The Doll (7 page)

My old master's mother survived a long while; when I returned from abroad in 1853, I found her still in the best of health. Every morning she would come into the shop and say: ‘
Gut Morgen, meine Kinder! Der Kaffee is schon fertig
…'

But her voice grew feebler from year to year, until it finally disappeared for ever.

In my time, a man's master was the father and teacher of his apprentices and the most vigilant servant of his shop: his mother or wife was the lady of the house, and everyone in the family worked in the shop. Today, an employer merely takes his profits and usually knows little about the shop, while he is more anxious that his children should not enter trade. I do not refer here to Staś Wokulski, who has wider views, only in general I think a tradesman ought to stick to his shop and create his own staff, if he wants them to be at all decent.

They say
Andrássy
has demanded sixty million gulden for unforeseen expenses. So Austria is arming too, and yet Staś writes that there will be no war. He was never one for empty words, so he must be very well-versed in politics. So this means he is not staying in Bulgaria simply for love of business …

I wonder what he is doing there? How I wonder …

I
T
is a wretched Sunday in March; it is nearly noon, but the streets of Warsaw are almost deserted. People stay indoors, or seek shelter in gateways, or flee hunched up before the drenching rain and snow. The rattle of droshkies is rarely heard, for they have stopped running. The drivers have got off their boxes to take refuge under the hoods of their vehicles, while the horses, soaked with rain and bespattered with snow, look as if they would only be too pleased to hide under the shafts and shelter themselves with their own ears.

Despite, or because of, the ugly weather, Ignacy is very cheerful, as he sits in his barred room. Trade is going very well, displays for the windows next week are already planned and, above all, Wokulski is due back any day. Ignacy will at last be able to hand over the accounts and the burden of managing the store, and within two months at most, he will set off on vacation. After twenty-five years of work — and such work — he deserves some respite. He will think of nothing but politics, will walk about, run and jump through fields and woods, whistle and even sing, as he did when he was young. Were it not for his rheumatism which, however, will pass in the country …

So, although the rain and snow beat against the window, although it pours so hard that the room is quite dark, Ignacy is in a vernal frame of mind. He takes his guitar out from beneath the bed, tunes it, plucks a few chords, and begins to sing a very romantic air …

‘Spring is awakening everywhere in nature, greeted by the wistful song of the nightingales! In the green grove by the stream bloom two beautiful roses.'

… These magical sounds arouse the poodle Ir as he sleeps on the sofa, and he begins to peer at his master with his one eye. But the sounds do more than this, for they summon a great shadow in the yard, which halts by the barred window and tries to look into the room, thus attracting Ignacy's attention.

‘It must be Paweł,' he thinks.

But Ir is of another mind, for he jumps up from the sofa and uneasily sniffs at the door, as if scenting someone unfamiliar.

A noise is heard in the passage. A hand seeks the doorknob, finally the door opens and on the threshold stands someone wrapped in a huge fur coat, spattered with snow and raindrops.

‘Who are you?' Ignacy asks, and his face becomes flushed.

‘Have you forgotten me already, old fellow?' the visitor asks quietly and slowly.

Ignacy grows confused. He puts on his eyeglasses, then lets them fall, pulls the coffin-like box from under his bed, hastily stows away the guitar and puts the box on his bed.

Meanwhile, the visitor has taken off his great fur coat and sheepskin hat. When one-eyed Ir has sniffed him, he begins to wag his tail, fawn upon him and grovel, whining joyously.

Ignacy approaches his visitor, more uneasy and bent than ever.

‘Why, I believe …' he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘I believe I have had the pleasure …'

Then he draws the visitor to the window, blinking at him.

‘Staś! … For goodness sake …'

He claps him on his powerful shoulders, presses both his hands and finally puts his own hand on his head, with its hair cut short, as if to anoint his sinciput.

