The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [315]
I think to myself: ‘What the devil’s this, can Staś have sacked him?’ So I reply: ‘You can rest assured, Mr Szlangbaum, of my cordiality, providing you haven’t committed any fraud, Mr Szlangbaum.’
I emphasised the last words, for my Mr Szlangbaum looked as though he intended either to purchase our store, (which seems unlikely to me), or steal the cash-box … which, though he’s honest, I wouldn’t consider out of the question.
Evidently he noticed this, for he smiled slightly and went back to his department. A quarter of an hour later, I walked in there as though by chance, but found him at work as usual. Indeed, I’d even say he was working harder than usual; he trotted up ladders, pulled down rolls of reps and velvet, put them back in the cupboards and, in a word, was bustling about like a bee. ‘No,’ I thought, ‘surely this fellow will never rob us.’
I noticed — and this also made me ponder — that Mr Zięba was being humbly civil to Szlangbaum, and was looking at me rather haughtily, though not very. ‘Ha!’ I thought, ‘he wants to compensate Szlangbaum for his previous insults, and to preserve his personal honour as far as I, the most senior clerk, am concerned. Very decent of him, for we should always condescend a little to those above us, but be exaggeratedly civil to those beneath.’
That evening I went to the tavern for beer. Whom should I see but Mr Szprott and Councillor Węgrowicz! Ever since that contretemps which I’ve mentioned with Szprott, he and I have been on terms of mutual indifference, but I greeted the councillor cordially enough. And he says to me: ‘Well, has it happened?’
‘Excuse me,’ I said, ‘but I don’t understand you (I thought he was alluding to Mrs Stawska’s law-suit), I don’t understand you at all, Councillor.’
‘What don’t you understand?’ says he, ‘not the fact that the store has been sold?’
‘Cross yourself, Councillor,’ say I, ‘what store?’
The respectable old councillor had already got six bottles inside of him, so he began laughing and says: ‘Pooh! I may cross myself if I choose, but they won’t let you do so when you give over eating Christian bread and take to Jewish challah instead; there now, people say the Jews have bought that store of yours …’
I thought I would have an apoplectic stroke: ‘Councillor,’ say I, ‘you’re too serious a man not to tell me where you heard this news!’
‘The whole town’s talking,’ replied the councillor, ‘and besides, let Mr Szprott here explain.’
‘Mr Szprott,’ say I, with a bow, ‘I didn’t intend to speak to you, the more so that when I asked you for satisfaction you, like a scoundrel, refused it … Like a scoundrel, Mr Szprott … However, I must tell you that you’re either repeating gossip, or making it up yourself.’
‘What’s that?’ roared Szprott, banging the table with his fist as he had done the previous time, ‘I refused because I’m not here to give satisfaction to you, nor to any man. Yet I’ll repeat that the Jews are buying that store of yours.’
‘What Jews?’
‘Goodness knows — the Szlangbaums, Hundbaums — how should I know?’
I was so overcome with rage that I ordered beer, and Węgrowicz says: ‘There’ll be a nasty to-do one day with these Jews. They’re pressing in on us, turning us out of jobs, buying us up — so it’s hard to cope with ’em. We’ll never get the better of them by cheating, that’s for sure, but when it comes to bare fists, then we’ll see who comes off best.’
‘You are right, Councillor!’ added Szprott. ‘Those Jews will