The Doll (37 page)

‘At the…? And what in Heaven's name were you doing at the races?'

‘I had a horse running, and even won a prize.'

Szuman struck the back of his head with one hand, suddenly raised first one, then the other, of Wokulski's eyelids and began examining his pupils carefully.

‘Do you think I have gone mad?' Wokulski asked him.

‘Not yet. Is this supposed to be a joke,' he added after a moment, ‘or are you serious?'

‘Very serious. I want no reconciliation and ask that strict conditions be observed.'

The doctor returned to his desk, sat down, leaned his chin on one hand and, after some consideration, said: ‘A woman, eh? Even turkeys will only fight for…'

‘Szuman, mind what you say,' Wokulski interrupted in a stifled voice, straightening his back.

The doctor again eyed him searchingly: ‘So this is how things are?' he muttered, ‘very well…I'll be your second. If you are so anxious to smash open your skull, you may as well do so in my presence: perhaps I may even be able to help, somehow…'

‘I'll send Rzecki to see you at once,' Wokulski declared, shaking him by the hand.

From the doctor's house he went back to his shop, spoke briefly to Ignacy, returned to his apartment and went to bed before ten o'clock. As before, he slept like a log. Strong emotions were essential to his leonine nature; only when experiencing them did his spirit, torn apart by passion, regain its equilibrium.

Next day, at about five, Rzecki and Szuman called on the ‘English' Count, who was Krzeszowski's second. On the way, both Wokulski's friends remained silent: only once did Ignacy remark: ‘Well, and what have you to say to all this, doctor?'

‘Only what I have already said,' Szuman replied, ‘we're approaching the fifth act. Either this is the end of a gallant man, or the start of a whole series of follies…'

‘And of the worst sort, for they will be political,' Mr Rzecki interposed. The doctor shrugged and looked the other way: Ignacy with his everlasting politics struck him as insufferable just then.

The ‘English' Count was awaiting them with another gentleman who kept looking out of the window at the clouds, and moving his Adam's apple every few minutes as if he were gulping something down with difficulty. He looked only semi-conscious: but in fact he was an unusual man, a lion-hunter and profound scholar of Egyptian antiquities.

In the middle of the ‘English' Count's study was a table covered with a green cloth and surrounded by four high chairs: on the table lay four sheets of paper, four pencils, two pens and an ink-well of such dimensions that it might have been meant for a hip-bath. When all had sat down, the Count began: ‘Gentlemen, Baron Krzeszowski admits he may have pushed Mr Wokulski, for he is absent-minded. Dear me, yes…In consequence, at our insistence…' Here the Count glanced at his companion who had just gulped with a ceremonious air, ‘at our insistence,' the Count went on, ‘the Baron is prepared to apologise, even in writing, to Mr Wokulski, whom we all respect—dear me, yes. What have you to say to this?'

‘We are not authorised to take any steps for reconciliation,' replied Rzecki, in whom the former Hungarian officer had come to life again. The learned Egyptologist opened his eyes wide and gulped twice. Amazement flashed across the Count's face; however, he controlled himself and replied in a tone of dry politeness: ‘In that case may we know the conditions?'

‘You gentlemen may state them,' Rzecki replied.

‘Oh no, not at all,' said the Count.

Rzecki coughed: ‘In that case, I venture to suggest…the opponents to stand at twenty-five paces, take five paces…'

‘Dear me, yes…'

‘Pistols to be loaded…First blood…'

‘Dear me, yes…'

‘The time, if convenient, tomorrow morning…'

‘Dear me, yes…'

Rzecki bowed without getting up. The Count took out a sheet of paper, and amidst a general silence, prepared a document which Szuman at once copied. Both documents were witnessed, and within forty-five minutes the matter was done. Wokulski's second bade farewell to their host and his companion, who again lost himself gazing at the clouds.

In the street, Rzecki said to Szuman: ‘Very agreeable people, these gentlemen of the aristocracy…'

‘May the devil take them! May the devil take you all, with your silly conventions…' the doctor exclaimed, shaking his fist.

That evening, Ignacy took the pistols and called on Wokulski. He found him alone, at tea. Rzecki poured himself some, and exclaimed: ‘Mind you, Staś, they are perfectly honourable people. The Baron who, as you know, is very absent-minded, is prepared to apologise to you…'

‘No apologies.'

