Wokulski shook his head involuntarily: ‘I doubt whether we shall have any posts suited to your requirements. However, please call on me one day…’
The round-shouldered Count began speaking from the middle of the room: ‘And so, gentlemen, we are agreed in principle to enter into the partnership proposed by Mr Wokulski. I therefore take pleasure in inviting those of you who wish to take part to come to my house tomorrow, at nine in the evening.’
‘I’ll be there, my dear Count, goodness me,’ the stout marshal exclaimed, ‘and will probably bring a few Lithuanians. But tell me please, why should we form a partnership? Why don’t the merchants?…’
‘If only,’ the Count replied, enthusiastically, ‘to prevent other people from saying we do nothing but stay at home and count our dividends.’
The Prince asked to be heard: ‘In any case,’ he said, ‘we have in mind two more partnerships—in the grain and the spirits trades…Anyone who does not wish to belong to one can join the other…Besides, let us invite Mr Wokulski to be kind enough to take part in our committee meetings.’
‘Oh dear me, yes,’ the would-be English Count interposed.
‘And to illuminate our problems with his own inimitable talent,’ the lawyer concluded.
‘I doubt whether I can be of any use to you, gentlemen,’ Wokulski replied, ‘I have certainly had dealings in grain and spirits, but under very different circumstances. I was concerned with large quantities and speed of delivery, not price. Besides, I am not familiar with the local grain trade.’
‘There will be specialists, my dear Mr Wokulski,’ the lawyer interrupted, ‘they will provide details which you need only be kind enough to put in order and illuminate with your own inimitable talents…’
‘Pray do so!’ the Count exclaimed, and they were echoed still more loudly by the gentry who hated the magnates.
It was almost five o’clock, and they began to take leave. At this moment, Wokulski saw Mr Łęcki approaching him from the other room, accompanied by the same young man he had seen in the company of Izabela at the Easter collection and at the Countess’s house.
‘Mr Wokulski, allow me’, said Łęcki, ‘to introduce Mr Julian Ochocki…Our cousin, you know…a trifle eccentric, but there…’
‘I have long wanted to meet you,’ said Ochocki, shaking hands.
Wokulski looked at him silently. The young man was not yet thirty, and was distinguished by his unusual appearance. He seemed to have the features of Napoleon, veiled by clouds of dreaminess.
‘Which way are you going?’ the young man asked Wokulski, ‘may I join you?’
‘Please do not trouble…’
‘Oh, I have plenty of time,’ the young man replied.
‘What does he want of me?’ Wokulski wondered, and said: ‘We might go in the direction of the Łazienki park, then?’
‘Certainly,’ Ochocki replied, ‘I’ll just say goodbye to the Prince and will catch up with you.’
Hardly had he gone, than the lawyer stepped up to Wokulski. ‘I congratulate you on a complete triumph,’ he said in a low voice, ‘the Prince is quite taken with you, both the Counts and the Baron too…They are all somewhat scatterbrained, as you will have noticed, but they’re men of good will…They want to do something, they’re intelligent and educated—but they lack energy. A sickness of the will, my dear sir, their whole class is affected by it…They have everything—money, titles, respect, even success with women, so they want nothing. But without that urge, Mr Wokulski, they cannot help becoming tools in the hands of new and ambitious men…We, my dear sir, we still want many things,’ he added in a still lower voice, ‘they are lucky to have found us…’
As Wokulski did not answer, the lawyer began to regard him as a very skilled diplomat, and secretly regretted being so outspoken. ‘Anyway,’ he thought, looking furtively at Wokulski, ‘even if he repeats this to the Prince, what could the Prince do to me? I’ll say I wanted to test him…’
‘What kind of ambitions does he suspect me of?’ Wokulski asked himself privately.
He bade farewell to the Prince, promised to come to all future meetings and, going into the street, sent his carriage home. ‘What does this Ochocki want of me?’ he thought, suspiciously, ‘of course he is worried about Izabela…perhaps he means to frighten me away from her?…Fool! If she loves him, then he need not waste words; I will go away of my own accord…But if she does not love him, then let him beware of trying to remove me…I have committed one capital folly in my life, for Izabela’s sake. I hope it does not come down upon him, I should be sorry for the lad.’
