The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [20]
I wonder what he is doing there? How I wonder …
IV
The Return
IT is a wretched Sunday in March; it is nearly noon, but the streets of Warsaw are almost deserted. People stay indoors, or seek shelter in gateways, or flee hunched up before the drenching rain and snow. The rattle of droshkies is rarely heard, for they have stopped running. The drivers have got off their boxes to take refuge under the hoods of their vehicles, while the horses, soaked with rain and bespattered with snow, look as if they would only be too pleased to hide under the shafts and shelter themselves with their own ears.
Despite, or because of, the ugly weather, Ignacy is very cheerful, as he sits in his barred room. Trade is going very well, displays for the windows next week are already planned and, above all, Wokulski is due back any day. Ignacy will at last be able to hand over the accounts and the burden of managing the store, and within two months at most, he will set off on vacation. After twenty-five years of work — and such work — he deserves some respite. He will think of nothing but politics, will walk about, run and jump through fields and woods, whistle and even sing, as he did when he was young. Were it not for his rheumatism which, however, will pass in the country …
So, although the rain and snow beat against the window, although it pours so hard that the room is quite dark, Ignacy is in a vernal frame of mind. He takes his guitar out from beneath the bed, tunes it, plucks a few chords, and begins to sing a very romantic air …
‘Spring is awakening everywhere in nature, greeted by the wistful song of the nightingales! In the green grove by the stream bloom two beautiful roses.’
… These magical sounds arouse the poodle Ir as he sleeps on the sofa, and he begins to peer at his master with his one eye. But the sounds do more than this, for they summon a great shadow in the yard, which halts by the barred window and tries to look into the room, thus attracting Ignacy’s attention.
‘It must be Paweł,’ he thinks.
But Ir is of another mind, for he jumps up from the sofa and uneasily sniffs at the door, as if scenting someone unfamiliar.
A noise is heard in the passage. A hand seeks the doorknob, finally the door opens and on the threshold stands someone wrapped in a huge fur coat, spattered with snow and raindrops.
‘Who are you?’ Ignacy asks, and his face becomes flushed.
‘Have you forgotten me already, old fellow?’ the visitor asks quietly and slowly.
Ignacy grows confused. He puts on his eyeglasses, then lets them fall, pulls the coffin-like box from under his bed, hastily stows away the guitar and puts the box on his bed.
Meanwhile, the visitor has taken off his great fur coat and sheepskin hat. When one-eyed Ir has sniffed him, he begins to wag his tail, fawn upon him and grovel, whining joyously.
Ignacy approaches his visitor, more uneasy and bent than ever.
‘Why, I believe …’ he says, rubbing his hands together, ‘I believe I have had the pleasure …’
Then he draws the visitor to the window, blinking at him.
‘Staś! … For goodness sake …’
He claps him on his powerful shoulders, presses both his hands and finally puts his own hand on his head, with its hair cut short, as if to anoint his sinciput.
‘Ha! Ha! Ha!’ laughs Ignacy. ’Tis Staś himself … Staś back from the wars … What, had you forgotten your shop and your old friend?’ he adds, striking him forcefully on the shoulder. ‘Why, if you aren’t more like a soldier or sailor than a merchant … He hasn’t been near the shop in eight months … What a chest! … What a head! …’
The visitor smiled too. He grasped Ignacy by the shoulders, embraced him warmly and kissed him on the cheeks, to which the old clerk submitted, though without returning the embrace.
‘What’s the latest news here, old fellow?’ the visitor exclaimed. ‘You’re thinner, paler …’
‘On the contrary, I am putting