Rzecki fell silent. He drank the tea and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. After a long pause he said: ‘Of course, you will have considered the store… In the event of…'

‘No accident will befall me,' Wokulski replied angrily.

Ignacy sat for another quarter-hour in silence. He did not like the tea, his head ached. He finished it, looked at his watch, then left his friend's house, saying farewell: ‘Tomorrow we leave at half-past seven in the morning.'

‘Very well…'

When Ignacy had gone, Wokulski sat down at his desk, wrote a few lines on a piece of notepaper and put Rzecki's address on the envelope. It seemed to him he could still hear the Baron's unpleasant voice: ‘I am pleased, cousin, that your admirers have triumphed…I'm sorry it was at my expense, though…' And wherever he looked, he saw Izabela's beautiful face flushed with shame.

Unutterable rage was fuming within his heart. His hands were becoming like iron bars, his body taking on such strange rigidity that surely any bullet would rebound from it. The word ‘death' crossed his mind and for a moment he smiled. He knew death does not attack the bold; it merely confronts them like a mad dog, and glares with green eyes, waiting for a muscle to twitch.

That night, as every night, the Baron was playing cards. Maruszewicz, who was also at the club, reminded him at midnight, then again at one and two o'clock, that he ought to go to bed as he was to get up at seven next morning. The absent-minded Baron answered: ‘Presently! Presently!' but sat on until three, at which time one of his partners exclaimed: ‘
Basta
, Baron! Sleep a few hours, for your hands will tremble and you'll miss your mark.'

These words, and even more his partners' desertion of the table, sobered the Baron. He left the club, went home and told his valet Konstanty to wake him at seven.

‘Your excellency must have gone and done something silly again,' muttered his servant, crossly undressing the Baron.

‘You booby!' said the Baron, vexed, ‘do you expect me to explain it all to you? I'm to fight a duel, so there…Because I choose to. At nine o'clock I am to shoot some wretched bootmaker or barber…Do you forbid me, then?'

‘You can shoot the devil himself,' Konstanty replied, ‘all I would like to know is—who is to pay off your promissory notes? And the rent? And the housekeeping money? Just because you have a matter to see to at the cemetery, the landlord will put the bailiffs in and I'm afraid I'll starve to death…A fine business, and no mistake!'

‘Then be off with you,' roared the Baron, seizing a gaiter and throwing it at the retreating valet. The gaiter struck the wall and almost brought down a bronze statuette of Sobieski.

Having settled with his faithful servant, the Baron went to bed and began pondering on his wretched situation: ‘Just my confounded luck to have a duel with a tradesman,' he thought. ‘If I hit him, I'll look like a hunter who goes out for a bear and gets a peasant's cow instead. If he hits me, it will be as though a droshky driver had hit me with his whip. If we both miss…No, we are to shoot for first blood. Damn appearances—I'd almost have preferred to apologise to this jackanapes in a notary's office, dressed up for the occasion in a frock-coat and white tie…Oh these damnable liberal times! My father would have had such an impudent scoundrel whipped by his dog-keepers, but I have to give him satisfaction, as if I were a dealer in cinnamon myself…If only this confounded social revolution would come and finish us or the liberals off!'

He began dozing and dreamed Wokulski had killed him. He saw two messengers bringing his corpse to his wife, how she swooned away and threw herself on his blood-stained breast…How she paid all his debts and set aside a thousand roubles for his funeral…how he rose from the dead and took the thousand roubles for personal expenses… A blissful smile played over the Baron's decrepit face, and he fell asleep like a baby.

At seven, Konstanty and Maruszewicz could hardly wake him. The Baron simply would not get up, muttering that he preferred disgrace and dishonour to getting out of bed so early. Only a carafe of cold water brought him to his senses.

The Baron jumped out of bed, boxed Konstanty's ears, cursed Maruszewicz and vowed inwardly to kill Wokulski. But when he was dressed, he went out into the street, saw the beautiful weather and imagined he was seeing the sunrise—then his hatred for Wokulski diminished, and he decided only to shoot him in the leg.