Hasty footsteps sounded in the gateway: Wokulski turned and saw Ochocki. ‘Were you waiting? I’m sorry,’ the young man cried.
‘Shall we go to the Łazienki?’ Wokulski asked.
‘By all means.’
They walked for some time in silence. The young man was thinking; Wokulski was on edge. He made up his mind to take the bull by the horns: ‘You are a close relative of the Łęckis, then?’ he asked.
‘Fairly,’ the young man replied. ‘My mother was a Łęcka,’ he explained ironically, ‘though my father was merely an Ochocki. This has very much weakened any family ties…I would not be acquainted with Tomasz, who is a sort of second cousin, were it not that he has lost his money.’
‘Miss Łęcka is a very distinguished person,’ said Wokulski, gazing ahead.
‘Distinguished?’ Ochocki echoed, ‘say rather a goddess! When I am talking to her, I think she could fill my whole life for me. Only with her do I feel at peace and forget the uneasiness that haunts me. But there! I could not sit all day long with her in a drawing-room, nor could she stay with me in my laboratory.’
Wokulski stopped: ‘Are you interested in physics or chemistry?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Oh, what am I not interested in?’ Ochocki replied, ‘physics, chemistry, technology…I graduated in the natural sciences at the university and in mechanical engineering at the polytechnic. I am interested in everything: I read and work from morning to night—but do nothing. I have been able to improve the microscope a trifle, to build a new kind of electric lamp…’
Wokulski’s surprise intensified: ‘So you are Ochocki the inventor?’
‘Yes,’ the young man replied, ‘but what does that signify? Nothing. When I think that at the age of twenty-eight I have only achieved this, then despair overcomes me. I feel like smashing up my laboratory and plunging head-first into polite society, to which people are trying to attract me—or putting a bullet through my head. Ochocki’s electric lamp—how absurd! To rush headlong through life and finish up with an electric lamp—that is terrible. To reach the middle of life and not find even a trace of the road along which one wants to travel—what despair!’
The young man fell silent and, as they were now in the Botanical Gardens, took off his hat. Wokulski looked at him attentively, and made another discovery. Though the young man looked elegant, he was not at all smart: he even seemed careless of his appearance. He had tangled hair, his tie was somewhat crooked, and a button was undone on his shirt. It seemed as if someone looked after his linen and clothes very carefully, while he himself treated them carelessly, and it was precisely this carelessness which gave him his individual charm. His every movement was involuntary, casual, but graceful. Equally graceful was his manner of looking and listening—or rather not listening—and even of disposing of his hat.
They went to the hillock from where the round well can be seen. Strollers surrounded them on all sides, but Ochocki did not mind them and, indicating a bench with his hat, said: ‘I have often read that a man with great aspirations is happy. I myself have unusual aspirations which only make me ludicrous and offend my nearest and dearest. Look at this bench…Here, at the beginning of June, I was sitting with my cousin and Flora. Some moon or other was shining, and even some nightingales were singing. I was thinking of something else. Suddenly my cousin said: ‘Do you know anything about astronomy, cousin?’
‘A
little…’
‘Well then, tell me what star that is…’
‘I don’t know,’ I told her, ‘but one thing is certain—we shall never reach it. Man is fastened to the earth like an oyster to a rock. At this moment,’ Ochocki went on, ‘an idea or notion came to me. I forgot my beautiful cousin and began thinking about flying machines. And because I have to walk about when thinking, I got up and left my cousin without a word…Next day Flora called me impertinent; Mr Łęcki said I was eccentric and my cousin refused to speak to me for a week…And if only I had thought of something! But nothing came, nothing at all, though I could have sworn that before I reached the well a general sketch of the flying machine would come to me…Stupid, wasn’t it?’
‘So they spend evenings here by moonlight and with nightingales singing?’ Wokulski thought, and felt a terrible anguish in his heart. Izabela is already in love with this Ochocki, or if she isn’t, it is only on account of his eccentricities. Well, she is right—he is a handsome man, and an unusual one.
