The Doll (28 page)

The evening before the ceremony, a dumpy, sweating individual rushed into the shop: I could not say whether his collar had dirtied his neck, or vice versa. He produced a thick notebook from his worn overcoat, put on a greasy pince-nez and began walking about with an expression that alarmed me. ‘What the devil?…' thought I, ‘can he be from the police, or is he the landlord's secretary making an inventory?' I crossed his path in order to ask him, as civilly as could be, what he wanted.

But the first time he muttered: ‘Please don't interrupt,' and the second he unceremoniously pushed me aside. My amazement was all the greater, for some of our gentlemen bowed to him very politely and rubbed their hands, as though in the presence of a bank-manager at least, and explained everything to him.

‘Well,' said I to myself, ‘the poor devil can hardly be from the insurance company. They don't employ such shabby fellows.'

Finally Lisiecki whispered to me that the gentleman was a very eminent journalist, who was going to describe us in the newspaper. I grew excited to think that I might see my own name in print, something which has only happened once before, when it appeared in the
Police Gazette
after I lost my identity papers. In a moment I realised that everything about this man was great: a great head, a great notebook and a very great hole in the sole of his left shoe. But he kept walking about the shop, puffed up like a turkey-cock, and writing away…

At length he said: ‘Hasn't there been any kind of incident here lately? A small fire, a burglary, an embezzlement, a fight?'

‘God forbid,' I ventured to put in.

‘That is a shame,' he replied, ‘the finest advertisement for a shop would be if someone were to hang himself in it…'

I turned to stone on hearing this. ‘Perhaps the gentleman', I ventured with a bow, ‘would select some small object or other which we shall send without obligation…'

‘A bribe?' he asked, eyeing me as if I were Copernicus's statue, ‘we are in the habit,' he added, ‘of buying what we fancy: we take bribes from no one.' He put on his greasy top-hat and walked out, with his hands in his pockets, like a minister. But when he was on the other side of the street I could still see the hole in his shoe.

I must revert to the blessing ceremony. The main part of the proceedings, i.e. the dinner, took place in the great hall of the
Europejski Hotel
. The hall was adorned with flowers, huge tables placed in a horseshoe, music brought, and at six that evening, some hundred and fifty people gathered. Who was not present! Mainly merchants and manufacturers from Warsaw, the provinces, Moscow, even Vienna and Paris. There were also two counts, a prince and a quantity of gentlefolk. I will not mention the drink, for I do not know which there was more of—leaves on the vegetation adorning the hall, or bottles. The entertainment cost us three thousand roubles, but the sight of so many people eating was truly impressive.

When the Prince rose and drank Staś's health, when the music struck up (I don't know what the tune was, but something very pretty), and a hundred and fifty people roared: ‘Long live Wokulski!' then I had tears in my eyes. I hurried to him and whispered as I congratulated him: ‘See how they love you!'

‘They love the champagne,' he replied. I saw that the cheers meant nothing to him. He did not even smile when one of the speakers (who must have been a literary gentlemen, for he said a great deal and made no sense) said that either in his own name or that of Wokulski (I forget which) this was the finest day of his life. I noticed that Wokulski mostly stayed near Łęcki, who is said to have frequented European royalty before his bankruptcy…Always these wretched politics…

At the start of the banquet everything was very seemly: now and then one of the guests rose and made a speech, as if to talk off the wine he had drunk and the food he had eaten. But as more and more empty bottles were removed, so the decorum disappeared in proportion, and finally there was so much din that it almost drowned the band. I was as cross as the devil himself, and wanted to scold someone, even if only Mraczewski. Drawing him away from the table I only managed to say: ‘What is all this for?'

‘For?' he echoed, gazing blankly at me, ‘it's for Miss Łęcka…'

‘Are you mad? What's for Miss Łęcka?'

‘These business deals…the store…this dinner…all for her…And it was because of her that I was kicked out of the shop,' said Mraczewski, leaning on me for he couldn't keep his feet.