‘Ha! Ha! Ha!' laughs Ignacy. 'Tis Staś himself … Staś back from the wars … What, had you forgotten your shop and your old friend?' he adds, striking him forcefully on the shoulder. ‘Why, if you aren't more like a soldier or sailor than a merchant … He hasn't been near the shop in eight months … What a chest! … What a head! …'

The visitor smiled too. He grasped Ignacy by the shoulders, embraced him warmly and kissed him on the cheeks, to which the old clerk submitted, though without returning the embrace.

‘What's the latest news here, old fellow?' the visitor exclaimed. ‘You're thinner, paler …'

‘On the contrary, I am putting on weight.'

‘You've turned grey … How are you?'

‘Very well. And things are going well in the shop too, we have increased the sales a little. In January and February we took twenty-five thousand roubles … My dear Staś! Eight months … But that's over and done with … Why don't you sit down?'

‘Of course,' the visitor replied, sitting down on the sofa, upon which Ir immediately placed himself, his head on Staś's knee.

Ignacy brought up a chair.

‘Something to eat? I've ham and a little caviar.'

‘Very well.'

‘Something to drink too? I have a bottle of reasonable Hungarian wine, but only one wine glass that is not broken.'

‘I'll drink from a tumbler,' replied the visitor.

Ignacy began to scuttle around the room, opening the cupboard chest and table-drawer in turn.

He produced the wine, put it away again, then set out ham and bread on the table. His hands and cheeks were quivering and a good deal of time passed before he was sufficiently himself to get together all the provisions he had previously mentioned. Not until he had partaken of a small glass of the wine did he regain his much-shaken equilibrium.

Meanwhile, Wokulski was eating.

‘Well, and what's the latest news?' asked Ignacy, in the coolest tone imaginable, tapping his visitor's knee.

‘I suppose you mean in politics?' replied Wokulski. ‘There will be peace.'

‘Then why is Austria arming?'

‘At a cost of sixty million gulden? She wants to seize Bosnia and Herzegovina.'

Ignacy opened his eyes very wide.

‘Austria wants to seize …' he echoed. ‘How so?'

‘How so?' Wokulski smiled. ‘Because Turkey cannot prevent her.'

‘And what about England?'

‘England will get compensation.'

‘At Turkey's expense?'

‘Of course. The weak always pay the costs of any conflict between the strong.'

‘And justice?' exclaimed Ignacy.

‘Justice lies in the fact that the strong multiply and increase, and the weak perish. Otherwise the world would become a charitable institution, which would indeed be unjust.'

Ignacy shifted his chair.

‘How can you say such things, Staś? Seriously, joking aside …'

Wokulski turned his calm gaze upon him.

‘Yes,' he replied. ‘What is so strange in it? Doesn't the same law apply to me, to you, to all of us? … I've wept for myself too often to feel for Turkey …'

Ignacy lowered his eyes and was silent. Wokulski went on eating.

‘Well, and how did things go with you?' asked Ignacy in his normal voice.

Wokulski's eyes gleamed. He put down the bread and leaned against the arm of the sofa.

‘Do you remember,' he asked, ‘how much money I took with me when I went abroad?'

‘Thirty thousand roubles, in cash.'

‘And how much do you suppose I've brought back?'

‘Fifty … perhaps forty thousand roubles … Am I right?' asked Rzecki, looking at him uncertainly.

Wokulski poured a glass of wine and drank it slowly.

‘Two hundred and fifty thousand roubles, mostly in gold,' he said distinctly. ‘And since I told them to buy banknotes, which I'll sell when the peace is signed, I shall have over three hundred thousand roubles …'

Rzecki leaned towards him, his mouth open.

‘Don't be alarmed,' Wokulski went on, ‘I made it honestly, by hard, very hard, work. The secret was that I had a rich partner and was satisfied with four or five times less profit than others. So my capital, while continually growing, was in constant circulation. Well,' he added after a time, ‘I was very lucky too … Like a gambler who backs the same number ten times running at roulette. High stakes? … nearly every month I risked my entire fortune, and my life every day.'

‘Was that the only reason you went there?' Ignacy asked.

Wokulski looked at him mockingly.

‘Surely you didn't expect me to turn into
a Turkish Wallenrod
?'

