The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [219]
‘Tell me,’ Wokulski spoke for the first time, ‘what am I to get the fifty thousand for?’
‘Perhaps more than that…’
‘Very well, but what’s it for?’
Suzin threw himself into an armchair, clasped his hands over his belly and burst out laughing: ‘Well, merely for asking for it…Another man wouldn’t have asked…But, being you, you must know why you’re making so much money. You idiot!’
‘That’s no answer.’
‘Then—I’ll tell you,’ said Suzin, ‘first because you taught me sense in Irkutsk for four years. Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t be the Suzin I am. Well, Stanisław Piotrowicz, I am not one of your people, I do return a favour for a favour.’
‘That’s not a reply either,’ Wokulski interposed.
Suzin shrugged. ‘Please don’t ask me for an explanation here; you’ll understand when we go downstairs. Perhaps I’ll buy some Parisian haberdashery, or a dozen or so merchant ships. I don’t know a word of French or German, so I’ll need a man like you.’
‘I know nothing of ships…’
‘No matter. We can find railroad, mercantile and military experts here…I’m not concerned with them, but with a man who can talk on my behalf…for me…In any case, keep your eyes open when we go downstairs, and your lips sealed, and when we leave you will not recall a word of what has passed. You are capable of that, Stanisław Piotrowicz, so ask me no more. I’ll make my ten per cent, I’ll pay you ten per cent of my profits, and the matter ends. But do not ask why, nor against whom…’
Wokulski was silent.
‘American and French industrialists are coming to see me at four o’clock. Will you join us?’ Suzin asked.
‘Very well.’
‘And now for a stroll around the town.’
‘No, I’ll go to sleep now.’
‘Very well. Let’s go to your apartment.’
They left Suzin’s room and went into a completely identical apartment a dozen yards away. Wokulski threw himself on the bed, Suzin went out on tip-toe and closed the door. After Suzin’s exit, Wokulski closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. Not so much to fall asleep, perhaps, as to dispel some insistent thought on account of which he had fled from Warsaw. For a time it seemed to him to have been dispelled, or that it had stayed behind and was now anxiously in search of him, wandering from Krakowskie Przedmieście to Aleje Ujazdowskie: ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ the spectre was whispering.
‘Suppose it follows me here?’ Wokulski asked himself. ‘Well, surely it won’t find me here in this huge city, in such a vast hotel.’ But then he thought: ‘Maybe it’s already looking for me here?’
He closed his eyes still tighter and began swaying on the mattress which seemed unusually wide and exceptionally springy. Outside his door in the hotel passage people were talking and hurrying about as though something had just happened; outside the window there was an ill-defined noise consisting of the rattle of countless carriages, bells ringing, human voices, trumpets, revolver shots and goodness knows what else, but all stifled and distant. Then he imagined a shape was looking in at him through the window, and later that someone was going from door to door in the passage, knocking and asking: ‘Isn’t he here?’
In fact, someone came up and knocked and even banged on his door, but getting no answer they went away again. ‘It won’t find me, it won’t…’ Wokulski thought. Then he opened his eyes, and his hair stood on end. Facing him he saw a room exactly like his own, the same bed with a canopy, with himself on the bed. It was one of the most profound shocks he ever experienced in his life, to see with his own eyes that here, where he believed himself entirely alone, he was nevertheless accompanied by an inseparable companion—himself.
‘An ingenious system of espionage, to be sure,’ he muttered, ‘these wardrobes fitted with mirrors are ridiculous.’ He jumped off the bed, his double did the same, just as quickly. He ran to the window, so did the other. He feverishly