The Doll (85 page)

‘Besides, what right have I to complain? A year ago I hardly dared dream about Izabela, and today I know her, I'm even trying to win her affection … But do I know her? She's a conventional aristocrat, yes … but she still hasn't looked around the world. She has a poetic spirit, or perhaps merely presents one. She's a flirt, but that will change if she falls in love with me … In a word, it isn't bad, and within a year …'

At this moment his horse raised its head and neighed: neighing and the sound of hoofs echoed in the depths of the wood. Soon a woman on horseback appeared at the end of the drive, and Wokulski recognised Mrs Wąsowska. ‘Hop, hop!' she cried, laughing. She jumped off her horse, and gave the reins to Wokulski. ‘Tie him up, sir,' she said, ‘ah, how well I know you! An hour ago I asked the Duchess where you were. “He's gone out looking for a site for the sugar-factory.” “Just so,” thought I, “he's gone into the woods to dream.” I ordered a horse and here I find you, sitting on a tree-stump in a state of exaltation. Ha ha ha!'

‘Do I look so comical?'

‘No! You do not look at all comical to me, but — how shall I word it? — unexpected. I imagined you very differently. When they told me you were a tradesman who had also made a fortune, I thought: “A tradesman? So he's come into the country either to woo a rich young woman, or to obtain money from the Duchess for some business.” In any case, I thought you a cold man, calculating, a man who estimates the values of the trees as he walks in a wood, and who doesn't look at the sky because it doesn't pay interest. But what do I find? A dreamer, a medieval troubadour who disappears into the wood to sigh and gaze upon last week's traces of
her
feet! A faithful knight, who loves one woman through life and death, and is impudent to the others. Oh, Mr Wokulski, how amusing this is — and how old-fashioned!'

‘Have you quite finished?' Wokulski asked coldly.

‘Yes … Have you something to add?'

‘No, madam. I suggest we go back to the house.'

Mrs Wąsowska blushed scarlet. ‘I trust,' she said, taking the horse's bridle, ‘that you don't think I speak of your love in this manner so as to catch you for myself? … You say nothing. So let's be serious. There was a moment when I liked you: there was, but it passed. Even if it hadn't, even if I were dying for love of you, which will certainly not happen, for I haven't yet lost any sleep or appetite — I wouldn't surrender to you, do you hear me? — not even if you came crawling at my feet. I couldn't live with a man who loves another woman as you do. I am too proud. Do you believe me?'

‘Yes!'

‘I thought so. If I vexed you with my remarks, it was simply out of benevolence. Your madness impresses me, I hope you will be happy and that's why I say — throw off the medieval troubadour, for this is the nineteenth century, women are different from what you imagine, as even twenty-year-old youths know.'

‘What are they really like?'

‘Pretty, agreeable, they like twisting you around their little fingers, and will fall in love only enough to enjoy it. No woman will accept a dramatic love, or at least not all women … First she must grow tired of flirtations, and then she will find herself a dramatic lover …'

‘In a word, you are insinuating that Izabela …'

‘Oh, I insinuate nothing about Izabela,' Mrs Wąsowska protested vivaciously, ‘in her there is material for a fine woman, and the man she falls in love with will be happy. But before she falls in love … Pray help me mount.'

Wokulski did so, then mounted his own horse. Mrs Wąsowska was agitated. She rode ahead in silence for a while: suddenly she turned back to him and said: ‘My last word. I know people better than you may suppose … I am afraid you may be disillusioned. If that ever happens, remember my advice: don't act under the influence of passion, but wait. Things often look worse than they really are.'

‘Satan!' Wokulski muttered. The whole world began revolving around him and seemed infused with blood.

They rode on without speaking. At Zasławek, Wokulski went to the Duchess. ‘I'm leaving tomorrow,' he said, ‘and as for the sugar-factory, don't build one.'

‘Tomorrow?' the old lady echoed, ‘and what will happen about the stone?'

‘If you permit, I'll go to Zasław, I'll inspect the stone, and I have other business there, too.'

‘Then God be with you … There is nothing for you to do here. And call on me in Warsaw. I shall be going back at the same time as the Countess and the Łęckis.'

That evening Ochocki came to his room. ‘Confound it!' he cried, ‘I had so many things to discuss with you … But there, you were with the ladies all the time, and now you're leaving.'

