The Doll (122 page)

Although he put a bold face on it, Szlangbaum was mortified all the same, and Szuman mocked him mercilessly. ‘It's true, Mr Szlangbaum, that if there were no one but Jews in this country, we should all go a-begging!' said the doctor. ‘Some would bamboozle us, and others wouldn't let themselves be caught by our tricks!'

Having a great deal of time on his hands, Ignacy pondered much, and he wondered why he was bothered nowadays by questions which had never formerly entered his head. ‘Why has our store declined?' he asked himself. ‘Because Szlangbaum runs it, not Wokulski. And why isn't Wokulski running it? Because, Ochocki said, Staś was stifled here ever since childhood, and finally even had to run away in order to get some fresh air.' And he recalled the most significant moments of Wokulski's life. When, still a shop assistant at Hopfer's, he wanted to study, everyone teased him. When he entered the university, sacrifices were demanded of him. When he returned to the country, even work was denied him. When he made a fortune he was showered with suspicion, and when he fell in love, the woman he worshipped betrayed him in the most despicable way …

‘One has to admit,' said Ignacy, ‘that in such conditions, he made the best he could of everything …'

But if the power of facts had driven Wokulski from the country, why hadn't he, Rzecki, inherited the store, rather than Szlangbaum? Because he, Rzecki, had never thought of owning his own store. He had fought for the Hungarians or had waited for the Napoleons to rebuild the world. And what had happened? The world had got no better, the Napoleon dynasty had perished, and Szlangbaum became the store's owner. ‘Terrible to think how many honest men are wasted here,' he thought. ‘Katz shot himself, Wokulski is abroad, God knows where Klein is, and Lisiecki also went away because there was no room for him …'

In the face of these meditations, Igancy experienced pangs of conscience, under the influence of which a sort of plan for the future began to make itself apparent. ‘I'll enter into business,' he said, ‘with Mrs Stawska and Mraczewski. They have twenty thousand roubles, I have twenty-five thousand, and for that amount we could open a respectable store, even if it stood alongside Szlangbaum's.'

This plan so dominated him that it made him feel better in health. Admittedly, he kept having pains in the shoulders more often, and shortness of breath, but he paid no attention … ‘I'll go abroad for a cure,' he thought, ‘I'll get rid of this silly shortness of breath and set to work properly … After all, is Szlangbaum the only one to make a fortune here?'

He felt younger and more vital, although Szuman advised him not to go out, and recommended him to avoid excitement. But the doctor often forgot his own prescriptions. Once he called on Rzecki early in the morning, so indignant that he had forgotten to put his tie on. ‘Do you know, sir,' he cried, ‘I have found out some fine things about Wokulski …'

Ignacy put down his knife and fork (he was just eating a steak with mushrooms), and felt a pain in his shoulder. ‘What's happened?' he asked, in a feeble voice.

‘Staś is capital!' said Szuman. ‘I've unearthed that railwayman Wysocki, from Skierniewice. I interrogated him and do you know what I've found out?'

‘How should I know?' asked Rzecki, feeling dizzy for a moment.

‘Just think of it, sir!' said Szuman, irritated, ‘that creature … that fool … When he was travelling with the Łęckis to Cracow last May, he threw himself under a train at Skierniewice. Wysocki saved him …'

‘Hm …' Rzecki muttered.

‘No “hm” about it, that's what happened. From this I deduce that our dear Staś had suicidal mania as well as his romanticism. I'd bet my entire fortune on it that he's dead.'

Suddenly he stopped, catching sight of a terrible change on Ignacy's face. He became very confused, almost lifted him into bed and vowed he would never again bring up the matter.

But fate had it otherwise. At the end of October, the postman gave Rzecki a letter addressed to Wokulski. The letter came from Zasław, the writing was illiterate. ‘Can it be from Węgiełek?' wondered Ignacy, and he opened it.

