The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [8]
‘No more than anywhere else,’ the lawyer replied, with a deprecatory gesture. ‘Except that when he was waiting on you, he was a holy terror: he’d scowl like thunder at the most innocent word … It stands to reason we amused ourselves at his expense, and what vexed him most was to be called “Doctor”. One fine day he went for a customer and they very nearly tore one another to pieces.’
‘Business suffered, of course?’
‘Not at all! When the news got around that Hopfer’s waiter wanted to go to the Preparatory College, crowds would go there for dinner. It was crowded out with students in particular.’
‘And did he get into the College?’
‘He did, and he even passed his exam for the City College. Yes, but now,’ the lawyer went on, tapping the travelling salesman’s knee, ‘instead of sticking to his studies till he finished, he left the College in less than a year.’
‘What did he do that for?’
‘Ah … He and the rest of ’em sowed the harvest we’re still reaping to this day, and in the end Wokulski finished up somewhere in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk.’
‘Oh my,’ sighed the travelling salesman.
‘That wasn’t all, though … In 1870 he came back to Warsaw with what he’d saved. He spent six months looking for work, avoiding the wine and food trade which he hates, until finally the patronage of his present managing clerk Rzecki got him into Mrs Mincel’s shop. She’d just become a widow and a year later he married the old girl, who was much older than he.’
‘A good move,’ the travelling salesman interposed.
‘Oh, quite so. At one stroke he acquired a living and a trade he could stick to calmly for the rest of his days. But he had the devil’s own work with the old lady.’
‘That’s often the way.’
‘Too true,’ said the lawyer. ‘But just think of the luck he had! Eighteen months ago the old lady ate too much and died, and Wokulski’s hard labour was over, he was free as air, he’d a well-stocked store and 30,000 roubles in cash, for which two generations of the Mincels had toiled.’
‘He’s a lucky fellow all right.’
‘He was,’ the lawyer amended, ‘but he didn’t appreciate it. Another fellow in his place would have married a nice girl and settled down; just think what a shop with a good name means these days — and one in a good location too! But this lunatic threw it all away and went off to do business in the war. It was millions he wanted, that’s what.’
‘Maybe he’ll do it, too,’ the commercial traveller remarked.
‘Hm …’ the lawyer grunted. ‘Joe, another beer … Do you think, my dear sir, that he’ll find a richer old lady in Turkey than the late Mrs Mincel? Joe!’
‘Coming, sir! The eighth coming up …’
‘The eighth?’ the lawyer echoed. ‘It can’t be! Just a minute there … ’Twas the sixth just now, then the seventh … ‘and he grunted, covering his face with one hand. ‘Maybe it’s the eighth after all. How time flies, to be sure …’
Despite the mournful prognostications of sober people, the haberdashery store of J. Mincel and S. Wokulski did not collapse into ruin, but even profited. The public was intrigued by the rumours of bankruptcy and visited the store in increasing numbers, and since Wokulski’s departure, Russian merchants were coming to his store to order merchandise. Orders increased, credit was available, bills were paid regularly, and the shop was thronged with so many customers that the three clerks could barely cope: of these three, one was a lanky fair youth who looked as if he might become consumptive and die any minute; the second, a dark youth with a philosopher’s beard and princely gestures; while the third was a young dandy who wore moustaches the fair sex found fatal and which were perfumed like a chemical laboratory into the bargain.
However, the curiosity of the public, the physical and moral graces of the three clerks, and even the solid reputation of the shop could not have saved it from rack and ruin, had it not been for an employee of the firm for the last forty years, Wokulski’s old friend and managing clerk, Ignacy Rzecki.
II
The Reign of an Old Clerk
FOR twenty-five years, Ignacy