The Doll (73 page)

‘Ah, would I not prefer to throw my heart to a hungry dog than to give it to a woman who cannot even guess at the difference between them and me.

‘
Basta
! …'

He sat down at the table once again and began a letter to Geist. Suddenly, he stopped: ‘I'm ridiculous,' he said aloud, ‘I want to commit myself without settling my affairs …'

‘Times have changed,' he thought. ‘Earlier, a man like Geist would have been the symbol for Satan, with whom an angel in the form of a woman was struggling for a human soul … But today — which is Satan, which the angel?'

Someone knocked. A servant entered and gave Wokulski a long letter: ‘From Warsaw,' he murmured, ‘Rzecki? Is he writing me another letter? No, it's from the Duchess … Perhaps to inform me of Izabela's marriage?'

He tore open the envelope, but hesitated a moment before reading. His heart began beating faster. ‘What difference does it make to me?' he muttered, and began:

Wokulski jumped up from the table and, opening the window, stood at it to reread the Duchess's letter; his eyes glittered, a flush broke out on his cheeks. He rang once, again, a third time … Finally he ran into the corridor, shouting: ‘
Garçon
! Hey,
garçon
!'

‘Sir …?'

‘My bill!'

‘What bill?'

‘For the past five days. The total, d'you understand?'

‘At once, sir?' the servant was surprised.

‘At once and … a carriage to the Gare du Nord. At once!'

O
N HIS
return to Warsaw from Paris, Wokulski found another letter from the Duchess. The old lady entreated him to come at once, and stay a few weeks at her house: ‘Do not think,' she concluded, ‘that I am inviting you on account of your recent successes, or showing off because I am acquainted with you. This sometimes happens, though not with me. I only want you to rest after your long labours, and perhaps relax at my house, where in addition to your tedious old hostess, you will also find the company of young and pretty women.'

‘What do young and pretty women concern me!' Wokulski muttered. The next moment, however, he wondered what successes the Duchess was referring to? Could it be that his profits were known even in the provinces, though he had not mentioned them to anyone?

However, the Duchess's words soon ceased surprising him when he surveyed his business interests. Since his departure for Paris, the turnover in trade had again increased and went on increasing every week. A dozen or more new merchants had started business dealings with him, and only one of his previous customers had withdrawn, writing to him a sharp letter declaring that as he did not run an arsenal, but an ordinary textile store, he saw no purpose in maintaining further relations with the firm of Mr Wokulski, with which he would settle all accounts by the New Year. The traffic in merchandise was so great that Ignacy, on his own responsibility, had rented a new warehouse, and taken on an eighth clerk and two despatchers.

When Wokulski looked through the ledgers (at Rzecki's urgent request he set about them a few hours after returning home from the railway station), Ignacy opened the fireproof safe and, with a ceremonious expression, took out from it a letter from Suzin.

‘Why this formality?' Wokulski asked with a smile.

‘Letters from Suzin must have particular attention,' Rzecki answered emphatically. Wokulski shrugged and read it. Suzin proposed a new deal for the winter months, almost as important as the Parisian one.

‘What would you say to this?' he asked Ignacy, having explained what it was about.

‘Staś,' said the old clerk, looking down, ‘I trust you so implicitly that even if you burned down the city, I'd still feel sure you had done it with a noble aim in mind.'

‘You are an incurable dreamer, old fellow!' Wokulski sighed, and broke off the conversation. He did not doubt that Ignacy again suspected him of some political machinations.

Rzecki was not the only one to think this. Going home, Wokulski found a whole pile of visiting-cards and letters. During his absence, some hundred influential people, titled and wealthy, had called on him, at least half of whom he did not know. The letters were still more remarkable. They were either requests for assistance, or for recommendations to various civil and military authorities, or else anonymous letters, mostly insulting. One called him a traitor, another a flunkey who had acquired so much skill in servility at Hopfer's that today he voluntarily put on livery for the aristocracy, if not worse. Another anonymous letter accused him of protecting a woman of bad reputation; yet another reported that Mrs Stawska was a coquette and adventuress and Rzecki a cheat, who was stealing the rent of the newly acquired apartment house and sharing it with the agent, a certain Wirski.

‘Some fine rumours are circulating about me, to be sure,' thought Wokulski, looking at the heap of papers.

In the street, too, whenever he had time to notice, he realised he was the object of general interest. Many persons bowed to him; sometimes complete strangers pointed to him as he passed; but there were also some who turned away their heads with obvious dislike. Among them he noticed two acquaintances from Irkutsk, which impressed him in a disagreeable manner.

‘What are they up to?' he thought, ‘have they gone crazy?'

On the day after his return to Warsaw, he replied to Suzin that he accepted the offer, and would go to Moscow in mid-October. Late that evening he left for the Duchess's estate, which lay a few miles from the recently constructed railroad.

He noticed at the railroad station that here, too, his person attracted attention. The station master introduced himself and ordered a separate compartment for him; the chief conductor, showing him to his seat, said that he intended to find him a comfortable place where he might sleep, work or talk without interruption.

After a long delay, the train slowly moved off. It was already deep night, no moon and no clouds, and there were more stars in the sky than usual. Wokulski opened the window and eyed the constellations. Siberian nights came to his mind, when the sky was usually almost pitch black, strewn with stars like a snowstorm, where the Little Bear moved almost overhead, while Pegasus, Hercules and the Heavenly Twins shone lower on the horizon than in his country. ‘Could I, a clerk in Hopfer's, have known anything of astronomy,' he thought bitterly, ‘if I had not been there? And should I have heard anything of Geist's discoveries if Suzin had not forced me to go to Paris?'