‘Dear Sir,' wrote Węgiełek, ‘First we thank you, Sir, for remembering us and for the five hundred roubles and all the benefits we received from your generous hands, my mother, my wife and me thank you. In the second place, all three of us inquire as to your health, and whether you got home safe. Certainly you did, else you would not have sent that wonderful gift. Only my wife is very worried about you, at night she don't sleep, and she even wanted me to go to Warsaw, just like a woman. For here, Sir, in September, on the very same day as you met my mother in the potato field as you were going to the Castle, a terrible thing happened. My mother had just come back from the field, and was cooking supper, when there were two terrible bangs in the Castle, like thunderbolts, and the window-panes rattled all over the village. My mother dropped a jug and told me right away. “Hurry over to the Castle, maybe Mr Wokulski is still there, let's hope nothing has happened to him,” and so I go. Good God! I barely recognised the hill. Out of the four walls of the Castle, only one was still standing, the other three was smashed into atoms. The stone we wrote verses on last year was broken into at least twenty pieces, and on the spot where the fallen-in well had been, there was a hole, and the rubble had piled up as high as a barn over it. I think the walls collapsed out of old age, but my mother says maybe the late blacksmith I once told you of had done the damage.'

‘Without telling anyone that you had gone into the Castle just then, I dug for a week in the rubble to see whether — God forbid! — any accident had happened. Only when I found no trace did I place a holy cross on the spot, made of oak not painted, so there should be a memorial that you had been spared. But my wife, just like a woman, is still worried. So I humbly beg you, Sir, to let us know you are alive and well.'

‘The priest advised me to inscribe this on the cross:

non omnis moriar

so people may know that although the old Castle, an ancient monument, fell into ruins, yet not all has perished and still a great deal remains for our grandchildren to see …'

‘So Wokulski was in this country!' cried Rzecki, comforted, and he sent for the doctor, asking him to come over at once. Within fifteen minutes Szuman appeared. He read the letter twice, and gazed in astonishment at the enlivened features of Rzecki. ‘What have you to say to that?' asked Rzecki, triumphantly.

Szuman was still more astonished. ‘What have I to say?' he repeated. ‘Why, what I predicted to Wokulski, even before his departure for Bulgaria, has come to pass. It's clear, after all, that Staś killed himself in Zasław.'

Rzecki laughed aloud.

‘But pray consider, Ignacy,' said the doctor, controlling his emotion with difficulty, ‘just think: he was seen in Dąbrowa, buying dynamite, then he was seen in the vicinity of Zasławek, then in Zasław itself. I think something must have happened between him and that … that accursed woman, in the Castle. For he once mentioned to me that he'd like to sink into the earth as deeply as the Zasław well.'

‘If he'd wanted to kill himself, he could have done so long ago. Besides, a revolver would have sufficed, not dynamite,' Rzecki answered.

‘He has killed himself … But he was a crazy fool in all respects, and a revolver wasn't enough. He needed a railroad train … Suicides can be choosy, I know that!'

Rzecki shook his head and laughed again.

‘What the devil do you think, then?' asked the impatient Szuman. ‘Do you have some other hypothesis?'

‘I do. Staś was quite simply tortured by the Castle and its associations, so he wanted to destroy it just as Ochocki destroyed his Greek grammar after overworking. It is also a reply to the young woman, who apparently used to go into the ruins to mope …'

‘That would be childish! A man of forty-six doesn't behave like a schoolboy.'

‘It's a matter of temperament,' Rzecki replied coolly. ‘Some men send back keepsakes, he blew his into smithereens. Though it's a pity his Dulcinea wasn't among the rubble.'

The doctor reflected: ‘A crazy fool! And where can he be, if he's still alive?'

‘At this moment he is travelling light-heartedly. And he doesn't write, because obviously he is sick of the lot of us,' concluded Ignacy, more quietly. ‘Besides, if he'd perished, some traces would have remained.'

‘Well, I won't swear that you may not be right, although I don't believe it,' Szuman muttered. He shook his head sadly and said: ‘Romantics must die out, that's clear: today's world isn't for them. Common sense means we don't believe either in the angelic nature of women, nor in the possibility of ideals. Anyone who doesn't see this must perish or give way of his own accord. But what style he had!' he concluded. ‘He died under the ruins of feudalism! He perished so that the very earth shook … An interesting type, very!'

Suddenly he seized his hat and hurried from the room, muttering: ‘Lunatics! Lunatics! They might infect the whole world with their madness …'

Rzecki was still smiling. ‘Confound it all,' he told himself, ‘if I'm not right about Staś! He bade the young lady adieu, and left … That's the whole secret. Once Ochocki comes back, we'll learn the truth.'

