The Doll (64 page)

Meanwhile, Mrs Stawska, having sat down, was so embarrassed that she began fidgeting with her daughter's dress. Her mother lost her good humour too, and the agent became quite sheepish.

‘Just wait, all of you,' thought I and, adopting a very stern expression, asked: ‘How long have you been living in this apartment, ladies?'

‘Five years,' Mrs Stawska replied, blushing still more. Her mother quivered where she sat.

‘And how much do you pay?'

‘Twenty-five roubles a month,' the younger lady whispered. At the same moment she went pale, began rubbing her dress and, certainly without realising it, cast such an imploring look at Wirski that …had I been in his place, I would have proposed to her at once.

‘We still owe,' she added, still more softly, ‘for July …'

I scowled like Lucifer, and drawing in as much breath as there was air in the apartment, declared: ‘You ladies owe us nothing …until October. The fact is that Staś —I mean, Mr Wokulski — has written to me that it is sheer robbery to take three hundred roubles for three rooms on this street. Mr Wokulski cannot permit such extortion, and told me to inform you that from October this apartment will be rented at two hundred roubles. If you do not wish …'

The agent almost fell out of his chair. The old lady clasped her hands, and Mrs Stawska gazed at me with wide-open eyes. Such eyes! And how she could use them! I vow that if I were Wokulski, I'd have proposed to her on the spot. Obviously there is nothing doing with her husband, if he hasn't written for two years. Besides, what are divorces for? Why has Staś such a fortune?

Again the door creaked, and a girl about twelve years old appeared, with a school hat on, and a bundle of school books in her hand. She was a child with a round, red face, not betraying much intelligence. She curtsied to us, to Mrs Stawska and to her mother, kissed little Helena on both cheeks, and went out, obviously going home. Then she came back from the kitchen and, blushing to the roots of her hair, asked Mrs Stawska: ‘Can I come the day after tomorrow?'

‘Yes, dear …come at four o'clock,' Mrs Stawska replied, also embarrassed.

When the little girl had finally left, Mrs Stawska's mother said in a displeased tone: ‘And that is called a lesson, for goodness sake …Helena has been working with her for an hour and a half, and gets forty groszy a lesson …'

‘Mother!' Mrs Stawska interrupted, looking at her imploringly.

(Were I Wokulski, I'd already have come back from the wedding. What a woman! What features! What expressive looks! I never saw anything like it in my life …And her little hands, her figure, her height, her movements and those eyes!)

After a moment of embarrassing silence, the younger lady spoke again: ‘We are very grateful to Mr Wokulski for the terms on which he rents the apartment …Surely this is the only time a landlord has ever been known to lower the rent of his own accord. But I do not know …whether we ought to take advantage of his kindness.'

‘It is not kindness, madam, but the honesty of a true gentleman,' the agent put in. ‘Mr Wokulski has lowered my rent too, and I accepted …The street, after all, is third-rate, little traffic …'

‘Yet it's easy to find tenants,' Mrs Stawska interposed.

‘We prefer ones known to us for quietness and respectability,' I replied.

‘You are quite right,' the old lady assured me, ‘respectability in the house is our guiding principle …Even though little Helena sometimes throws pieces of paper in the yard, Franusia immediately clears them away …'

‘But, grandma, I was only cutting out envelopes, for I wrote letters to papa to come back,' the little girl protested.

The shadow of sorrow and weariness flitted across Mrs Stawska's face. ‘No news?' the agent inquired. The young lady shook her head slowly: I am not sure that she didn't sigh, though softly.

‘What a fate for a young and pretty woman!' the older lady cried, ‘neither maid nor wife …'

‘Mother …!'

‘Neither widow nor divorcée, in a word —and no one knows why or how. You can say what you like, Helena, but I tell you Ludwik is dead …'

‘Mother! Mother!'

‘Yes,' said her mother, loftily, ‘here we are, all awaiting him every day, every hour, but it's all for nothing. He's either denied or renounced you, so you are under no obligation to wait for him.'

Tears came into the eyes of both ladies: the mother's of anger,

and the daughter's …I don't know …Perhaps of grief for a ruined life.

