The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [165]
‘Staś—that’s to say Mr Wokulski—is buying a house?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Klein nodded, ‘but not in his own name, only through old Szlangbaum. At least that’s what people are saying in the house where I live.’
‘For ninety thousand roubles?’
‘Exactly so. But Baroness Krzeszowska wants to buy the house for seventy thousand, so very likely the anonymous letter is from her. I’d even lay a bet on it, for she’s a regular demon of a woman.’
A customer, entering the store to purchase an umbrella, took Klein away. Very peculiar notions began circulating in Ignacy’s head: ‘If I’, he told himself, ‘brought about as much confusion in the shop by wasting one evening, then what sort of confusion will Staś cause in the business, spending days and weeks at the Italian actors and even—goodness knows what else.’
At this moment, however, he recalled there was not so much confusion in the shop on Wokulski’s behalf, and that business was going very well on the whole. It was even true that despite his strange way of life, Wokulski was not neglecting the duties of the head of the establishment.
‘But why should he want to lock up ninety thousand roubles in bricks and mortar? And how do these Leckis come into it? For goodness sake, Staś isn’t such a fool…’
All the same, the purchase of the house alarmed him: ‘I’ll ask Henryk Szlangbaum,’ he thought, getting up.
In the cloth department the little hunchbacked Szlangbaum with his red eyes and a fierce look on his face was moving about as usual, jumping up and down ladders, or pouncing between rolls of calico. He was so accustomed to his feverish labours that although there were no customers, he kept bringing out one roll or another, then unrolling and rolling them up again so as to replace in its proper place on the shelf.
Seeing Ignacy, Szlangbaum interrupted his pointless labours and wiped the sweat from his brow: ‘Hard work, ain’t it?’ said he.
‘What are you bringing all that stuff down for, when there aren’t any customers in the store?’ Rzecki asked.
‘Well, if I didn’t, I’d forget where things are…My joints would get rusty. Besides, I’m used to it…Do you have some business with me?’
Rzecki hesitated a moment: ‘No…I just wanted to see how things were going,’ Ignacy replied, blushing as much as was possible at his age.
‘Can he be suspecting me, watching me?’ passed through Szlangbaum’s mind swiftly, and rage seized him: ‘Yes, my father is right…Everyone is against the Jews today. Soon I’ll have to let my hair grow and put on a skull-cap…’
‘He knows something!’ Rzecki thought, and said aloud: ‘Apparently your respected father is buying a house tomorrow—the Łęcki house.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ Szlangbaum replied, looking away. Inwardly he added: ‘My old man is buying the house on Wokulski’s behalf, and they think and no doubt say ‘Look there—another Jew, a usurer, has ruined a Catholic and real gentleman…’
‘He knows something but won’t talk,’ Rzecki thought, ‘that’s a Jew all over.’
He fidgeted about a little longer, which Szlangbaum took for more suspicion and spying, then went back to his own place, sighing: ‘It’s awful—Staś trusts Jews more than he trusts me…But why is he buying the house, why is he taking up with the Łęckis? Perhaps he isn’t going to buy it? Perhaps this is only a rumour?’
He was so alarmed at the thought of ninety thousand being locked up in bricks and mortar that he thought of nothing else all day. There was a moment when he thought of asking Wokulski directly, but he lacked courage: ‘Staś,’ he told himself, ‘is taking up with gentlefolk but he confides in Jews. What does old Rzecki mean to him?’
So he decided that next day he would go to the auction and see whether in fact old Szlangbaum bought the Łęcki house and whether, as Klein had said, he bid up to ninety thousand roubles. If that happened, it would be a sign that everything else was going to follow.
In the afternoon, Wokulski dropped by the store and