The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [56]
Mraczewski turned to stone. ‘Why, sir? Why?’
‘Because there is no job for you here.’
‘But what’s the reason, sir? After all, surely I haven’t done anything wrong? Where shall I go if you dismiss me so suddenly?’
‘You’ll get good references,’ Wokulski replied. ‘Mr Rzecki will pay your wages for the next quarter—or for five months. The reason is that you and I don’t get on… We don’t get on at all. Ignacy, pay Mr Mraczewski until the first of October.’
With that, Wokulski rose and went into the street.
Mraczewski’s dismissal made such an impression that the other clerks said not a word to one another, and Rzecki told them to close the shop, though it was not yet eight o’clock. He at once hurried to Wokulski’s house, but did not find him there. He went again at eleven, but the windows were dark and Ignacy went despondently home.
Next day, Maundy Thursday, Mraczewski did not appear in the shop. His colleagues were depressed and sometimes conferred quietly together.
Wokulski came in about one o’clock. But before he could sit down at his desk, the door opened and Baron Krzeszowski hurried in with his usual hesitant step, attempting to fix his eye-glasses in place.
‘Mr Wokulski,’ he exclaimed distractedly, almost at the door, ‘I have just heard… I am Krzeszowski… I hear that poor Mraczewski has been dismissed on my account. But, Mr Wokulski, I was not in the least vexed with you yesterday… I respected the discretion you showed in the matter of myself and my wife… I know that you replied to her as becomes a gentleman…’
‘Baron,’ said Wokulski, ‘I have not asked you for a certificate of respectability. Apart from that—what can I do for you?’
‘I have come to ask forgiveness for poor Mraczewski, who even…’
‘I am not vexed with Mr Mraczewski, though he should apply to me himself…’
The Baron bit his lip. He was silent a moment, as if stunned by the brusque reply; finally he bowed and with a quiet ‘Excuse me’, left the shop.
Messrs Klein and Lisiecki retired behind the cases, and after a short conference returned into the shop, casting sad but eloquent glances at one another from time to time.
At about three o’clock, Baroness Krzeszowska appeared. She seemed paler, greener and still more sombrely dressed than the previous day. She looked fearfully around and, catching sight of Wokulski, approached his desk: ‘Sir,’ she said quietly, ‘today I heard that a certain young man, Mraczewski, lost his post here on my account. His unhappy mother…’
‘Mr Mraczewski no longer works here, and will not be doing so,’ Wokulski replied with a bow, ‘so what can I do for you?’
Evidently Baroness Krzeszowska had a long speech prepared. Fortunately, she looked into Wokulski’s eyes and…with the phrase ‘Excuse me’, left the shop.
Messrs Klein and Lisiecki winked at each other more eloquently than hitherto, but made do with an unanimous shrug.
Not until nearly five did Rzecki approach Wokulski. He leaned on the desk and said in a low voice: ‘Mraczewski’s mother, Staś, is a very poor woman…’
‘Pay his wages until the end of the year,’ Wokulski replied.
‘I think…Staś, I don’t think one should punish a man for having political opinions different from ours…’
‘Political opinions?’ Wokulski repeated in such a tone that a cold shiver ran up Ignacy’s spine.
‘Besides,’ Ignacy went on, ‘it’s a shame to let such a clerk go. He’s a handsome young man, the ladies like him…’
‘Handsome?’ Wokulski replied. ‘Then let him go and become a kept man, if he’s so handsome…’
Ignacy withdrew. Messrs Klein and Lisiecki did not even glance at one another.
An hour later, a certain Mr Zięba came into the shop, and Wokulski introduced him as the new clerk.
Mr Zięba was about thirty; he was perhaps as handsome as Mraczewski, but looked far more serious and discreet. Before the shop closed, he had already made the acquaintance of and even gained the friendship of his colleagues. Rzecki discovered he was a fervent Bonapartist; Lisiecki had to admit that he himself was a very pale anti-Semite in comparison with Zięba, and Klein decided that Zięba must