Suddenly a thought went through my brain which (had it not been mine) I would have considered a stroke of genius. But less of that. Suffice it to say there was something in my face and attitude that, when I straightened myself in the chair, crossed my legs and coughed, made them all gaze at me, even little Helena.

‘Our acquaintance,' said I, ‘is too brief for me to venture …'

‘Never mind,' Mr Wirski interrupted, ‘good deeds can be accepted even from strangers …'

‘Our acquaintance,' I repeated, silencing him with a look, ‘is really very short. Allow me, however, to suggest that Mr Wokulski might use his influence to find your husband …'

‘Ah!' the older lady groaned, in a way I could not but regard as manifesting joy.

‘Mother! …' Mrs Stawska interrupted.

‘Helena,' said her grandmother firmly, ‘go and play with your doll and make her the dress. I have picked up the stitch for you, now run along …'

The little girl was somewhat startled, perhaps even intrigued, but she kissed her grandma and her mother's hands and went out with her knitting.

‘Pray, sir,' the old lady continued, ‘if we are to speak frankly, then I am not so much concerned …That is, I do not believe Ludwik is still alive. Anyone who doesn't write for two years …'

‘Mother, that's enough …'

‘Not at all,' her mother interrupted, ‘if you still don't feel your position, then I do. It is impossible to go on living with this eternal hope —or threat …'

‘Mother dear, I alone have the right, when my happiness and duty …'

‘Don't mention happiness to me!' her mother exclaimed, ‘it ended on the day when your husband fled from the police, who found out some sinister relations with that money-lender. I know he was innocent, I was ready to swear it. But neither you nor I understand why he used to go to her …'

‘Mother, these gentlemen are strangers,' Mrs Stawska cried in desperation.

‘Me a stranger?' the agent asked reproachfully, but he rose from his chair and bowed.

‘You're not a stranger, nor is that gentleman,' the old lady went on, indicating me, ‘surely he is an honest man …'

It was my turn to bow.

‘So I tell you, sir,' the old lady continued with a sharp look at me, ‘we are living in continual uncertainty about my son-in-law, and this uncertainty is ruining our peace of mind. But I confess I fear his return more than anything.'

Mrs Stawska covered her face with a handkerchief and ran to her room.

‘Weep, then—weep!' said the old lady, crossly, shaking a finger after her. ‘Such tears, though painful, are at least better than the tears you weep every day …Sir,' she turned to me, ‘I accept everything God sends, but I feel that if this man came back, he would finish off my child's happiness. I vow,' she added more quietly, ‘that she no longer loves him, though she herself doesn't realise it. Yet I am certain …she would go to him, if he called …'

Stifled sobbing interrupted her words. Wirski and I looked at one another and said goodbye to the elderly lady.

‘Madam,' I said, leaving, ‘before the year is out, I will bring news of your son-in-law. And perhaps,' I murmured, with an involuntary smile, ‘matters will work out so that…we shall all be pleased …All of us, even some who are not present …'

The old lady looked at me inquiringly, but I said nothing. I bade goodbye to her once more, and went out with the agent, not inquiring about Mrs Stawska.

‘Drop in and see us any evening you like,' the elderly lady called when we were already in the kitchen. Of course I will! But will my trick with Staś work out? Heaven knows. Calculations do not work when the heart is at stake. But I will at least try to unfasten that woman's hands, and that will be something.

On leaving the apartment of Mrs Stawska and her mother, I quitted the agent, in mutual pleasure. But when I returned home I pondered over the results of my survey of the tenants until my head was spinning.

I was supposed to settle the finances of the house, and here I have done so in such a manner that the income will certainly decrease by three hundred roubles a year. Hm! Perhaps Staś will reconsider and sell his acquisition, which was not in the least necessary, after all.

Ir is still poorly.

Politics are still much the same: continual uncertainty.

W
ITHIN
fifteen minutes of leaving Warsaw by the Bydgoszcz railroad, Wokulski felt two peculiar, though completely different sensations: he was enveloped in fresh air, while he himself fell into a strange lethargy. He could move about freely, was sober; he thought clearly and rapidly, but nothing concerned him —neither his fellow travellers nor his destination. This apathy grew as the distance from Warsaw increased. Beyond Pruszków, he almost relished the drops of rain entering through the open window into the compartment; later, he was somewhat stirred by a violent thunderstorm on the far side of Grodzisk: he even longed for a thunderbolt to strike him dead. But, when the storm had passed, he sank into apathy again and did not concern himself with anything, not even with the fact that the neighbour on his right had gone to sleep against his shoulder, nor that the passenger opposite had taken off his boots and was resting his feet almost on Wokulski's knees, in socks that were at least clean.

