The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [290]
Now, let me collect my thoughts. Staś was in the country during September, at the Duchess’s. I cannot imagine why he went there, nor what he did. But I could see, from the few letters he wrote me, that it didn’t go very well. What the devil took Izabela Łęcka there? Surely he isn’t interested in her any more? I’ll be damned if I don’t make a match of it between him and Mrs Stawska. I’ll make a match of it, I’ll lead them to the altar, I’ll make sure he makes the vows properly, and then … Maybe I’ll blow out my brains, I don’t know? … (Old fool! … Is it for you to think of such an angel! … Besides, I don’t think of her at all, particularly since I became convinced that she loves Wokulski. Let her love him, providing both are happy. And I? Come, Katz, my old friend, would you have been any bolder than I?
In November, on the very day that the house in Wspolna Street collapsed, Wokulski returned from Moscow. Again, I don’t know what he was doing there: suffice it that he made some seventy thousand roubles … These profits are beyond my grasp, but I am sure that any business in which Staś was involved must have been honest.
A few days after his return, a respectable merchant comes up to me and says: ‘My dear Mr Rzecki, I am not in the habit of interfering in other people’s business, but — pray warn Wokulski, not from me, but from you, that his partner Suzin is a great scoundrel and will certainly go bankrupt very soon. Warn him, sir, for I pity him … Wokulski, even though he has got on to the wrong road, always deserves sympathy.’
‘What do you mean by a “wrong road”?’ I asked.
‘Well, now, Mr Rzecki,’ said he, ‘anyone who goes to Paris and buys ships when England is involved in an incident and so forth — he, Mr Rzecki, is not marked by a citizen’s virtues.’
‘My dear sir,’ said I, ‘how does the buying of ships differ from the buying of hops? Bigger profits, no doubt …’
‘Well,’ said he, ‘let’s not make an issue of it, Mr Rzecki. I’d have nothing against anyone else doing it, but not Wokulski … After all, we both know his past, and I perhaps better than you, for sometimes the late lamented Hopfer placed orders with me through him …’
‘My dear sir,’ said I to this merchant, ‘are you casting aspersions on Wokulski?’
‘No, sir,’ said he to this, ‘I’m simply repeating what the whole town is saying. I don’t want to harm Wokulski in the least, especially in your eyes, as you are his friend (and very properly, for you knew him when he was different from today), but … You must admit, sir, that this man is damaging trade. I don’t judge his patriotism, Mr Rzecki, but I’ll tell you frankly (for I must be frank with you) that those Muscovite calicos … Do you understand me, sir?’
I was furious. For although I am a lieutenant of Hungarian infantry, I couldn’t comprehend in what way German calico is better than Muscovite calico. But there was no talking to my merchant. The brute raised his eyebrows, shrugged and waved his hands about so that in the end I thought he must be a fine patriot, and I a dummy, although when he was filling his pockets with roubles and imperials, hundreds of bullets were flying past my head…
Of course, I told Staś all this, and he replied with a sigh: ‘Calm yourself, my dear fellow. These very people who are warning me Suzin is a scoundrel, were writing to Suzin a month ago to say that I’m a bankrupt, a robber, an ex-rebel.’
After my talk with the honest merchant, whose name I won’t even mention, and after all