The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [410]
‘The former Wokulski would certainly have settled it. However, the new one has forgotten not only your business … But his own too.’
‘I expected him to leave,’ said Ochocki, as though to himself, ‘but I don’t like this suddenness. Has he written to you?’
‘Not a word to anyone,’ the old clerk replied.
Ochocki shook his head. ‘It had to happen,’ he muttered.
‘Why did it have to happen?’ Rzecki burst forth. ‘Is he a bankrupt, then, or unemployed? A store like his, a company, are they nothing? Couldn’t he have married a pretty, fine woman?’
‘Other such women are still to be found,’ Ochocki interposed, ‘and they would do very well,’ he said, in a more lively way, ‘though not for a man with his disposition.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Rzecki asked, to whom a conversation about Wokulski caused as much pleasure as though it had been about his mistress, ‘what do you mean by that? Did you get to know him well?’ he asked, insistently, and his eyes sparkled.
‘It was easy to know him. He was, in a word, a man of wide soul.’
‘Just so!’ cried Rzecki, waving his hand and gazing at Ochocki with admiration. ‘But what did you mean by “wide soul”? Well said! Explain yourself, though — and clearly!’
Ochocki smiled. ‘You see, sir,’ he said, ‘people with small souls are only concerned with their own matters, they don’t think beyond the present day, and they have a horror of unknown things. Providing they are at ease and well-fed … But a fellow like Wokulski concerns himself with the interests of thousands, sometimes he looks decades ahead, and any unknown or unresolved thing attracts him irresistibly. It isn’t social benefaction, but a force. Just as iron moves to a magnet, or a bee adheres to its hive without thinking, so this kind of man is drawn to all ideas and unusual work.’
Rzecki pressed both his hands and trembled with emotion. ‘Szuman …’ he said, ‘the wise doctor Szuman declares Wokulski is a nincompoop, a Polish Romantic.’
‘Szuman’s a fool, with that Jewish classicism of his!’ Ochocki replied. ‘He doesn’t even suspect that civilisation wasn’t created by Philistines or by businessmen, but by just such nincompoops … If sense was a matter of thinking about income, people would still be apes.’
‘Blessed words … Beautiful words!’ the old clerk repeated. ‘But pray explain, sir, in what way a man like Wokulski might … so to speak … get involved in trouble?’
‘Frankly, I am surprised it came so late, sir,’ replied Ochocki, with a shrug. ‘After all, I know his life and I know that this man has almost stifled here, ever since his childhood. He had scientific aspirations, but there was no way to satisfy them; he had wide social instincts, but no matter what he touched in that field, all fell through … Even that wretched little company he founded brought nothing but complaints and hatred down on his head.’
‘You are right, sir … You are right,’ Rzecki repeated. ‘And then that Izabela …’
‘Well, she might have satisfied him. With personal happiness, he would have come to terms with his environment more easily, and used up his energies in a way which is possible here. But he made a bad choice.’
‘And what now?’
‘How should I know?’ Ochocki murmured. ‘Today, he is like an uprooted tree. If he finds suitable soil, and he may do so in Europe, and if he still has the energy — then he will set to some kind of work, and who knows but what he won’t really begin living? But if he is worn out, which is also possible at his age …’
Rzecki put a finger to his lips. ‘Hush … Hush!’ he interrupted. ‘Staś has the energy, that he has! He will still go on … on …’
He came away from the window and, leaning against the doorpost, began sobbing. ‘I’m so poorly …’ he said, ‘so upset … Apparently I have heart disease … But it’ll pass, it’ll pass. Only — why did he run away like this? Hide himself? Not write?’
‘Oh, I can understand so well,’ Ochocki exclaimed, ‘that horror a broken man feels for things which remind him of the past. How well I know it, even