The Doll (90 page)

‘And what did you do then?' I asked, furious with rage.

‘I wasn't home at the time. Mrs Stawska's servant made matters worse by calling the policeman names in the street, for which she is now sitting in the jail herself … While that owner of the Parisian laundry, hoping to curry favour with the Baroness, called Mrs Stawska names … The only satisfaction we have is that the honest students poured something so nasty on the Baroness's head that it can't be washed out …'

‘But the court! What about justice?' I cried.

‘The court will find Mrs Stawska not guilty,' he said, ‘that is obvious. But as for the scandal, well … The poor lady is ruined: today she dismissed her pupils, and didn't go to any lessons. She and her mother sat weeping.'

Of course, I hastened to Mrs Stawska without waiting for the store to close (this is happening ever more often nowadays), and I even took a droshky. On the way, I was struck by the happiest of thoughts — to inform Wokulski of the matter. So I called on him, uncertain whether he would be home, for he spends more and more time dancing attendance on Miss Łęcka.

Wokulski was in, but somehow absent-minded: his courting is obviously not doing him any good. However, when I told him my tale of Mrs Stawska, the Baroness and the doll, the young fellow livened up, raised his head and his eyes flashed (I have sometimes noticed that the best cure for our own troubles are those of someone else).

He heard me out attentively (his mournful thoughts took flight), and said: ‘The Baroness is a damned nuisance … But Mrs Stawska needn't worry: her case is as clear as daylight. Is she the only person that human baseness strikes?'

‘It's all very well for you to talk,' I replied, ‘for you're a man and, above all, have plenty of money. She, on the other hand, has lost all her lessons, poor thing, as a result of this incident or rather — she's declined them herself. So, what is she going to live on?'

‘Oh!' Wokulski cried, striking his forehead, ‘I hadn't thought of that.'

He walked up and down the room several times (frowning hard), stumbled against a chair, drummed on the window-pane and suddenly halted in front of me. ‘Very well,' he said, ‘go to the ladies, and I'll be there within the hour. I have an idea we'll do some good business with Mrs Miller.'

I looked at him with admiration. Mrs Miller recently lost her husband, who had been a haberdashery merchant like us; all her store, property and credit depended on Wokulski. So I almost guessed what Staś was going to do for Mrs Stawska.

I galloped along the street in a droshky, going like three steam-engines, and rushed like a positive sky-rocket to the beautiful, noble, unhappy, abandoned Mrs Stawska. I had my lungs full of cheerful exclamations, and on opening the door felt like shouting with a laugh: ‘Think nothing of it, ladies!'

Then I went in — and all my good humour stayed outside the door.

Just imagine what I found. Marianna in the kitchen with her head wrapped up, and a swollen face — certain proof she had been in a police cell all day. The stove had gone out, the dinner dishes were unwashed, the samovar not ready, while around the poor swollen creature sat the janitor's wife, two servant girls and the milk-woman, all with funereal expressions.

A chill went down my spine, but I walked into the drawing-room. An almost identical sight met my eyes. In the middle was Mrs Misiewicz in her armchair, also with her head tied up and around her were Mr and Mrs Wirski, also the owner of the Parisian laundry who had quarrelled with the Baroness again, and several other ladies, who were talking in undertones but, for all that, blowing their noses a whole octave higher than usual. To crown it all, I noticed Mrs Stawska by the stove, sitting on a little stool, as pale as a sheet.

In a word — a tomb-like atmosphere, faces pale or greenish, eyes tear-stained and noses red. Only little Helena was surviving somehow. She was sitting at the piano, with her little old doll, hitting the keys with its hands from time to time and saying: ‘Quiet, Zosia, quiet! Don't play the piano, mama's head aches.'

Pray add to this the dimmed lamplight which was smoking a little and … the blinds up — and anyone will understand the feelings that seized me. On seeing me, Mrs Misiewicz began pouring out what must have been all that was left of her tears: ‘Ah, so you've come, noble Mr Rzecki! Aren't you ashamed of poor women overcome with disgrace? No, don't kiss my hand … Our wretched family! Ludwik sentenced, now it's our turn … We shall have to move to the world's end. I've a sister near Częstochowa, we will go there to end our broken lives …'

I whispered to Wirski tactfully to invite the other guests to leave and drew nearer to Mrs Stawska. ‘I wish I were dead,' she said to me, in greeting.

