The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [420]
‘Oh, you gentleman! Oh, you addlebrained Polish gentleman!’ Suzin laughed. ‘Here is what causes your downfall, all you Poles: with you it’s heart, all heart, for everything, for trade, politics, women, everything — and that is your folly. Have a pocket for everything, but keep your heart only for yourself in order to enjoy what your money buys. A woman is such a singular creature that you will not haggle anything out of her for a heart, nor out of a Jew for prayers … For she will make a trophy of your heart, and another will come along without a heart and she will fall in love with him, kissing him before your very eyes … Send me to her, Stanisław Piotrowicz, and I will say to her a brief word: “Hey, little madame — you have troubled that gentleman, Mr Wokulski, and taken away his good sense. Give back his reason, and I will give you — a dozen honey-cakes … Perhaps too few? … Twice as many will I give you, and shabash!’
Wokulski looked so dreadful that Suzin stopped, and then changed the subject of the conversation. ‘You know,’ he continued, ‘what Maria Siergiejewna told me about her daughter before my departure? … “Oh,” said she, “silly Luboczka pines and pines for that scoundrel Wokulski. I explain to her: don’t you go thinking about Mr Wokulski. Mr Wokulski is sitting in Warsaw playing the national anthem on the piano … and never spares a thought for such a foolish girl … but Luboczka, nothing, like a stone …” And then Maria Siergiejewna says: “I don’t give a damn for that rotten Poland, let it perish for all I care, but I’m sorry for the child …”’
‘Just think, Stanisław Piotrowicz: the girl’s a peach, she’s been through the Smolny Institute, got a medal, she’ll put three million roubles down on the table at once and she dances and paints and more than one guards colonel has tried for her hand … Marry her, and you’ll have money enough for three local ladies, as long as God gives you strength, for women have devoured better Samsons …’
The door opened a second time.
‘Mr Łęcki is asking for you, sir,’ said Klein, revealing one cuff and the top of his head.
Wokulski started. Suzin rose heavily from the sofa.
‘Well, Stanisław Piotrowicz, I will go now and sleep awhile. Drop everything, I advise you, and go with me today to Paris; and if not today then tomorrow, or the day after. I’ll stop off at Berlin on the way to take a look at Bismarck, and you join me …’
They embraced and Suzin left, shaking his head.
‘Where is Mr Łęcki?’ Wokulski asked Klein.
‘In the study.’
‘I will go at once.’
Klein went out. Wokulski quickly gathered the papers from the table and also left Mr Ignacy’s apartment.
Notes
Treaty of San Stefano: Peace treaty between Russia and Turkey, signed on 3 March 1878. As a result, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria — formerly parts of the Ottoman Empire — gained independence.
election of a new Pope: Leo XIII, elected on 20 February 1878.
chances of a European war: the political conflict between Britain and Russia, which arose during the Russo-Turkish war and was not entirely resolved after the treaty of San Stefano, posed the threat of a new war involving European powers.
Krakowskie Przedmieście: one of the prime business and residential streets of Warsaw.
Beef Nelson: a Polish speciality, beef in a rich mushroom sauce.
He and the rest of ’em … Irkutsk: Prus alludes here to Wokulski’s participation in the January Uprising, 1863–4, and Wokulski’s presence in Irkutsk (Siberia) suggests political exile following the collapse of the uprising — the fate of many Polish insurgents and patriots at the time.
Napoleon III: Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, born 1803, a nephew of Napoleon I; in 1848 elected President of the French Republic; in 1851 assumed a dictatorial position in the state; in 1852, after a popular referendum, assumed the title of Emperor. In 1870, after the lost war with Prussia, Napoleon III was deprived of his throne and exiled to England, where he died in 1873.
Huguenots: opera by G. Meyerbeer (1836).
History of the Consulate and Empire: a history of the