He was in such good humour that he got his guitar out from under the bed and began humming to its accompaniment: ‘Spring awakens. … The wistful song of nightingales … In a green thicket … Two beautiful roses …'

A sharp pain in his chest reminded him he ought not to tire himself. Yet he felt tremendous energy within. ‘Staś has set to some great work,' he thought, ‘Ochocki is going to join him, so I too must show what I can do … Away with dreams … The Napoleons aren't going to set the world to rights, nor will anyone, if we go on behaving like lunatics. I'll go into business with Mraczewski, I'll bring in Lisiecki, I'll find Klein and we'll see, Mr Szlangbaum, whether you are the only one with sense! Confound it, what is easier than making money, if one has a mind to? And with such capital and such men, too!'

On Saturday, after the clerks had gone home in the evening, Ignacy took the key to the back door of the shop from Szlangbaum so as to arrange the display in the windows for the coming week. He lit one lamp, and helped by Kazimierz, took a jardinière and two Saxon vases out of the main window, replacing them by Japanese vases and an old Roman-style table. Then he told the servant to go to bed, for he was in the habit of arranging the smaller articles, especially the mechanical toys, by himself. Besides, he didn't want the simple man to know that he played with the store toys.

As always, he brought them all out, filled the entire counter with them, and wound them all up. For the thousandth time in his life he listened to the tunes of the musical snuff-boxes, watched the bear scramble up and down its pole, watched the glass water turning the mill-wheels, the cat running after the mouse, the peasants dancing and the jockey riding his horse. And, as he watched the movements of the inanimate objects, he repeated for the thousandth time: ‘Puppets! … All puppets! They think they are doing as they choose, but they only do what the springs command, blind as they are!'

When the jockey fell over on the dancing couples, Mr Ignacy mourned. ‘No one can help others be happy,' he thought, ‘but they can ruin other lives just as well as people.'

Suddenly he heard a noise. He looked into the depths of the store and caught sight of a human form emerging from under a counter. ‘A thief?' flashed through his mind.

‘Excuse me, Mr Rzecki … I was just passing,' exclaimed an individual with olive face and black hair. He ran to the door, opened it hastily and disappeared.

Mr Rzecki couldn't get up: his hands were powerless, his legs refused to obey him. Only his heart was sounding within him like a cracked bell, and a darkness came before his eyes. ‘What in the world am I so scared of?' he murmured, ‘that was only Isidor Gutmorgen … a clerk here. Obviously he stole something and ran away … But why am I so scared?'

Meanwhile Mr Isidor Gutmorgen, after an absence of some time, came back into the store, which astonished Mr Rzecki greatly. ‘What are you doing here? What do you want?' Ignacy asked him.

Mr Gutmorgen seemed very embarrassed. He lowered his head like a guilty party and rubbing one finger along the counter said: ‘Excuse me, Mr Rzecki, maybe you think I was stealing? Pray search me …'

‘But what are you doing here?' asked Rzecki. He wanted to rise from the chair, but could not.

‘Mr Szlangbaum told me to spend the night here …'

‘What for?'

‘Well, sir, Mr Rzecki, you see … That Kazimierz comes with you, to arrange things … So Mr Szlangbaum told me to watch lest he takes anything … But because I felt poorly, so … I apologise, sir.'

Rzecki had already risen from his seat. ‘Ah, you scoundrels!' he exclaimed in a paroxysm of fury, ‘so you all regard me as a thief! Because I work for you without pay!'

‘Excuse me, Mr Rzecki, sir,' put in Gutmorgen, humbly, ‘but why do you work without pay?'

‘May a million devils take you all!' cried Ignacy. He hurried out of the store and carefully locked the door behind him. ‘Stay there until morning, serve you right for being poorly … You can leave your boss a souvenir,' he muttered.

Ignacy couldn't sleep all night. And as his apartment was only divided from the store by a partition, he heard a quiet knocking inside the store about two in the morning, and the stifled voice of Gutmorgen:

‘Mr Rzecki, pray open the door, sir … I'll be back right away.'

Soon, however, all fell silent. ‘Oh, you blockheads,' thought Rzecki, turning and tossing in his bed, ‘so you treat me as a thief … Just you wait!'

Towards nine in the morning he heard Szlangbaum liberate Gutmorgen, and then start knocking on his door. However, he did not reply, and when Kazimierz arrived, Rzecki told him never to let Szlangbaum in. ‘I'm moving out of here,' he said, ‘at New Year, very likely. Even if I have to live in an attic or rent a hotel room … They made me out a thief … Staś entrusted thousands of roubles to me, and that scoundrel fears for his shoddy merchandise …'