The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [384]
Then came a second wave of visitors, who pretended they wanted to thank him for his services, but who really came to satisfy their curiosity, and see what this once strong man looked like, of whom it was now said he had gone to pieces entirely. These people did not ask him to return to the company, but merely praised his past activities and said that it would be long before another man as active as he had been would turn up.
A third wave of visitors called on Wokulski, goodness knows why. For they did not even pay him compliments, merely referred more and more often to Szlangbaum, his energy and his talents.
The carter Wysocki was an exception in the crowds of visitors. He came to bid farewell to his former patron: he even wanted to tell him something, but suddenly burst into tears, kissed him on both hands and hurried from the room.
Very much the same was repeated in the letters. In some, acquaintances and unknown persons urged him not to withdraw from the business, for his withdrawal would be a disaster for the country. Others praised his past activity or pitied him; still others advised him to join Szlangbaum, as a very talented man who thought only of the community’s welfare. On the other hand, he was mercilessly insulted in some anonymous letters for having ruined the country’s industry a year ago by importing foreign merchandise, and today he was ruining it by selling out to the Jews. The exact price was even mentioned.
Wokulski pondered quite coolly over these things. It seemed to him he was already a dead man, watching his own funeral. He saw those who pitied him, those who praised him, those who cursed him: he saw his successor, to whom the community’s admiration was starting to turn, and finally he realised that he himself was forgotten and superfluous. He was like a stone dropped into water, at first causing a whirlpool and movement, but later on, smaller and smaller waves flow away. Finally, above the place where he had fallen, a smooth mirror of water was recreated, where waves flowed again, but now originating from other places, caused by other people. ‘Well, what now?’ he said to himself, ‘I have no one, I do nothing … What next?’
He recalled that Szuman had advised him to seek some other purpose in life. Good advice, but … How to follow it, when he himself felt no desire, had neither strength nor wishes? He was like a dead leaf, which goes wherever the wind tosses it. ‘I once foresaw this state of mind,’ he thought, ‘but now I can see that I had no idea of what it was like.’
One day he heard a noisy argument in the hall. He glanced out and saw Węgiełek, whom the butler would not admit. ‘Ah, it’s you,’ said Wokulski, ‘come in … What’s your news?’
At first Węgiełek eyed him uneasily; gradually, however, he became more animated, and took comfort. ‘They said,’ he declared with a smile, ‘that you were on your last legs, sir, but I see they were lying. You have grown thin, that’s true, but you don’t look like a scarecrow.’
‘What’s your news?’ Wokulski repeated.
Węgiełek told him expansively that he had a house, better than the one which had been burned down, and a great deal of work. This was precisely why he had come to Warsaw, in order to buy materials and perhaps to get two assistants. ‘I could start a factory, sir, that I could,’ Węgiełek concluded.
Wokulski listened to him in silence. Suddenly he inquired: ‘And are you happy with your wife?’
A shadow flitted across Węgiełek’s face: ‘She’s a good woman, sir … But … I must tell