The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [412]
This uneasiness changed into genuine alarm in the face of a fact which brooked no doubt. On October 1st, one of the lawyers summoned Ignacy to his office, and showed him a document Wokulski had signed before leaving for Moscow. This was a formal will and testament, in which Wokulski bequeathed the money remaining in Warsaw, seventy thousand roubles of which was in the bank, and a hundred and twenty thousand with Szlangbaum.
To strangers, these arrangements were proof of Wokulski’s irresponsibility: to Rzecki, however, they seemed perfectly reasonable. The lawyer stated: the huge sum of a hundred and forty thousand went to Ochocki, twenty-five thousand to Rzecki, twenty thousand to Helena Stawska. The remaining five thousand were divided between his former servants and the poor people he had contact with. Of this sum, five hundred went to Węgiełek the joiner at Zasław, Wysocki the Warsaw carter, and the other Wysocki, his brother, the railwayman at Skierniewice.
Wokulski had asked the lawyer, in an emotional manner, that they should accept the bequests as coming from a dead man, and told him not to publish the will before October 1st.
Among the people who knew Wokulski, a quantity of talk arose, rumours flew around, insinuations, personal insults … In a conversation with Rzecki, Szuman expressed this view: ‘I knew of your bequest long ago … He gave Ochocki almost a million zloty because he discovered in him a lunatic of the same species as himself … And I understand the gift for pretty Mrs Stawska’s little daughter,’ he added, with a smile, ‘but one thing alone intrigues me.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Rzecki, biting his moustaches.
‘How does that railroad man Wysocki come to be among the beneficiaries?’
He made a note of the name and left, thoughtfully.
Great was Rzecki’s uneasiness at what might have have happened to Wokulski, why he should have made a will, and why he spoke in it like a man thinking of imminent death? Then, however, incidents occurred which brought a gleam of hope to Rzecki, and which explained Wokulski’s strange behaviour to a certain extent. In the first instance Ochocki, informed of the bequest, at once replied from St Petersburg that he accepted, and wanted to have all the cash at the beginning of November, and he also reserved the right to the interest payable on it for the month of October by Szlangbaum.
In addition, he wrote to Rzecki inquiring whether Ignacy wouldn’t let him have twenty-one thousand roubles in cash, out of his own capital of twenty-five thousand, in exchange for the sum payable on Midsummer day which Ochocki had on the mortgage of his country estate. ‘It is very important to me,’ he concluded, ‘to have everything I possess in my hands, as I absolutely must go abroad in November. I will explain why when we meet …’
‘Why is he going abroad all of a sudden, and why is he taking all his money with him?’ Rzecki asked himself, ‘and why, in the end, does he postpone explaining until we meet?’
Of course he agreed to Ochocki’s offer. It seemed to him that some comfort was rooted in this sudden departure and unspoken things. ‘Who knows,’ he thought, ‘whether Staś didn’t take his half million roubles to India with him? Perhaps Ochocki and he will meet in Paris, at this strange Geist’s? Some kind of metal … some balloon or other! Evidently he is concerned to keep the secret, at least until …’
On this occasion, however, Szuman wrecked his hopes by saying: ‘I’ve been having inquiries made in Paris about this famous Geist, thinking Wokulski may run foul of him. Well, Geist, who was once a very capable chemist, is today an out-and-out lunatic … The entire Academy laughs at his notions …’
The entire Academy’s derision of Geist shook Rzecki’s hopes very much. Surely the French Academy could evaluate those metals or balloons, if anyone could … But if the wise men had decided Geist was a lunatic, then surely Wokulski wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
‘So where and why has he gone away?’ Rzecki thought. ‘Well, obviously he’s gone travelling, because he didn’t like it here any