The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [346]
‘After all, I’m not going to shoot myself,’ he thought. ‘If I’d gone bankrupt, then perhaps…But like this? I’d despise myself if a woman’s skirts were to remove me from this world…I should have stayed in Paris…Who knows but that today I might not possess a weapon which will sooner or later eradicate all monsters with human faces?’
Rzecki, guessing what was going on, called at various times of day, and tried to draw him into conversation. But neither the weather, nor trade, nor politics concerned Wokulski. Only once did he grow livelier, when Mr Ignacy commented that Mrs Miller was persecuting Mrs Stawska.
‘What does she mean by it?’
‘Jealousy, perhaps, because you visit Mrs Stawska and pay her a good salary.’
‘Mrs Miller can set her mind at rest,’ said Wokulski, ‘when I hand the store over to Mrs Stawska and make her the cashier.’
‘Don’t say that, for goodness sake!’ Rzecki exclaimed in alarm, ‘you’d ruin Mrs Stawska if you did.’
Wokulski began walking about: ‘You’re right. But all the same, if the women are squabbling, they must be separated. Persuade Mrs Stawska to set up a store for herself, and we will provide the capital. I thought of that once before, but now I see it shouldn’t be postponed any longer.’
Of course Ignacy instantly hastened to his lady friends and told them the great news. ‘I don’t know whether it would be proper to accept such a sacrifice,’ said Mrs Misiewicz, uneasily.
‘What sacrifice?’ Rzecki exclaimed. ‘You’ll repay us in a few years, and basta! What do you think?’ he asked Mrs Stawska.
‘I’ll do as Mr Wokulski wishes. If he tells me to open a store, I shall; if he tells me to stay with Mrs Miller, I shall.’
‘But, Helena,’ her mother reflected, ‘just think what a risk you are running, to speak thus! Thank goodness no one can hear.’
Mrs Stawska fell silent, greatly to Mrs Misiewicz’s mortification: she was alarmed by the determination of her hitherto mild and submissive daughter.
One day, as Wokulski was walking in the street, he met Mrs Wąsowska. He bowed, and walked aimlessly on; then a servant caught up with him: ‘Madam wishes…’
‘What has been happening to you?’ exclaimed the beautiful widow, as Wokulski approached the carriage, ‘pray get in, let us drive along the Boulevard.’ He obeyed, they drove off.
‘What does this mean?’ Mrs Wąsowska continued, ‘you look dreadful, you haven’t been near Bela for ten days…Well, say something!’
‘I have nothing to say. I’m not ill, and I don’t think Izabela needs my visits.’
‘What if she does?’
‘I never had any such illusions; today less than ever.’
‘Well, well…My dear man, let’s speak frankly. You are jealous, which always lowers a man in a woman’s estimation. You were vexed by Molinari.’
‘You are wrong, madam. I am so little jealous that I am not going to interfere in the least with Izabela choosing between Molinari and myself. I know, after all, that we both have equal rights.’
‘My dear man, that is bitter!’ Mrs Wąsowska scolded him. ‘How now, is a poor woman not to speak to other men, should one of you deign to admire her? I didn’t think a man like you would treat a woman in such a harem-like fashion. Besides, what concern is it of yours? Even if Bela flirted with Molinari, what of it? It lasted one evening and ended with such a contemptuous goodbye from Bela that it was quite disagreeable to see.’
His depression left Wokulski: ‘Madam, don’t let’s pretend we don’t understand one another. You know that a woman is as holy as an altar to a man who loves her. Right or wrong, that’s how it is. Now, if the first adventurer to come along approaches this divinity