The Doll (60 page)

‘I gave lessons,' said he, ‘and I've brought six hundred roubles back with me.'

‘Well, well…And what do you plan on doing now?'

‘Well, I shan't go back to Hopfer's,' he replied, thumping the table-top, ‘you probably don't know I'm a scholar now. I've even acquired several diplomas from scientific societies in St Petersburg.'

‘So a waiter from Hopfer's has become a scholar! Staś Wokulski has diplomas from scientific societies in St Petersburg …Unheard of,' thought I.

What more is there to say? The lad found himself a place somewhere in the Old Town and lived on his savings for six months, buying plenty of books but little to eat. When his money was spent, he began looking for work, and a strange thing happened. Tradesmen wouldn't employ him because he was a scholar, but scholars wouldn't either, because he was an ex-waiter. So he was stuck, like
Twardowski
, half-way between Heaven and earth. He might have blown his brains out on the Nowy Zjazd, had I not helped him out from time to time.

It is painful to think how hard life was. He grew thin, gloomy, morose …But he did not complain. Only once, when he was told there was no work for the likes of him, he whispered: ‘I've been cheated …'

Just then Jan Mincel died. His widow buried him in a Christian manner, remained shut up in her room for a week, then summoned me in for a talk. I thought we should discuss the shop, the more so as I noticed a bottle of good wine on the table. But Mrs Mincel did not mention the fate of the shop. She burst into tears at the sight of me, as if I reminded her of her late husband, already buried a week, and poured me a generous glass of the wine, saying in a tearful voice: ‘When my poor dear angel passed away, I thought only I was unhappy …'

‘Angel?' I asked suddenly, ‘Jan Mincel, perhaps? Excuse me, madam — although I was a true friend of your late husband, I wouldn't think of referring to a person who weighed two hundred pounds as an angel …'

‘He weighed three hundred when he was alive,' the inconsolable widow interposed. Then she again veiled her face with a handkerchief and sobbed: ‘Oh, will you never learn to be tactful,

Mr Rzecki? What a blow it was! It's quite true that my late lamented was never an angel, to be precise, particularly of late, but I have always been terribly unfortunate …Oh, lamentable, irreplaceable …'

‘Of course, for the last six months …'

‘Six months, what are you saying?' she cried, ‘poor Jan was sick three years and for eight or more he … Alas, Mr Rzecki, what a source of misery that hateful beer is in marriage! It is eight years, sir, since I had a proper husband …But what a man he was, Mr Rzecki! Only now do I feel the whole weight of my misfortune …'

‘Worse things can happen,' I ventured to interpose. ‘Oh yes,' the poor widow sighed, ‘you are perfectly right, worse things can happen. For example, there's Wokulski, who is supposed to be back now …Is it true he still has not found a post?'

‘Nothing at all.'

‘Where does he eat? And live?'

‘Where does he eat? I don't even know that he does. And for where he lives — nowhere.'

‘Terrible,' Mrs Mincel burst into tears. ‘It seems to me,' she added after a moment, ‘that I should be carrying out the last wish of the late lamented if I ask you to …'

‘At your service, madam …'

‘To give him lodgings in your apartment, and I'll send you down two dinners and two breakfasts …'

‘Wokulski would not accept that,' I remarked. On this, Mrs Mincel burst into tears again. From despair at her husband's death, she was transformed into such a ferocious rage that she called me a scoundrel three times, a man ignorant of life, a monster …Finally she told me to be off, and she would manage the shop herself. Then she apologised and vowed on all that was holy that I must not be vexed by words dictated by her sorrow.

From that day on I often met our lady proprietor. Then, six months later, Staś told me …he was going to marry Mrs Mincel.

I stared at him …He shrugged: ‘I know,' he said, ‘that I'm a swine. But …even so, less than many of those who enjoy public esteem here.'

After a riotous wedding which many of Wokulski's friends attended (I don't know where they came from, but how the wretches ate …and drank the health of the happy couple — from tankards!), Staś moved upstairs to his wife's apartments. To the best of my recollection, all his possessions consisted of four parcels of books and scientific instruments, and as for furniture — a bubble-pipe and hat-box.

