). She also dreaded offending others, because of “insufficient reflection and lack of caution in her actions (which were not always governed by discretion but more by the initial impulses of her heart), as well as a perhaps excessive need to be liked” (27). This suggests that Wirtemberska’s Malvina combines some features of Marianne’s and some of Elinor’s: the former’s passionate disposition with the latter’s considerate manner. Somewhat like Elinor, Malvina is balanced and steadfastly virtuous in the face of adversity: her heart continues to hope for the moral regeneration of her tyrannical husband as long as he lives (21). When told of his fatal horse-riding accident, Malvina offers “earnest prayers” for his recovery (21) and is not visibly satisfied at the prospect of becoming free from him at last. Like Marianne whose “form, though not so correct as her sister’s” still made her “a beautiful girl” (44), Malvina’s “beauty too lacked perfection” (27). Marianne “was still handsomer” (44) than her elder sister, and full of vigour and high spirits – particularly in the presence of her beau, John Willoughby. The latter Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 51 appears to her to be all her dreams come true – “the same books, the same music must charm us both” (16), etc. Edward, lamentably, is a “spiritless” reader. Just compare that with Wanda’s account of after-breakfast entertainment with Ludomir No. 1: “Ludomir read magnificently, with great attention; he seemed to read the scenes not only with his eyes but with his heart” (24; an excerpt from Wanda’s letter to the romance-loving aunt). No wonder Malvina, like Marianne, is love-stricken virtually at first sight: “Malvina […] seems […] not to have been too well for some time. […] But […] she is brighter and prettier than I have ever seen her before!” (25). Marianne falls for Willoughby in the famous rescue scene, the kind every young lady of the period must have dreamt about, particularly if she was an indiscriminate reader of romances. Malvina first meets her beau in even more dramatic circumstances – the village fire, as he saves a child from a burning cottage and thus spares her the risk of having to try and do that herself. Soon afterwards, she feels “a rush of stirring emotion as yet unknown to [her heart]” (12). Let us juxtapose this with Marianne’s feelings on making her first acquaintance of Willoughby: “Marianne herself had seen less of his person than the rest, for the confusion which crimsoned over her face, on his lifting her up, had robbed her of the power of regarding him after their entering the house” (41). Clearly, in both novels, love strikes the heroines at first sight. Malvina is partial to lonely walks in the romantic fashion, and enjoys charitable activities to the benefit of the village poor. The former is another feature which she shares with Marianne. Similarly, she is prone to exaltation, which she expresses in a strikingly similar manner and under not very dissimilar circumstances (i.e. house leaving): Malvina, perhaps already a quarter of a mile away, uttered with emotion her final farewell: ‘I take my leave of you, ancient castle, where I have enjoyed many years of tranquillity; I am entering a world of which I know nothing! I am leaving you, lonely God-forsaken abode! May I never regret leaving your peace!’ (21) This is how she effuses after her husband’s demise. Malvina may or may not be relieved to depart from the house of her tyrant husband, but her utterance strikes a familiar note when juxtaposed with Marianne’s emotive outpouring in the leaving-of-Norland scene in Chapter 5 of Sense and Sensibility: Many were the tears shed by them in their last adieus to a place so much beloved. “Dear, dear Norland!” said Marianne, as she wandered alone before the house, on the last evening of their being there; “when shall I cease to regret you!—when learn to feel a home elsewhere!—Oh! happy house, could you know what I suffer in now viewing you from this spot, from whence perhaps I may view you no more!—And you, ye well-known trees!—but you will continue the same.—No leaf will decay because we are removed, nor any branch become motionless although we can observe you no longer!—No; you 52 Magdalena Ożarska will continue the same; unconscious of the pleasure or the regret you occasion, and insensible of any change in those who walk under your shade!—But who will remain to enjoy you?” (25). Marianne’s entrapment in her own mistaken notions deepens as the novel progresses. Elinor’s propriety and endurance remain unshaken but continue to be a source of pain which she has to conceal. Malvina simply follows her intuition and never fails to make the right decisions. One last point: while Austen’s narratorial irony and humour are well-known, having made the reading of her novels an enjoyable pastime for over two centuries and the novels themselves attractive to numerous script writers, Wirtemberska’s novel has fared less well. Hardly less appealing to modern imagination in its presentation of young ladies’ lives in the past, their accomplishments, winter seasons of balls and parties, successful love intrigues (although perhaps somewhat too complicated for our liking now) and ultimate wedding bells, Wirtemberska’s novel is meant to be didactic. In her preface, in the still eighteenth-century manner, the author stresses that “striving for virtue is a more certain way than any other of striving for happiness” (4; italics original) and expresses her hope that “the romance can sometimes prove beneficial” (3). Beneficial for the readers, naturally: they are expected to learn their lesson, rather than simply enjoying the story of the protagonists’ love (mis)fortunes. Yet, as suggested above, with Wirtemberska, the ultimate question of which is better, sense or sensibility – the rational mind or the heart’s intuition, remains unanswered. While the main body of the novel repeatedly asserts the need for common sense, the title vindicates “the heart’s intuition” and the motto preceding the novel reinforces the message. It comes from Jacques Delille’s L’Imagination (1806), one of Wirtemberska’s favourite poems, and reads (in English translation): “When reason still hesitates and floats uncertainly, often instinct has already taken the right path” (Phillips 2001: xxiv). Clearly, where Jane Austen’s Marianne’s and Catherine’s intuitions fail by being overwrought in consequence of their indiscriminate reading, Malvina’s intuition is her saving grace. In other words, Wirtemberska seems to be writing in support of true, unaffected intuition, or the heart’s instinct, as opposed to the misguided intuitions of Austen’s otherwise lovable heroines. On the other hand, while Malvina is the one who follows her intuition and succeeds, what should the reader make of the love story between Taida (Thais) and Ludomir, i.e. the twins’ mother and father? Do they not obey their intuitions as well? If so, why do they have to pay the price of expulsion from society and untimely death? Is this not a warning against the dangers of unrestrained trust in one’s intuition – without the benefit of one’s common sense? Does Maria Wirtemberska appear to contradict herself on that point? Austenian inspirations for Maria Wirtemberska’s “Original Romance” 53 In Sense and Sensibility, significantly, it is only when Marianne recovers from her formative illness that she decides to embark on educational reading. She thus frames her inner transformation: I shall divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan, and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at the Park; and there are others of more modern production which I know I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a-day, I shall gain in the course of a twelve-month a great deal of instruction which I now feel myself to want. 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