The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [203]
‘He’s sold himself to that old woman,’ his acquaintances said, ‘that would-be Brutus! …He studied, got into trouble and now — flop!’
Two of his severest critics had been fervent suitors of Mrs Mincel.
But Staś very quickly shut people’s mouths, for he set to work at once. About a week after the wedding he came into the store at eight in the morning, sat down at the desk in the late Mr Mincel’s chair and served customers, made out bills, gave change, as if he were only a paid clerk.
He did even more, for in his second year he started trading with Moscow merchants, which proved very advantageous for business. I may say that our turnover tripled under his rule.
I sighed with relief when I saw Wokulski did not intend to eat his bread free; even the clerks stopped laughing at him, realising that Staś worked harder in the shop than they did, and that he also had more than a few duties to carry out upstairs. We at least rested during holidays: whereas he, poor devil, had to take his wife by the arm and march about the town — mornings to church, afternoons paying calls and evenings to the theatre.
Her new husband put new life into Małgosia. She bought herself a piano and began taking music lessons from an aged teacher so as (she said) ‘not to make Staś jealous’. She spent the hours free from piano lessons at conferences with tailors, modistes, hairdressers and dentists, making herself prettier every day. And how affectionate she was towards her husband! Sometimes she would sit for hours at a time in the shop, merely to gaze upon Staś. When she noticed that some of the customers were pretty, she removed Staś from the front of the shop to behind a cupboard, and told him to set his office up there, within which he sat like a caged animal and did the shop’s accounts.
One day I heard a terrible crash inside this structure. I rushed in, followed by the clerks. What a sight met our eyes! Małgosia was lying on the floor, soaked in ink, the chair broken, having brought the desk down on top of her, Staś was furious and embarrassed …We lifted up the weeping lady, and from her incoherent mumblings learned that she herself had been the author of all this mess, by unexpectedly sitting down on her husband’s lap. The fragile chair had collapsed under their combined weight, and her ladyship, in trying to avoid the catastrophe, had grabbed hold of the desk and brought the whole thing down on herself.
Staś accepted these noisy proofs of connubial tenderness with the utmost tranquillity, seeking consolation by burying himself in bills and commercial correspondence. But instead of cooling off, her ladyship became more and more fervent: when her husband, tired of sitting still, or in order to transact business, would sometimes go out into the town, she would hasten after him …to watch lest he go to a rendezvous!
Staś would sometimes disappear for a week at a time, especially in winter, to stay with a forester he knew, where he would hunt and wander about in the forests. But on the third day his wife would set off after her beloved truant, walk about in the thickets behind him and fetch him back to Warsaw as a result.
Wokulski kept silent for the first two years of this rigorous life. During the third year he began coming to my room every evening, and talking about politics. Sometimes, as we were chatting about old times, he would look around the room, suddenly break off the topic to begin another: ‘Listen to me, Ignacy …’
At that moment, as if deliberately, the maid would rush downstairs, crying: ‘The missus wants you! The missus is poorly!’
And he, poor devil, would shrug and go to her ladyship, without even beginning what it was he wanted to tell me.
After three years of such a life which, however, was irreproachable, I saw that this man of iron was beginning to wilt in the silken embraces of her ladyship. He grew pale and wan, stooping, threw aside his learned books and took to reading the newspaper, spending all his spare time talking to me about politics. Sometimes he left the shop before eight,