The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [71]
Wokulski recalled his childhood. How he used to enjoy a roll and a sausage, when he was starving! How he had imagined himself to be a famous bold warrior, as he rode on a merry-go-round! What wild intoxication he had felt flying on a swing! What a delight it had been to think he did not have to go to work in the morning—his holiday for the whole year! And what could compare with the certainty that tonight he could go to bed at ten o’clock, and tomorrow, if he wished, he could also get up at ten o’clock after sleeping twelve solid hours!
‘Was that really me?’ he asked himself in amazement. ‘Was I so pleased with things that now only disgust me?…So many thousands of merry-making poor people all around me—while I, a wealthy man in comparison—what do I have?…Uneasiness and ennui, ennui and uneasiness…Just when I might possess that which I once dreamed of, I have nothing, for my former dreams have evaporated. Yet I believed so firmly in my exceptional good fortune!…’
At this moment a loud cry rose from the crowd. Wokulski roused himself, and saw a human figure at the top of a pole: ‘Aha, the winner,’ Wokulski said to himself, keeping his balance with difficulty in the crowd that was running, applauding, cheering, pointing to the hero, asking his name. It looked as if they were about to carry the winner of the frock-coat into the town, but the enthusiasm languished. People ran more slowly, even stopped, the cries died down, finally ceased completely. The winner climbed down from the summit and in a few minutes was forgotten.
‘A warning for me…’ Wokulski whispered, wiping the sweat from his forehead. The square and the excited crowd sickened him. He went back to town.
Droshkies and carriages were driving along the Boulevard. In one, Wokulski caught a glimpse of a pale blue dress: ‘Izabela?…’ His heart began to beat violently: ‘No, it isn’t her…’
A few hundred feet away he caught sight of a pretty face and distinguished gestures: ‘She?…No. How could it be?’
And he walked along the entire Boulevard, through Alexander Square across Nowy Świat, continually gazing at people and continually disappointed. ‘So this is my good fortune?’ he thought. ‘I don’t desire what I could have, and fret for what I don’t have. So this is good fortune?…Who knows, perhaps death is not the great evil that people imagine.’
And for the first time he yearned for heavy, dreamless sleep undisturbed by any desire, or even hopes.
At the same time, Izabela had returned home from her aunt’s and called to Flora almost from the threshold: ‘You know who was at the reception?’
‘Who?’
‘Well, that Wokulski…’
‘Why not, since he was invited?’ Flora replied.
‘But it was impertinence! Unheard of!…And to crown it all, just fancy that my aunt is fascinated by him; the Prince speaks of no one else, and everyone regards him as something quite exceptional…What have you to say to that, pray?’
Flora smiled sadly: ‘I know it all. The hero of a season. Last winter there was that Mr Kazimierz, and a decade ago—I myself,’ she added quietly.
‘But who is he, after all? A tradesman…a tradesman!’
‘Bela,’ Flora replied, ‘I can remember seasons when our world was thrilled by circus acrobats. It will pass…’
‘I’m afraid of that man,’ Izabela murmured.
X
The Journal of the Old Clerk
SO—HERE we have a new store: five windows in front, two warehouses, seven clerks and a door-keeper. We also have a carriage that gleams like newly polished boots, a pair of brown horses, a driver and a footman in livery. And all this came upon us in early May, when England, Austria and even battered Turkey were arming as fast as they could!
‘My dear Staś,’ I said to Wokulski, ‘all the merchants are laughing at us for spending so much in such uncertain times.’
‘My dear Ignacy,’ Wokulski replied, ‘we shall laugh at them when more certain times come. Today is just the time for doing business.’
‘But a European war,’ I said, ‘is just around the corner. In that case bankruptcy is inevitable.’
‘Think nothing of it,’ said Staś, ‘all