The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [168]
During the intricacies of his toilet, Ignacy made so much noise that he woke Ir. The grubby poodle opened the only eye he had left, and on seeing his master’s unusual activity, jumped from his box to the floor. He stretched, yawned, put out first one back leg then the other, and sat down for a while at the window, outside which were heard the painful consequences of a hen having its neck wrung; then, seeing that nothing had really happened, Ir went back to bed. Meanwhile he was so discreet or perhaps so vexed with Ignacy on account of the false alarm, that he turned his back on the room, nose and tail to the wall, as much as to say: ‘I prefer not seeing your bony shanks…’
Rzecki dressed in the twinkling of an eye and drank his tea up like lightning, without looking either at the samovar or at the servant who brought it. Then he hurried to the store, which was still closed, did accounts for three hours without paying any attention to the customers or the conversation of the ‘gentlemen’, and at ten precisely said to Lisiecki: ‘Mr Lisiecki—I’ll be back at two.’
‘Unheard of!’ Lisiecki muttered, ‘something very unusual must have happened for the old fellow to go into the town at this time of day…’
Upon reaching the pavement in front of the store, Ignacy was seized with remorse. ‘What am I up to?’ thought he, ‘what concern of mine is the auctioning of palaces, not to mention an apartment house?’ And he hesitated whether to go to the court or return to the store. At this moment he saw a droshky passing along Krakowskie Przedmieście, with a tall, thin, ill-looking woman in a black dress inside. The lady was just looking at their store and in her sunken eyes and slightly livid lips, Rzecki saw a look of profound hatred. ‘Goodness, it’s Baroness Krzeszowska,’ Ignacy muttered, ‘of course she’s on her way to the auction. There’s going to be an unpleasant scene…’
However, doubts awoke within him. Who knows whether the Baroness was really going to the court? Perhaps it was only gossip. ‘It would be worth making sure,’ thought Ignacy and he forgot his duties as manager and senior clerk, and began following the droshky.
The wretched nag ambled along so slowly that Ignacy was able to keep the vehicle in sight along the entire boulevard to the Zygmunt Column. At this point the driver turned left and Rzecki thought: ‘Obviously the old girl is going to Miodowa Street. It would come cheaper if she rode a broom-stick…’
Rzecki, too, got to Miodowa by passing the front of Retzler’s café (which reminded him of his recent spree) and through Senatorska Street. Here, passing Nowicki’s tea warehouse, he stepped in for a moment to say good-day to the proprietor, then hastily fled, muttering: ‘What will he think to see me in the street at this hour? Of course he’ll think I’m the most wretched of managers, who wanders around the town instead of staying in the shop. What a fate!’
Ignacy’s conscience troubled him for the remainder of the way to the court-house. It took the form of a bearded giant in a yellow silk jacket and yellow trousers who eyed him affably and at the same time ironically, and said: ‘Tell me, Mr Rzecki, what respectable tradesman wanders around the town at this hour of the day? You’re as much of a merchant as I am a ballet-dancer…’ And Ignacy felt he could not reply a single word to his stern judge. He blushed, sweated and was on the verge of going back to his ledgers (making sure Nowicki would see him), when he suddenly beheld the former Pac Palace.
‘The auction will be held here,’ said Ignacy and forgot his scruples. The bearded giant, in a yellow silk jacket, dissolved before the eyes of his soul like mist.
On considering the situation, Ignacy noticed first of all that two huge gates and a double door led into the building. Then he saw four different