The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [141]
‘So what have I gained,’ he wondered, ‘from the risks I took in Bulgaria, at the races here or in the duel?’
You have acquired a better opportunity,’ common sense told him. ‘A year ago you had perhaps one-hundred-millionth or one-twenty-millionth chance that she would marry you, and within a year you may have a one-twenty-thousandth chance…’
‘Within a year?’ Wokulski echoed, and again a sort of severe chill struck him. He cast it aside, however, and asked: ‘Suppose Izabela falls in love with me—or has already done so?’
‘First, you must find out whether Izabela is capable of loving anyone…’
‘Is she not a woman?’
‘There are women with moral defects who are incapable of loving anyone or anything except their own fleeting caprices, just as there are such men; it is a defect like deafness, blindness or paralysis, only less obvious.’
‘Let us suppose…’
‘Very well,’ the voice went on, reminding Wokulski of the sarcastic advice Dr Szuman had given him, ‘if this woman is capable of loving anyone, the second question arises—will she fall in love with you?’
‘I’m not repulsive, after all…’
‘On the contrary, you may be, just as the most superb of lions is repulsive to a cow, or an eagle to a goose. You see, I am even complimenting you by comparing you to a lion or eagle, which—despite all their good qualities—nevertheless arouse horror in the females of other species. So you should avoid females of a species different from yourself.’
Wokulski came to and looked around. He was now not far from the Vistula, near some wooden barns, and passing carts were bespattering him with black dust. He turned back quickly towards town, and began considering: ‘There are two men in me,’ he thought, ‘one quite sensible, the other a lunatic. But I am not concerned with that any longer…What shall I do, though, if the sensible man wins? What a terrible thing it would be to possess a great fund of emotion, yet be unable to lay it at the feet of a female of another species: a cow, a goose, or something even worse! How humiliating it would be to smile at the triumph of a bull or goose, yet at the same time to have to weep because one’s own heart is torn to shreds, shamefully trampled underfoot…Would life be worth living under such conditions?’
Wokulski felt a longing for death at the mere thought—but a death so oblivious that even his ashes would not remain on this earth. Gradually he calmed down, however, and on returning home began to consider quite coolly whether to wear a frock-coat or a tail-coat for the next day’s dinner-party. Would some unforeseen obstacle occur to prevent him yet again from drawing closer to Izabela? Then he completed his accounts of the latest commercial transaction, sent a few telegrams to Moscow and St Petersburg, and wrote a letter to old Szlangbaum, suggesting he should use his name for acquiring the Łęcki property.
‘The lawyer was right,’ he thought, ‘it would be better to buy the house in someone else’s name. Otherwise they may suspect me of wanting to take advantage of them or—still worse—think I mean to do them a favour.’
However, a storm was brewing within him behind the façade of these trivial duties. Common sense shouted aloud that tomorrow’s dinner-party meant nothing, and prophesied nothing. Yet hope whispered softly, very softly, that—perhaps he was loved, or might be…But so softly, that Wokulski had to listen to its whisper with the utmost attention.
The next day, so significant to Wokulski, was not marked by anything unusual either in Warsaw or in Nature. Here and there in the streets, dust was stirred up by door-keepers’ brooms; droshkies rushed wildly along or stopped for no particular reason, and an endless stream of passers-by moved this way and that, merely to get in the way of the traffic. Sometimes ragged people shuffled along under walls, stooping, hands hidden in their sleeves as if it was not June, but January. Sometimes a peasant cart rolled by in the street, loaded with rubbish, driven