The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [185]
‘Are you certain?’
‘Completely. In any case, I’ve found that what seemed to me like snares on his part was nothing but business. Father is lending him thirty thousand roubles and who knows but what all his devices weren’t for that purpose?’
‘Suppose it were otherwise?’ Flora asked, continuing to play with the fringe of her bodice.
‘My dear, for goodness sake!’ Izabela protested, ‘why are you trying to vex me?’
‘You yourself said that such people can wait patiently, set their snares, even risk everything and smash …’
‘Not Wokulski, though.’
‘Recollect the Baron …’
‘The Baron insulted him in public.’
‘But he apologised to you.’
‘Oh Flora, don’t tease me,’ Izabela burst out, ‘you are intent on making a demon out of this tradesman, perhaps because we lost so much on the sale of the house … because father is ill … and because Starski is back.’
Flora made a gesture as if to say more, but stopped: ‘Goodnight, Bela,’ she said, ‘perhaps you are right, now.’
And she went out.
All night long Izabela dreamed of Starski as her husband, Rossi as her Platonic lover number one, Ochocki as number two and Wokulski as the trustee of their fortune. Not until ten next morning was she awakened by Flora who reported that Spigelman and another Jew had come: ‘Spigelman? Oh yes … I had forgotten … Tell him to come back later. Is papa up?’
‘He’s been up an hour. I was just speaking to him about the Jews and he would like you to write a letter to Wokulski.’
‘What for?’
‘To ask him to be kind enough to call this afternoon and settle the bills of these Jews.’
‘Wokulski has our money, certainly,’ said Izabela, ‘but it would not do for me to write to him on this matter. You write, Flora, on father’s behalf. Here is paper, on my desk …’
Flora wrote the letter and meanwhile Izabela began dressing. The arrival of the Jews was like a dash of cold water, and the thought of Wokulski troubled her: ‘So we really cannot do without this man?’ she said to herself, ‘well, if he has our money, then of course he must pay off our debts.’
‘Please ask him,’ she said to Flora, ‘to come as soon as possible. For if Starski finds this vile Jew here …’
‘He has known them longer than we have,’ Flora murmured.
‘All the same, it would be awful. You don’t know the tone of voice that … that … used to me yesterday.’
‘Spigelman,’ Flora put in, ‘yes, he is impertinent.’
She sealed the letter and took it into the hall, meaning to send away the Jews who were waiting there. Izabela knelt in front of an alabaster statue of the Virgin Mary, imploring her that the messenger would find Wokulski at home and that Starski would not meet the Jews in the house.
The alabaster Virgin Mary heard Izabela’s prayers: within an hour, at breakfast, Mikołaj handed her three letters. One was from the Countess, her aunt. In it, she informed Izabela that the doctor would call on her father for a consultation between two and three o’clock, that Kazio Starski was leaving town before that evening and might call at any moment.
‘Remember, dear Bela,’ her aunt concluded, ‘to behave so that the boy thinks of you on his journey and while in the country, to which you and your father must come within a few days. I have already arranged things so that he will not see any young ladies in Warsaw or in the country (apart from you, my angel). Except, of course, for his good old grandmother, the Duchess, and her uninteresting granddaughters.’
Izabela made a slight grimace: she did not care for this emphasis: ‘My aunt is fussing over me,’ she said to Flora, ‘as if I had already lost all hope … I don’t like that.’
And the picture within her of the handsome Kazio Starski darkened somewhat.
The second letter was from Wokulski, announcing he would be at their service at one o’clock: ‘What time did you tell the Jews to come, Flora?’ Izabela inquired.
‘At one o’clock.’
‘Thank goodness!