‘What?' I asked, seeing he was quite tipsy, ‘so you were kicked out of the shop on her account, were you? And perhaps it was on her account that you were sent to Moscow?'

‘Of course it was…of course. She whispered one little word.…And I got three hundred roubles a year more. Iza can make the old man do anything she wants.'

‘Come, off to bed with you,' I said.

‘Certainly not…I'm going to join my friends…Where are they? They'd handle Iza better…She wouldn't lead them a dance as she does the old man…Where are my friends?' he began shouting. Naturally I had him taken to a room upstairs. I suspect, though, he was only pretending to be tipsy in order to bedevil me.

By midnight the hall was like a mortuary or hospital; they kept having to take people upstairs or out to a droshky. Finally I found Dr Szuman, who was sober too, and took him to my room for tea.

Dr Szuman is a Hebrew, but an unusual man for all that. He was once to have been christened, for he fell in love with a Christian girl, but as she died he left matters alone. People even say he poisoned himself from grief, but was saved. Today he has quite abandoned his medical practice. He has a large fortune, and busies himself with investigating people and their hair. A small, yellow man, he has an alarming gaze before which nothing can be hidden. But as he has known Staś for years, he must know all his secrets.

After the noisy banquet I was curiously troubled and wanted to loosen Szuman's tongue a little. If he did not tell me something about Staś, then surely I would never know. When we reached my room and the samovar had been brought, I remarked: ‘Tell me frankly, doctor—what do you think of Staś? He is making me uneasy. I can see that for a year he has been throwing himself into all sorts of things. That trip to Bulgaria, and today this store…the trading company…his own carriage…There is a peculiar change in his character.'

‘I see none,' Szuman replied, ‘he always was a man of action who carried out whatever came into his head. He decided to go to the university, and went; he decided to make a fortune, and did so. If he has got some folly or other into his head, he will not hesitate to commit it. It's his character.'

‘But for all that,' I said, ‘I see many contradictions in his behaviour…'

‘That is hardly to be wondered at,' the doctor interrupted, ‘for two men are merged in him:
a Romantic of the pre-1863 kind, and a positivist of the '70s
. What onlookers find contradictory is perfectly consistent with Wokulski himself.'

‘But has he not been involved in any new…incidents?' I asked. ‘I know of none,' Szuman replied drily.

I fell silent and it was a moment before I began again: ‘What will become of him in the long run?'

Szuman raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands: ‘Nothing good,' he replied. ‘People like him either reconcile themselves to everything, or come up against a great obstacle and break their heads open on it. Hitherto things have gone well with him…but no man wins every time in his life.'

‘What then?' I asked.

‘So we may well be witnesses of a tragedy,' Szuman concluded. He drank a glass of tea, then went home.

I could not sleep that night. Such terrible predictions on what should have been a day of triumph…But the Lord knows more than Szuman and surely He will not let Staś go to waste…

M
RS MELITON
had been through a hard school in life, where she even learned to despise all generally accepted notions. When she was young, it had been a truth universally acknowledged that a pretty and virtuous girl could marry even if she had no money; yet she did not marry. Later on, it was said—also in a general way—that an educated governess would acquire her pupils' affection and their parents' respect. She was an educated, even devoted governess, yet her pupils teased her to distraction and their parents derided her from morning to night. Then she read a great quantity of novels, in which it was a universally acknowledged truth that princes, counts or barons in love are noble persons in the habit of bestowing their hands upon a poor governess in exchange for her heart. So she surrendered her heart to a young and noble count, yet she never acquired his hand in marriage.

She was already over thirty when she married an elderly tutor, Meliton, solely in order to effect the moral elevation of a man who had taken somewhat to drink. After marriage, the bridegroom drank more than before, and sometimes beat his wife, as she elevated him morally, with a thick stick. When he died in the street one day, Mrs Meliton had him taken off to the cemetery, and once she was sure he was well and truly buried, got herself a dog: for it was a truth universally acknowledged that a dog is the most affectionate of all creatures. And so it was, until it went mad and bit a servant girl, which brought a serious illness upon Mrs Meliton herself. She stayed in the hospital six months, in a private room, alone and forgotten by her pupils, their families and the count she had bestowed her heart upon. It gave her time to reflect. And when she emerged as a thin, elderly woman with grey and thinning hair, people began to declare that illness had changed her beyond recognition.

