Who Was The Real-Life Laurie In Little Women
Louisa met Ladislas “Laddie” Wisniewski in Switzerland when she was working as a companion for an invalid woman called Anna Weld. Laddie was a 21-year-old composer from Poland. He was very charming and he called Louisa his “little mama”. He had tuberculosis and Louisa nursed him. Louisa was a trained nurse. He was flirting with Louisa. Something happened between Ladislas and Miss Weld. They got into an argument. Some believe that he tried to force her to sleep with him and others say that he proposed to her. There is an Alcott story called “Anna´s whim”. There is a character who sounds just like Ladislas and he proposes a rich heiress called Anna. So maybe the proposal idea is not so far fetched.
This is what Louisa writes “Anna troubled about Laddie who was in a despairing state of mind. I could not advise them to be happy as they desired. So everything went wrong and both worried”.
Previous diary markings suggest that Laddie had been flirtatious with Louisa and had even mentioned a possible future together. Louisa had written that Anna Weld was “whiny, needy, foolish, and didn´t have a glue about Goethe”. The tone of Louisa´s diary markings change. She begins to sympathize with Anna and becomes more suspicious about Laddie. When Louisa writes “could not advise them to be happy as they desired?” what does she mean? did Ladislas and Anna had suddenly become affectionate with one another. It is very unlikely because quite soon Ladislas announced that he was leaving. Imagine being Louisa. First, this handsome young guy is flirting with you all the time and being romantic and then he proposes to your boss. Louisa was not rich at the time. She was not considered particularly beautiful and Louisa was about 32 when this happened. When her employment ended she went to Paris and spent a day with him without a chaperone, which was very scandalous and after that she wrote to her very censored journal words “couldn´t be”.
If you guys have read little women 2019 film guide Greta Gerwig writes “Jo and Laurie could be a great couple if they would like to be”. Well, it does seem that Louisa did not want it. This reminds me of what Emily said in our Laurie podcast. When Laurie was proposing to Jo, he was looking for someone to nanny him. Alcott biographer Harriet Reisen points out that perhaps Ladislas was a conman who prayed on wealthy women. There are things that suggest that Wisniewski might have been a conman. Louisa writes in her journal about his “miraculous recovery from tuberculosis”. Tuberculosis killed millions of people and very conveniently, Ladislas is miraculously healed, just before he has this conflict with Miss Weld.
I don´t know if he was a conman or not but I do believe that he might have mistaken Louisa´s care for him as something romantic and that he did want her to nanny him, which is not something that you can build a healthy relationship on and I am pretty convinced that he was not on Louisa´s intellectual level and she could not rely on him being supportive on her writing.
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