The clerks laughed (in corners, of course) at their new boss: I, however, was sorry he had broken with his heroic past and poverty so abruptly. For human nature is odd: the less we tend to martyrdom ourselves, the more we require it of our neighbours.

‘He's sold himself to that old woman,' his acquaintances said, ‘that would-be Brutus! …He studied, got into trouble and now — flop!'

Two of his severest critics had been fervent suitors of Mrs Mincel.

But Staś very quickly shut people's mouths, for he set to work at once. About a week after the wedding he came into the store at eight in the morning, sat down at the desk in the late Mr Mincel's chair and served customers, made out bills, gave change, as if he were only a paid clerk.

He did even more, for in his second year he started trading with Moscow merchants, which proved very advantageous for business. I may say that our turnover tripled under his rule.

I sighed with relief when I saw Wokulski did not intend to eat his bread free; even the clerks stopped laughing at him, realising that Staś worked harder in the shop than they did, and that he also had more than a few duties to carry out upstairs. We at least rested during holidays: whereas he, poor devil, had to take his wife by the arm and march about the town — mornings to church, afternoons paying calls and evenings to the theatre.

Her new husband put new life into Małgosia. She bought herself a piano and began taking music lessons from an aged teacher so as (she said) ‘not to make Staś jealous'. She spent the hours free from piano lessons at conferences with tailors, modistes, hairdressers and dentists, making herself prettier every day. And how affectionate she was towards her husband! Sometimes she would sit for hours at a time in the shop, merely to gaze upon Staś. When she noticed that some of the customers were pretty, she removed Staś from the front of the shop to behind a cupboard, and told him to set his office up there, within which he sat like a caged animal and did the shop's accounts.

One day I heard a terrible crash inside this structure. I rushed in, followed by the clerks. What a sight met our eyes! Małgosia was lying on the floor, soaked in ink, the chair broken, having brought the desk down on top of her, Staś was furious and embarrassed …We lifted up the weeping lady, and from her incoherent mumblings learned that she herself had been the author of all this mess, by unexpectedly sitting down on her husband's lap. The fragile chair had collapsed under their combined weight, and her ladyship, in trying to avoid the catastrophe, had grabbed hold of the desk and brought the whole thing down on herself.

Staś accepted these noisy proofs of connubial tenderness with the utmost tranquillity, seeking consolation by burying himself in bills and commercial correspondence. But instead of cooling off, her ladyship became more and more fervent: when her husband, tired of sitting still, or in order to transact business, would sometimes go out into the town, she would hasten after him …to watch lest he go to a rendezvous!

Staś would sometimes disappear for a week at a time, especially in winter, to stay with a forester he knew, where he would hunt and wander about in the forests. But on the third day his wife would set off after her beloved truant, walk about in the thickets behind him and fetch him back to Warsaw as a result.

Wokulski kept silent for the first two years of this rigorous life. During the third year he began coming to my room every evening, and talking about politics. Sometimes, as we were chatting about old times, he would look around the room, suddenly break off the topic to begin another: ‘Listen to me, Ignacy …'

At that moment, as if deliberately, the maid would rush downstairs, crying: ‘The missus wants you! The missus is poorly!'

And he, poor devil, would shrug and go to her ladyship, without even beginning what it was he wanted to tell me.

After three years of such a life which, however, was irreproachable, I saw that this man of iron was beginning to wilt in the silken embraces of her ladyship. He grew pale and wan, stooping, threw aside his learned books and took to reading the newspaper, spending all his spare time talking to me about politics. Sometimes he left the shop before eight, and took his wife to the theatre or to pay a call, then finally started giving evening parties, where ladies old as sin, gentlemen in retirement and whist-players would gather.

Staś did not play; he only walked about between the card-tables and watched.

‘Staś,' I sometimes said, ‘take care! You're forty-three …At that age Bismarck had barely started his career.'

This, or similar remarks, roused him momentarily. Then he would throw himself into a chair and brood, with his head resting on his hand. Thereupon Małgosia would hurry in, crying: ‘Staś, ducky! You're brooding again, we can't have that …And the gentlemen have drunk their wine …' So Staś rose, brought another bottle from the sideboard, poured wine into eight glasses and walked around the tables watching the gentlemen playing whist.