‘Don't you care for the ladies?' asked Wokulski with a smile, ‘perhaps you are right!'

‘It isn't that I don't care for them. But since I found out that great ladies are no different than chambermaids, I prefer the latter. These women,' he went on, ‘are all geese, even the cleverest of them. Yesterday, for instance, I spent a half-hour explaining to Wąsowska the advantages of steering a balloon, I told her frontiers would disappear, nations be brothers, civilisation progress … She gazed into my eyes so that I'd have sworn she understood. Then, when I'd finished, she asked: “Mr Ochocki, why don't you get married?” Did you ever hear anything like it! Of course, it took me another half hour to explain that I had no thought of marrying, that I wouldn't marry Felicja, or Izabela, or even her … Good God, I don't know a single woman in whose constant company I wouldn't turn stupid in six months.' He stopped, and began taking his leave.

‘One moment,' said Wokulski, ‘when you come back to Warsaw, pray call on me. Perhaps I shall be able to give you news of an invention which admittedly will take half a lifetime, but — you'll like it.'

‘Balloons?' asked Ochocki with a fiery look.

‘Something better. Goodnight.'

Next day, towards noon, Wokulski bade goodbye to the Duchess's household. A few hours later he was in Zasław. He called on the priest, and told Węgiełek to be ready to set off for Warsaw. Having done this, he went to the castle ruins.

The four lines were already engraved on the stone. Wokulski read them several times, and his gaze rested on the words: ‘… always, everywhere I shall be with you …'

‘And if not?' he murmured.

Despair gripped him at this thought. Just then he only had one longing — that the earth might give way and swallow him up, along with these ruins, this stone and this inscription.

When he went back to the village, the horses had been fed, Węgiełek was standing by the carriage with his green trunk. ‘Do you know when you'll be coming back?' Wokulski asked.

‘In God's good time, sir,' Węgiełek replied.

‘Get up.'

He threw himself upon the cushions and they moved off. An old woman made a sign of the Cross to them from a distance. Węgiełek caught sight of her and took off his cap: ‘Take care of yourself, mama!' he called from the box.

S
O HERE
we are in 1879. If I were superstitious, or didn't know that bad times are followed by better, I'd be afraid of this year 1879. For whereas its predecessor ended badly, it has started off even worse. For example — England went to war- with Afghanistan at the end of last year, and in December things went badly for her. Austria had a great deal of trouble with Bosnia, and an insurrection broke out in Macedonia. In October and November, there were attempts on the lives of King Alfonso of Spain and King Umberto of Italy. Both escaped unharmed. Also in October, Prince Jósef Zamoyski, a great friend of Wokulski's, died. I think his death interfered in more than one way with Wokulski's plans.

Scarcely has 1879 started than — may the devil take it! — the English, still not yet disentangled from Afghanistan, have a war in Africa, down in the Cape of Good Hope, against some Zulus or other. Here in Europe we have nothing less than an outbreak of typhus in the Astrakhan district, and it may reach us any day.

What a lot of trouble this typhus creates! Everyone I meet says: ‘Well now, serve you right for importing calico from Moscow. You'll see, you'll bring the plague with it!' And the anonymous letters, roundly cursing us! I fancy, however, that their writers are mostly our rivals, or Lodz manufacturers of calico. The latter would be only too glad to see us break our necks, even if there were no plague. Of course, I don't repeat even a hundredth part of these insults to Wokulski: but I think he hears and reads them more than I.

Strictly speaking, I intended to set down in these pages the story of an amazing court case, a criminal case, which Baroness Krzeszowska has brought against none other than the pretty, virtuous, adorable Mrs Helena Stawska. But such rage overcomes me that I cannot collect my thoughts. So to distract my attention, I write about other things …

She brought a criminal case against Mrs Stawska for theft! Theft! Her! … Of course we emerged victorious from the mud. But at what a cost … I, for instance, couldn't sleep for well nigh two months. And if today I go out for a beer in the evenings, a thing I never used to do, and even sit in saloons till midnight, I do so from sheer mortification. To bring a charge of theft against that divine creature! Goodness knows, only a half-crazy woman like the Baroness would do such a thing.

