Bad luck has placed you in the path of a certain genteel lady whose husband you have almost slain and today you seek to snatch away from her the house in which her beloved daughter expired…Why are you doing this? Why are you going to pay—if it is true—ninety thousand roubles for a house not worth more than sixty thousand? These are the secrets of your own black soul which Heavenly justice will at some future date lay bare and which respectable persons will punish with contempt.
Ponder what you are about, while there is yet time. Do not destroy your soul and your fortune, and do not poison the tranquillity of a respectable lady whose unconsolable grief at the death of her daughter can only be consoled by the possibility of spending a little time in the room where her unfortunate child breathed her last. Recollect yourself, I charge you!
A Well-wisher.
When he had read it, Ignacy shook his head: ‘I don’t understand a word of it,’ he said, ‘though I am very doubtful as to the good intentions of this lady.’
Klein looked nervously around, then, seeing that no one was watching, whispered: ‘Sir, our old man is said to be buying the Łęcki house, which his creditors are to sell by auction tomorrow.’
‘Staś—that’s to say Mr Wokulski—is buying a house?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Klein nodded, ‘but not in his own name, only through old Szlangbaum. At least that’s what people are saying in the house where I live.’
‘For ninety thousand roubles?’
‘Exactly so. But Baroness Krzeszowska wants to buy the house for seventy thousand, so very likely the anonymous letter is from her. I’d even lay a bet on it, for she’s a regular demon of a woman.’
A customer, entering the store to purchase an umbrella, took Klein away. Very peculiar notions began circulating in Ignacy’s head: ‘If I’, he told himself, ‘brought about as much confusion in the shop by wasting one evening, then what sort of confusion will Staś cause in the business, spending days and weeks at the Italian actors and even—goodness knows what else.’
At this moment, however, he recalled there was not so much confusion in the shop on Wokulski’s behalf, and that business was going very well on the whole. It was even true that despite his strange way of life, Wokulski was not neglecting the duties of the head of the establishment.
‘But why should he want to lock up ninety thousand roubles in bricks and mortar? And how do these Leckis come into it? For goodness sake, Staś isn’t such a fool…’
All the same, the purchase of the house alarmed him: ‘I’ll ask Henryk Szlangbaum,’ he thought, getting up.
In the cloth department the little hunchbacked Szlangbaum with his red eyes and a fierce look on his face was moving about as usual, jumping up and down ladders, or pouncing between rolls of calico. He was so accustomed to his feverish labours that although there were no customers, he kept bringing out one roll or another, then unrolling and rolling them up again so as to replace in its proper place on the shelf.
Seeing Ignacy, Szlangbaum interrupted his pointless labours and wiped the sweat from his brow: ‘Hard work, ain’t it?’ said he.
‘What are you bringing all that stuff down for, when there aren’t any customers in the store?’ Rzecki asked.
‘Well, if I didn’t, I’d forget where things are…My joints would get rusty. Besides, I’m used to it…Do you have some business with me?’
Rzecki hesitated a moment: ‘No…I just wanted to see how things were going,’ Ignacy replied, blushing as much as was possible at his age.
‘Can he be suspecting me, watching me?’ passed through Szlangbaum’s mind swiftly, and rage seized him: ‘Yes, my father is right…Everyone is against the Jews today. Soon I’ll have to let my hair grow and put on a skull-cap…’
‘He knows something!’ Rzecki thought, and said aloud: ‘Apparently your respected father is buying a house tomorrow—the Łęcki house.’
‘I know nothing about that,’ Szlangbaum replied, looking away. Inwardly he added: ‘My old man is buying the house on Wokulski’s behalf, and they think and no doubt say ‘Look there—another Jew, a usurer, has ruined a Catholic and real gentleman…’
‘He knows something but won’t talk,’ Rzecki thought, ‘that’s a Jew all over.’
He fidgeted about a little longer, which Szlangbaum took for more suspicion and spying, then went back to his own place, sighing: ‘It’s awful—Staś trusts Jews more than he trusts me…But why is he buying the house, why is he taking up with the Łęckis? Perhaps he isn’t going to buy it? Perhaps this is only a rumour?’
He was so alarmed at the thought of ninety thousand being locked up in bricks and mortar that he thought of nothing else all day. There was a moment when he thought of asking Wokulski directly, but he lacked courage: ‘Staś,’ he told himself, ‘is taking up with gentlefolk but he confides in Jews. What does old Rzecki mean to him?’
So he decided that next day he would go to the auction and see whether in fact old Szlangbaum bought the Łęcki house and whether, as Klein had said, he bid up to ninety thousand roubles. If that happened, it would be a sign that everything else was going to follow.
In the afternoon, Wokulski dropped by the store and began talking to Rzecki, questioning him about the theatre the previous evening, why he had quit the front row of the stalls and had let the album be handed to Rossi by Pifke. But Ignacy’s heart was so full of sorrow and doubts about his dear Staś, that he replied in an undertone and with a sulky look on his face.
