The Doll (50 page)

‘Perhaps he ran into the yard, and is safe,' thought Ignacy and he woke up with his heart beating fiercely.

Next morning, Ignacy awoke a few minutes before six; he recalled that this was the day of the auction of the Łęcki house and that he was to watch the spectacle, so he jumped out of bed like a goat. He ran barefoot to the big hand-basin, poured cold water all over himself, looked at his spindly legs and muttered: ‘It looks to me as if I've gained some weight.'

During the intricacies of his toilet, Ignacy made so much noise that he woke Ir. The grubby poodle opened the only eye he had left, and on seeing his master's unusual activity, jumped from his box to the floor. He stretched, yawned, put out first one back leg then the other, and sat down for a while at the window, outside which were heard the painful consequences of a hen having its neck wrung; then, seeing that nothing had really happened, Ir went back to bed. Meanwhile he was so discreet or perhaps so vexed with Ignacy on account of the false alarm, that he turned his back on the room, nose and tail to the wall, as much as to say: ‘I prefer not seeing your bony shanks…'

Rzecki dressed in the twinkling of an eye and drank his tea up like lightning, without looking either at the samovar or at the servant who brought it. Then he hurried to the store, which was still closed, did accounts for three hours without paying any attention to the customers or the conversation of the ‘gentlemen', and at ten precisely said to Lisiecki: ‘Mr Lisiecki—I'll be back at two.'

‘Unheard of!' Lisiecki muttered, ‘something very unusual must have happened for the old fellow to go into the town at this time of day…'

Upon reaching the pavement in front of the store, Ignacy was seized with remorse. ‘What am I up to?' thought he, ‘what concern of mine is the auctioning of palaces, not to mention an apartment house?' And he hesitated whether to go to the court or return to the store. At this moment he saw a droshky passing along Krakowskie Przedmieście, with a tall, thin, ill-looking woman in a black dress inside. The lady was just looking at their store and in her sunken eyes and slightly livid lips, Rzecki saw a look of profound hatred. ‘Goodness, it's Baroness Krzeszowska,' Ignacy muttered, ‘of course she's on her way to the auction. There's going to be an unpleasant scene…'

However, doubts awoke within him. Who knows whether the Baroness was really going to the court? Perhaps it was only gossip. ‘It would be worth making sure,' thought Ignacy and he forgot his duties as manager and senior clerk, and began following the droshky.

The wretched nag ambled along so slowly that Ignacy was able to keep the vehicle in sight along the entire boulevard to the Zygmunt Column. At this point the driver turned left and Rzecki thought: ‘Obviously the old girl is going to Miodowa Street. It would come cheaper if she rode a broom-stick…'

Rzecki, too, got to Miodowa by passing the front of Retzler's café (which reminded him of his recent spree) and through Senatorska Street. Here, passing Nowicki's tea warehouse, he stepped in for a moment to say good-day to the proprietor, then hastily fled, muttering: ‘What will he think to see me in the street at this hour? Of course he'll think I'm the most wretched of managers, who wanders around the town instead of staying in the shop. What a fate!'

Ignacy's conscience troubled him for the remainder of the way to the court-house. It took the form of a bearded giant in a yellow silk jacket and yellow trousers who eyed him affably and at the same time ironically, and said: ‘Tell me, Mr Rzecki, what respectable tradesman wanders around the town at this hour of the day? You're as much of a merchant as I am a ballet-dancer…' And Ignacy felt he could not reply a single word to his stern judge. He blushed, sweated and was on the verge of going back to his ledgers (making sure Nowicki would see him), when he suddenly beheld the former Pac Palace.

‘The auction will be held here,' said Ignacy and forgot his scruples. The bearded giant, in a yellow silk jacket, dissolved before the eyes of his soul like mist.

On considering the situation, Ignacy noticed first of all that two huge gates and a double door led into the building. Then he saw four different sized groups of Hebrews with very solemn faces. Ignacy did not know which way to go, but approached the door at which most of the Hebrews were standing, guessing that the auction would be held there.

At this moment a carriage drove up to the building with Mr Łęcki inside. Ignacy was unable to restrain his feelings of respect for those fine grey whiskers and of admiration for Łęcki's good humour. Mr Łęcki did not at all look like a bankrupt whose property was being auctioned off, but more like a millionaire come to his notary to take up the small sum of a hundred and more thousand roubles.

