The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [22]
‘The Mincels, it was always the Mincels! Why don’t they compare me to the Mincels now? In six months I’ve made ten times the money that two generations of Mincels made in a half-century. A thousand Mincels in their shops and night-caps would have to sweat their hearts out to make what I’ve made amidst bullets, knives and typhus. Now I know how many Mincels I’m worth, and I swear I’d risk it all again for this result! I’d sooner fear bankruptcy and death than owe it to the people who buy umbrellas in my store, or than kiss the hands of people who deign to equip themselves in my store with water-closets …’
‘You’re still the same,’ Ignacy murmured.
Wokulski cooled down. He put one hand on Ignacy’s arm and looked into his eyes as he mildly said: ‘You’re not angry, old fellow?’
‘Why? As if I didn’t know that a wolf doesn’t look after sheep … Naturally enough …’
‘What’s the latest here — tell me!’
‘Precisely what I told you in my reports. Business going well, goods arriving, still more orders coming in. We need another clerk.’
‘We’ll hire two, we’ll expand the store, it will be splendid.’
‘Fancy that …’
Wokulski glanced sideways at him and smiled to see that the old man had regained his good humour.
‘But what is going on in town? Things must be going well as long as you are in the shop.’
‘In the town?’
‘Have any of my regular customers quit business?’ Wokulski interrupted, now pacing about the room.
‘No one! New ones have appeared …’
Wokulski stopped, as if hesitating. He poured another glass of wine and tossed it off.
‘Is Łęcki buying at our store?’
‘Mostly on credit …’
‘Ah …’ Wokulski sighed with relief. ‘What is his financial position?’
‘They say he’s quite bankrupt and that his apartment house will be put up for auction later this year.’
Wokulski leaned over and began to play with Ir.
‘Well … And Miss Łęcka isn’t married yet?’
‘No.’
‘Isn’t she engaged?’
‘I doubt it. Who today would marry a girl with expensive tastes and no dowry? She’s getting older too, though she’s still pretty. Naturally enough …’
Wokulski straightened his back and took a deep breath. His stern face bore a strangely tender expression.
‘My dear old fellow,’ he said, taking Ignacy by the hand, ‘my honest old friend! You can’t begin to guess how glad I am to see you again, still here in this room. Do you recall how many evenings and nights I’ve spent here? … how you used to give me dinner … how you gave me clothes … Remember?’
Rzecki looked at him attentively and thought the wine must have been good to unlock Wokulski’s lips so.
Wokulski sat down on the sofa, leaned his head against the wall, and spoke as if to himself: ‘You’ve no idea what I suffered, far away from everyone, never knowing whether I should ever see them again, so terribly alone. For, don’t you see, the worst loneliness is not the one that surrounds a man, but the emptiness within himself, when he has not carried away with him even a warm look or a friendly word or spark of hope from his homeland …’
Ignacy shifted on his chair, to protest: ‘Allow me to remind you that at first I wrote very friendly letters, perhaps even excessively sentimental ones … Your brief replies upset me.’
‘Am I blaming you?’
‘No, but you can blame the others still less, for they don’t know you as I do.’
Wokulski looked up.
‘I don’t bear any resentment against them. Perhaps — a trifle — towards you, because you used to write so very little about … the town. Besides, the newspapers were often lost in the post, there were gaps in the news and I was tormented by awful forebodings.’
‘Of what? There was no war here!’ Ignacy replied in amazement.
‘That’s so … You even managed to divert yourselves