And he saw with his inner eye his own long and unusual life, which seemed to extend from the far east to the far west: ‘Everything I know, everything I have, everything I can still achieve, does not come from here. Here I have found only humiliation, envy or applause of dubious value when I was successful: if I had not been successful, those who bow to me today would have trampled me underfoot.'

‘I will leave here,' he whispered, ‘I'll go away! Unless she prevents me … For what will my fortune give me, if I cannot use it to suit myself? What is the value of a life spent decaying between the club, my store and drawing-rooms where one has to play whist to avoid gossip, or gossip to avoid playing whist?

‘I wonder,' he said to himself after a moment, ‘why the Duchess invited me so pointedly? Perhaps it was on Izabela's account?' He felt hot and slowly sensed a change take place in his soul. He recalled his father and uncle, Kasia Hopfer, who so loved him, Rzecki, Leon, Szuman, the prince, and many many others, who had shown him proof of undoubted goodwill. What was all his education and wealth worth if he were not surrounded by kindly hearts; what use would Geist's greatest discovery be if it were not to prove a weapon which would ensure the final victory to a better and nobler race? …

‘There is much for us to do,' he whispered. ‘There are people among us whom it would be worth helping or strengthening … I am too old to make epoch-making discoveries, let the Ochockis of this world occupy themselves with that … I prefer to augment others' happiness and to find happiness myself …'

He closed his eyes, and seemed to see Izabela looking at him in that strange way which was hers alone, approving his intentions with a tranquil smile.

Someone knocked at the compartment door, and the chief conductor appeared, saying: ‘Baron Dalski is wondering whether he might join you. He is travelling in this carriage.'

‘The Baron?' Wokulski asked, in surprise, ‘of course, ask him to step this way …'

The conductor withdrew and closed the door. Wokulski recalled that the Baron belonged to the trading company with the East and that he was one of the now rather few suitors of Izabela. ‘What can he want with me?' Wokulski thought, ‘perhaps he too is going to visit the Duchess in order to make a definite proposal to Izabela in the open air? Providing Starski has not got there first …'

Footsteps and voices were heard in the corridor, the door opened again and the conductor reappeared accompanied by a very lean gentleman with a tiny, pointed and grizzled moustache, an almost grey and even smaller beard, and very grey hair.

‘This can't be he,' Wokulski thought, ‘he used to be quite dark …'

‘My profoundest apologies for disturbing you,' said the Baron, swaying with the train's motion, ‘… profoundest … I would not venture to intrude on your solitude, were it not that I wanted to inquire whether you are going to visit our respected Duchess, who has been expecting you all week?'

‘That is precisely where I am bound for. How are you, Baron? Pray be seated.'

‘Capital,' the Baron exclaimed, ‘I am going there too. I've been staying at the Duchess's nearly two months. That's to say, sir, not so much staying as continually visiting. Either from my own house which is being done up, or from Warsaw … I am now on my way back from Vienna, where I was buying furniture, but I'll be staying at the Duchess's only a few days, for I have to alter all the tapestries at the palace, put up only two weeks ago. But there's no help for it … They weren't liked, so we must take them down, no help for it!'

He smiled and blinked, and Wokulski felt cold. ‘Who is the furniture for? Who didn't like the tapestry?' he asked himself in alarm.

‘My dear sir,' the Baron went on, ‘you have just completed your mission. My congratulations!' he added, pressing his hand, ‘from the first moment, sir, I felt respect and liking for you, and this is now changing into genuine admiration. Yes indeed, sir. Our tendency to avoid political life has done us great harm. You were the first to break with the absurd principle of abstinence from it, and for that, sir, I admire you … After all, we must concern ourselves with the matters of the state in which our properties are, where our future lies …'

‘I don't understand you, Baron,' Wokulski suddenly interrupted.

The Baron grew so confused that he sat for a moment without a word or movement. Finally he stammered: ‘I apologise … Indeed, I had no intention of … But I think my friendship for the venerable Duchess who, sir, so …'

‘Let us have done with explanations,' said Wokulski with a smile, pressing his hand, ‘are you pleased with your purchases in Vienna?'

‘Very much so, sir … very much. Will you believe me, though when I say there was a moment when I intended to disturb you in Paris, on the advice of the venerable Duchess …'

‘I would gladly have been of service. What was the matter?'

‘I wanted to have a diamond set there,' said the Baron, but as I came across some splendid sapphires in Vienna … I have them with me, and if you permit … Are you an expert in jewels?'

‘Who are these sapphires for?' Wokulski thought. He wanted to straighten his back, but felt he could neither raise his arms nor move his legs. Meanwhile, the Baron had produced four velvet boxes from various pockets, placed them on the seat and began opening them. ‘This is a bracelet,' he said, ‘modest, is it not? One stone … The brooch and earrings are more ornate: I even ordered them to change the setting … This is the necklace … Simple but tasteful, and perhaps that is why it is beautiful … Fiery, sir, are they not?'

As he spoke, he moved the sapphires before Wokulski's eyes, in the flickering light of the lamp. ‘Don't you like them?' the Baron suddenly asked, seeing that his companion did not answer.

‘Of course, very fine. To whom are you bringing this gift?'

‘To my fiancée,' the Baron replied, in a tone of surprise, ‘I thought the Duchess would have mentioned our family happiness to you?'

‘Not a word.'

‘It is just five weeks today that I proposed and was accepted.'

‘To whom did you propose? … The Duchess?' said Wokulski in an altered voice.

‘No, no …' the Baron exclaimed, recoiling, ‘I proposed to Ewelina Janocka, the Duchess's grand-daughter. Don't you remember her? She was at the Countess's for the blessing that year, didn't you notice her?'

A long moment passed before Wokulski realised that Ewelina was not Izabela Łęcka, that the Baron had not proposed to Izabela and was not bringing the sapphires for her.