The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [199]
From the day when Wokulski moved into my room, our shop gained a new customer in Kasia Hopfer. I don’t know what it was she liked about us — whether it was my beard, or Jan Mincel’s stoutness. For though the girl had a dozen haberdashery shops nearer home, she came to ours several times a week: ‘A ball of wool, please…A reel of silk, please…Ten groszy worth of needles…’ She would run a mile in rain or shine for such things as these, and after buying a packet of pins for a few pennies, would sit half an hour in the shop talking to me: ‘Why don’t you gentlemen ever come to see us?…Along with Stanisław?’ said she, blushing, ‘my father is ever so fond of you both — we all are.’
At first I was surprised by old Hopfer’s unexpected affection, and suggested to Kasia that I didn’t know her father well enough to pay him visits. But she insisted: ‘Stanisław must be angry with us, I can’t think why, because at least papa…and all of us…are very fond of him. Stanisław surely can’t complain that he has been unfairly treated by us…Stanisław…’
And while talking thus about Stanisław, she would buy silk thread instead of wool, or needles instead of a pair of scissors.
The worst of it was that the poor thing was pining away week by week. Every time she came to the shop for her little purchases, she seemed to be looking a little better. But as soon as the blush of momentary excitement had gone from her face, I could see she was even paler than before, her eyes unhappier and deeper set. And the way she used to inquire: ‘Doesn’t Stanisław ever come into the shop?’ And she would look at the door leading to the passage and my apartment, where, at a few yards distance, Wokulski sat frowning over his books, never guessing that here he was so sought after.
I was sorry for the poor girl, so once, when drinking tea with Wokulski in the evening, I remarked: ‘Don’t be childish — call on Hopfer. The old man has plenty of money.’
‘Why should I?’ he replied, ‘haven’t I had enough of that place?’ As he spoke, he shuddered.
‘You ought to go, because Kasia dotes on you,’ said I.
‘Don’t mention Kasia to me,’ he interrupted, ‘she’s a very good girl, sometimes she would secretly sew on a coat-button for me, or throw a flower through the window, but she’s not for me, nor I for her.’
‘She’s a positive dove of a child,’ I put in.
‘So much the worse, for I’m no dove. The only kind of woman who could attract me would be one like myself. And I’ve never met such a one.’ (He met one sixteen years later, but God knows he has no reason to be glad of it!)
Kasia gradually ceased coming to the shop, and instead old Hopfer paid a visit to Mr and Mrs Jan Mincel. He must have mentioned Staś to them, for the next day Mrs Mincel hurried downstairs and began scolding me: ‘What sort of a lodger have you, Ignacy, that young ladies dote on him so? Who’s this Wokulski? Jan,’ she turned to her husband, ‘why hasn’t the gentleman called on us? We must marry him off. Tell him to come upstairs this minute …’
‘Oh, let him go upstairs,’ Jan Mincel replied, ‘but as for marrying him off, that I won’t. I’m an honest shopkeeper and don’t want to go in for match-making.’
Mrs Mincel kissed his sweaty face as if they were still on their honeymoon, but he pushed her aside mildly and wiped his face with his cravat: ‘Devil take these women!’ he said, ‘they can’t resist making people unhappy. Go on with your match-making, do! Hopfer, Wokulski, anyone — but remember I’m not going to pay for it!’
From that time on, whenever Jan Mincel went out of an evening for beer or to the club, Mrs Mincel would invite Wokulski and me in. Staś would drink his tea quickly, without even looking at her: then, with his hands in his pockets, would think about his balloons and sit like a block of stone, while our hostess urged him to fall in love: ‘Is it possible, Mr Wokulski, that you’ve never been in love?’ said she, ‘as far as I know, you are twenty-eight years old, almost