The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [306]
I must confess that after being there a few minutes I got the horrors. I’d have sworn that Mrs Stawska, her mother and even these friends of hers were really in disgrace and that there was nothing left for anyone of us but death. The desire for death did not, however, prevent me from turning down the smoking lamp, which had already started sprinkling the room with fine but very black soot.
‘Well, ladies,’ Mr Wirski exclaimed suddenly, ‘let’s be off, for Mr Rzecki has something to discuss with Mrs Stawska.’
The visiting ladies, whose sympathy had not lessened their curiosity, declared they would discuss it with us. But Wirski began giving them their wraps so vigorously that the poor embarrassed creatures, after kissing Mrs Stawska, Mrs Misiewicz, Helena, and Mrs Wirski (I thought they’d start kissing the chairs before they’d finished), finally removed themselves and took Mr and Mrs Wirski with them.
‘A secret’s a secret,’ said the most determined of the ladies, ‘and you’re not needed here either.’
Another outburst of farewells, kisses, comfortings followed, and the whole crowd almost came to blows, fussing at the door and on the stairs. Sometimes I think the Lord created Eve to spoil Adam’s stay in Paradise.
Finally we were left in the family circle, but the little drawing-room was so full of soot and sorrow that I lost all my vitality. In a querulous voice I asked Mrs Stawska to permit me to open the window, and in a tone of involuntary reproach advised her at least to draw the blind in the windows from now on. ‘Don’t you recollect, madam,’ said I to Mrs Misiewicz, ‘that I remarked on those blinds long ago? If they’d been down, Baroness Krzeszowska wouldn’t have been able to spy on what was going on in your apartment.’
‘That’s true, but whoever would have expected it?’ Mrs Misiewicz replied.
‘It was just our misfortune,’ Mrs Stawska whispered.
I sat down in an armchair, pressed my hands so that the bones cracked, and listened with calm desperation to Mrs Misiewicz’s lamentations of the disgrace which came upon their family every few years, of death which was the limit of human sufferings, of the late Mr Misiewicz’s nankeen trousers and sundry other things. Before an hour had passed, I was certain that the proceedings over the doll would terminate in wholesale suicide, during which I, expiring at Mrs Stawska’s feet, would dare confess I loved her.
Then someone gave a loud ring at the kitchen door-bell. ‘The police!’ Mrs Misiewicz shrieked.
‘Are the ladies in?’ the newcomer asked Marianna in a voice so self-assured that I at once regained courage. ‘It’s Wokulski,’ I told Mrs Stawska, and twirled my whiskers. A blush resembling the petals of a pale rose on snow appeared on Mrs Stawska’s charming face. A heavenly creature! Oh, why am I not Wokulski? Then wouldn’t I …?
Staś entered. Mrs Stawska went to greet him. ‘You don’t despise us?’ she asked in a stifled voice. Wokulski looked into her eyes with amazement … once, then again (believe me) he kissed her hand. The delicacy with which he did so is best attested by the fact that there was none of the lip-smacking which is usually heard on such occasions.
‘So you have come, noble Mr Wokulski? You’re not ashamed of poor women overcome with disgrace?’ Mrs Misiewicz began her speech of welcome for I don’t know how many times.
‘Allow me,’ Wokulski interrupted, ‘your situation is certainly disagreeable, ladies, but I see no reason for despair. The matter will be cleared up in a few weeks: only then will despair be possible — but not for any of you ladies, only for the crazy Baroness. How are you, Helena?’ he added, kissing the little girl.
His voice was so tranquil and firm, and his manner so entirely unaffected, that Mrs Misiewicz stopped lamenting and Mrs Stawska looked somewhat more cheerful.
‘So what are we to do, noble Mr Wokulski, who isn’t ashamed to …?’ Mrs Misiewicz began.
‘We must wait for the trial,’ Wokulski interposed, ‘to inform the Baroness in court that she is lying, to start a case against her for defamation of character,