The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [164]
To make these horrors still worse, the infamous Pifke bawled at the top of his voice: ‘This is a gift from Stanisław Wokulski and Ignacy Rzecki, his manager!’ The entire theatre burst out laughing: all the eyes, all the pointing fingers were directed at the eighth row of the stalls and at the very seat occupied by Ignacy. The culprit rose to protest, but felt his voice freeze in his throat, and that—to make matters even worse—he himself was falling. He was falling into a limitless, bottomless ocean of nothingness, in which he would rest forever and ever, without once being able to explain to the audience that the nankeen pantaloons with the little apron and straps had been stolen from his collection of personal souvenirs.
After a night restlessly spent, Rzecki did not wake till a quarter to seven. He could hardly believe his own eyes when he looked at his watch, though in the end he had to. He even had to believe that last night he had been somewhat tipsy, to which a slight headache and general heaviness of his limbs attested.
But all these sickly symptoms alarmed Ignacy less than one terrible symptom: he didn’t feel like going to the shop. And, even worse, he felt not only lazy, but even completely lacking in pride, for instead of being ashamed of his decline and struggling against his slothful instincts, he, Rzecki, kept finding reasons for staying in his room as long as he possibly could.
First it seemed to him that Ir was poorly, then that his never-used rifle was rusty, then that there was something wrong with the green curtain that screened the window, and finally that his tea was too hot, and must be drunk more slowly than usual.
Consequently, Ignacy was forty minutes late to work and he sidled into the office with a lowered gaze. It seemed to him that each of the ‘gentlemen’ (as if to spite him, each had been punctual that day!) was staring with the utmost contempt at his bloodshot eyes, earth-coloured skin and slightly trembling hands.
‘Very likely they are thinking I have given myself up to dissipation altogether,’ the unhappy Ignacy sighed.
Then he brought out the ledgers, dipped his pen and made as if he were reckoning. He was certain he smelled of beer like an old barrel turned out of a vaults, and began very seriously to consider whether he ought not to resign from the store after having committed such a series of shameful acts…
‘I got drunk…came home late…got up late…I was forty minutes late to work…’
At this moment Klein came up with a letter: ‘It says “Very Urgent” so I opened it,’ said the starveling clerk, giving Rzecki the envelope. Ignacy took it and read:
‘Stupid man—or vile! Despite so many benevolent warnings you are nevertheless set on buying a house which will prove the tomb of your dishonestly gained fortune…’
Ignacy glanced at the last line but there was no signature: the letter was anonymous. He looked at the envelope; it was addressed to Wokulski. He went on reading:
Bad luck has placed you in the path of a certain genteel lady whose husband you have almost slain and today you seek to snatch away from her the house in which her beloved daughter expired…Why are you doing this? Why are you going to pay—if it is true—ninety thousand roubles for a house not worth more than sixty thousand? These are the secrets of your own black soul which Heavenly justice will at some future date lay bare and which respectable persons will punish with contempt.
Ponder what you are about, while there is yet time. Do not destroy your soul and your fortune, and do not poison the tranquillity of a respectable lady whose unconsolable grief at the death of her daughter can only be consoled by the possibility of spending a little time in the room where her unfortunate child breathed her last. Recollect yourself, I charge you!
A Well-wisher.
When he had read it, Ignacy shook his head: ‘I don’t understand a word of it,’ he said, ‘though I am very doubtful as to the good intentions of this lady.’
Klein looked nervously around, then,