The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [173]
So he turned to the other side of the room and caught sight of Mr Łęcki with his lawyer, a few paces away; the latter was clearly bored and wanted to be off. ‘If only a hundred and fifteen … or a hundred and twenty thousand,’ said Mr Łęcki, ‘after all, you must know some method …’
‘Hm … hm …’ said the lawyer, looking longingly at the door, ‘you’re asking too much … A hundred and twenty thousand roubles for a house that cost sixty thousand …’
‘But, my dear man, it cost me a hundred thousand …’
‘Yes, but … you paid rather too much …’
‘Yet,’ Mr Łęcki interrupted, ‘I’m only asking a hundred and ten thousand. It strikes me you ought to help me, no matter what. Surely there are ways of which I know nothing, since I’m not a lawyer …’
‘Hm … hm …’ the lawyer muttered.
Fortunately one of his colleagues (also in a frock-coat with badge) called him from the room: a moment later the individual in green spectacles with the look of a sacristan approached Mr Łęcki and said: ‘Vhat is the matter, Your Excellency? No lawyer will outbid you for the house. That is vat I am here for. Gif me tventy roubles for expenses and one per cent per thousand above sixty thousand …’
Mr Łęcki eyed the sacristan with vast contempt: he put both hands in his trouser pockets (which struck even himself as odd) and declared: ‘I’ll pay one per cent per thousand over a hundred and twenty thousand …’
The sacristan in green spectacles bowed, shrugged his left shoulder and replied: ‘You must excuse me, Excellency …’
‘Wait!’ Mr Łęcki interrupted, ‘over a hundred and ten …’
‘Excuse me …’
‘Over a hundred, then!’
‘Excuse me …’
‘May the devil take you! How much do you want?’
‘One per cent on any sum over seventy thousand, plus tventy roubles for expenses,’ said the sacristan, bowing low.
‘Will you take ten?’ asked Mr Łęcki, purple with fury.
‘I won’t say no even to a rouble …’
Mr Łęcki produced a splendid wallet, took a whole bundle of rustling ten-rouble notes from it and gave one to the sacristan who bowed: ‘You’ll see, Your Excellency,’ the sacristan whispered.
Two Jews were standing near Ignacy: one was tall and swarthy, with a beard so black as to be blue, while the other was bald, with such long whiskers that they reached down to the lapels of his frock-coat. Catching sight of Łęcki’s ten-rouble notes, the gentleman with the whiskers smiled and said in an undertone to the handsome dark man: ‘See the bank-notes yonder gent has? Listen how they rustle … They’re glad to see me. You understand me, Mr Cynader?’
‘Łęcki is your client, then?’ asked the handsome dark man.
‘Why not?’
‘He has … a sister in Cracow who is bequeathing to his daughter …’
‘Suppose she doesn’t, though?’
The gentleman with whiskers was taken aback for a moment: ‘Don’t talk such nonsense to me! Why shouldn’t his sister in Cracow make a will, seeing she’s sick?’
‘I don’t know nothin’ about that,’ the handsome dark man replied (Ignacy had to admit he had never before seen such a handsome man).
‘But he has a daughter, Mr Cynader,’ said the owner of the flowing whiskers uneasily, ‘you know his daughter Izabela, don’t you, Mr Cynader? I’d give her — well, a hundred roubles and no questions asked.’
‘I’d give her a hundred and fifty,’ said the handsome dark man, ‘though of course that Łęcki is a doubtful case.’
‘Doubtful? And what about Mr Wokulski?’
‘Mr Wokulski? Ah — that’s big business,’ replied the dark man, ‘but she’s stupid and Łęcki is stupid and so are they all. And they will destroy Wokulski, and he can’t do anything about it.’
Ignacy saw red: ‘Good God!’ he thought, ‘so they even talk about Wokulski at auction-sales, and about her. And they even predict she will destroy him. Good God!’
Some confusion had occurred at the table occupied by the auctioneers; all the spectators surged in