The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [340]
‘So he wants to marry my repentant?’ Wokulski thought. He walked about the room, and said: ‘Do you know Maria well enough?’
‘Why not? After all, we meet three times a day, and sometimes I spend Sunday with her, or both of us do, with the Wysockis.’
‘I see. But do you know what she was a year ago?’
‘I do, sir. Hardly had I got there by your kindness, than Mrs Wysocka right away says to me: “Take care, young fellow, for she’s of easy virtue …” So I knew from the very start what she was: she never pulled the wool over my eyes at all.’
‘How did it come that you want to marry her?’
‘Goodness knows, sir, one way or another. At first I used to laugh at her, and when anyone passed the window, I’d say: “A friend of Maria, no doubt, as you’ve eaten bread from more than one stove.” But she didn’t say anything, only looked down, turned her sewing-machine until it steamed, and reddened up to the eyes. Later on, I noticed someone was doing my laundry for me; so, at Christmas, I bought her an umbrella for ten złoty, and she bought me six linen handkerchiefs, with my name on them. But Mrs Wysocka said: “Don’t be taken in, young fellow, she’s after you!” But I never let it into my head — though if she’d not been a wicked woman, I’d have married her come Shrovetide.
‘On Ash Wednesday, Wysocki told me how things stood with Maria. Some lady in velvet had agreed to take her into service, but what kind of service, for goodness sake! She kept wanting to run away, but they kept ahold of her, and said: “Either stay here, or we will send you to prison for theft.” “What have I stolen, then?” says she. “Our incomes, you heathen,” they shout. And she’d have stayed there until doomsday (so Wysocki said), if Mr Wokulski hadn’t seen her in church. Then he bought her out, and saved her.’
‘Go on, go on,’ Wokulski exclaimed, seeing Węgiełek hesitate.
‘It struck me at once,’ Węgiełek continued, ‘that it wasn’t wickedness, but misfortune. And I asked Wysocki: “Would you marry Maria?” “One wife is more than enough,” says he. “But if you was single?” “Well,” says he, “how can I say, not having any interest in women?” Seeing the old man didn’t want to talk, I swore at him, so that in the end he said: “I wouldn’t marry her, because I wouldn’t be sure that the old ways didn’t come back to her. When a woman’s good, she’s good, but when she’s wanton, she’s no good.”
‘Meanwhile, at the beginning of Lent, the Good Lord afflicted me with such pains that I had to stay home and the doctor operated on me. And didn’t Maria start coming to see me, to make the bed, bandage my wound … The doctor says that if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have kept to my bed another week. Sometimes I’d be irritable, particularly when I felt badly, so one day I says: “What are you doing all this for, Maria? You think I’m going to marry you, but I’d be a fool to take a girl who has served ten …” But she didn’t answer, only looked away and her tears came…“After all, I understand,” she says, “that Mr Węgiełek won’t marry me.” Then I, beggin’ your pardon, sir, came all over pitiful when I heard that. And I told Mrs Wysocka: “You know, I might marry Maria.” And she says: “Don’t be silly, for…” But I dare not say it…’ Węgiełek suddenly stopped, and again he kissed Wokulski’s hand.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Mrs Wysocka told me—that if I marry Maria, I might offend Mr Wokulski, after his kindness to us all. Who knows but what Maria don’t visit him?…’
Wokulski stopped in front of him. ‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’ he asked. ‘I give you my word of honour I never see this girl.’
Węgiełek sighed with relief: ‘Thank God for that. For in the first place, I wouldn’t dare get in your way, sir, after all your kindness, and then again…’
‘Then again—what?’
‘In the second place, sir, she went wrong through misfortune, wicked people misused her, and that wasn’t her fault. But if she should have wept over me when I lay sick, and came to visit you too, sir—then she would be such a wicked woman, that she’d be like a mad dog that has to be killed lest it