Mr Łęcki got ceremoniously out of the carriage, approached the court door with a triumphant step and at the same moment an individual who looked like an idler, but who was in reality a lawyer ran up to him. After a very brief and even casual greeting, Mr Łęcki asked this individual: ‘Well—what and when?'

‘In an hour or so, perhaps a little longer,' the individual replied.

‘Just imagine,' said Łęcki, with a benevolent smile, ‘that a week ago an acquaintance of mine got twice as much for a house which had cost him a hundred and fifty thousand. As mine cost a hundred thousand, I ought to get some hundred and twenty-five, in proportion.'

‘Hm…hm…' muttered the lawyer.

‘You'll no doubt laugh,' Tomasz went on, ‘when I tell you (for you love laughing at premonitions and dreams) that today I dreamed my house went for a hundred and twenty thousand. Pray notice I'm telling you this before the auction! In a few hours you'll see that dreams are not to be laughed at. There are more things in Heaven and earth…'

‘Hm…hm…' the lawyer replied, and both went through the first door of the building.

‘Thank goodness,' thought Ignacy. ‘If Łęcki gets a hundred and twenty thousand for his house, that will mean Staś won't pay ninety thousand for it.'

Just then someone touched his arm slightly. Ignacy looked around and saw old Szlangbaum behind him. ‘Looking for me, eh?' asked the venerable Jew, eyeing him sharply.

‘No, no…' Ignacy replied in confusion.

‘You have no business matter to see me about?' Szlangbaum repeated, blinking his red eyelids.

‘No, no …'

‘
Gut
,' Szlangbaum muttered, and went off to join his co-religionists.

Ignacy felt chilly; Szlangbaum's presence in this place aroused new suspicions within him. To dispel them, Ignacy asked the doorman where the auctions were held. The doorman showed him the stairs.

Ignacy hurried up them into a hall. He was impressed by a crowd of Jews listening to a speech with the utmost attention. Rzecki realised that at this moment a case was being heard, that the prosecutor was speaking and that it concerned fraud. It was stuffy in the court-room; the prosecutor's speech was somewhat drowned by the rattle of droshkies outside. The magistrates looked as if they were dozing, the lawyer yawned, the accused looked as if he would be delighted to defraud the judges of the supreme court, the Hebrews were eyeing him with sympathy and listened to the charges with attention. Some grimaced and murmured: ‘Oh my!' at the prosecutor's more powerful charges.

Ignacy left the court-room; he had not come for this case. Finding himself in a vestibule, Ignacy thought of ascending to the second floor; at the same moment, Baroness Krzeszowska passed him, accompanied by a man who looked like a bored teacher of dead languages. However, he was a lawyer, as was shown by a silver badge in the lapel of his very shabby frock-coat; and the grey trousers of this high priest of justice were as baggy at the knees as if their owner were in the habit of making proposals to the goddess Temida, instead of defending clients.

‘If it is not for an hour,' said Mme Krzeszowska in a plaintive voice, ‘I shall go to the Capucines. Do you not think? …'

‘I don't think a visit to the Capucines will influence the course of the auction,' replied the lawyer, bored.

‘But if you sincerely want it to go well …'

The lawyer in the baggy trousers made an impatient gesture: ‘Dear lady,' said he, ‘I have already run about so much in the business of this auction that today at least I deserve a rest. Furthermore, I have a murder trial in a few minutes … Do you see those fine ladies yonder? They're coming to listen to my speech of defence. An interesting case!'

‘So you are deserting me?' cried the Baroness.

‘I'll be in court,' the lawyer interrupted, ‘I'll be there for the auction, but pray leave me a few minutes at least to think about my murderer …'

And he rushed through an open door, forbidding the doorman to let anyone in.

‘Good God!' said the Baroness, aloud, ‘a wretched murderer has a defender, but a poor lone woman seeks a man to defend her honour, peace of mind, property — in vain!'

As Ignacy did not want to be this man, he hurriedly fled downstairs, elbowing the fine, young and elegant ladies brought here by the wish to attend a celebrated murder trial. It would be better than the theatre: for the performers in this official spectacle act more realistically, if not better, than stage players.

