The Doll (86 page)

In October, about the time when
Matejko
finished painting his
Battle of Grünwald
(a large and showy picture, which should not be exhibited to soldiers who took part in real battles), Maruszewicz — that friend of Baroness Krzeszowska — rushed into the shop. What a change — he's gone up in the world! He'd a golden charm on his chest or rather on the place where people have stomachs, so thick and long that he might have used it for a dog-collar. A diamond pin in his tie, new gloves, new shoes, and his body (a wretched enough body, goodness knows!) dressed in a new suit. In addition, he looked as though he hadn't a penny in debts, but paid cash for everything. Klein, who lives in the same house, later explained to me that Maruszewicz plays cards regularly, and has been lucky for some time past.

So in rushed my dandy, with his hat on and an ebony walking-stick in his hand, and after looking around uneasily (he has a rather furtive look), he asked: ‘Is Mr Wokulski here? Ah, Mr Rzecki … A word, I beg.'

We went behind a cupboard. ‘I'm here with excellent news,' he said, pressing my hand affectionately, ‘you can sell your apartment house, the one the Łęckis used to own … Baroness Krzeszowska will buy it. She has regained her capital by a law-suit against her husband, and (if you want to drive a bargain) she'll pay ninety thousand roubles, and even something extra to help you leave.'

He must have seen the gratification on my face (the purchase of that house was never to my taste), for he pressed my hand still more fervently — if a live corpse can do anything fervently — and, smiling at me sweetly (I felt nauseated by his sweetness), he began murmuring: ‘I can be of service to you gentlemen … an important service … The Baroness depends very much on my advice, and if …'

Here he was taken with a slight fit of coughing: ‘I understand,' said I, guessing who I was dealing with, ‘and Mr Wokulski won't make any difficulties about a bonus …'

‘Come, sir,' he exclaimed, ‘whatever do you mean? The more so as the Baroness's attorney will come to you gentlemen with a definite offer. In any case, I'm not concerned. What I have is quite adequate … But I have some poor relatives, to whom you gentlemen may want, on my recommendation, to …'

‘If you please, sir,' I interrupted, ‘we prefer to place a sum directly into your hands, providing of course that the business goes through.'

‘Oh, it will — I can give you my word,' Mr Maruszewicz assured me.

But because I didn't promise him an honorarium, he lurked about the shop for a while, then left, whistling.

Towards evening, I told Staś this: but he defeated me by silence, which made me think. So next day I hurried to our attorney (who is also the Prince's attorney), and communicated Maruszewicz's news to him.

‘So she'll pay ninety thousand?' said the attorney in surprise (he is a very eminent person), ‘but, my dear Mr Rzecki, apartment houses are going up, and next year they're going to build some two hundred new ones. In these conditions, my dear Rzecki, we'd be doing her a favour if we sold the house for a hundred thousand. The Baroness is very interested in this apartment house (if one may use that word in connection with such a distinguished lady), and we might get a much larger sum from her, my dear Mr Rzecki.'

I bade farewell to the eminent attorney, and went back to the store, firmly resolved not to interfere in the sale of the apartment house. Not until then did it occur to me that Maruszewicz is a great scoundrel.

Now that I've calmed down sufficiently to collect my wits, I'll describe the repulsive law-suit the Baroness brought against that angel, that perfect lady, Mrs Stawska. If I don't write it all down, in a year or two I won't be able to credit my memory that such a monstrous thing could happen.

Please note that firstly, Baroness Krzeszowska has long detested Mrs Stawska, because she thought everyone was in love with her, and secondly, that this very same Baroness wanted to buy the apartment house from Wokulski as cheaply as possible. These are two important facts, whose significance I'm only just beginning to understand (I'm getting old, my goodness, that I am …)

I have visited Mrs Stawska often since meeting her. Not every day. Sometimes once in a few days, though sometimes twice on the same day. After all, I was responsible for the house, that's one thing. Then I had to tell Mrs Stawska I'd written to Wokulski with regard to finding her husband. Furthermore, I had to call on her with the news that Wokulski hadn't found out anything definite. Then I visited her to study Maruszewicz's habits through the windows of her apartment, as he lodges in the opposite wing. Then too, I was concerned with investigating Baroness Krzeszowska and her relations with the students who live upstairs, and whom she was everlastingly complaining of.