‘That's it,' he added after a moment, ‘I'll graze him, and he will limp for the rest of his life and tell people he got his mortal wound in a duel with Baron Krzeszowski! That would take care of me…What have my dear seconds made of all this? If some merchant or other gets it into his head that he must shoot at me, at least let him do so when I am out for a walk, not in a duel…What a frightful position to be in! I can imagine my dear wife will tell everyone I fight duels with the tradesmen…'

The carriages drove up. The Baron and the ‘English' Count got into one, the silent Egyptologist with the pistols and a surgeon into the second. They set off for Bielany, and a few minutes later were overtaken by the Baron's valet, Konstanty, in a droshky. The faithful servant swore by heaven and earth, and promised he would charge his master double the expense of this jaunt. Yet he was uneasy.

In the Bielany woods, the Baron and his three companions found the other party already there, and they set off in two groups towards the thickets immediately overlooking the Vistula bank. Dr Szuman was irritable, Rzecki stiff, Wokulski gloomy. The Baron stroked his thin beard, eyed him attentively, and thought: ‘He must eat well, that tradesman fellow…Compared to him, I look like an Austrian cigar beside a bull. May the devil take me, though, if I don't shoot over the fool's head, or even not at all…That would be best.'

Then he suddenly recollected that the duel was for first blood, fell into a rage and decided to kill Wokulski on the spot, without more ado: ‘Let these Philistines learn once and for all not to challenge the likes of us to duels,' he said to himself.

Some dozen paces away, Wokulski was walking to and fro between the pine-trees, like a pendulum. He was not thinking of Izabela now: he could hear the twittering birds which crowded the whole wood, and the splashing of the Vistula along its bank. Against the background of nature's tranquil serenity, the rattle of the pistols and snap of drawn bolts resounded strangely. A ferocious animal had awakened in Wokulski: the whole world disappeared from before his eyes, all that remained was this one man, the Baron, whose corpse he was to drag to the feet of the insulted Izabela.

They took up their stand. The Baron was still troubled by uncertainty about what to do to this tradesman fellow, and finally decided to shoot him in the hand.

Such wild fury was depicted on Wokulski's face that the ‘English' Count thought in surprise: ‘This is more than a question of the mare, or even of a push at the races!' The Egyptologist, hitherto silent, gave the word. The antagonists moved off, their pistols levelled. The Baron aimed at Wokulski's left elbow, lowered his pistol and lightly touched the trigger. In the last moment his pince-nez slipped, the pistol shifted a hair's breadth, went off—and the bullet flew several centimetres wide of Wokulski's arm. The Baron covered his face with the barrel of his pistol, and looking around it, thought: ‘The fool will miss…He is aiming at my head.'

Suddenly he felt a powerful blow on his temple: there was a roaring in his ears, black dots flickered before his eyes. He dropped his pistol and groaned. ‘In the head!' someone shouted.

Wokulski threw down his pistol and left the spot. All ran to the kneeling Baron who, however, instead of giving up the ghost, said in a squeaky voice: ‘A most extraordinary accident, to be sure…I have a hole in my cheek, a tooth gone, but no bullet anywhere. Surely I haven't swallowed it?'

The Egyptologist picked up the Baron's pistol and examined it: ‘Ah,' he exclaimed, ‘I see…the bullet went into the pistol, and the catch entered your cheek. The pistol is wrecked—a most interesting shot…'

‘Is Wokulski satisfied?' the ‘English' Count asked.

‘Yes.' The surgeon bandaged the Baron's face. Alarmed, Konstanty ran up from among the trees. ‘What's this?' he cried, ‘didn't I say his Excellency would catch it?'

‘Silence, you ninny,' the Baron roared, ‘be off with you to the Baroness and tell the cook I am gravely wounded…'

‘Now, if you please,' said the ‘English' Count gravely, ‘will you two gentlemen shake hands?'

Wokulski approached the Baron and did so. ‘A fine shot, Mr Wokulski,' said the Baron with some difficulty, shaking him firmly by the hand, ‘it surprises me that a man of your trade…but perhaps that offends you?'

‘Not at all…'

‘That a man of your trade—highly respected, of course, should shoot so well. Where is my pince-nez? Ah, here…Mr Wokulski, a word in your ear, if you please.'

He leaned on Wokulski's arm and they went a few yards into the wood. ‘I am disfigured,' said the Baron, ‘I look like an old monkey with the mumps…I don't want another quarrel with you, for I see you have good luck on your side. So tell me please—why have I been wounded? Not for pushing you,' he added, looking straight at him.