Around midnight, something like a dream descended upon him, or perhaps it was merely a still more profound apathy. He drew a curtain over the compartment lamp, shut his eyes and thought that this peculiar apathy would pass with the sunrise. But it did not; indeed, it intensified towards morning, and continued to increase. It made him feel neither good nor wretched: only indifferent.

Then his passport was collected, he had breakfast, bought another ticket, had his luggage moved to another train, and they travelled on. Another railroad station, another change of trains, another departure …The compartment rattled and shook; the engine whistled now and again, kept stopping …People speaking German began getting into the compartment in twos and threes …Then the Polish-speaking people disappeared altogether, and the compartment filled entirely with Germans.

The landscape changed too. Woods surrounded by dikes appeared, consisting of trees standing equidistant from one another, like soldiers. The wooden huts thatched with straw disappeared, and more two-storey houses with tiled roofs and gardens began coming into view. Another stop, another meal …An enormous city …Berlin, probably …Another departure …German-speaking people kept getting in and out of the train, but now they spoke with a slightly different accent. Then night and sleep …No, not sleep: merely apathy.

Two Frenchmen appeared in the compartment. The landscape was again entirely different: wide horizons, mountains, vineyards. Here and there a large, two-storey house, old and solid, screened by trees, enveloped in ivy. Another Customs inspection. A change of trains, two Frenchman and a Frenchwoman got in and made enough noise for ten. They were evidently well-bred people: nevertheless, they laughed, changed places several times and apologised to Wokulski, though he didn't know why.

At one station, Wokulski wrote a note to Suzin: ‘Paris, Grand Hotel', and gave it with a banknote to the conductor, not caring how much he gave him, nor even whether the telegram arrived. At the next stop, someone thrust a whole bundle of banknotes into his hand, and they travelled on. Wokulski observed it was night again, and again fell into a state which might have been a dream, or was perhaps only lassitude. His eyes were closed; yet he thought he was asleep and that this strange state of indifference would leave him in Paris. ‘Paris …Paris …' he said, still asleep, ‘I've been looking forward to Paris for so long …This will pass …Everything will pass.'

Ten o'clock in the morning and another station. The train had stopped under a roof: noise, shouting, people running about. Wokulski was surrounded by three Frenchmen offering their services. Suddenly someone caught his arm: ‘Well, Stanisław Piotrowicz, I'm glad to see you.'

Wokulski stared for a moment at a giant with a red face and flaxen beard, then said: ‘Ah, Suzin …' They embraced. Suzin was accompanied by two more Frenchmen, one of whom took Wokulski's baggage check.

‘Glad you are here,' said Suzin, embracing him again, ‘I thought I would hang myself here in Paris without you …'

‘Paris …' Wokulski thought.

‘But never mind me,' Suzin went on, ‘you've become so stuckup among those miserable gentlefolks of yours that you don't care about me any more. But it would have been a pity if you'd let the money slip. You'd have lost some fifty thousand roubles.'

The two Frenchmen accompanying Suzin reappeared and told them everything was ready. Suzin took Wokulski by the arm and led him out to a square containing many omnibuses and one- and two-horse carriages, with drivers sitting up in front or behind. After a few dozen paces they came to a two-horse carriage with a footman. They got in and drove off. ‘Look,' said Suzin, ‘this is the rue La Fayette, and that the Boulevard Magenta. We'll drive all the way down the rue La Fayette to our hotel near the Opéra. Paris is more a miracle than a city, I assure you. Wait till you see the Champs-Elysées and the Seine and the Rivoli…Oh, it's a marvel, I assure you. Perhaps the women are a trifle too forward here. But tastes differ. In any case, I'm delighted you're here: fifty thousand roubles aren't to be sneezed at…Ah, there's the Opéra and the Capucines, and this is our abode…'