The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [135]
Even Ochocki, visiting Izabela one day, told her he had been for a stroll with Wokulski in the Łazienki park.
‘What did you talk about?’ she asked in surprise, ‘not about flying-machines, surely?’
‘Bah!’ her thoughtful cousin muttered, ‘Wokulski is probably the only man in Warsaw with whom it would be possible to do so. He’s a regular fellow…’
‘The only sensible man…the only tradesman…the only man who can talk to Ochocki?’ Izabela thought. ‘So—what is he, really? Ah, I know…’
It seemed to her she had found Wokulski out. He was an ambitious speculator, who wished to penetrate into good society, and had bethought himself of marrying her, the impoverished daughter of an eminent family. It was for this purpose and no other that he had gained the respect of her father, of the Countess her aunt, and of the entire aristocracy. Then, deciding he could make his way into the society of great gentlefolks without her, he suddenly cooled off and did not even come to the Łazienki.
‘I must congratulate him,’ she told herself, ‘he has all the virtues required to make a career for himself: not plain, capable, energetic and above all—shameless and abject. How dare he pretend to be in love with me, and with such facility? Really, these parvenus are outdistancing even us in their deception…What an abject man!’
Offended, she wanted to tell Mikołaj never to admit Wokulski to her drawing-room. At the most he might be permitted into the master’s study, if he came on business. But recollecting that Wokulski never called, she blushed.
Then she learned from Mrs Meliton of the latest disagreement between Baron Krzeszowski and his wife, and that the Baroness had bought the mare from him for eight hundred roubles, but would certainly give her back, because the races were to be held in a few days, and the Baron had placed some large bets.
‘Perhaps even this precious pair will be reconciled on this occasion,’ Mrs Meliton remarked.
‘Oh, what wouldn’t I give if the Baron didn’t acquire the mare and were to lose his bets!’ Izabela cried.
A few days later she heard as a great secret from Flora that the Baron would not get his mare back, for Wokulski had bought it…The secret was still so well-kept that when Izabela called on her aunt she fount the Countess and the Duchess in council, wondering how to bring about a reconciliation between the Krzeszowskis with the help of the mare.
‘Nothing will come of it,’ Izabela interrupted with a smile, ‘the Baron will not get his mare back.’
‘Would you care to wager?’ the Countess asked coldly.
‘Certainly, if I win that sapphire bracelet, aunt.’
The bet was accepted. Consequently, the Countess and Izabela were extremely interested in the races.
For a little while, Izabela was frightened; it was said the Baron was offering Wokulski four hundred roubles compensation, and that Count Liciński had undertaken to mediate between them. In the Countess’s drawing-room, it was even whispered that Wokulski would have to agree to this arrangement, not for the money, but for the Count’s sake. Then Izabela thought: ‘If he is a greedy parvenu, he’ll agree: but he won’t if…’
She dared not complete the phrase. Wokulski did it for her. He did not sell the mare, and even entered her for the race, ‘He is not so abject after all,’ she said to herself. And under the influence of this idea, she spoke very affably to Wokulski at the races.
Yet Izabela reproached herself inwardly for even this small manifestation of benevolence. ‘Why should he know we are interested in his race? No more than in the others…Why did I tell him he “must win”? And