The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [348]
‘How vile I am,’ thought Wokulski, ‘to think I suspected such a woman…Wretch that I am…’
When he went home, and dropped in at the store, he was so radiant that Ignacy was not a little alarmed. ‘What’s the matter with you?’ he asked.
‘Congratulate me. I am engaged to Miss Łęcka.’
But instead of congratulating him, Rzecki turned very pale. ‘I had a letter from Mraczewski,’ he said after a moment, ‘Suzin sent him to France in February, as you know.’
‘Well?’ Wokulski interrupted.
‘So—he writes from Lyons that Ludwik Stawski is alive and living in Algiers, but under the alias of Ernest Walter. Apparently he’s trading in wines. Someone saw him a year ago.’
‘We will check this.’ said Wokulski, and he calmly noted the address in his diary.
Henceforth he spent every afternoon at the Łęckis, and was asked to stay to dinner once in a while. A few days later, Rzecki came to him. ‘Well, old man?’ Wokulski exclaimed, ‘how are things with your Prince Lulu? Are you still angry with Szlangbaum for buying the store?’
The old clerk shook his head: ‘Mrs Stawska isn’t with Mrs Miller any longer. She’s rather poorly…She talks of leaving Warsaw…Maybe you’ll drop by there?’
‘True, I ought to,’ he replied, rubbing his head. ‘Did you mention the store to her?’
‘Of course; I even lent her twelve hundred roubles.’
‘Out of your own poor savings? Why shouldn’t she borrow from me?’
Rzecki didn’t answer.
Towards two o’clock, Wokulski drove to visit Mrs Stawska. She looked very worn; her charming eyes seemed even larger and unhappier than before. ‘What’s this? asked Wokulski, ‘I hear you want to leave Warsaw?’
‘Yes, sir. Perhaps my husband will come back,’ she added in a stifled voice.
‘Rzecki has told me, and permit me to see what I can do to confirm the news.’
Mrs Stawska burst into tears. ‘You’re so good to us,’ she whispered, ‘may you be happy…’
At the same time Mrs Wąsowska was visiting Izabela, and learned from her that she had accepted Wokulski. ‘At last!’ said Mrs Wąsowska, ‘I thought you were never going to make up your mind.’
‘So I have given you a pleasant surprise,’ Izabela retorted. ‘In any case, he’s an ideal husband—rich, unusual, and above all, a man with the heart of a dove. Not only is he not jealous, but he even apologised for his suspicions. That finally disarmed me…True love is blindfold…You don’t say anything?’
‘I’m thinking…’
‘What of?’
‘That if he knows you as well as you know him, then neither of you knows the other…’
‘Our honeymoon will be all the more agreeable.’
‘Let me wish you…’
XXXIII
A Couple Reconciled
IN MID-APRIL, Baroness Krzeszowska suddenly changed her way of life. Hitherto her days had been passed in scolding Marysia, writing letters to the tenants to tell them the stairs were littered with garbage, asking the janitor whether anyone had torn down the ‘To Rent’ notice, if the girls from the Parisian laundry spent the night in the house, or if the police had asked to see her about anything. Nor did she omit to remind him that should anyone apply for the third-floor apartment, he was to study young persons especially, and if they were students, to tell them the apartment was already rented.
‘Mind what I tell you, Kasper,’ she concluded, ‘for you will lose your position if any student creeps into my house. I’ve had enough of those nihilists, libertines, atheists who carry human skulls…’
After every such conference, the janitor would go back to his cubby-hole, throw down his cap and cry: ‘I’ll hang myself, that I will, if I have to stand this woman any longer! On Friday, it’s market day—janitor, go to the drugstore twice a day, attend to the mangle, and God knows what else. She’s already told me I’m to go with her to the cemetery to set a grave in order! Did anyone ever hear of such a thing? I’ll quit on Midsummer day, even if I have to lose twenty roubles…’
But after mid-April, the Baroness grew milder. Several circumstances contributed. In the first place, she was visited one day by an unknown lawyer with a confidential inquiry whether