The lamentations of Baroness Krzeszowska resounded on the stairs along with the laughter of the fine, young and elegant ladies hastening in to see the murderer, his bloodstained garments, the axe with which he slew his victim, and the sweating judges. Ignacy fled from the vestibule to the other side of the street; on the corner of Kapitulna and Miodowa Streets he hastened into a café and hid himself in such a dark corner that even Baroness Krzeszowska would not have noticed him. He ordered a cup of foaming chocolate, hid behind a torn newspaper and saw that in this small room was another, still darker corner, in which was placed a certain ostentatiously plump individual and a hunchbacked Jew. Ignacy took the stately personage for a Count and the owner of great estates in the Ukraine at least, and the Jew for his agent; however, he overheard the conversation going on between them.

‘Sir,' said the hunchbacked Jew, ‘were it not that no one in Warsaw knows Your Excellency, I wouldn't even give you ten roubles for the business. But as it is, you'll make twenty-five …'

‘And stand an hour in a stuffy court-room!' the personage muttered.

‘That's so,' the Jew went on, ‘it's hard to stand up in this age of ours, but such money doesn't go on foot either. And how your reputation will go up when people find you wanted to buy a house for eighty thousand roubles!'

‘So be it. But I want the twenty-five roubles in cash, here and now.'

‘Heaven forbid,' the Jew responded, ‘you'll get five roubles now and twenty will go towards paying off your debts to the unfortunate Selig Kupferman, who hasn't seen a penny of yours in two years, though he got a court order.'

The stately personage banged the table-top and made to depart. The hunchbacked Jew caught him by the coat-tails, sat him down at the table again and offered six roubles in cash. After bargaining several minutes, both sides agreed on eight roubles, of which seven would be paid after the auction and a rouble now. The Jew resisted, but the majestic gentleman did away with his hesitation by a single argument: ‘After all, I have to pay for the tea and cakes we've had!'

The Jew sighed, pulled an excessively crumpled little piece of paper from his greasy wallet, straightened the paper out and placed it on the marble table-top. Then he rose and lazily left the dark little room, whereupon Ignacy recognised old Szlangbaum through a hole in his newspaper.

Ignacy hurriedly drank up his chocolate and fled into the street. He was already sick and tired of the auction, with which his ears and head were crammed. He wished to pass the remaining time in some way, and seeing the Capucine church open, went towards it, certain he would find tranquillity in its walls, and an agreeable coolness and that above all he would at least not hear about the auction.

He went into the church and really did find silence and coolness there, not to mention a dead body on a catafalque, surrounded by unlit candles and flowers which had lost their smell. For some time past, Ignacy had disliked the sight of coffins, so he turned left and saw a woman in black kneeling on the ground. It was the Baroness Krzeszowska, humbly bowed to the earth: she was beating her breast and dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief now and then.

‘I'm positive she's praying that the Łęcki property will go for sixty thousand roubles,' thought Ignacy. But as the sight of Baroness Krzeszowska held no attraction, he withdrew on tip-toe and went over to the right-hand side of the church. Here he found only a couple of women: one was saying her rosary in an undertone, the other sleeping. There was no one else — except that from behind a pillar there appeared a man of medium height, erect despite his grey hair, whispering a prayer with bowed head. Rzecki recognised Mr Łęcki, and thought ‘He, of course, is praying that his house fetches a hundred and twenty thousand …'

Then he hastily left the church, wondering how the good Lord would satisfy the contradictory pleas of Baroness Krzeszowska and Tomasz Łęcki.

As he had not found what he was looking for either in the café or in the church, Ignacy began walking about in the street near the court. He was much confused: it seemed to him that every passer-by looked into his face mockingly, as much as to say: ‘Wouldn't you be better employed, you old scamp, looking after the shop?' or that one of the ‘gentlemen' was about to leap out of every passing droshky to tell him the shop had burned down or collapsed. So again he wondered whether it would be better to give up the whole idea of the auction as a bad job, and go back to his ledgers and office — when he suddenly heard a desperate shriek.

It was some Jew or other, leaning out of a window of the court and shouting something to the crowd of his co-religionists, who in turn all rushed to the door, pushing, thrusting tranquil passers-by aside and stamping their feet impatiently, like a frightened flock of sheep in a crowded byre.