In this manner the lion was slowly but surely being transformed into a tame bull. When I saw him in his Turkish dressing-gown, slippers embroidered with beads and a silk night-cap, I could not believe that this was the same Wokulski who, fourteen years earlier in Machalski's cellar, had exclaimed: ‘I will!'

When Kochanowski wrote: ‘
And thou shalt sit upon a fierce lion without fear, and ride on a huge dragon
,' he certainly had a woman in mind! For they are the riders and conquerors of the male sex!

Then, in the fifth year of marriage, Małgosia suddenly took to cosmetics …At first discreetly, then more energetically, and to all kinds …Hearing of a certain fluid which was said to return freshness and the charms of youth to ladies of a certain age, she anointed herself with it from top to toe one evening, with such effect that the doctors called in that very night to help could do nothing for her. And she died, poor thing, of blood-poisoning, only recovering consciousness sufficiently to call her lawyer and bequeath her entire estate to her dear Staś.

Staś said nothing after this misfortune either, but grew more mopish than ever. As he had an income of several thousand roubles a year, he stopped concerning himself with trade, broke off with his acquaintances and buried himself in learned books. I sometimes told him: ‘Go out and meet people, enjoy yourself, after all, you're still young and could marry again …'

All in vain …

One day (six months after the death of Małgosia), seeing the lad growing old before my very eyes, I suggested: ‘Staś, be off with you to the theatre. Today
Traviata
is playing; you saw it with your wife last time …'

He jumped up from the sofa, where he had been reading, and said: ‘You know, you're quite right. I'll see what it's like this evening …'

He went to the theatre and …next day I hardly recognised him: my Staś Wokulski had awoken in the old man. He straightened up, his eyes regained their fire, his voice its strength…

From that time on he went to all the performances, concerts and lectures. Soon afterwards he left for Bulgaria, where he made his huge fortune, and a few months after his return an old gossip (Mrs Meliton) told me Staś was in love …

I laughed at this chatter, for no one who is in love goes off to a war. Not until now, alas, have I begun to suspect that the old woman was right.

And yet one never knows with Staś Wokulski. Just supposing …If it were so, how I'd laugh at Dr Szuman, who mocks politics so!

T
HE POLITICAL
situation is so uncertain that I should not be surprised if a war broke out in December. People still seem to think that wars can only break out in the spring; evidently they forget that the Franco-Prussian war started in summer. I do not share this prejudice against winter campaigns. In winter, the barns are full and the roads smooth; whereas in spring the peasants have no grain left and the roads are like cake: should a battery pass, you could take a bath there.

Winter nights, on the other hand, continue ten hours or more, warm clothes are needed, quarters for the troops, typhus …I sometimes thank God he did not make a
Moltke
of me: he must be worried to death, poor devil. The Austrians, or rather the Hungarians, have marched into Bosnia and Herzegovina for good, but have been received very inhospitably. Even some Hadji Loja or other has turned up, said to be an excellant partisan, who has caused them much trouble. I am sorry for the Hungarian infantry, but even so, today's Hungarians are worth nothing. When the Huns suppressed them in 1849, they protested that every nation has the right to defend its own freedom. But today? They themselves are pushing their way into Bosnia, uninvited, and they call the Bosnians, who are defending themselves ‘criminals and brigands'.

Upon my word, I understand politics less and less! And who knows but what Staś Wokulski wasn't right to lose interest in it (if he has?). But why am I going on about politics, when a great change has come about in my own life? Who would believe that for a week already I have not been concerned with the store? Temporarily, of course, otherwise I would surely go mad with boredom.

What happened was that Staś wrote to me from Paris (he also asked me to write to him) instructing me to look after the apartment house he bought from the Łeckis. ‘As if I didn't have enough to do as it is,' thought I, but what could I do? I left the store in the charge of Lisiecki and Szlangbaum, and set off for Aleje Jerozolimskie to gather information about the house. Before I went, I asked Klein (who lives in the house) to tell me what was going on there. Instead of replying, he made a significant gesture.