The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [83]
‘You are insulting me in my own house!’ Jan shouted.
‘I didn’t come to your house, but to the shop, to buy something…Wicek!’ Franz turned to the boy, ‘give me a groszy worth of corks…Wrap them up nicely in paper…Goodbye, my dear Ignacy, come and see me this evening, we will talk over a bottle of good wine. And perhaps that gentleman will come with you,’ he added from the threshold, pointing to Jan who was livid with rage.
‘I will not set foot in the house of a rotten Hun!’ Jan shouted. But this did not prevent him from being with me that evening at Franz’s.
I ought to mention that not a week went by without the Mincel brothers quarrelling and making up at least twice. What was even odder was that the cause of their disagreements had never anything to do with matters of a business nature. Despite their squabbles, the two brothers always guaranteed each other’s receipts, lent one another money and paid their debts together. The cause was rooted in their natures.
Jan Mincel was romantic and enthusiastic, Franz was phlegmatic and bad-tempered; Jan was an enthusiastic Bonapartist, Franz a republican and special foe of Napoleon III. Finally, Franz admitted his German origin, whereas Jan solemnly declared that the Mincels were descended from the ancient Polish family of Mientuses, who had settled among the Germans perhaps under the Jagiellon dynasty or under the elected kings.
A single glass of wine sufficed to set Jan Mincel banging the table or his neighbours’ backs with his fists, and bellowing: ‘I feel ancient Polish blood in my veins! No German woman could have given birth to me! Besides, I have proof…’ And he would show very trusted persons two old documents, one of which referred to a certain Modzelewski, a merchant in Warsaw in the Swedish times, and the other to a certain Miller, a lieutenant in Kosciuszko’s army. What sort of link there was between these persons and the Mincels—to this day I still do not know, though I heard the explanation more than once.
A disagreement even arose between the brothers on account of Jan’s marriage: he had equipped himself for the ceremony in an amaranthine overcoat with split sleeves, yellow top-boots and a sabre, whereupon Franz announced he would not tolerate such a masquerade at a wedding, even if he had to complain to the police. On this, Jan vowed he would kill the informer if he caught him, and for the wedding breakfast he donned the attire of his ancestors, the Mientuses. Yet Franz was present at the ceremony and at the breakfast, and though he would not speak to his brother, he danced the latter’s wife off her feet and drank himself silly on his wine.
Even Franz’s death from a boil in 1856 did not pass without an angry scene. During the last three days, both brothers vowed twice in a very solemn manner to disinherit one another. Nevertheless, Franz bequeathed all his property to Jan and for several weeks afterwards Jan pined away with grief for his brother and assigned half the fortune he had inherited (about twenty thousand złoty) to three orphans whom he looked after to the end of his days.
A strange family, indeed!
But here again I have wandered from my subject: I meant to write about Wokulski, but am writing about the Mincels. If I didn’t feel as breezy as I do, I might suspect myself of the loquacity which is a symptom of old age.
I have said that I do not understand many things in the behaviour of Staś Wokulski, and every time I want to ask: ‘What is it all for?’
When I went back to the shop, we gathered in Grossmutter’s room upstairs almost every evening: Jan and Franz Mincel, and sometimes Małgosia Pfeifer. Małgosia and Jan used to sit in the window seat and hold hands as they gazed at the stars; Franz would drink beer from a large tankard (which had a metal lid); the old lady knitted socks and I used to tell tales of my few years spent abroad. Most often, we naturally talked about the yearnings of exile, the discomforts of a soldier’s life, or of battles. At such times, Franz would drink twice as