The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [296]
‘Well, well…calm down, here is her lawyer,’ said Staś.
At this moment into the store came a little man in an old fur coat, a faded top-hat and huge galoshes. He entered, gazed around like a police spy, asked Klein when Wokulski would be there, suddenly pretended he had only just caught sight of us, approached Staś and whispered: ‘Mr Wokulski, is it not? May I have a few words with you, in private?’
Staś winked at me, and the three of us went into my apartment. The visitor removed his coat, whereat I noticed his trousers were still more frayed and his hair still more moth-eaten than his fur coat. ‘Allow me to introduce myself,’ said he, stretching his right hand to Wokulski and his left to me, ‘I am lawyer — ‘
Here he mentioned his name and — stood thus with his hands in the air. By a strange coincidence, neither Staś nor I felt any desire to take them. He realised this, but was not abashed. Indeed, with the best face in the world, he wiped his hands together and said, with a smile: ‘You gentlemen don’t even ask what business brings me here?’
‘We suppose you will tell us yourself,’ Wokulski replied.
‘Right you are!’ the visitor cried. ‘I’ll be brief. There is here in town a certain rich though very miserly Lithuanian (the Lithuanians are very miserly people!), who has asked me to recommend some apartment house to him for purchase. I have some fifteen on my books, but out of respect for you, Mr Wokulski, for I know the good you are doing our country, I recommended your house, the one that used to be Łęcki’s, and after two weeks’ work on him, I achieved so much that he is now ready to pay … Guess how much, gentlemen? Eighty thousand roubles! A splendid offer, isn’t it, now?’
Wokulski flushed with anger, and for a moment I thought he was going to throw the visitor out of the house. However, he controlled himself and replied in that tone he has, that sharp and disagreeable tone: ‘I know this Lithuanian. His name is Baroness Krzeszowska.’
‘What’s that?’ cried the attorney in amazement.
‘That miserly Lithuanian won’t pay eighty thousand, but ninety thousand for my house, while you, sir, propose a lower price as so to make more profit for yourself.’
‘Ho ho ho!’ the attorney began chuckling, ‘who would do otherwise, my dear Mr Wokulski?’
‘Pray tell your Lithuanian, sir,’ Staś interrupted, ‘that I’ll sell the house, but for a hundred thousand. And that until New Year. After New Year, I’ll raise the price.’
‘But what you’re saying is inhuman,’ the visitor burst out. ‘You want to tear her last penny away from that wretched woman … What will the world say to this, pray consider!’
‘I don’t care what the world says,’ Wokulski declared, ‘and if the world wants to moralise to me as you do, sir, I’ll show it the door. Come, sir — there’s the door, d’you see!’
‘I’ll give ninety-two thousand, but not a penny more,’ the attorney replied.
‘Put your overcoat on, you will catch cold in the yard …’
‘Ninety-five th —’ the attorney interposed, and began putting on his coat hastily.
‘Well, goodbye to you, sir,’ said Wokulski, opening the door.
The lawyer bowed low and went out, adding sweetly from the threshold: ‘I’ll be back in a day or two. Perhaps you’ll be better disposed, sir …’
Staś shut the door in his face. After the horrible attorney’s visit, I knew what to expect. The Baroness was certainly going to buy Staś’s house, but would first use all manner of means to bargain for it. I know those means! One was the anonymous letter in which she blackened Mrs Stawska’s reputation and said I’d turned grey with dissipation. But as soon as she buys the house, she will drive out the students first of all, and certainly poor Mrs Helena too. If only her hatred would stop there!
Now I can narrate all the events that followed, post-haste. After the attorney’s visit, I felt an evil premonition. I decided to call on Mrs Stawska that very day, and warn her of the Baroness. Above all, though, I would tell them to sit at the windows as rarely as possible. For the ladies, apart from the