The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [147]
Mikołaj began serving. Though not in the least hungry, Wokulski ate some spoonfuls of consommé, drank port-wine, then tried the sirloin and drank beer with it. He smiled without knowing why and, in an onset of boyish audacity, decided to commit some faux-pas at table.
First he placed his knife and fork on a small stand by his plate after tasting the sirloin. Miss Flora very nearly winced, but Tomasz began talking very vivaciously about an evening at the Tuileries, where he had danced a minuet with some marshal’s wife at the request of the Empress Eugenie.
A dish of pike was served next, and Wokulski attacked it with his knife and fork. Flora very nearly swooned, Izabela glanced at her neighbour with indulgence, while Tomasz began eating the fish with his knife and fork too.
‘How stupid you all are,’ Wokulski thought, feeling something not unlike contempt for his companions awakening within him. To make matters worse, Izabela exclaimed (though without even a trace of malice): ‘Papa, you must show me how to eat fish with a knife one of these days.’
This struck Wokulski as simply vulgar: ‘I see I shall fall out of love with her before dinner is over,’ he told himself.
‘My dear,’ said Tomasz to his daughter, ‘not eating fish with one’s knife is merely a convention. Isn’t that so, Mr Wokulski?’
‘A convention? I couldn’t say,’ Wokulski replied, ‘it is merely the transference of a custom from conditions which it suits to conditions where it does not.’
Tomasz actually fidgeted in his seat. ‘The English regard it as almost an insult,’ Flora declared.
‘But the English have sea-fish, which can only be eaten with a fork: they would eat our bony fresh-water fish in another manner …’
‘Oh, the English never go against conventions,’ Flora said defensively.
‘That is so,’ Wokulski agreed, ‘they do not under ordinary circumstances, but in less usual ones they adopt the rules, “do what is most convenient”. I myself have seen very distinguished peers eating mutton and rice with their fingers, and taking soup from basins.’
The lesson struck home. Nevertheless, Tomasz heard it with satisfaction, and Izabela with something bordering on surprise. This merchant, who had eaten mutton with peers and clung so boldly to his theory of using a knife for fish had gained stature in her imagination. Who knows but this theory did not seem of more importance to her than the duel with Krzeszowski?
‘So you are an enemy of etiquette?’ she inquired.
‘No, but I do not want to be its slave.’
‘Yet there are societies in which it is always observed.’
‘I can’t say. But I have seen the highest society where—under certain circumstances—it has been forgotten.’
Tomasz bowed his head slightly; Flora had turned blue in the face; Izabela looked almost cordially at Wokulski. Even more than ‘almost’…There were moments in which she dreamed of Wokulski as some sort of Haroun al Raschid, disguised as a merchant. Admiration, even liking, awoke in her heart. This man might certainly be her confidant; she would be able to talk to him about Rossi.
After the ice-cream, Flora remained in the dining-room, entirely flabbergasted, but the others went into the master’s study for coffee. Just as Wokulski had finished, Mikołaj brought Tomasz a letter on a tray, saying: ‘They are waiting for an answer, sir.’
‘Ah, from the Countess …’ said Tomasz, glancing at the superscription, ‘will you excuse me?’
‘We might go into the drawing-room,’ Izabela interposed, smiling at Wokulski, ‘and in the meantime my father will write a reply.’ She knew Tomasz had written that letter to himself, for he simply had to have a half-hour nap after dinner.
‘You forgive me?’ asked Tomasz, pressing Wokulski’s hand.
Wokulski left the study with Izabela, and they went into