The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [226]
He felt oppressed in the dining-room, so he hurried out of the hotel to plunge into the noise of the streets: ‘The first time I went to the left,’ he thought, ‘I’ll go to the right now.’
Blindly wandering through an immeasurable city was the only thing that possessed a sort of bitter fascination for him: ‘If only I could lose myself in these crowds…’ he thought. So he turned to the right. He crossed a small square and entered a very large one, copiously planted with trees. In its centre was a square building surrounded by columns, like a Greek temple: it had great bronze doors covered with bas-reliefs and another bas-relief on the façade, apparently depicting the Day of Judgement. Wokulski walked around the building and thought of Warsaw. What effort they needed to erect small, transient and trivial buildings there! Here, however, human force erected monsters as if for diversion, and was so little weary of the labour involved that it covered them with ornamentation.
He noticed a small street opposite, and a huge square beyond, in which a slender column stood. He walked in that direction. As he approached, the column grew taller and the square expanded. Large fountains were playing both in front of and behind the column; yellowing clumps of trees, like gardens, stretched to right and left; in the background was a river, above which the smoke of a swiftly passing steamboat streamed along. Relatively few carriages were moving around the square, but there were many children with their mothers and nursemaids. Soldiers of various regiments were walking about, and a band was playing somewhere.
Wokulski approached the obelisque and was amazed. He found himself in the centre of an area two miles long and half a mile wide. Behind was a garden, in front a very long drive. On both sides were squares and palaces, and a huge arch stood far off on a hill. Wokulski felt that epithets and superlatives failed him.
‘This is the Place de la Concorde; that’s an obelisk from Luxor (genuine, sir!); behind us are the Tuileries, in front the Champs-Elysées and there, at the end, the Arc de Triomphe…’ Wokulski glanced around: beside him was hovering a gentleman in dark spectacles and rather shabby gloves. ‘We might go that way—a divine stroll! Look at the traffic!’ said the stranger. All at once he broke off, walked rapidly away and disappeared between two passing carriages.
Meanwhile a uniformed man in a short cape approached. He gazed at Wokulski a moment and said, with a smile: ‘You are a foreigner? Pray beware of casual acquaintances in Paris…’
Wokulski instinctively touched the side pocket of his top-coat and realised his silver cigarette-case was gone. He flushed, politely thanked the officer in the cape, but did not admit his loss. Jumart’s definition crossed his mind, and he told himself that he knew the source of income of the man in shabby gloves, though he knew nothing of his outgoings: ‘Jumart is right,’ he thought, ‘criminals are less suspect than people who acquire their money Heaven knows where,’ and he recalled many such in Warsaw. ‘Perhaps that’s why there are no buildings, no Arcs de Triomphe there…’
He walked along the Champs-Elysées and was stunned by the unending stream of carriages and carts, amidst which rode men and women on horseback. As he walked, he tried to dispel the dismal thoughts which encircled him like a flock of bats. He walked on and was afraid to look back: in this street, effervescent with splendour and gaiety, he seemed like a crushed worm dragging its entrails behind it.
He reached the Arc de Triomphe, and turned back slowly. When he reached the Place de la Concorde again, he saw—behind the Tuileries—a huge black balloon which rose rapidly into the air, remained there a while, then slowly sank down: ‘The Giffard balloon,’ he thought, ‘a pity I haven’t time today…’
He turned from the square into some street,