The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [256]
‘They’re always squabbling,’ said the Duchess with a smile.
Ewelina Janocka entered, and a few minutes later Starski came in by another door. They greeted the Duchess, who responded cordially, though gravely. Lunch was served.
‘In my house, Stanisław,’ said the Duchess, ‘the custom is that we are only obliged to meet at table. Apart from that, everyone does as he chooses. I recommend, therefore, that if you are afraid of boredom, you dance attendance on Kazia Wąsowska.’
‘I’m taking Mr Wokulski into my charge at once,’ the widow replied.
‘Aha!’ the Duchess murmured, glancing fleetingly at her guest.
Felicja blushed for goodness knows how many times that day, and asked Ochocki for wine. ‘No, no … water, please,’ she corrected herself. Ochocki obeyed, shaking his head as he did so, and making a very desperate gesture.
After luncheon, during which Ewelina spoke to no one but the Baron and Starski flirted with the black-eyed widow, the guests bade goodbye to their hostess and separated. Ochocki went up to the attic of the palace where, in a small room especially arranged for the purpose, he had established a meteorological observatory, the Baron and fiancée went into the park and the Duchess detained Wokulski.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘since first impressions are often correct — how do you like Mrs Wąsowska?’
‘She seems a lively and vivacious woman.’
‘You are right. And the Baron?’
‘I hardly know him. He’s an old man.’
‘Oh, dear, yes, very old,’ the Duchess sighed, ‘but nevertheless he wants to get married. And what have you to say of his fiancée?’
‘I don’t know her at all, though it surprises me that she should care for the Baron who may, of course, be the most excellent of men.’
‘Yes, she’s a strange girl,’ said the Duchess, ‘and I may tell you I’m starting to lose my heart to her. I’m not going to interfere in her marriage, since more than one girl envies her, and everyone says she’s made a good match. But what she was to have received after my death will go to others. Anyone who has the Baron’s millions doesn’t need my twenty thousand.’ Vexation was to be heard in the old lady’s voice.
Soon she dismissed Wokulski and advised him to walk in the park. He went into the yard, and walked around the left wing where the kitchens were, and into the park. Later on, the two first observations he made in Zasławek often came into his mind. In the first place he noted a kennel not far from the kitchens, and in front of it a dog on a chain, which, on seeing a stranger, began barking, howling and leaping up as if it had rabies. But as the dog had a cheerful look and was wagging its tail, Wokulski patted it, which brought about such an influx of good humour in the fierce beast that it would not let the guest go. He howled, snapped at his clothes, lay down on the ground as if to demand a caress or at least the sight of a human face. ‘A strange watch-dog,’ Wokulski thought.
At this moment another strange sight emerged from the kitchen: a fat old farm labourer. Wokulski, who had never before seen a fat peasant, entered into a conversation with him: ‘Why do you keep this dog on a chain?’
‘To make him ferocious and prevent thieves coming into the house,’ said the peasant with a smile.
‘But why not take on a vicious dog?’
‘Her ladyship wouldn’t keep a nasty-tempered dog. Here even the dogs must be good-natured.’
‘As for you, old fellow, what do you do?’
‘I’m the bee-keeper, but before that I was the steward. When a bull smashed my ribs, her ladyship set me bee-keeping.’
‘Are you happy?’
‘At first, without work, I was sick — but later I got used to it, and now I am.’
Saying goodbye to the peasant, Wokulski turned into the park and walked about for a long time in a linden grove, not thinking. He seemed to have come here surfeited and poisoned by the uproar of Paris, the noise of Warsaw, the rattle of railroad trains and all the uneasiness and pain he had lived through, all of which were now evaporating. Had he been asked