The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [380]
Then, in turn, Szlangbaum and Szuman had visited him, and he learned from them that two Jewish parties were struggling together to inherit his control of the trading company. There was no one else in the whole country able to develop his ideas; no one except the Jews, who had come forward with all their arrogance of race, their cunning, their ruthlessness, and yet they still expected him to believe that his decline and their triumph would be advantageous to the country.
In view of this, he felt such a horror for commerce, trading companies and profits of any kind that he was surprised by himself: in what manner had he been able to mix in such things for almost two years? ‘I gained a fortune for her,’ he thought, ‘Commerce … Commerce and I! It was I who acquired over half a million roubles in two years, I who mixed with economic card-sharpers, bet my life and work on a single card, well … And I won. I — an idealist, a scholar, I — who understand perfectly well that a man couldn’t earn half a million roubles in a lifetime, no, not in three lifetimes … And the only consolation I had from this card-sharping was the certainty that I, at least didn’t rob or cheat … Obviously, God looks after the stupid.’
Then again, chance had brought him news of Stawski’s death in the letter from Paris, and from that moment on memories of Mrs Stawska and of Geist in turn awoke within him. ‘To tell the truth,’ he thought, ‘I ought to return my exploited fortune to the community. Our country is full of poverty and ignorance, and these poor and ignorant people are at the same time the most admirable material … The only way to do so, however, would be to marry Stawska. She certainly wouldn’t be frightened by my plans, but would be my most faithful helper. After all, she knows the meaning of work and poverty, and is so noble …’
Thus he reasoned, though he felt differently: he despised the people he wanted to render happy. He felt that Szuman’s pessimism had uprooted his passion for Izabela, but had also poisoned him. It was difficult for him to deny that the human race consisted either of hens flirting with a cockerel, or wolves chasing a she-wolf. And that whichever way he turned, the chances were nine out of ten that he would encounter an animal, rather than a man.
‘May the devil take him, suggesting that sort of cure,’ he murmured.
Then he began thinking about Szuman. Three men had observed strongly animal traits in the human species: he himself, Geist and Szuman. But he believed that animals in human form were exceptions, and that the community consisted of single individuals. Geist, on the contrary, claimed that the human community is animal, and good individuals are exceptions: Geist also believed that in time, the good people would multiply and dominate the earth — and for over a decade he had been working on an invention to bring about this triumph.
Szuman also claimed that the great majority of men are animals, but he neither believed in a better future, nor did he offer this consolation. For him, the human species was condemned to eternal animalism, in which only the Jews stood out like pike amidst minnows.
‘A fine philosophy, indeed,’ thought Wokulski. However, he felt that Szuman’s pessimism would soon flourish in his own wounded soul, as in a freshly ploughed field. He felt that love for Izabela was dying in him, and so was his anger. For if the whole world consisted of animals, there was no good reason to be insane about one of them, or to be angry because she was an animal, no better and certainly no worse than others.
‘A devilish cure!’ he kept thinking. ‘Yet who knows but it isn’t right? I have gone catastrophically bankrupt for my views: who will promise me that Geist isn’t wrong in his ideas, or that Szuman isn’t? Rzecki an animal, Stawska, Geist, I myself … Ideals — they are painted cribs in which there is painted grass that cannot feed