The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [200]
Wokulski crossed one leg over the other, but still said nothing.
‘Kasia is a delicious morsel,’ said our hostess, ‘fine eyes — though she seems to have a cast in one of ’em; a reasonable enough figure, although she must have one shoulder higher than the other (but that only adds to her charms). Her nose isn’t quite to my liking, I admit, and her mouth is a little too big, but what a good girl she is! If she only had a little more sense …Well, but women don’t acquire sense, Mr Wokulski, until they are thirty. When I was Kasia’s age, I was as silly as a canary-bird …I fell in love with my present husband!’
On the third visit, Mrs Mincel welcomed us wearing a peignoir (it was a very fine peignoir, embroidered with lace), but I wasn’t even invited the fourth time. I have
‘Work on him, my dear,’ her husband would encourage her, ‘for it is a shame about the girl and Wokulski too. It is awful to think that such a decent fellow, who has been a clerk so long, and who might inherit Hopfer’s business, should want to waste himself at the university. Tfu!’
Confirmed in her good intentions, Mrs Mincel not only invited Wokulski to tea in the evenings (he usually didn’t go), but sometimes popped anxiously into my room herself, inquiring whether Staś was sick and wondering why he had not yet fallen in love — he, almost older than she was (I think she was a little older than he was). At the same time, she began having hysterical fits, would scold her husband who left home for whole days at a time, and protest to me I was a scoundrel who didn’t understand life, and took in doubtful persons as lodgers …
In a word, as such scenes began to occur in the house Jan Mincel grew thin, despite the fact that he drank more and more beer, while I thought I would either resign from my job with Mincel, or give Staś notice to leave.
How in the world did Mrs Mincel learn of my troubles? I have no idea. Suffice it to say that she popped into my room one evening, told me I was her enemy and must be a great scoundrel, since I was giving notice to quit a man as energetic as Wokulski …Then she added that her husband was a wretch, that all men were wretches and finally had hysterics on my sofa.
Scenes like this went on for several days, and I don’t know what the outcome would have been, had it not been that one of the most extraordinary incidents I ever saw took place.
Once Machalski invited Wokulski and me to his place for the evening. We went there after nine, and in his favourite cellar, by the light of three tallow candles I saw several dozen people, including Mr Leon. I am sure I shall never forget that crowd of predominantly young faces against the background of the black walls of the cellar, looking out from behind barrels or half lost in the gloom.
As the hospitable Machalski greeted us on the stairs with huge glasses of wine (and very good wine too) and took me into his especial care, I must at once admit that my head began spinning and a few minutes later I was quite tipsy. So I sat down at a distance from the proceedings, in a deep alcove, and dozed, half-awake, half-asleep, as I watched the feasters.
I am not quite sure what happened down there, for the most fantastic notions whirled through my head. I dreamed that Mr Leon was speaking, as usual about the power of faith, lack of spirit and the need for sacrifice, which all those present loudly encored. The unanimous voices died down, however, when Leon started declaring that it was time to put these words into action. I must have been quite tipsy, for Leon seemed to be suggesting that one of us should jump from the Nowy Zjazd bridge down to the pavement below, and on this, everyone fell silent to a man, while several concealed themselves behind barrels.
‘So no one can make up his mind to try?’ Leon cried, wringing his hands. Silence. The cellar grew emptier.
‘Nobody? Nobody?’
‘I will,’ said a voice I hardly recognised. I looked around. By a flickering tallow candle stood Wokulski. But