The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [128]
Nevertheless, he called on Wokulski again the next day, but as he did not find him in, he told the droshky to go to the store. Ignacy greeted him in the store, spreading out his hands as if putting the entire stock at his disposal. An inner voice told the old clerk, however, that this customer would not buy anything costing more than a few roubles and even then would have it charged to his account, very likely.
‘Is Mr Wokulski in?’ Maruszewicz asked, without removing his hat.
‘He’ll be in directly,’ Ignacy replied with a low bow.
‘Directly? What does that mean?’
‘Within fifteen minutes at most,’ Rzecki answered.
‘I’ll wait…Have them give my driver a rouble,’ said the young man, carelessly sinking into a chair. But his legs turned to water at the thought that the old clerk might refuse to give the driver a rouble. However, Rzecki obeyed the instructions, though he gave up bowing to the customer.
Wokulski entered within a few minutes. Seeing the detestable figure of the merchant fellow, Maruszewicz experienced such a variety of sensations that he hardly knew what he was saying, let alone what he was thinking. All he remembered was that Wokulski took him into the office behind the store, where the iron safe was kept, and that he told himself the feelings he experienced at the sight of Wokulski were contempt mingled with loathing. Later, he remembered that he had tried to mask these feelings with refined civility, which even in his own eyes looked more like humility.
‘What can I do for you?’ Wokulski asked, when they were seated (Maruszewicz could not precisely indicate the point in time when he performed the act of taking his seat in space).
Despite this, he began, somewhat hesitantly: ‘I wanted to give you proof, my dear sir, of my goodwill…Madame the Baroness Krzeszowska, as you know, is anxious to buy the Łęcki property…Now, her husband has placed a veto on a certain part of her funds, without which the purchase cannot take place…Now…today…the Baron is in temporary difficulties…He needs…he needs a thousand roubles…he wants to effect a loan, without which…without which, d’you see, he will not be able to thwart his wife’s wishes with sufficient force…’
Seeing that Wokulski was again eyeing him searchingly, Maruszewicz wiped the sweat from his forehead.
‘So the Baron needs money?’
‘Yes,’ the young man replied hastily.
‘I will not give him a thousand roubles—but three, perhaps four hundred. And only against a receipt with the Baron’s own signature.’
‘Four hundred?’ the young man repeated automatically, and suddenly added: ‘I will bring you the Baron’s receipt within an hour. Will you be here?’
‘I shall.’
Maruszewicz left the office and came back with a receipt signed by Baron Krzeszowski inside of an hour. Wokulski read the document, put it in the safe and gave Maruszewicz four hundred roubles in exchange.
‘The Baron will try as soon as possible…’
‘There is no hurry,’ Wokulski replied, ‘apparently the Baron is ill?’
‘Yes…a little…He is leaving tomorrow or the day after…He will repay the money as soon as…’
Wokulski dismissed him with a very indifferent nod.
The young man quickly left the shop, forgetting to repay Rzecki the rouble for the driver. When he was in the street, he took a deep breath and began thinking: ‘Ah, the wretched tradesman! He had the impertinence to give me four hundred roubles instead of a thousand…God, how terribly You are punishing me for my frivolity…If I were to win, then upon my soul, I’d throw these four hundred roubles back into his face and the two hundred as well…God, how low I have sunk…’
He thought of waiters in various restaurants, billiard-markers and hotel porters,