The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [208]
We left the apartment and stopped at a door on the staircase. The agent knocked cautiously while the blood ran from my head to my heart, and from my heart down into my boots. It might even have leaked out of my boots and away down the stairs to the gate, had not someone inside replied: ‘Come in …’
We entered. Three beds. A young man with a black beard in student’s garb was lying on one, with a book in his hand and his feet on the bed-rail. The clothes on the other beds looked as if a hurricane had swept through the room and turned everything upside down. I also saw a trunk, an empty valise and many books on shelves, on the trunk and on the floor also. Finally there were a few bent chairs and ordinary unpolished tables where, on looking more closely, I observed a painted chess-board and overturned chess-men.
Then I felt quite faint: for, next to the chess-men I saw two human skulls: in one was tobacco, and the other held sugar.
‘What’s this?’ asked the bearded young man without getting up.
‘This is Mr Rzecki, the landlord’s plenipotentiary,’ said the agent, indicating me.
The young man got up on one elbow, eyed me sharply and said: ‘The landlord’s …? At this moment I am landlord here, and do not recollect appointing this gentleman …’
This reply was so strikingly simple that Wirski and I were dumbfounded. Meanwhile, the young man rose lazily from the bed and began buttoning up his trousers and waistcoat without the slightest haste. Despite the systematic manner with which he followed this occupation, I am certain that at least half the buttons on his garments remained unbuttoned.
‘Aaaah!’ he yawned. ‘Pray sit down, gentlemen,’ he said, gesticulating in such a manner that I did not know whether he was asking us to be seated on the valise or on the floor. ‘Warm, Mr Wirski,’ he added, ‘ain’t it? Aaaah!’
‘As a matter of fact, your neighbour opposite has been complaining about you young gentlemen,’ the agent replied with a smile.
‘What the deuce?’
‘That you wander naked about the room …’
The young man at once flew into a temper: ‘Has the old fool gone off his head? Does he expect us to wear fur coats in a heatwave like this? The impudence of the man, upon my word …’
‘Well, please don’t forget he has a grown-up daughter …’
‘What’s that to me? I’m not her father. The old booby! Upon my word, he’s lying, we don’t go about naked.’
‘I’ve seen you with my own eyes,’ the agent interrupted.
‘That’s a lie, upon my word,’ the young man exclaimed, flushing with anger, ‘it’s true that Maleski goes about without his shirt on, and Patkiewicz goes about without underpants, but in a shirt. So Miss Leokadia sees an entire costume …’
‘Yes, and she has to draw all the curtains,’ the agent replied.
‘It’s the old man who draws them, not her,’ the student replied with a gesture, ‘she peeps through the chinks in the curtains. Anyway, my dear sir, if Miss Leokadia is allowed to vex the whole yard, then surely Maleski and Patkiewicz have the right to walk about as they choose in their room?’
As he spoke, the young man strode up and down. Whenever his back was turned, the agent winked at me and made grimaces denoting great desperation. After a pause he said: ‘You gentlemen owe us four months’ rent.’
‘Oh, you’re back to that again!’ the young man cried, putting his hands in his pockets, ‘how often must I tell you not to talk to me of this nonsense, but to Patkiewicz or Maleski? After all, it’s easy enough to remember — Maleski pays for even months, February, April, June — while Patkiewicz pays for the odd, March, May, July …’
‘But none of you ever pays!’ the agent exclaimed impatiently.
‘Whose fault is it if you don’t come at the proper time?’ the young man roared, clapping his hands together, ‘you’ve been told a hundred times to come to Maleski in even months, to Patkiewicz in odd …’
‘What about you?’
‘Me? Not at all,’ the young man exclaimed, threatening us, ‘I don’t pay rent on principle. Whom am I to pay? And what for? Ha ha! Serve you right.’
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