At nine o’clock on the morning of Sunday, April 12, 1885, Charles Kassemberg was still in bed. He asked his mistress to prepare him some tea. In the wardrobe, a glass filled with a blackish liquid caught his eye; when he inquired as to its contents, Mathilde Gumulinska replied that it was an infusion of pectoral flowers prepared for herself. She then went out to fetch provisions. Upon her return, she set before him the cup of tea he had requested, took from the cupboard the glass he had noticed, and raised it to her lips as though to drink from it. The narrative of the indictment, published later by the Gazette des Tribunaux, opens with this morning scene, wherein the most ordinary of gestures—offering a drink—was destined to become the crux of a criminal trial.
Kassemberg observed that Mathilde was ill-advised to take such tea cold, remarking further upon its singular colour. She replied that the draught had been brewed the day before. Setting the glass down beside him, she added: “If you are thirsty, drink of it; it is sweetened, and it would be a pity to let it spoil.” For ten minutes or so thereafter, according to the account, she gazed out of the window in silence. She then took up the glass once more and held it beneath her lover’s nose, bidding him smell it and asking why he refused to drink. He answered: “I am not thirsty; leave me in peace!”
An instant later, she brought the glass near to his mouth again. Kassemberg, persisting in his refusal, made a motion to thrust it away; at that moment, she dashed the liquid across his face. At first, he believed it a clumsy mishap. The searing agony of the burn soon disabused him. Wiping himself with the bedsheet, he begged his mistress to fetch a physician, while he rose to douse himself with copious amounts of water. Five minutes later, she returned, announcing that a doctor was on his way, and attempted to wipe the traces of the liquid from Kassemberg’s face. Suddenly, she burst into sobs, begged his forgiveness, and kissed his hands; at the same time, according to the indictment, she took all the money from her lover’s trouser pockets, left the room, and was seen no more.
The medical examiner noted burns of the second and, above all, the third degree upon the face, neck, left forearm, and thighs. These had healed by the time the account went to press, leaving no scars. The newspaper’s headline named vitriol; the medical passage described the injuries without determining the chemical composition of the liquid. The brief editorial summary in the Gazette had announced that no trace of the corrosive agent would remain; the clinical detail reveals the true gravity behind this phrasing: the wounds had been severe, but their visible marks had faded away.
The incident unfolded against the backdrop of an estrangement that had begun far from Paris. Approximately two years earlier, Kassemberg had met Mathilde Gumulinska in Warsaw. She tended the counter of the restaurant where he took his meals. Their acquaintance soon grew close enough for them to cohabit for eight months. Mathilde’s mother pressed Kassemberg to regularise the union through marriage; Charles’s father, on the contrary, opposed the match and even prevailed upon the young couple to part. The separation proved short-lived. They resumed their liaison, while Kassemberg incurred debts to maintain the household; his father thereupon dispatched him to Paris.
He arrived alone, rented a furnished room at 7 Rue Lebon, and found employment with an electrical apparatus manufacturer. Having remained in Poland, Mathilde received a letter summoning her to join him. She arrived in Paris at the end of December 1884 and took up residence with him. This cohabitation drew fresh reproaches from Kassemberg’s father. For his part, Kassemberg alleged that his companion was idle and neglectful: whilst he laboured in the workshop, he claimed, she spent her days out of doors, neglecting the household and pursuing no gainful occupation. This portrait belongs strictly to Kassemberg’s deposition, as recorded by the Gazette; it in no way constitutes an independent appraisal by the journal of Mathilde’s character.
A final separation was contemplated once more. Kassemberg asserted that he had appealed in vain first to his father, then to Mathilde’s parents, to obtain the funds requisite for her return to Poland. The report adds that she had allegedly received some modest remittances from her brother. On April 4, she asked a compatriot, a Monsieur Erman, to exchange thirty-two roubles sent from Poland into French currency. She explained to him that she was deeply unhappy with Kassemberg, whom she referred to as her husband, and that she would soon set out for her native land. On Friday, April 10, she packed her belongings and made a bundle of her linen.
One question remained unresolved in the columns of the Gazette: how had a young woman who knew no French succeeded in procuring vitriol? The journal mentioned a Polish dressmaker who was suspected of having facilitated the purchase, but the woman strenuously denied the allegation. Kassemberg, cited in the report, acknowledged having been intimate with this compatriot, having at first believed her to possess some wealth and deemed her suitable for marriage; he stated he had broken off with her upon realising his mistake. The text provides no warrant for concluding that this dressmaker furnished the chemical.
The Gazette des Tribunaux reported the matter on June 7, 1885, following the hearing of June 6 before the Eleventh Correctional Chamber of Paris, presided over by Monsieur Ragobert. Mathilde failed to appear: the article specifies that the case was tried in absentia. It notes that Kassemberg’s testimony corroborated the facts set forth in the public prosecutor’s indictment, and concludes with the sentence: Mathilde Gumulinska was condemned to eight months’ imprisonment.
Thus the account drew to a close. The glass had been left by the bedside as though it were a drink one was loath to see wasted; Kassemberg had refused it, then thrust it aside. The journal preserved this physical detail in the midst of a narrative it framed as an ordinary case of domestic revenge. Behind that formula remain a bitterly contested parting, grave physical injuries, and a sentence pronounced in the absence of the woman condemned to serve it.