‘Of course,’ Ochocki went on, ‘I said not a word of this to my aunt who, whenever she sews a button on my shirt, says: “Julian dear, please try to please Izabela, she is exactly the wife for you…Clever and beautiful: she alone can cure you of your visions.” But I wonder what sort of wife she would make me? If at least she could help me, then it would not be so bad…But as if she could leave a drawing-room for my laboratory! She is right, that is her proper environment: a bird needs air, a fish water…What a fine evening it is,’ he added after a moment, ‘I am excited tonight as rarely happens. But what is wrong, Mr Wokulski?’
‘I am rather tired,’ Wokulski replied dully. ‘We might sit down over there…’
They did so on the slope of the hillock, near the edge of the park. Ochocki leaned his chin on his knees and began pondering. Wokulski eyed him with a feeling in which admiration mingled with hatred: is he stupid or cunning? Why has he told me all this? Wokulski thought. But he had to admit that Ochocki’s talk had the same frankness and extravagance as his gestures and all his person. They had just met for the first time, yet already Ochocki was talking to him as if they had known one another since childhood.
‘I’ll get this over with,’ said Wokulski to himself, and he asked aloud, with a deep sigh: ‘So you are going to marry her, Mr Ochocki?’
‘I’d be insane if I did…’ the young man muttered with a shrug.
‘How so? After all, you like your cousin.’
‘Very much indeed, but that is not all. I’d marry her if I were certain that I would never achieve anything in science.’
In addition to hatred and admiration, joy now radiated within Wokulski’s heart. At this moment Ochocki rubbed his forehead as if waking up, looked at Wokulski and suddenly exclaimed: ‘But there…I was forgetting I had an important question to ask you.’
‘What does he want?’ Wokulski thought, privately admiring the wise look of his rival and his sudden change of tone. It was as though another man were speaking now.
‘I want to ask you a question—no, two questions, very personal, perhaps even offensive,’ said Ochocki, ‘will you be offended?’
‘Well?’ Wokulski replied.
Had he been standing on a scaffold he would not have experienced such a terrible feeling as he did at this moment. He was certain it concerned Izabela and that his fate was about to be decided on this spot.
‘You were once interested in natural sciences?’ Ochocki asked.
‘Yes.’
‘And also you were enthusiastic. I know what you went through, I have long respected you for that…No, this is inadequate: I must add that for a year recollections of the difficulties you encountered have encouraged me. I told myself I would do at least as much as that man, and since I was faced with such obstacles, I would go even further…’
Listening to this, Wokulski thought he was dreaming or listening to a madman: ‘How do you know all this?’ he asked Ochocki.
‘From Dr Szuman.’
‘Ah, Szuman…But what is it all leading up to?’
‘I shall tell you,’ Ochocki replied. ‘You were an enthusiast of the natural sciences, but in the end you rejected them. At what age did your interest in this field weaken?’
Wokulski felt as though he had been struck by an axe. The question was so bitter and so unexpected that for a moment he could not reply or even collect his thoughts. Ochocki repeated the question, watching his companion sharply.
‘At what age?’ Wokulski said, ‘a year ago…I am now forty-six.’
‘So I have fifteen years until complete indifference sets in. That encourages me,’ said Ochocki, as if to himself.
After a moment he added: ‘That was one question; here’s the second, but please don’t be offended. At what age do men begin to feel…indifferent to women?’
A second blow. For an instant Wokulski felt like seizing the young man and throttling him. But he controlled himself and replied with a faint smile: ‘I think they never do. In fact, women come to look increasingly desirable…’
‘That’s bad,’ Ochocki whispered, ‘ha—we shall see who is the stronger.’
‘Women are, Mr Ochocki…’
‘Surely that depends, my dear sir,’ the young man replied, pondering again.
