The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [195]
Staś was nearly at Rogow now, surely. Was he aware that we talked of nothing but him? And what did the poor devil feel, with one storm overhead and another, perhaps worse, in his heart?
Goodness, what a downpour, what a cannonade of thunderclaps! Ir, wrapped up into a bundle, barked at it in a stifled voice in his sleep and I went to bed under only a sheet. The night was oppressive. Oh Lord, I thought, watch over those who are fleeing abroad from unhappiness this night!
Sometimes a small incident is enough to make things, ancient as human sins, appear to us in a completely new light. For instance, I have known the Old Town since my childhood and it always seemed crowded and dirty to me. Not until I was shown, as a curiosity, a drawing of one of the old houses (in the Illustrated Weekly, with a caption) did I suddenly notice that the Old Town is beautiful. From that time on I have been going there at least once a week, and I discover new beauties there, and am also amazed that I never noticed them before.
So it is with Wokulski. I have known him twenty years, and keep thinking he is a politician, body and soul. I’d have given my life that Staś concerned himself with nothing but politics. Not until that duel with the Baron and the ovation for Rossi did suspicions that he might be in love awaken within me. I no longer doubt this now, particularly after my talk with Szuman.
But that’s nothing, for a politician can be in love too. Napoleon I fell in love right and left, yet even so he shook Europe to its foundations. Napoleon III also had a number of mistresses, and I hear that his son is following in his father’s footsteps, and has already found himself some English girl or other. So if a weakness for the ladies did not embarrass the Bonapartes, why should it enfranchise Wokulski?
Just as I pondered thus, a small incident occurred which reminded me of things long since dead and buried, which presented Staś himself in another light. No, he is no politician; he is something entirely different, which I do not even understand very well.
Sometimes he seems to me a man injured by society. But hush! Society never injures anyone. If we stopped believing that, goodness knows what claims might not arise. Perhaps no one would concern himself with politics, but would think of nothing but settling accounts with his nearest and dearest. So it is better not to open such questions. (How talkative I have become in my old age, and none of it about what I meant to say when I started!)
Thus, as I was drinking tea in my room one evening (Ir is still moody), the door opened and someone entered. I looked up — a stout figure, red face, red nose, grey hair. I sniffed and caught the smell of something like wine and mould in the room: ‘This gentleman,’ thought I, ‘is either a corpse or a cellarman. For no one else would smell so of mould …’
‘Well, I never!’ the visitor exclaimed, ‘you are become so proud that you don’t recognise a fellow?’
I rubbed my eyes. And it was none other than Machalski, the cellarman from Hopfer’s … We were in Hungary together and later here in Warsaw; but we had not met for fifteen years, since he moved to Galicia and remained a cellarman. Of course we embraced like long-lost brothers, once, twice and a third time …
‘When did you get here?’ I asked.
‘This morning,’ said he.
‘And where have you been until now?’
‘I went to the Dziekanka, but I was so depressed that I went to the Lesisz wine cellars … There are cellars for you, my dear sir!’
‘And what did you do there?’
‘I helped the old man a little and sat about. I’m not such a fool as to walk around the town when there’s a cellar like that to sit in.’
He was a real cellarman of the olden days. Not a dandy like those of today, who prefer going to dances rather than sitting in a wine-cellar. And who even wear patent leather shoes in the cellar! Poland will perish through such wretched tradesmen.