The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [247]
Wokulski jumped up from the table and, opening the window, stood at it to reread the Duchess’s letter; his eyes glittered, a flush broke out on his cheeks. He rang once, again, a third time … Finally he ran into the corridor, shouting: ‘Garçon! Hey, garçon!’
‘Sir …?’
‘My bill!’
‘What bill?’
‘For the past five days. The total, d’you understand?’
‘At once, sir?’ the servant was surprised.
‘At once and … a carriage to the Gare du Nord. At once!’
XXIV
A Man Happy in Love
ON HIS return to Warsaw from Paris, Wokulski found another letter from the Duchess. The old lady entreated him to come at once, and stay a few weeks at her house: ‘Do not think,’ she concluded, ‘that I am inviting you on account of your recent successes, or showing off because I am acquainted with you. This sometimes happens, though not with me. I only want you to rest after your long labours, and perhaps relax at my house, where in addition to your tedious old hostess, you will also find the company of young and pretty women.’
‘What do young and pretty women concern me!’ Wokulski muttered. The next moment, however, he wondered what successes the Duchess was referring to? Could it be that his profits were known even in the provinces, though he had not mentioned them to anyone?
However, the Duchess’s words soon ceased surprising him when he surveyed his business interests. Since his departure for Paris, the turnover in trade had again increased and went on increasing every week. A dozen or more new merchants had started business dealings with him, and only one of his previous customers had withdrawn, writing to him a sharp letter declaring that as he did not run an arsenal, but an ordinary textile store, he saw no purpose in maintaining further relations with the firm of Mr Wokulski, with which he would settle all accounts by the New Year. The traffic in merchandise was so great that Ignacy, on his own responsibility, had rented a new warehouse, and taken on an eighth clerk and two despatchers.
When Wokulski looked through the ledgers (at Rzecki’s urgent request he set about them a few hours after returning home from the railway station), Ignacy opened the fireproof safe and, with a ceremonious expression, took out from it a letter from Suzin.
‘Why this formality?’ Wokulski asked with a smile.
‘Letters from Suzin must have particular attention,’ Rzecki answered emphatically. Wokulski shrugged and read it. Suzin proposed a new deal for the winter months, almost as important as the Parisian one.
‘What would you say to this?’ he asked Ignacy, having explained what it was about.
‘Staś,’ said the old clerk, looking down, ‘I trust you so implicitly that even if you burned down the city, I’d still feel sure you had done it with a noble aim in mind.’
‘You are an incurable dreamer, old fellow!’ Wokulski sighed, and broke off the conversation. He did not doubt that Ignacy again suspected him of some political machinations.
Rzecki was not the only one to think this. Going home, Wokulski found a whole pile of visiting-cards and letters. During his absence, some hundred influential people, titled and wealthy, had called on him, at least half of whom he did not know. The letters were still more remarkable. They were either requests for assistance, or for recommendations to various civil and military authorities, or else anonymous letters, mostly insulting. One called him a traitor, another a flunkey who had acquired so much skill in servility at Hopfer’s that today he voluntarily put on livery for the aristocracy, if not worse. Another anonymous