I must confess that after being there a few minutes I got the horrors. I'd have sworn that Mrs Stawska, her mother and even these friends of hers were really in disgrace and that there was nothing left for anyone of us but death. The desire for death did not, however, prevent me from turning down the smoking lamp, which had already started sprinkling the room with fine but very black soot.

‘Well, ladies,' Mr Wirski exclaimed suddenly, ‘let's be off, for Mr Rzecki has something to discuss with Mrs Stawska.'

The visiting ladies, whose sympathy had not lessened their curiosity, declared they would discuss it with us. But Wirski began giving them their wraps so vigorously that the poor embarrassed creatures, after kissing Mrs Stawska, Mrs Misiewicz, Helena, and Mrs Wirski (I thought they'd start kissing the chairs before they'd finished), finally removed themselves and took Mr and Mrs Wirski with them.

‘A secret's a secret,' said the most determined of the ladies, ‘and you're not needed here either.'

Another outburst of farewells, kisses, comfortings followed, and the whole crowd almost came to blows, fussing at the door and on the stairs. Sometimes I think the Lord created Eve to spoil Adam's stay in Paradise.

Finally we were left in the family circle, but the little drawing-room was so full of soot and sorrow that I lost all my vitality. In a querulous voice I asked Mrs Stawska to permit me to open the window, and in a tone of involuntary reproach advised her at least to draw the blind in the windows from now on. ‘Don't you recollect, madam,' said I to Mrs Misiewicz, ‘that I remarked on those blinds long ago? If they'd been down, Baroness Krzeszowska wouldn't have been able to spy on what was going on in your apartment.'

‘That's true, but whoever would have expected it?' Mrs Misiewicz replied.

‘It was just our misfortune,' Mrs Stawska whispered.

I sat down in an armchair, pressed my hands so that the bones cracked, and listened with calm desperation to Mrs Misiewicz's lamentations of the disgrace which came upon their family every few years, of death which was the limit of human sufferings, of the late Mr Misiewicz's nankeen trousers and sundry other things. Before an hour had passed, I was certain that the proceedings over the doll would terminate in wholesale suicide, during which I, expiring at Mrs Stawska's feet, would dare confess I loved her.

Then someone gave a loud ring at the kitchen door-bell. ‘The police!' Mrs Misiewicz shrieked.

‘Are the ladies in?' the newcomer asked Marianna in a voice so self-assured that I at once regained courage. ‘It's Wokulski,' I told Mrs Stawska, and twirled my whiskers. A blush resembling the petals of a pale rose on snow appeared on Mrs Stawska's charming face. A heavenly creature! Oh, why am I not Wokulski? Then wouldn't I …?

Staś entered. Mrs Stawska went to greet him. ‘You don't despise us?' she asked in a stifled voice. Wokulski looked into her eyes with amazement … once, then again (believe me) he kissed her hand. The delicacy with which he did so is best attested by the fact that there was none of the lip-smacking which is usually heard on such occasions.

‘So you have come, noble Mr Wokulski? You're not ashamed of poor women overcome with disgrace?' Mrs Misiewicz began her speech of welcome for I don't know how many times.

‘Allow me,' Wokulski interrupted, ‘your situation is certainly disagreeable, ladies, but I see no reason for despair. The matter will be cleared up in a few weeks: only then will despair be possible — but not for any of you ladies, only for the crazy Baroness. How are you, Helena?' he added, kissing the little girl.

His voice was so tranquil and firm, and his manner so entirely unaffected, that Mrs Misiewicz stopped lamenting and Mrs Stawska looked somewhat more cheerful.

‘So what are we to do, noble Mr Wokulski, who isn't ashamed to …?' Mrs Misiewicz began.

‘We must wait for the trial,' Wokulski interposed, ‘to inform the Baroness in court that she is lying, to start a case against her for defamation of character, and not to forgive her a moment of it, even if she goes to jail. A month or two in a cell will do her a great deal of good. In any case, I've spoken to my lawyer, who will come to see you tomorrow, ladies.'

‘God has sent you to us, Mr Wokulski,' cried Mrs Misiewicz in a voice that was already quite natural, pulling the kerchief off her head.

‘I've come here on a more important matter,' said Staś to Mrs Stawska (obviously he was in a hurry to say goodbye to her, the donkey!), ‘have you given up your lessons?'