‘I have learned sense,' Mrs Meliton retorted.

She was no longer a governess, but recommended them; she did not think of marriage, only acted as go-between for young couples; she gave her heart to no one, only facilitated lovers' meetings in her own house. And as everyone had to pay her for everything, she acquired a little money and lived on it.

At the start of her new career she was solemn and even cynical. ‘A priest', she would tell her confidantes, ‘gets his income from marriages—I from engagements. A count…takes money for arranging things between horses, I for facilitating acquaintances between people.'

In time, however, she became more moderate in her tone, and sometimes even moralised, for she noticed that giving voice to universally acknowledged opinions and views affected her income.

Mrs Meliton had known Wokulski for years. And since she enjoyed public events and was in the habit of watching everything, she soon noticed that Wokulski was observing Izabela much too reverently. Having made this discovery, she shrugged: what concern was it of hers if a tradesman in haberdashery was in love with Miss Łęcka? If he had taken a fancy to some wealthy tradesman's widow, or the daughter of some manufacturer, then Mrs Meliton would have had the opportunity of acting as go-between. But as it was…

Not until Wokulski returned from Bulgaria with a fortune, of which people gave miraculous accounts, did Mrs Meliton herself approach him with regard to Izabela, and offer him her services. And a tacit agreement came into being: Wokulski paid generously, while Mrs Meliton provided him with all sorts of information concerning the Łęcki family and the fashionable persons who associated with them. It was through her that Wokulski had acquired Łęcki's promissory notes and Izabela's silver. On this occasion Mrs Meliton had visited Wokulski at home to congratulate him: ‘You are setting about it very sensibly,' she said, ‘though admittedly you will get little pleasure from the dinner-service and the silver, but it was a master-stroke to buy up Łęcki's promissory notes. The mark of a real tradesman!'

Hearing this compliment, Wokulski opened his desk, looked about inside and presently produced a bundle of promissory notes: ‘These?' he asked, showing them to Mrs Meliton. ‘Yes—I'd like to have the money they represent,' she replied with a sigh.

Wokulski took the packet in both hands and ripped it up. ‘The mark of a tradesman?' he asked.

Mrs Meliton looked at him curiously and muttered: ‘I am sorry for you.'

‘Why so, pray?'

‘I am sorry for you,' she repeated, ‘I am a woman and I know women are not to be gained by sacrifice, but by power.'

‘Is that so?'

‘The power of looks, health, money…'

‘Intelligence…' Wokulski interrupted in the same tone of voice.

‘Not so much intelligence as brute force,' Mrs Meliton added with a derisive laugh, ‘I know my own sex, and have had occasion more than once to pity masculine innocence…'

‘Pray do not trouble to do so on my account…'

‘You think it will not be necessary?' she asked, looking into his eyes.

‘My dear lady,' Wokulski replied, ‘if Miss Łęcka is what I think she is, she may appreciate me at some future time. If she isn't I shall have time to disillusion myself.'

‘Do it sooner than that, Wokulski—sooner,' she said, rising, ‘for believe me it is easier to throw away a thousand roubles than to dislodge affection from the heart. Particularly when it is already established there. But do not forget to invest my little capital profitably. You would not have torn up those thousands of roubles, had you known how hard they must sometimes be worked for…'

In May and June the visits of Mrs Meliton grew more frequent, much to the dismay of Rzecki, who suspected a plot. He was not mistaken, either. There was a plot, but it was directed against Izabela; the elderly woman used to provide Wokulski with important information, but it concerned only Izabela. In other words, she used to tell him on what days the Countess planned to walk with her niece in the Łazienki park. When this happened, Mrs Meliton would call at the shop, reward herself with a trifle worth a few roubles or more, then would tell Rzecki the appointed day and hour.