The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [21]
‘You’ve turned grey … How are you?’
‘Very well. And things are going well in the shop too, we have increased the sales a little. In January and February we took twenty-five thousand roubles … My dear Staś! Eight months … But that’s over and done with … Why don’t you sit down?’
‘Of course,’ the visitor replied, sitting down on the sofa, upon which Ir immediately placed himself, his head on Staś’s knee.
Ignacy brought up a chair.
‘Something to eat? I’ve ham and a little caviar.’
‘Very well.’
‘Something to drink too? I have a bottle of reasonable Hungarian wine, but only one wine glass that is not broken.’
‘I’ll drink from a tumbler,’ replied the visitor.
Ignacy began to scuttle around the room, opening the cupboard chest and table-drawer in turn.
He produced the wine, put it away again, then set out ham and bread on the table. His hands and cheeks were quivering and a good deal of time passed before he was sufficiently himself to get together all the provisions he had previously mentioned. Not until he had partaken of a small glass of the wine did he regain his much-shaken equilibrium.
Meanwhile, Wokulski was eating.
‘Well, and what’s the latest news?’ asked Ignacy, in the coolest tone imaginable, tapping his visitor’s knee.
‘I suppose you mean in politics?’ replied Wokulski. ‘There will be peace.’
‘Then why is Austria arming?’
‘At a cost of sixty million gulden? She wants to seize Bosnia and Herzegovina.’
Ignacy opened his eyes very wide.
‘Austria wants to seize …’ he echoed. ‘How so?’
‘How so?’ Wokulski smiled. ‘Because Turkey cannot prevent her.’
‘And what about England?’
‘England will get compensation.’
‘At Turkey’s expense?’
‘Of course. The weak always pay the costs of any conflict between the strong.’
‘And justice?’ exclaimed Ignacy.
‘Justice lies in the fact that the strong multiply and increase, and the weak perish. Otherwise the world would become a charitable institution, which would indeed be unjust.’
Ignacy shifted his chair.
‘How can you say such things, Staś? Seriously, joking aside …’
Wokulski turned his calm gaze upon him.
‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘What is so strange in it? Doesn’t the same law apply to me, to you, to all of us? … I’ve wept for myself too often to feel for Turkey …’
Ignacy lowered his eyes and was silent. Wokulski went on eating.
‘Well, and how did things go with you?’ asked Ignacy in his normal voice.
Wokulski’s eyes gleamed. He put down the bread and leaned against the arm of the sofa.
‘Do you remember,’ he asked, ‘how much money I took with me when I went abroad?’
‘Thirty thousand roubles, in cash.’
‘And how much do you suppose I’ve brought back?’
‘Fifty … perhaps forty thousand roubles … Am I right?’ asked Rzecki, looking at him uncertainly.
Wokulski poured a glass of wine and drank it slowly.
‘Two hundred and fifty thousand roubles, mostly in gold,’ he said distinctly. ‘And since I told them to buy banknotes, which I’ll sell when the peace is signed, I shall have over three hundred thousand roubles …’
Rzecki leaned towards him, his mouth open.
‘Don’t be alarmed,’ Wokulski went on, ‘I made it honestly, by hard, very hard, work. The secret was that I had a rich partner and was satisfied with four or five times less profit than others. So my capital, while continually growing, was in constant circulation. Well,’ he added after a time, ‘I was very lucky too … Like a gambler who backs the same number ten times running at roulette. High stakes? … nearly every month I risked my entire fortune, and my life every day.’
‘Was that the only reason you went there?’ Ignacy asked.
Wokulski looked at him mockingly.
‘Surely you didn’t expect me to turn into a Turkish Wallenrod?’
‘But to risk your neck for money, when you had a good living …’ Ignacy muttered, shaking his head and raising his eyebrows.
Wokulski shuddered and jumped up.
‘That good living,’ he said, clenching his fist, ‘was stifling me and had stifled me for six years … Don’t you remember how many times a day I was reminded of the two generations of Mincels or of the angelic goodness of my