‘Yes.'

‘Then give them up for good and all. It's wretched work, and doesn't pay. Go into trade.'

‘Me?'

‘Yes, madam, you. Do you know accounting?'

‘I studied it …' Mrs Stawska murmured. She was so upset that she sat down.

‘Excellent. Because the responsibility for yet another store and its owner, a widow, has fallen on me. Because almost all the capital is mine, I must have someone I can trust in the business. Will you therefore accept the post of cashier, with wages … of seventy-five roubles a month, to start with?'

‘Do you hear that, Helena?' Mrs Misiewicz turned to her daughter, making a grimace of the utmost surprise as she did so.

‘So you, sir, would entrust your cash-office to me, against whom a law-suit …?' Mrs Stawska began, and burst into tears.

However, both ladies soon calmed down, and half an hour later we were all drinking tea, not only talking, but even laughing. Wokulski was the cause! There's no one in the world like him! How is it possible not to love him? True enough, I may have an equally kind heart, but I still need a little something more — in a word, the half million roubles my dear Staś possesses.

Soon after Christmas, I installed Mrs Stawska in the store of Mrs Miller, and the latter welcomed the new cashier very cordially, spending half an hour to explain to me how noble, wise and handsome Wokulski is … That he'd saved the store from bankruptcy, and her and her children from poverty, and how good it would be if such a man were to marry. A charming creature, for all her thirty-five years! Scarcely has she taken one husband to the Powazki cemetery than right away (upon my soul!) she'd like to get married again, to Wokulski of course. I can't reckon up how many of these women there are chasing Wokulski (or his thousands of roubles?).

For her part, Mrs Stawska is delighted with everything: the job, which brings her in a better wage than she ever had before, and a new apartment which Wirski found for her. It is not a bad apartment at all: they have a vestibule, a little kitchen with a sink and water laid on, three very nice little rooms and above all, a garden. For the time being it contains three dried-up sticks and a pile of bricks, but Mrs Stawska is convinced that in summer she'll make a paradise of it. A paradise no bigger than a handkerchief!

The year 1879 began with a victory in Afghanistan for the British, who entered Kabul under General Roberts. No doubt Kabul sauce will get dearer! But Roberts is a gallant fellow: he has only one hand, but for all that he hit the Afghans till their feathers flew … Although it's not hard to defeat savages: I'd like to see how you'd perform, Mr Roberts, if you had Hungarian infantry to deal with!

Wokulski also had a battle just after New Year, with that trading company he established. I think that one more session would suffice for him to dispel all his partners to the four winds. Strange folk, though they're all intelligentsia: industrialists, merchants, gentlefolk, princes! He established a company for them, but they regard him as an enemy of this company, and claim that they're the only ones who are making any contribution. He pays them seven per cent half-yearly, but they still grimace and would like to lower the wages of their workers.

As for these dear workers, on whose behalf Wokulski is protesting! What don't they say of him! Don't they call him an exploiter (N.B. in our line of business, he pays the biggest wages and bonuses), and some set traps for others …

I have been unhappy to observe that for some time now, habits hitherto unknown have begun blossoming among our people: such as working little, complaining very loudly, quietly spinning intrigues and starting rumours. But what are other people's affairs to me?

I will now finish off, with the utmost expedition, my account of a tragedy which ought to cause every noble heart to quake.

I'd almost forgotten the shameful law-suit brought by Baroness Krzeszowska against pure, innocent, wonderful Mrs Stawska, when — towards the end of January — two thunderbolts fell on us: the news that plague had broken out in Vietlanka, and a summons to court for Wokulski and me on the next day. My feet were hurting and the pain went from heels to knees, then to my stomach, aiming of course towards my heart. I thought to myself: ‘Is it plague or paralysis?' But as Wokulski accepted his summons quite indifferently, I too took courage.

In the evening I went confidently to the ladies in their new apartment, and on the way I heard in the street ‘Clink-clink, clink-clink!' Oh goodness, can they be taking away prisoners? What a terrible omen. … Dear me, what sad thoughts overcome me: what if the court doesn't believe us? (mistakes are possible, after all), and suppose they should hurl that most noble of women in prison, for a week, even for a day! What then? She'd never survive, nor would I … Or if I did, then it would only be so that poor little Helena should have a guardian …