The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [40]
Flora looks at her in the utmost surprise, then says:
‘That is impossible, Bela.’
‘Why?’
‘Fifteen minutes ago I had a note from Mrs Meliton saying the dinner-service and silver have already been sold.’
‘Already? … Who has bought them?’ Izabela cries, seizing her cousin’s hand.
Flora is taken aback.
‘Apparently some merchant from Russia …’ she says, but it is clear she is not telling the truth.
‘You know something, Flora! Please tell me …’ Izabela implores. Her eyes fill with tears.
‘Very well, only don’t give the secret away to your father.’
‘Who was it? Who has bought them?’
‘Wokulski,’ Flora replies.
In a moment Izabela’s eyes became dry and took on a steely tint. She rejects her cousin’s hand angrily, walks to and fro in the boudoir, sits down in a small chair opposite Flora. She is no longer an alarmed and upset beauty, but a great lady who intends to reprimand, perhaps dismiss, one of her servants.
‘Tell me, cousin,’ she said in a splendid contralto voice, ‘what is the meaning of this silly plot you are all hatching against me?’
‘Me? … a plot?’ Flora echoed, pressing her hands to her bosom. ‘I don’t understand you, Bela …’
‘Yes — you, Mrs Meliton and this … amusing hero … this Wokulski.’
‘Wokulski and me?’ Flora exclaims. This time her amazement is so sincere that it cannot be doubted.
‘Well, perhaps you are not plotting,’ Izabela goes on, ‘but you know something, all the same.’
‘Of Wokulski I know what everyone else knows. He owns that shop in which we sometimes buy things, he made a fortune in the war …’
‘And he is involving my father in a trade company, haven’t you heard?’
Flora’s expressive eyes grew very large.
‘Involving your father?’ she said, shrugging. ‘What sort of trade company can Wokulski involve him in?’
But at this moment her own words alarm her.
Izabela could not doubt Flora’s innocence; she walked to and fro a few times like a caged lioness, then suddenly asked: ‘At least tell me what you think of this man?’
‘Wokulski? I think nothing of him, except perhaps that he is seeking notoriety and useful contacts.’
‘So it was for notoriety that he donated a thousand roubles to the orphanage?’
‘Of course. He gave twice that to charity.’
‘Why did he buy up my dinner-service and the silver?’
‘So that he can sell them again at a profit,’ Flora replied. ‘Things like that are in demand in England.’
‘And why … why did he buy up papa’s bills of exchange?’
‘How do you know it was he? He would have no reason for doing so.’
‘I know nothing,’ Izabela snapped feverishly, ‘but I feel, I understand everything. This man is trying to draw close to us …’
‘He has made your father’s acquaintance, after all,’ Flora said.
‘Then it is me he wants to approach,’ exclaimed Izabela, with another outburst. ‘I saw that by …’
She was ashamed to add ‘the way he looked at me’.
‘Aren’t you exaggerating, Bela?’
‘No. What I feel at this moment is not exaggeration, but clairvoyance. You can’t even guess how long I have known—or rather how long he has been pursuing me. Only now I recall there was no new play at the theatre, no concert, no lecture at which I did not encounter him, and yet only now does that … that automaton seem terrible to me …’
Flora almost rose from her little chair as she whispered: ‘Do you think he may dare …?’
‘To be infatuated with me?’ Izabela interrupted with a sudden laugh. ‘I wouldn’t dream of preventing that. I’m neither so naive nor so falsely modest as not to know that I am attractive … even to servants, Heaven help me! … It used to irritate me, like a beggar who stops one in the street, or rings the door-bell or writes begging letters. But now — I’ve learned to understand the phrase “Of him who has much, much shall be required”.
‘In any case,’ she added, with a shrug, ‘men honour us in such unceremonious ways with their