An outsider might think I visited Mrs Stawska too often. However, after mature consideration, I decided I didn't visit her often enough. After all, I had an excellent post in her apartment for observing the entire building, and in addition I was cordially made welcome. Whenever I called, Mrs Misiewicz (the respectable mother of Mrs Helena) would greet me with open arms, little Helena would climb into my lap and Mrs Stawska herself livened up, and said that during the hours I spent in their apartment, she forgot her troubles. So how could I help visiting them often since they welcomed me so? Upon my word, I did not visit them enough, I think, and had I greater chivalrous leanings I should have sat there from morning till night. Even if Mrs Stawska were to dress in my presence. What harm would it have done?

During these visits I made several important observations. First, those students on the third-floor front were really restless spirits. They sang and they shouted until two in the morning, sometimes they even howled and, all in all, tried to use the most inhuman sounds possible. During the day, if only one was home — and there was always someone — whenever Baroness Krzeszowska put her head out of the window (she did so a dozen or more times a day), someone would always try to pour slops down on her.

I must even say that a sort of game developed between her and the students overhead, which consisted of her peeping out of the window, then trying to draw her head back in again as quick as she could, while they tried to pour slops down as often and as copiously as possible.

Then, in the evenings, these young men who had no one overhead to soak them with slops, would call the washerwomen and servant-girls of the entire building into their room. Shrieks and spasms of weeping could be heard in the Baroness's apartment.

My second observation related to Maruszewicz, who lived almost
vis-à-vis
Mrs Stawska. This man followed a very peculiar way of life, marked by unusual regularity. He failed to pay his rent regularly, regularly every few weeks they removed a quantity of objects from his apartment: statues, mirrors, carpets, clocks. But what was more interesting — just as regularly they brought in new mirrors, new carpets, new clocks and statues to his apartment … After each removal, Mr Maruszewicz would appear for the next few days at one of his windows. He shaved at it, combed his hair, waxed his moustache, even dressed in it, casting very ambiguous looks in the direction of Mrs Stawska's windows. But when his apartment filled again with new articles of luxury and comfort, then Mr Maruszewicz drew the blinds again. Then (incredible though it sounds!) lights burned day and night in his apartment, and the voices of many men, and sometimes even of women, could be heard. But what concern of mine is another man's business?

One day early in November, Staś said to me: ‘Apparently you're visiting Mrs Stawska?'

I grew quite warm. ‘I beg your pardon,' I exclaimed, ‘what do you mean?'

‘Nothing at all,' he replied, ‘I don't suppose you call on her by the window, but in the regular way. In any case, do as you please, but pray tell the ladies at your earliest opportunity that I've had a letter from Paris …'

‘In connection with Ludwik Stawski?' I asked.

‘Yes.'

‘Have they finally found him?'

‘Not yet, but they're on his track, and expect soon to solve the problem of his whereabouts.'

‘Maybe the poor devil is dead,' I cried, pressing Wokulski's hand, ‘please, Staś,' I added, after cooling off somewhat, ‘do me a favour, visit these ladies and tell them the news yourself.'

‘I'm not an undertaker, to give people this kind of gratification,' Wokulski said indignantly.

But when I began telling how respectable the ladies were, how often they inquired whether he would visit them one day … and when I also mentioned it would be worth while to take a look at the apartment house, he began to yield. ‘I care little for the house,' he said, shrugging his shoulders, ‘I'm going to sell it any day now.'

In the end he let himself be persuaded, and we went there around one o'clock that afternoon. In the yard, I noticed the blinds drawn fast in Maruszewicz's apartment. Obviously he had acquired a new set of furniture.

Staś glanced carelessly around at the windows of the house and listened to my report on the improvements without paying the slightest attention. We had laid a new floor in the gateway, mended roofs, painted walls, and had the stairs washed once a week. In a word, we have made a thoroughly presentable house out of a neglected one. Everything was in order, not excluding the yard and the drains: everything—except the rents.

‘In any case,' I concluded, ‘your manager Mr Wirski will give you more detailed information. I'll send the caretaker for him at once.'

