The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [377]
Rzecki jumped to his feet. ‘Helena’s husband?’ he asked feverishly, ‘where? But this means salvation for us all!’
Wokulski handed him the documents, which Rzecki seized with a trembling hand. ‘Eternal rest and … praise be to God!’ he declared, reading. ‘Well, my dear Staś, now there are no obstacles. Marry her … Ah, if you only knew how she loves you … I’ll tell the poor thing immediately, and you shall take the papers to her and … propose on the spot. Now I see the company will be saved, and perhaps the store too. Several hundred people whom you protect from poverty and want will bless you both … What a woman! With her you will at last find peace and happiness.’
Wokulski stopped in front of him and shook his head. ‘And will she find happiness with me?’ he asked.
‘She loves you distractedly … You can’t even guess …’
‘But does she know what it is that she loves? Don’t you see that I’m nothing but a ruin, of the worst kind — a moral ruin? I can poison someone else’s happiness, but not give it. If I could give the world anything, it would be money perhaps, and work … But not for the people of today, and as far away from them as possible.’
‘Oh, stop that!’ Rzecki exclaimed. ‘Marry her, and you will at once see things differently.’
Wokulski smiled sadly: ‘Yes, get married … And break a good and innocent being’s heart, exploit the most noble feelings and be elsewhere in my thoughts all the time. And perhaps, in a year or two, reproach her because I abandoned great things for her sake.’
‘Political things?’ Rzecki whispered mysteriously.
‘Goodness, no! I’ve had plenty of time and opportunity to grow disillusioned with all that … There’s something more important than politics.’
‘Geist’s invention?’
‘How do you know?’
‘Szuman told me.’
‘Ah, yes … I forgot that Szuman must know everything. That’s a talent, too.’
‘And a very helpful one. In any case, though, I advise you to think about Mrs Stawska, because …’
‘You will take her from me?’ Wokulski smiled. ‘Do so, do! I promise you neither of you will be poor.’
‘Bah! For goodness sake! We’d never hear the end of it, if an old wreck like I were to think of such a woman. But there’s someone more dangerous … Mraczewski. He’s crazy about her, I tell you, and has already left to see her, for the third or fourth time. A woman’s heart is not a stone.’
‘Mraczewski? Has he stopped playing with Socialism?’
‘For goodness sake! He says that once a man has made his first thousand roubles and meets a pretty woman like Stawska, then politics blows out of his head.’
‘Poor Klein had different views,’ said Wokulski.
‘What has Klein got to do with it, the hothead? A good lad, but no clerk. Mraczewski, now, was a real treasure. Handsome, with a few words of French, and how he used to look at the lady customers, how he’d twirl that moustache! He’ll make his way in the world, and will seize Mrs Stawska from beneath your very nose. Mark my words!’
He started to leave, then stopped and said: ‘Marry her, Staś … marry her. You’ll make a woman happy, you’ll save the company, and perhaps the store too. What’s the use of inventions? I understand political plans in these times, when the most important incidents may take place. But flying machines? Although perhaps they’d be useful,’ he added, on reflection. ‘Ha! In any case, do as you wish, but make up your mind about Stawska, for I feel that Mraczewski won’t let sleeping dogs lie. He’s a dandy! Flying machines … Pooh!’
Wokulski was left alone. ‘Paris or Warsaw?’ he thought. ‘There — a great purpose, though uncertain; here — several hundred people … Whom I can’t bear the sight of,’ he added, after a moment.
He approached the window and looked out into the street for a while, simply in order to gain control of himself. But everything irritated him: the traffic of carriages, the hurrying pedestrians, their worried or grinning faces … Most of all, the sight of women unnerved him. It seemed to him that each was the personification