The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [191]
He ate an elegant dinner at the Łęckis, drank his coffee, brushed his teeth — and was off. Well, well … after all, Mr Wokulski isn’t a common-or-garden clerk who has to obtain leave from his master for a holiday once every few years. Mr Wokulski is a capitalist, he has some sixty thousand roubles a year, is on familiar terms with counts and princes, fights duels with barons and can leave when he chooses. And you, my salaried clerks, look after the business! That is why you have wages and bonuses.
But is he supposed to be a tradesman? It’s tomfoolery, I’d say — not trade.
Still, there’s no reason why a man shouldn’t go to Paris, and on a mad impulse too — but not at times like these. Here we have the Berlin congress fuming, England claiming Cyprus, Austria after Bosnia … The Italians are shouting their heads off: ‘Give us Trieste, or else …’ I hear blood is flowing in Bosnia and (as soon as the harvest is in) war will break out sure as fate. And here he is setting out for Paris!
Hm! Now, why has he suddenly left for Paris? For the Exhibition? What concern is it of his? Is it perhaps in connection with the business he was to put through with Suzin? What sort of business can it be, I wonder, in which he’ll make fifty thousand roubles as if it were handed him on a plate? They mentioned oil-drilling equipment or railway machinery, or was it a sugar factory? Well, my dear angels, you aren’t by any chance going there to buy ordinary cannons rather than these fancy machines? France is on the point of a set-to with Germany … Young Napoleon is said to be staying in London, but after all Paris is nearer to London than Warsaw to Zamość …
Come, Ignacy, don’t be precipitous in your judgements of your master Mr W. (in such cases it is advisable not to use his full name), do not condemn him, for you’ll make a laughing-stock of yourself. Some important affair is underway here: that Mr Łęcki, who used to stay with Napoleon III, that alleged actor Rossi, an Italian (the Italians are forcibly reminding the rest of the world of Trieste!), and that dinner at the Łęckis immediately before his departure, and that purchase of the house …
Certainly Miss Łęcka is beautiful, but she is only a woman and Staś would not commit so many follies for her alone. All this has something to do with p——— (in such cases it is advisable to use abbreviations). There are big p——— involved in this.
It is already some two weeks since the poor fellow left, perhaps for ever … He writes dry, brief letters, says nothing about himself and sometimes makes me so miserable that I don’t know what to do (not on his account, surely — merely from habit). I remember his departure. We had just shut up the shop and I was drinking tea at this very table (Ir is still poorly), when suddenly Staś’s butler rushed in: ‘The master wants you!’ he roared and rushed out again. (What an impudent rascal he is, and how idle! You should have seen his expression when he appeared in the door and cried: ‘Your master wants you!’ Brute!) I wanted to admonish him: ‘You fool! Your master is your master,’ but he had rushed headlong away.
I hastily finished my tea, gave Ir some milk in a saucer and went to Staś. In the gateway I saw his butler flirting with three girls like young does. Well, I thought to myself, a loafer like you could cope with four of them, I daresay … (The devil himself can’t come to terms with these women, though. There’s Jadwiga, for instance, slender as could be, small and ethereal, but now her third husband has developed consumption.)
I went upstairs. The door to the apartment was open, and Staś himself was packing his suitcase by lamp-light. Something touched me: ‘What does this mean?’ I asked
‘I’m leaving for Paris tonight,’ he replied.
‘But yesterday you said you wouldn’t be leaving so soon …’
‘That was yesterday …’ he replied. He moved away from the suitcase and reflected for a moment. Then he added in a peculiar tone: ‘Only yesterday … I was mistaken …’
These words took me aback in a disagreeable way. I looked at Sta