‘Oh, never mind the rents and the manager,' Staś muttered, ‘let's call on this Mrs Stawska, then get back to the store.'

We entered the first floor of the left wing, where there was a strong smell of boiling cauliflower: Staś frowned and I knocked on the kitchen door. ‘Are the ladies home?' I asked the plump cook.

‘As if they wasn't, whenever you come,' she replied, winking.

‘You see how they welcome us,' I whispered to Staś in German. He nodded in reply, and thrust out his lower lip.

In the little sitting-room Mrs Stawska's mother was, as usual, knitting a stocking: she rose from her chair and stared in surprise on seeing Wokulski. Little Helena peeped in from the other room: ‘Mama,' she whispered so loudly that she must have been audible in the yard, ‘Mr Rzecki and some other gentleman have come.'

At this moment Mrs Stawska joined us. Seeing both ladies, I exclaimed: ‘Our landlord, Mr Wokulski, has come to pay his respects and give you news …'

‘Of Ludwik?' Mrs Misiewicz caught on, ‘is he alive?'

Mrs Stawska turned pale, then blushed just as quickly. At that moment she was so pretty that even Wokulski gazed at her, if not with admiration, then at least with cordiality. I am certain he would have fallen in love with her on the spot, had it not been for that confounded smell of cauliflower wafting in from the kitchen.

We sat down. Wokulski asked the ladies whether they were content with their apartment, then told them that Ludwik Stawski had been in New York two years earlier and moved to London under an assumed name. He mentioned in passing that Stawski had been ill at that time, and he was expecting definite news within a few weeks. On hearing this Mrs Misiewicz referred several times to her handkerchief for help. Mrs Stawska was calmer, only a few tears trickled down her cheeks. To hide her emotion, she turned with a smile to her little daughter and said in a low voice: ‘Say thank you, Helena, to the gentleman for bringing us news of papa.'

Again her tears sparkled, but she controlled herself. Meanwhile, Helena made a curtsy to Wokulski and then, after gazing at him with wide-open eyes, suddenly put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth. I will never forget the change which Staś's countenance underwent at this unexpected embrace. To my knowledge, no child had ever kissed him before, and at first he drew back in surprise: then he put his arms around little Helena, gazed at her tenderly, and kissed her on the brow. I'd have sworn he was about to rise and say to Mrs Stawska: ‘Allow me, madam, to take the place of this dear little girl's father …'

But — he didn't; he lowered his head and fell into his usual brooding. I'd have given half my annual wages to know what he was thinking about then just. Of Miss Łęcka, perhaps? Ah, my age is telling again … What of Miss Łęcka? She can't hold a candle to Stawska!

After a few minutes' silence, Wokulski asked: ‘Do you ladies like your neighbours?'

‘Depends which ones you mean,' Mrs Misiewicz said.

‘Of course we do, very much,' Mrs Stawska interposed. As she spoke, she glanced at Wokulski and blushed.

‘Is Baroness Krzeszowska a pleasant neighbour?' Wokulski asked.

‘Oh, sir! …' Mrs Misiewicz cried, raising a finger.

‘She's an unfortunate woman,' Mrs Stawska interposed, ‘she has lost her daughter …'

Saying this, she twisted a corner of her handkerchief and tried to glance from beneath those magnificent eyelashes — not at me at all. But her eyelids must have been heavy as lead, for she blushed still more and became increasingly serious, as though one of us had vexed her.

‘And who might that Mr Maruszewicz be?' Wokulski went on, as though not thinking of the two ladies present at all.

‘A ne'er-do-well, a scamp,' Mrs Misiewicz replied hastily.

‘No, mama, he's only eccentric in his ways,' her daughter corrected her. At this moment her eyes were wide open, and their pupils enlarged as never before.

‘Those students are said to be very ill-behaved,' said Wokulski, staring at the piano.

‘Like all young men,' Mrs Misiewicz replied, blowing her nose loudly.

‘Mind, Helena, your bow has come undone again,' said Mrs Stawska, leaning forward to her little daughter, perhaps to hide her embarrassment at the mere mention of the students' misbehaviour.