The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [82]
‘Go to the devil,’ I muttered, seizing my bag, ‘it would be the last straw if I were to be arrested for smuggling…’
Hurrying along the street, I looked about at the city, which struck me as dirty and crowded after Paris, and the people wretched. I found the shop of J. Mincel in Krakowskie Przedmieście easily enough; but the sight of the familiar places and signs made my heart pound so that I had to rest a while.
I gazed at the shop—almost as it had been in Podwale: the tin sabre and the drum (perhaps the very one I had seen as a child)—the window containing plates, the horse and the jumping Cossack…Someone opened the door and inside I saw the bladders of paint, the nets full of corks and even the stuffed crocodile.
Behind the counter and near the window was sitting Jan Mincel in his old chair, pulling at the string of the Cossack…Trembling like jelly I went in and stopped in front of Jan. Catching sight of me (he was already growing fat), he rose heavily from the chair and blinked. Suddenly he shouted to one of the shop-boys: ‘Wicek! Run and tell Małgosia the wedding will be just after Easter…’ Then he stretched out both hands to me over the counter and we embraced lengthily in silence.
‘You gave them Krauts a good hiding! I know, I know,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Sit you down,’ he added, showing me a chair. ‘Kazik! Run and tell Grossmutter that Mr Rzecki is here!’
I sat down and again we said nothing. He shook his head mournfully, I looked away. We were both thinking of poor Katz and our deluded hopes. At length Mincel blew his nose noisily and, turning to the window, muttered: ‘Well now, just fancy…’
Wicek, out of breath, came back. I noticed that the lad’s topcoat was shiny with grease. ‘Did you go there?’ Mincel asked him.
‘I did. Miss Małgorzata said all right.’
‘So you are getting married?’ I asked Jan.
‘Humph…what else can I do?’.
‘And how is Grossmutter?’
‘The same as ever. She only falls sick when they break one of her coffee-pots.’
‘And Franz?’
‘Don’t mention that scoundrel to me!’ Jan Mincel exclaimed, ‘only yesterday I vowed never to set foot in his house again…’
‘Why, what has he done this time?’
‘The cowardly Kraut keeps making fun of Napoleon! He says he broke his promise to the Republic, that he’s nothing more than a conjurer whose tame eagle has spit in his top-hat…No,’ said Jan Mincel, ‘I can’t get on with the man at all.’
During our conversation, the two lads and the clerk were serving customers to whom I paid no attention. Then the back door of the shop squeaked and an old lady in a yellow dress emerged from behind the cupboards, with a little jug in one hand: ‘Gut Morgen, meine Kinder…Der Kaffee is schon…’
I hurried to her, unable to utter a word, and kissed her dry little hands: ‘Ignaz!…Herr Jesas!…Ignaz!…’ she exclaimed, embracing me, ‘wo bist Du so lange gewesen, lieber Ignaz?’
‘You know perfectly well, Grossmutter, that he’s been away at the wars. Why ask him where he’s been?’ Jan interrupted.
‘Herr Jesas!…Aber Du hast noch keinen Kaffee getrunken?…’
‘Of course he didn’t,’ Jan replied on my behalf.
‘Du lieber Gott! Es ist ja schon zehn Uhr…’
She poured me a mug of coffee, handed me three fresh rolls and disappeared as always.
Then the main door opened with a bang and in ran Franz Mincel, fatter and redder than his brother: ‘How are you, Ignacy?’ he shouted embracing me.
‘Don’t shake hands with that fool, he is the disgrace of the Mincel family,’ Jan said to me.
‘Oj! Oj! what kind of a family is this?’ Franz replied with a smile, ‘our father came here with nothing but a barrow and two dogs…’
‘I’m not speaking to you!’ Jan bellowed.
‘And I’m not speaking to you either, but to Ignacy,’ Franz retorted.
‘Our uncle,’ he went on, ‘was such a blockhead of a Hun that he crept out of his coffin