The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [158]
‘For goodness sake! They’re coming back…’ Tomasz interrupted.
Izabela and Wokulski had just appeared at the end of the path.
Tomasz eyed them attentively and only now did he notice that these two people looked well together, both in height and movement. He, a head taller and powerfully built, stepped like an ex-military man; she, somewhat slighter, but more graceful, moved as if gliding. Even Wokulski’s white top-hat and light overcoat matched Izabela’s ash-coloured wrap.
‘Where did he get that white top-hat?’ Tomasz wondered resentfully. Then a strange notion occurred to him: that Wokulski was a parvenu who ought to pay him at least fifty per cent on the capital lent him, in return for the right to wear a white top-hat. But in the end he only shrugged.
‘How beautiful those paths are, aunt,’ Izabela exclaimed as she drew nearer, ‘we have never been in that direction. The Łazienki park is only pleasant when one can walk a long way, and fast.’
‘In that case, please ask Mr Wokulski to keep you company more often,’ the Countess replied in a tone of peculiar sweetness. Wokulski bowed, Izabela frowned imperceptibly and Tomasz said: ‘Perhaps we should go home…’
‘I think so,’ said the Countess, ‘are you staying here, Mr Wokulski?’
‘Yes. May I see you to your carriage?’
‘Please do. Bela, your hand.’
The Countess and Izabela went in front, Tomasz and Wokulski following. Tomasz felt so much resentment, spleen and gall at the sight of that white top-hat that he forced himself to smile in order not to be disagreeable. Finally, wishing to divert Wokulski in some way or other, he began talking about his house again, from which he hoped to gain forty or fifty thousand roubles clear profit. These figures reacted unfavourably on Wokulski, as he had told himself he was not in a position to add anything over thirty thousand.
Not until the carriage came up and Tomasz, after handing in the ladies, cried: ‘Drive on!’ did Wokulski’s feeling of distaste disappear and yearning for Izabela awaken.
‘It was so brief,’ he thought, looking with a sigh at the Łazienki alley along which the green water-cart of a park-keeper was now rolling, sprinkling the gravel.
He went in the direction of the Orangery again, along the same path as before, gazing at Izabela’s footsteps in the fine sand. But something was different. The wind now blew stronger, it ruffled the water of the lake, had scattered the butterflies and the birds and was also driving up more clouds, which kept eclipsing the sunshine: ‘How boring it is here,’ he thought, and went back to the main alley.
He got into his carriage and, with his eyes closed, relished its slight rocking motion. It made him think of a bird on a branch, which the wind blows to left then right, up then down, but he suddenly smiled to think that this slight rocking motion was costing him about a thousand a year. ‘I’m a fool, a fool,’ he repeated, ‘why am I pushing my way in among people who either fail to understand the sacrifices I am making, or who laugh at my clumsy efforts? Why do I have to keep this carriage? Couldn’t I use a droshky, or that rattling omnibus with its canvas curtains?’
When he stopped in front of his house, he recalled the promise he had given Izabela concerning Rossi’s ovation. ‘He will get his ovation, mark my words! There’s a performance tomorrow…’
Towards evening, he sent his servant to the shop for Oberman. The grey-haired cashier hurried over at once, asking himself in alarm whether Wokulski had changed his mind and was going to order him to repay the lost money…
However, Wokulski greeted him very affably and even took him into the study, where they talked for nearly half an hour. What about? The question very much intrigued the footman. ‘About the lost money, surely?’…Worried, he put his ear and eye to the key-hole in turn, saw and heard a great deal, but could make nothing of it all. He saw Wokulski give Oberman a whole bundle of five-rouble notes and heard such phrases as: ‘In the Grand Theatre…the balcony and gallery…a bouquet by the doorman…a bouquet across