The Doll - Bolesaw Prus [99]
Meanwhile, the other gentlemen eyed the intruder and commented in lowered voices: ‘Looks like a bull!’ whispered a stout marshal, indicating Wokulski with his eyes, ‘the tufts on his head stick up like a bison’s, as for his chest…my word! And sharp eyes…He wouldn’t soon get tired out hunting.’
‘And that face!’ added a Baron with the features of Mephistopheles, ‘his forehead, my dear sir! His whiskers! His imperial, my dear sir…features somewhat…hm, but all in all…’
‘Let us wait and see how he gets on in business,’ put in a somewhat round-shouldered Count.
‘He’s bold, he takes risks, oh dear me, yes,’ another Count exclaimed, as though speaking out of a deep cellar, as he sat stiffly in a chair, looking—with his luxuriant whiskers and glassy eyes—for all the world like an Englishman in the Journal amusant.
The Prince rose from his armchair and coughed: everyone fell silent, so it was possible to catch the end of the marshal’s anecdote: ‘We were all looking hard into the forest, when something squeaks under our horses’ hoofs. Just fancy, my dear sir, one of the dogs was throttling a hare…’ With this, the marshal with an immense hand, clapped one thigh, out of which both a secretary and his assistant might have been hewed.
The Prince coughed again; the marshal wiped his forehead in embarrassment with an unusually large silk handkerchief. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the Prince, ‘I have taken the liberty of bringing you here in a certain…very important connection, which as we all know must always stand on guard over public interests…I mean…of our ideas…that is to say…’ The Prince seemed flustered. Suddenly, however, he got his second wind and went on: ‘It is in connection with trade…that is to say it is a plan…or rather a project of forming a partnership to facilitate trade…’
‘In wheat,’ said someone in a corner.
‘To be precise,’ said the Prince, ‘not wheat exactly, but…’
‘Spirits,’ the same voice said, hastily.
‘Not at all! Trade, or rather the facilitating of trade between Russia and abroad in goods…While it is highly desirable that our city should become the centre of any such…’
‘What sort of trade?’ asked the round-shouldered Count.
‘The professional side of the question will be graciously explained by Mr Wokulski, a man…a professional,’ the Prince said, adding, ‘Let us never forget the duties which our concern for public interest and this unhappy country…lay upon us…’
‘To be sure! I will contribute ten thousand roubles at once,’ the marshal cried.
‘What for?’ asked the Count who feigned to be a genuine Englishman.
‘No matter!’ the marshal replied in a huge voice, ‘I said I’d spend fifty thousand in Warsaw this summer, so ten thousand will go to charity, as our dear Prince speaks wonderfully…sincerely, I assure you, yes—and sensibly…’
‘Excuse me, gentlemen,’ Wokulski exclaimed, ‘this is not a charitable partnership, but one to ensure financial profit.’
‘That’s it,’ the round-shouldered Count interposed.
‘Oh dear me, yes,’ the ‘English’ Count agreed.
‘What sort of profit will ten thousand roubles bring me?’ the marshal countered, ‘I’d be begging in the streets with such profits as that.’
The round-shouldered Count burst out: ‘Allow me to ask whether small profits should be ignored? That attitude will ruin us, gentlemen!’ he exclaimed, tapping with a fingernail on the arm of his chair.
‘Count,’ the Prince interrupted sweetly, ‘Mr Wokulski is speaking…’
‘Oh dear me, yes,’ the ‘English’ Count joined in, caressing his luxuriant whiskers.
‘Let us then ask Mr Wokulski,’ said another voice, ‘that he be kind enough to present to us, with his own inimitable clarity and brevity, this matter of public interest which has brought us together here in the hospitable apartments of His Excellency…’
Wokulski glanced at the person who thus acknowledged his clarity and brevity. He was an eminent lawyer, the friend and the right-hand man of the Prince; he liked speaking in a flowery manner, beating time with one hand and listening to his own phrases, which he always found splendid.
‘Providing we all understand it,