The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [72]
Well, and there was no war. In the shop, the rush is like a market, goods come and go from our warehouses as if they were mills, and money flows like water into the safe. Anyone who didn’t know Staś would say he was a merchant of genius: but as I know him, I cannot refrain from asking myself what it is all for. ‘Warum hast Du denn das getan?’
It’s true I’ve been asked this myself. Can it be that I am already as old as the late Grossmutter, and do not understand either the spirit of the times or the intentions of men younger than I? It can’t be as bad as that…
I recall that when Louis Napoleon (later the Emperor Napoleon III) escaped from prison in 1848, all Europe was in a ferment. No one knew what was going to happen. But all sensible people prepared for something, and my uncle Raczek (who had married my aunt) kept saying: ‘I told you Bonaparte would come to the top and cause them trouble! The worst of it is that my legs ain’t what they was…’
The years 1846 and 1847 passed in great excitement. All sorts of pamphlets kept appearing, while people disappeared. Sometimes I’d wonder whether it wasn’t time to venture out into the great world? And when doubts and uneasiness came upon me, after the store was closed, I would go to my uncle Raczek and tell him what was troubling me, asking him to advise me as my father would have done: ‘You know,’ my uncle said, thumping his lame leg with his fist, ‘I shall advise you like a father. If you want to be off—then off with you: if you don’t—why then, stay here!’
Not until 1848, when Louis Napoleon was already in Paris, did my late father appear to me one night, looking as I’d seen him in his coffin. His coat was buttoned up to the chin, there was the earring in his ear, his moustaches were waxed up to a point (Mr Domanski did this so that my father should not appear at the Seat of Judgement looking like nothing on earth). He stopped in the door of my little room and said only: ‘Remember what I taught you, young scamp!’
‘Dreams deceive, in God believe…’ I reflected for several days afterwards. But the shop already disgusted me. I even lost my interest in the late Małgosia Pfeifer, and felt so cramped in my lodgings that I couldn’t bear it. So I went to my uncle Raczek for advice again. I recall that he was in bed, covered up with my aunt’s quilt, drinking herb tea to bring on the sweats. But when I told him the whole story he said: ‘Well, I’ll advise you just like your father would have. Go if you want to—if you don’t, why then—stay here. As for me, though, if it wasn’t for my poor old leg, I’d have been off long ago. Because your auntie, you know,’ and here he lowered his voice, ‘carries on so that I’d sooner listen to a battery of Austrian cannons than to her chattering. What she gives with her plasters and such, she takes away with her chatter…Have you any money?’ he asked after a pause.
‘I can lay my hands on a few hundred złoty.’
My uncle Raczek told me to lock the door (my aunt was out), then reached under his pillow for a key: ‘Here,’ he said, ‘open that there leather trunk. You’ll find a small box in it, on the right-hand side, and in it there’s a small purse. Give it to me…’ I brought out a thick, heavy purse. My uncle Raczek took it and, sighing, counted out fifteen half-imperials. ‘Take this money,’ said he, ‘for your journey, and if you must go—then be off with you. I’d give you more, but maybe my time is near…In any case, something must be left for the old lady so that she can find another husband if she has to…’
Weeping, we said goodbye. My uncle managed to raise himself in bed and, turning my face to the candle, whispered: ‘Let’s have another look at you…Because, you know, not everyone comes back from this kind of a ball. Besides, I’m getting past it, and a man’s fancies can kill as well as bullets…’
When I went back to the shop, despite the late hour, I talked to Jan Mincel, giving in my notice and thanking him for his hospitality. As we had been talking