Stefania and Petro’s Relationship

Stefania and Petro’s Relationship is an uneasy bond formed around Adèle: Stefania serves and loves her with a closeness that predates the marriage, while Petro’s arrival as husband makes him both a fellow caretaker and a rival. Their relationship is marked by the contrast between Stefania’s practical knowledge of Adèle’s needs and Petro’s possessive control over who may approach her. It never settles into mutual intimacy; instead, brief moments of recognition and shared humor sit beside resentment, insult, and the threat of separation.

First Impressions and Unequal Intimacy

At a theatrical performance, Stefania whispers her rational explanation of Ernest Thorn’s apparent illusion to Adèle, who grips Petro’s hand. Petro leans in to hear, then answers Stefania with a knowing smile when Adèle shakes her head, wanting to believe in miracles. The exchange briefly places the three together: Stefania offers an account based on careful observation, Petro recognizes her point, and Adèle resists it. Their moment of complicity is small, but it shows that Stefania and Petro can share an understanding even as their loyalties remain centered on Adèle.

Stefania describes herself as sturdy, dark-complexioned, alert, and robust, in contrast to Adèle’s fragile, pale appearance. She notes that Petro admires her striking hair, but immediately distinguishes that appreciation from his greater admiration for Adèle, for whom he has already built a mausoleum. His artistic eye can notice Stefania’s hair and other forms, yet his deepest devotion is directed toward his wife. The distinction anticipates the imbalance that governs Stefania’s place in the household: she may be seen, but Adèle remains the center of Petro’s desire.

Caregiving and the Marriage

Stefania’s account of Adèle and Petro’s honeymoon in Kraków, Budapest, and Vienna makes her own participation in their married life unmistakable. Adèle feared leaving without her and only agreed to travel after several nights of tears; Petro consented after repeated pleading. During the month away, Stefania arranged for Adèle to receive soft-boiled eggs while Petro did not, sought the freshest cream for Adèle’s coffee, and dressed, groomed, and prepared her. Her work follows the couple into their private life, though Petro behaves as if Stefania’s contribution does not exist.

Adèle also confides details of her physical intimacy with Petro: he is captivated by the scent of her skin and buries his face in the hollow of her neck, where his beard leaves painful red marks. Stefania applies lavender cream to those marks. She points out that Adèle’s scented skin is partly the result of her own labor: she prepares Adèle’s bath and brings the scented salts, oils, and herbal infusions used to rub her body. Thus Stefania tends both to the ordinary requirements of Adèle’s comfort and to the aftermath of the intimacy that binds husband and wife. Her service is close enough to enter their bedroom, yet it does not give her the standing of a partner.

After Stefania returns to the hotel from a solitary walk, Petro opens the door and studies her face. She smiles at him; he does not return the smile, but she sees interest and gentleness in his eyes. She understands his response as permission to approach Adèle and is grateful that he lets her in. The moment carries a change in the balance between them: Stefania recognizes that Petro can decide who sees his wife. Her place near Adèle is not simply a right established by their shared past; it is now subject to her husband’s consent.

Rivalry, Resentment, and Recognition

Back at the Anger household, Stefania sees Petro at the doorway behind her while Adèle turns away in anger. She catches Petro smiling in a large gilt-framed mirror and returns his smile through the reflection. Inwardly, she decides that he still has things to learn: Adèle is difficult, and he needs Stefania too. Their reflected exchange suggests a private acknowledgment of her indispensable knowledge of Adèle, even as the household’s structure gives Petro the position of husband and gatekeeper.

Petro’s regular visits to the household sharpen Stefania’s jealousy. Adèle prepares beer, grilled cheese, stuffed eggs, tongue canapés, and catfish for him, lays out a fresh, crisp tablecloth, and decorates dishes and carafes with foliage and fruit. She asks Stefania to arrange her hair and dresses up, while repeatedly inspecting herself in the mirror. Stefania mocks her with such bitterness that Adèle sometimes cries; then Stefania regrets the cruelty and tries to hide the redness of her nose and swollen eyes. Her resentment does not cancel her tenderness, but the two impulses collide in the same scenes. When the intensity becomes unbearable, she leaves the room and runs into the lilac bushes, overwhelmed by love, hurt, and anger.

Stefania’s jealousy becomes more disturbing when she privately hopes that Petro will learn of Adèle’s infertility and withdraw from the marriage, restoring some of Stefania’s former place. She knows that Adèle’s inability to have children has been confirmed by physicians, yet she also knows Petro could leave without being condemned. Stefania expects him to abandon Adèle, but he does not. Instead, he remains steadfast, and Adèle’s manner toward him changes: she places her hand on his rough, large one at dinner with what Stefania sees as a doglike fidelity. Stefania is nauseated and saddened by this closeness, imagining that the couple now regard themselves as a single being rather than parents of a third. Even so, she acknowledges Petro’s constancy and says he has done them no harm. Her judgment becomes more complicated than jealousy alone: he is a worthy husband to Adèle precisely because he stays.

Estrangement and Conflict in the Household

That recognition does not make Petro welcoming. Stefania wonders what he sees when he looks at Adèle, imagining the many idealized forms her husband might perceive in her, then asks what he sees in Stefania. In her own fearful imagery, she becomes a pest or an obstacle—something unpleasant and obstructive rather than a person. She observes that Petro passes her as if she were empty space, avoids speaking to her, and relays instructions through Adèle. When circumstance forces him to look at her, he narrows his eyes and presses his lips together; his words seem strained through clenched teeth. Stefania believes she has obediently made room for him in the life she once shared with Adèle, yet feels treated as if she were the one who intruded.

The conflict surfaces openly when Adèle tells Stefania that Petro has suggested finding another servant to do the housework quietly and not try to get into the couple’s bed. Stefania takes the remark as an accusation against her intimacy with Adèle and an attempt to separate them. Her fear is sharpened by her conviction that Adèle cannot manage alone: she imagines her unable to perform basic tasks safely and believes she could injure herself, start a fire, or waste away from grief. The language of dependence turns Stefania’s caregiving into both a form of protection and a reason she cannot imagine leaving. Petro’s desire for a servant who will keep out of the marriage challenges the closeness on which Stefania’s sense of duty and belonging rests.

A domestic accident adds physical danger to their antagonism. While Petro is washing, Stefania accidentally pours boiling water over his hands. He groans in pain and anger, then turns away and slams the door rather than retaliating. She later finds him in the garden, his hands red and scalded, rolling a cigarette made with tobacco and French paper that she herself buys for him. He reproaches her for not having poured boiling acid instead. The exchange makes the hostility unmistakable, but the cigarette supplies a contrary detail: even while resenting him, Stefania continues to provide for him through ordinary household errands.

Petro finally tells Stefania that she needs a man. She turns on him in anger, taking the remark as an insult and asking whether he means to sell her to Ernest Thorn’s variety show. Petro spits to the side and says that she and Adèle should both be there, like sisters sharing one heart, one stomach, and one liver. His image recognizes the extraordinary closeness between the women, but frames it as an abnormal fusion rather than as a bond he intends to accommodate. It also exposes the unresolved shape of his relationship with Stefania: he is tied to her through the woman they both love, but neither trust nor equality grows from that connection. Stefania picks up the laundry and goes back toward the house, carrying the practical work of the household through another exchange that leaves their conflict intact.