The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [17]
Only August Katz, who sold the soap, never suffered any disciplinary admonition. This underfed weakling of a man was marked by his extraordinary punctuality. He came to work first, cut up the soap and weighed the soap-powder like a machine; he ate whatever was set before him, almost ashamed to betray any physical needs. At ten in the evening he disappeared.
I passed eight years in these surroundings, and each day was as similar to the next as drops of autumn rain. I rose at five, washed and swept the shop. At six I opened the main door and the window, and opened the shutters. At this moment August Katz would appear from somewhere outside, take off his top-coat, put on his apron and take his place in silence between a barrel of grey soap and a column consisting of bricks of yellow soap. Then old Mincel used to hurry in through the yard, muttering: ‘Morgen!’ straighten his night-cap, take the ledger out of a drawer, sit down in his armchair and give the mechanical Cossack several tugs. Jan Mincel did not appear until afterwards, then, having kissed his uncle’s hand, he would take his place at his counter, where he caught flies in summer and in winter drew figures with his finger.
They usually had to bring Franz into the shop. He came in with his eyes sleepy, yawning, kissed his uncle’s hand indifferently and scratched his head all day long in a manner which might have indicated great weariness or great grief. Hardly a morning passed without his uncle, eyeing his tactics, grimacing with derision, asking him: ‘Well … where did you go, you rascal?’
Meanwhile noises began in the street, and more and more passers-by moved along beyond the shop-window. Now a servant girl, then a woodcutter, then a gentleman in a cap, or a tailor’s apprentice, or perhaps a lady wearing a cloak — they passed to and fro like figures in a moving panorama. Carriages, droshkies, carts drove down the street — to and fro … more and more people, more carts and carriages, until finally one great flood of traffic was flowing along, from which someone would pop into our shop from time to time on an errand: ‘A twist of pepper …’ ‘A pound of coffee, please …’ ‘Rice …’ ‘A half-pound of soap …’ ‘A groszy’s worth of bay leaves …’
Gradually the shop filled up, mainly with servant girls and poorly dressed women. Then Franz Mincel scowled the most, as he opened or shut drawers, wrapped up groceries in twists of grey paper, ran up his ladder, wrapped things, all with the dismal look of a man forbidden to yawn. Finally, so many customers collected that both Jan Mincel and I often had to help Franz out.
The old man kept writing and giving change, sometimes touching his white night-cap, the blue tassel of which hung down over one eye. Sometimes he tugged at the Cossack, and sometimes seized a cane with the speed of lightning and used it upon one of his nephews. I could rarely understand what was amiss: for his nephews were reluctant to explain the causes of his irascibility.
About eight o’clock the number of customers decreased. Then a fat servant girl would appear out of the depths of the shop with a basket containing rolls and mugs (Franz always turned his back to her), then the mother of our master, a thin old lady in a yellow dress, with a great cap on her head and a jug of coffee in her hand. Putting this vessel on the table, the old lady would squeak:
‘Gut Morgen, meine Kinder! Der Kaffee ist schon fertig …’
And she would pour the coffee into the white mugs.
Old Mincel would go up and kiss her hand, with: ‘Gut Morgen, meine Mutter!’
For this, he obtained a mug of coffee and three rolls.
Then Franz Mincel went up, followed by Jan Mincel, August Katz and at the end me. Each kissed the old lady’s dry hand, which was etched with blue veins, and said: ‘Gut Morgen, Grossmutter!’
And each obtained his mug and three rolls.
When we had hastily drunk the coffee, the servant girl carried away the empty