‘But to risk your neck for money, when you had a good living …' Ignacy muttered, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows.

Wokulski shuddered and jumped up.

‘That good living,' he said, clenching his fist, ‘was stifling me and had stifled me for six years … Don't you remember how many times a day I was reminded of the two generations of Mincels or of the angelic goodness of my late wife? Was there anyone among my closest or not so close acquaintances — except you — who did not torment me with a word, gesture or look? How often was it said of me, and almost to me, that I was tied to my wife's apron-strings, that I owed every penny to the industry of the Mincels, and nothing, nothing at all to my own efforts, though it was I who built up the shop and doubled its profits …

‘The Mincels, it was always the Mincels! Why don't they compare me to the Mincels now? In six months I've made ten times the money that two generations of Mincels made in a half-century. A thousand Mincels in their shops and night-caps would have to sweat their hearts out to make what I've made amidst bullets, knives and typhus. Now I know how many Mincels I'm worth, and I swear I'd risk it all again for this result! I'd sooner fear bankruptcy and death than owe it to the people who buy umbrellas in my store, or than kiss the hands of people who deign to equip themselves in my store with water-closets …'

‘You're still the same,' Ignacy murmured.

Wokulski cooled down. He put one hand on Ignacy's arm and looked into his eyes as he mildly said: ‘You're not angry, old fellow?'

‘Why? As if I didn't know that a wolf doesn't look after sheep … Naturally enough …'

‘What's the latest here — tell me!'

‘Precisely what I told you in my reports. Business going well, goods arriving, still more orders coming in. We need another clerk.'

‘We'll hire two, we'll expand the store, it will be splendid.'

‘Fancy that …'

Wokulski glanced sideways at him and smiled to see that the old man had regained his good humour.

‘But what is going on in town? Things must be going well as long as you are in the shop.'

‘In the town?'

‘Have any of my regular customers quit business?' Wokulski interrupted, now pacing about the room.

‘No one! New ones have appeared …'

Wokulski stopped, as if hesitating. He poured another glass of wine and tossed it off.

‘Is Łęcki buying at our store?'

‘Mostly on credit …'

‘Ah …' Wokulski sighed with relief. ‘What is his financial position?'

‘They say he's quite bankrupt and that his apartment house will be put up for auction later this year.'

Wokulski leaned over and began to play with Ir.

‘Well … And Miss Łęcka isn't married yet?'

‘No.'

‘Isn't she engaged?'

‘I doubt it. Who today would marry a girl with expensive tastes and no dowry? She's getting older too, though she's still pretty. Naturally enough …'

Wokulski straightened his back and took a deep breath. His stern face bore a strangely tender expression.

‘My dear old fellow,' he said, taking Ignacy by the hand, ‘my honest old friend! You can't begin to guess how glad I am to see you again, still here in this room. Do you recall how many evenings and nights I've spent here? … how you used to give me dinner … how you gave me clothes … Remember?'

Rzecki looked at him attentively and thought the wine must have been good to unlock Wokulski's lips so.

Wokulski sat down on the sofa, leaned his head against the wall, and spoke as if to himself: ‘You've no idea what I suffered, far away from everyone, never knowing whether I should ever see them again, so terribly alone. For, don't you see, the worst loneliness is not the one that surrounds a man, but the emptiness within himself, when he has not carried away with him even a warm look or a friendly word or spark of hope from his homeland …'

Ignacy shifted on his chair, to protest: ‘Allow me to remind you that at first I wrote very friendly letters, perhaps even excessively sentimental ones … Your brief replies upset me.'

‘Am I blaming you?'

‘No, but you can blame the others still less, for they don't know you as I do.'

Wokulski looked up.

‘I don't bear any resentment against them. Perhaps — a trifle — towards you, because you used to write so very little about … the town. Besides, the newspapers were often lost in the post, there were gaps in the news and I was tormented by awful forebodings.'

‘Of what? There was no war here!' Ignacy replied in amazement.

‘That's so … You even managed to divert yourselves very well, as I recall. You had splendid tableaux in December. Who took part in them?'