Because of it, the ferocious harpy paid us ten thousand roubles … Ah, if it depended on me, I'd have squeezed out a hundred thousand. Let her weep, let her have spasms, let her die even. Vile woman! But let's think of something other than human iniquities.

Strictly speaking, who knows whether honest Staś wasn't the involuntary cause of Mrs Stawska's misfortunes: or perhaps not so much he, as I myself … I introduced him to her by force, I advised Staś not to call on that monster, the Baroness, and finally I wrote to Wokulski, when he was in Paris, that he should try to obtain news of Ludwik Stawski. In a word, it was I who vexed that serpent Krzeszowska. I paid for it for two months! But there's no help for it. Good God, if you exist, have mercy on my soul, if I have a soul — as a soldier of the French Revolution once said. (Ah, how old I'm growing, how old I'm growing! Instead of getting to the point at once I prattle, I repeat myself, I ramble … Although, upon my word, I believe I'd have a fit if I began to write at once about that monstrous, that shameful court case …)

Now, let me collect my thoughts. Staś was in the country during September, at the Duchess's. I cannot imagine why he went there, nor what he did. But I could see, from the few letters he wrote me, that it didn't go very well. What the devil took Izabela Łęcka there? Surely he isn't interested in her any more? I'll be damned if I don't make a match of it between him and Mrs Stawska. I'll make a match of it, I'll lead them to the altar, I'll make sure he makes the vows properly, and then … Maybe I'll blow out my brains, I don't know? … (Old fool! … Is it for you to think of such an angel! … Besides, I don't think of her at all, particularly since I became convinced that she loves Wokulski. Let her love him, providing both are happy. And I? Come, Katz, my old friend, would you have been any bolder than I?

In November, on the very day that the house in Wspolna Street collapsed, Wokulski returned from Moscow. Again, I don't know what he was doing there: suffice it that he made some seventy thousand roubles … These profits are beyond my grasp, but I am sure that any business in which Staś was involved must have been honest.

A few days after his return, a respectable merchant comes up to me and says: ‘My dear Mr Rzecki, I am not in the habit of interfering in other people's business, but — pray warn Wokulski, not from me, but from you, that his partner Suzin is a great scoundrel and will certainly go bankrupt very soon. Warn him, sir, for I pity him … Wokulski, even though he has got on to the wrong road, always deserves sympathy.'

‘What do you mean by a “wrong road”?' I asked.

‘Well, now, Mr Rzecki,' said he, ‘anyone who goes to Paris and buys ships when England is involved in an incident and so forth — he, Mr Rzecki, is not marked by a citizen's virtues.'

‘My dear sir,' said I, ‘how does the buying of ships differ from the buying of hops? Bigger profits, no doubt …'

‘Well,' said he, ‘let's not make an issue of it, Mr Rzecki. I'd have nothing against anyone else doing it, but not Wokulski … After all, we both know his past, and I perhaps better than you, for sometimes the late lamented Hopfer placed orders with me through him …'

‘My dear sir,' said I to this merchant, ‘are you casting aspersions on Wokulski?'

‘No, sir,' said he to this, ‘I'm simply repeating what the whole town is saying. I don't want to harm Wokulski in the least, especially in your eyes, as you are his friend (and very properly, for you knew him when he was different from today), but … You must admit, sir, that this man is damaging trade. I don't judge his patriotism, Mr Rzecki, but I'll tell you frankly (for I must be frank with you) that those Muscovite calicos … Do you understand me, sir?'

I was furious. For although I am a lieutenant of Hungarian infantry, I couldn't comprehend in what way German calico is better than Muscovite calico. But there was no talking to my merchant. The brute raised his eyebrows, shrugged and waved his hands about so that in the end I thought he must be a fine patriot, and I a dummy, although when he was filling his pockets with roubles and imperials, hundreds of bullets were flying past my head…

Of course, I told Staś all this, and he replied with a sigh: ‘Calm yourself, my dear fellow. These very people who are warning me Suzin is a scoundrel, were writing to Suzin a month ago to say that I'm a bankrupt, a robber, an ex-rebel.'

After my talk with the honest merchant, whose name I won't even mention, and after all the anonymous letters I received, I decided to make a note of the various views expressed by respectable people about Wokulski. Here's the first: Staś is a bad patriot because his cheap calicos have spoiled the Lodz manufacturers' business a little. Very well! What's next?