He began speaking as though to himself: ‘Woman—there’s a precious topic for you! I’ve been in love—let me see, how often? Four…six…about seven, yes, seven times. It takes up a great deal of time, and can lead a man into desperate thoughts. Love’s a foolish thing. You meet, you love, you suffer…Then you grow bored or are betrayed…And then you find another woman. Yes, I was bored twice and betrayed three times. Then you find a different woman, better than the others—and she behaves just like the others. Oh, what an abject race of creatures women are…They play with us, though their limited minds can’t even understand us. Well, it’s true that even a tiger can play with a man…Abject, but how delightful…But never mind this! For when an idea gains domination over a man, it will never desert him, never deceive him…’
He put one hand on Wokulski’s arm, looked at him with a sort of ecstatic and dreamy gaze, then asked: ‘You once had the idea of a flying machine, didn’t you? Not a guided balloon, which is lighter than air, for that is nothing—but of the flight of a heavy machine, weighed down like a battleship. Do you appeciate what a turning-point for the world such an invention would be?…No more forts, armies, frontiers…Nations will disappear, while beings like angels or classical gods in heavenly vehicles will inhabit the earth. We have already harnessed the wind, heat, light, the thunderbolt. Do you not think, my dear sir, that the time has come for us to liberate ourselves from the bonds of gravity? It’s an idea which is still in the womb of time…Other men are already working on it; it has only just seized me, but it holds me enthralled. What’s my aunt to me, with all her good advice and laws of decorum? What are marriage, women, even microscopes and electric lamps? I’ll either go mad—or give mankind wings…’
‘Suppose you do—what then?’ Wokulski asked.
‘Fame—such as no man has ever yet attained,’ Ochocki replied, ‘and that’s the wife, the woman for me. Goodbye, I must go…’ He shook Wokulski’s hand, ran down the hill and disappeared between the trees.
Dusk was already falling on the Botanical Gardens and the Łazienki park. ‘Madman or genius?’ Wokulski whispered, feeling highly unstrung, ‘what if he were a genius?’ He rose and walked into the depths of the park, amidst the strollers. It seemed to him that a divine terror was lurking on the hillock from which he had fled.
The Botanical Gardens were almost crowded: streams, groups or at least rows of promenaders crowded every alley, each bench groaned under a throng of persons. They stepped in Wokulski’s way, trod on his heels, elbowed him; people were talking and laughing on every side. The Aleje Ujazdowskie, the wall of the Belvedere park, the fences on the hospital side, the less frequented alleys, even the fenced-off paths—everywhere was crowded and lively. As nature gr
ew darker, so it grew noisier and more crowded amidst the people.
‘Already there’s beginning to be no room in the world for me,’ he murmured.
He reached the Łazienki park and found a calmer refuge here. Some stars were glittering in the sky, through the air from the Boulevard came the rustle of passers-by, and dampness rose from the lake. Sometimes a noisy cockchafer flew overhead, or a bat flitted silently by; a bird was mournfully chirping in the depths of the park, calling in vain to its mate; the distant splash of oars and the laughter of young women hung over the lake. Opposite, he saw a couple close together, whispering. They moved off and hid in the shadows.
He was overcome with pity and derision: ‘Happy lovers, those,’ he thought, ‘they whisper and glide away like criminals. The world is well arranged, to be sure! I wonder how much better it would be if Lucifer were king? Or if some robber stopped me and killed me here, in this corner?’
And he imagined how agreeable the cold of a knife would be, plunged into his feverish heart. ‘Unfortunately,’ he sighed, ‘people aren’t allowed to kill other people nowadays, only themselves: providing it is done at one blow, and well done.’
The recollection of such an effective means of escape calmed him. Gradually he fell into a sort of solemn mood; it seemed to him that the time was coming when he would have to reckon with his conscience, or draw up a general balance sheet of his life.
‘Were I the highest judge of all,’ he thought, ‘and if I were asked who is more worthy of Izabela—Ochocki or Wokulski—I would have to admit that Ochocki is. Eighteen years younger than I am (eighteen years!…) And handsome…At the age of twenty-eight, he has graduated from two faculties (at that age I had only just begun studying…) and has already three inventions to his credit (I—none!). Above all, he is the instrument by which a great invention is to come. Odd—a flying machine: yet he has found the only possible point of departure—by genius! A flying machine must be heavier than air, not lighter, like a balloon is: for everything which flies, from insects to an enormous vulture, is heavier than air. He has the right starting-point: a creative mind, as he has proved by his microscope and lamp, so who knows but that he will succeed in building a flying machine? If he does, he will be more significant in the history of mankind than Newton and Napoleon together…Am I to compete with him? If the question ever arises as to which of us ought to back down, then should I hesitate? What hell it would be to tell myself that I must sacrifice my nullity to a man who, in the end, is like myself—mortal, suffering illnesses, committing errors and, above all, so naive—for he talked like a child…’