The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [307]
‘God has sent you to us, Mr Wokulski,’ cried Mrs Misiewicz in a voice that was already quite natural, pulling the kerchief off her head.
‘I’ve come here on a more important matter,’ said Staś to Mrs Stawska (obviously he was in a hurry to say goodbye to her, the donkey!), ‘have you given up your lessons?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then give them up for good and all. It’s wretched work, and doesn’t pay. Go into trade.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, madam, you. Do you know accounting?’
‘I studied it …’ Mrs Stawska murmured. She was so upset that she sat down.
‘Excellent. Because the responsibility for yet another store and its owner, a widow, has fallen on me. Because almost all the capital is mine, I must have someone I can trust in the business. Will you therefore accept the post of cashier, with wages … of seventy-five roubles a month, to start with?’
‘Do you hear that, Helena?’ Mrs Misiewicz turned to her daughter, making a grimace of the utmost surprise as she did so.
‘So you, sir, would entrust your cash-office to me, against whom a law-suit …?’ Mrs Stawska began, and burst into tears.
However, both ladies soon calmed down, and half an hour later we were all drinking tea, not only talking, but even laughing. Wokulski was the cause! There’s no one in the world like him! How is it possible not to love him? True enough, I may have an equally kind heart, but I still need a little something more — in a word, the half million roubles my dear Staś possesses.
Soon after Christmas, I installed Mrs Stawska in the store of Mrs Miller, and the latter welcomed the new cashier very cordially, spending half an hour to explain to me how noble, wise and handsome Wokulski is … That he’d saved the store from bankruptcy, and her and her children from poverty, and how good it would be if such a man were to marry. A charming creature, for all her thirty-five years! Scarcely has she taken one husband to the Powazki cemetery than right away (upon my soul!) she’d like to get married again, to Wokulski of course. I can’t reckon up how many of these women there are chasing Wokulski (or his thousands of roubles?).
For her part, Mrs Stawska is delighted with everything: the job, which brings her in a better wage than she ever had before, and a new apartment which Wirski found for her. It is not a bad apartment at all: they have a vestibule, a little kitchen with a sink and water laid on, three very nice little rooms and above all, a garden. For the time being it contains three dried-up sticks and a pile of bricks, but Mrs Stawska is convinced that in summer she’ll make a paradise of it. A paradise no bigger than a handkerchief!
The year 1879 began with a victory in Afghanistan for the British, who entered Kabul under General Roberts. No doubt Kabul sauce will get dearer! But Roberts is a gallant fellow: he has only one hand, but for all that he hit the Afghans till their feathers flew … Although it’s not hard to defeat savages: I’d like to see how you’d perform, Mr Roberts, if you had Hungarian infantry to deal with!
Wokulski also had a battle just after New Year, with that trading company he established. I think that one more session would suffice for him to dispel all his partners to the four winds. Strange folk, though they’re all intelligentsia: industrialists, merchants, gentlefolk, princes! He established a company for them, but they regard him as an enemy of this company, and claim that they’re the only ones who are making any contribution. He pays them seven per cent half-yearly, but they still grimace and would like to lower the wages of their workers.
As for these dear workers, on whose behalf Wokulski is protesting! What don’t they say of him! Don’t they call him an exploiter (N.B. in our line of business, he pays the biggest wages and bonuses), and some set traps for others …
I have been unhappy to observe that for some time now, habits hitherto unknown