The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [398]
‘He wasn’t advising you, but me.’
‘As I listened to his argument, I too was thinking of you. I can imagine how you’d look if you changed your mistress every three months, if at some time all the people who now work towards providing your income were to stand before you and ask: “With what are you repaying us for our labour, poverty and shortened lives, part of which we hand over to you? With work, or advice, or example?”’
‘What sort of people work towards my income nowadays?’ asked Wokulski. ‘I have withdrawn from trade and am putting my fortune into investments.’
‘If you are investing it in land mortgages, then the interest will be paid by farmhands: if in shares, then the dividends are provided by railroad workers, confectioners, weavers, goodness knows who.’
Wokulski became still more sombre. ‘Pray tell me, sir,’ he said, ‘why should I think of that? Thousands of people live on their dividends, and don’t trouble themselves with such problems.’
‘But then,’ Ochocki muttered, ‘they are the others, not you. I have fifteen hundred roubles a year altogether, but it often strikes me that such a sum would provide subsistence to three or four people, and that some fellows are giving up their lives for me, or having to limit their own needs which are restricted enough in all conscience.’
Wokulski walked about the room. ‘When are you going abroad?’ he suddenly inquired.
‘I don’t even know that,’ Ochocki replied sourly. ‘My debtor won’t repay the money for a year. He’ll pay me off simply by getting into another debt, but that won’t be easy to do nowadays.’
‘Does he pay high interest?’
‘Seven per cent.’
‘Is it secure?’
‘The next best thing after the Credit Union.’
‘Suppose I gave you the cash and took over your rights, would you go abroad then?’
‘In a moment!’ exclaimed Ochocki, leaping up. ‘Why should I settle down here? I’d marry well in sheer desperation, and later do as Szuman advises.’
Wokulski reflected. ‘What would be the harm in marrying?’ he said in an undertone.
‘For Heaven’s sake! … I couldn’t support a poor wife, a rich one would make a sybarite out of me, and either would mean the end of my plans. What I need is some odd woman who would work in the laboratory with me, and where am I to find one?’
Ochocki seemed highly agitated, and made to leave.
‘So, my dear sir,’ said Wokulski, bidding him goodbye, ‘we will discuss the matter of your capital. I’m prepared to pay you off.’
‘As you wish … I am not going to ask you to do it, but should be most grateful.’
‘When are you leaving for Zasławek?’
‘Tomorrow, I called to say goodbye to you.’
‘So the matter is settled,’ Wokulski ended, pressing his hand. ‘You shall have the cash in October.’
After Ochocki’s departure, Wokulski lay down to sleep. He had experienced so many powerful and conflicting impressions this day that he was unable to set them in order. It seemed to him that since the moment of his break with Izabela he had entered upon some terrible elevation, surrounded by precipices, and that only today had he gained its heights, or had emerged on a second level where he could see still unclear but totally new prospects.
For some time, hosts of women moved before his eyes, and especially Mrs Wąsowska: then again, he saw crowds of labourers and workmen, asking him what he had given them in exchange for his income. Finally he fell asleep.
He woke at six next morning, and his first impression was a feeling of freedom and vitality. He didn’t really want to get up, but he was not suffering and he did not think about Izabela. That’s to say, he thought of her, but he didn’t have to: in any case, the recollection of her did not ravage him in its previous painful manner.
Then this absence of suffering alarmed him. ‘Is it a premonition?’ he wondered. He recalled the events of the previous day: his memory and logic served him well. ‘Perhaps I am regaining my will-power,’ he murmured.
For an experiment, he decided he would get up in five minutes,