The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [239]
Suddenly he resolved to obtain information from Palmieri. So he dressed hastily and went down to the second floor. The master of the mysterious art was awaiting clients: but as there were none yet, he received Wokulski at once, taking twenty francs in advance for his fee.
‘Can you’, Wokulski asked, ‘persuade anyone that a coal shovel is a woman, and that a handkerchief weighs a hundred pounds?’
‘Anyone who lets himself be put to sleep.’
‘Then kindly put me to sleep and repeat the trick with the handkerchief on me.’
Palmieri began his rites: he stared into Wokulski’s eyes, touched his brow, rubbed his hands from wrists to palm…Finally he drew back, reluctant: ‘You, sir, are not a medium,’ he declared.
‘But supposing I had an incident in my life like that person with the handkerchief?’ Wokulski asked.
‘That’s impossible; you can’t be put to sleep. Even if you were, and underwent the illusion that the handkerchief weighed a hundred pounds, you still wouldn’t remember it on waking up.’
‘Don’t you think, sir, that someone might hypnotise me more skilfully?’
Palmieri took offence at this: ‘There is no more skilled hypnotist than I,’ he exclaimed. ‘I, too, could put you to sleep, but it would require several months’ work…It would cost two thousand francs.…I have no intention of wasting my fluid for nothing…’
Wokulski, not at all displeased, left the hypnotist. He still did not doubt that Miss Izabela could have bewitched him: she had had plenty of time, after all. But then Geist could not have put him to sleep in the course of a few minutes. Besides, Palmieri had declared that those put to sleep did not remember their visions: whereas he recalled every detail of the old chemist’s visit.
So if Geist had not put him to sleep, he was not a trickster. Therefore his metals existed…and the discovery of a metal lighter than air was possible! ‘This is a city’, he thought, ‘in which I’ve experienced more during one hour than in my whole life in Warsaw. What a city!’
For several days Wokulski was very busy. In the first place, Suzin left after purchasing a dozen or so ships. The completely legal profit from this transaction was huge—so huge that the share due to Wokulski covered all the expenses he had incurred during his recent months in Warsaw. A few hours before bidding farewell to Suzin, Wokulski lunched with him in his lavish hotel room, and they of course discussed their profits. ‘You have miraculous good luck,’ Wokulski exclaimed.
Suzin took a mouthful of champagne and, laying his hands, adorned with rings, on his belly, said: ‘It is not good luck, Stanisław Piotrowicz, but millions. You can cut down an osier with a knife, but an oak needs an axe. A man who has kopeks does business in kopeks, and profits in kopeks: but a man who has millions can’t help making profits in millions. A rouble, Stanisław Piotrovich, is an overworked nag—you have to wait several years for it to give birth to another rouble: but a million is as fertile as a rabbit: it produces several litters every year. In two or three years, Stanisław Piotrowicz, you, too, will have a tidy little million or so, and then you’ll see how other money runs after it. Though in your case…’
Suzin sighed, frowned and drank more champagne.
‘What about me?’ asked Wokulski.
‘Well…’ Suzin replied, ‘you, instead of doing business for yourself, in your own trade in this city, you do nothing. You wander around with your head up or down, not looking at anything, or even (as a Christian I’m ashamed to say it!) flying in the air in a balloon. Are you thinking of becoming a fairground jumper, then? And let me tell you, Stanisław Piotrowicz, you have offended a very distinguished lady, that Baroness. Yet you might have visited her, played cards, met charming women and found out about all sorts of things. I’d advise you to let her make something out of you before you leave: if you don’t give a lawyer a rouble, he’ll find ways to extract a hundred. Oh, my