The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [170]
‘So you are deserting me?’ cried the Baroness.
‘I’ll be in court,’ the lawyer interrupted, ‘I’ll be there for the auction, but pray leave me a few minutes at least to think about my murderer …’
And he rushed through an open door, forbidding the doorman to let anyone in.
‘Good God!’ said the Baroness, aloud, ‘a wretched murderer has a defender, but a poor lone woman seeks a man to defend her honour, peace of mind, property — in vain!’
As Ignacy did not want to be this man, he hurriedly fled downstairs, elbowing the fine, young and elegant ladies brought here by the wish to attend a celebrated murder trial. It would be better than the theatre: for the performers in this official spectacle act more realistically, if not better, than stage players.
The lamentations of Baroness Krzeszowska resounded on the stairs along with the laughter of the fine, young and elegant ladies hastening in to see the murderer, his bloodstained garments, the axe with which he slew his victim, and the sweating judges. Ignacy fled from the vestibule to the other side of the street; on the corner of Kapitulna and Miodowa Streets he hastened into a café and hid himself in such a dark corner that even Baroness Krzeszowska would not have noticed him. He ordered a cup of foaming chocolate, hid behind a torn newspaper and saw that in this small room was another, still darker corner, in which was placed a certain ostentatiously plump individual and a hunchbacked Jew. Ignacy took the stately personage for a Count and the owner of great estates in the Ukraine at least, and the Jew for his agent; however, he overheard the conversation going on between them.
‘Sir,’ said the hunchbacked Jew, ‘were it not that no one in Warsaw knows Your Excellency, I wouldn’t even give you ten roubles for the business. But as it is, you’ll make twenty-five …’
‘And stand an hour in a stuffy court-room!’ the personage muttered.
‘That’s so,’ the Jew went on, ‘it’s hard to stand up in this age of ours, but such money doesn’t go on foot either. And how your reputation will go up when people find you wanted to buy a house for eighty thousand roubles!’
‘So be it. But I want the twenty-five roubles in cash, here and now.’
‘Heaven forbid,’ the Jew responded, ‘you’ll get five roubles now and twenty will go towards paying off your debts to the unfortunate Selig Kupferman, who hasn’t seen a penny of yours in two years, though he got a court order.’
The stately personage banged the table-top and made to depart. The hunchbacked Jew caught him by the coat-tails, sat him down at the table again and offered six roubles in cash. After bargaining several minutes, both sides agreed on eight roubles, of which seven would be paid after the auction and a rouble now. The Jew resisted, but the majestic gentleman did away with his hesitation by a single argument: ‘After all, I have to pay for the tea and cakes we’ve had!’
The Jew sighed, pulled an excessively crumpled little piece of paper from his greasy wallet, straightened the paper out and placed it on the marble table-top. Then he rose and lazily left the dark little room, whereupon Ignacy recognised old Szlangbaum through a hole in his newspaper.
Ignacy hurriedly drank up his chocolate and fled into the street. He was already sick and tired of the auction, with which his ears and head were crammed. He wished to pass the remaining time in some way, and seeing the Capucine church open, went towards it, certain he would find tranquillity in its walls, and an agreeable coolness and that above all he would at least not hear about the auction.
He went into the church and really did find silence and coolness there, not to mention a dead body on a catafalque, surrounded by unlit candles and flowers which had lost their smell. For some time past, Ignacy had disliked the sight of coffins, so he turned left and saw a woman in black kneeling on the