So Wokulski fell silent too, and left the shop with bitterness in his soul: ‘They are all turning away from me,’ he told himself, ‘even Ignacy. Even he…But you will be my reward,’ he added in the street, looking in the direction of Aleje Ujazdowskie.
When Wokulski had left the store, Rzecki cautiously asked the ‘gentlemen’ in which court-room and at what time the auctions of houses took place. Then he asked Lisiecki to deputise for him next day between ten in the morning and two in the afternoon, and set about his accounts with redoubled fervour. Mechanically (though without a mistake) he added up columns of figures as long as Nowy Świat Street, and in the intervals he thought: ‘I have wasted nearly an hour today, tomorrow I’ll waste about five, and all because Staś trusts Szlangbaum more than me. What does he want an apartment house for? Why the devil is he taking up with that bankrupt Łęcki? What put it into his head to rush off to the Italian company and on top of it all to give expensive gifts to that strolling player Rossi?’
He sat at the cash-desk till six o’clock without looking up from the ledgers, and was so absorbed that he not only declined to take money but did not even see or hear the customers who flocked in and made a noise in the store like so many bumble-bees in a hive. He did not even notice a most unexpected visitor whom the ‘gentlemen’ greeted with loud cries and embraces. Not until the newcomer stopped in front of him and shouted into his ear: ‘Ignacy, it’s me!’ did Rzecki awaken, raise his head, brows and eyes and perceive Mraczewski.
‘Ha?’ Ignacy inquired, eyeing the young dandy, who had got sunburned, grown manlier and—above all—plumper.
‘Well, what’s the news?’ Ignacy went on, shaking his hand, ‘what about politics?’
‘Nothing new,’ Mraczewski replied, ‘the Berlin congress is doing its job, the Austrians will take Bosnia…’
‘Well, well, jokes—that’s all. But what’s the news about young Bonaparte?’
‘He’s studying at a military school in England and they say he’s in love with some actress or other.’
‘There, he falls in love right away,’ Ignacy repeated, ‘why doesn’t he go back to France? What do you think? And what are you doing here? Come, let’s hear it!’ Rzecki exclaimed cheerfully, taking him by the arm, ‘when did you arrive?’
‘It’s a long story,’ Mraczewski replied, throwing himself into a chair, ‘Suzin and I arrived at eleven…We were at Wokulski’s from one to three, and after that I called on my mother and on Mrs Stawska…A fine woman, ain’t she?’
‘Stawska? S
tawska?…’ Rzecki recollected, frowning
‘Go on—you know her! That pretty woman with the little daughter. The one you took such a fancy to…’
‘Oh her…I know…It wasn’t that I took a fancy to her,’ Rzecki sighed, ‘only I thought she’d make a good wife for Staś.’
‘You’re a card, you are,’ Mraczewski laughed, ‘she’s already got one husband.’
‘Already got one?’
‘Certainly. Besides, the name is well-known. Four years ago the poor devil ran away abroad, for they accused him of murdering that…’
‘Yes, I remember. So that’s the man? Why didn’t he come back, after all it turned out he wasn’t guilty.’
‘Of course he wasn’t,’ Mraczewski agreed, ‘but anyhow, since he got away to America there has been no word of him to this day. I daresay the poor wretch has perished somewhere and Mrs S. is left neither a spinster nor a widow. Awful fate! To keep a household going by embroidery, piano lessons, English lessons…To work all day like a horse and still not to have a husband…Poor woman! We wouldn’t remain virtuous so long, would we, Ignacy, eh? That old madman…’
‘Who’s a madman?’ Rzecki asked, astonished by the sudden change in the conversation.
‘Who—if not Wokulski?’ retorted Mraczewski, ‘Suzin is going to Paris and insists on taking him along too, as he is going to make some huge purchase there. Our old man wouldn’t have to pay a penny for the trip, he’d live like a prince, for the further Suzin is from his wife, the more money he spends. And on top of all this—he’d make some ten thousand roubles profit.’
‘You mean Staś—our boss—would make ten thousand roubles?’ Rzecki asked.
‘Of course! But now that he’s grown so silly…’
‘Oh come, Mr Mraczewski,’ said Ignacy threateningly.
‘Upon my word, he has! For I know he’s going to the Paris Exhibition any week now.’
‘Yes, that’s so.’
‘So why doesn’t he choose to go with Suzin, without spending his own money, and he’d make so much into the bargain. For two weeks Suzin has been begging him: “Come with me, Stanisław Piotrowicz!” He begged and prayed, but all in vain. Wokulski just won’t…He says he has some business here…’
‘Well, so he has,’ Rzecki interrupted.
‘Has he, though?’ Mraczewski mocked him, ‘his main business is not to vex Suzin, who helped him make a fortune, allows him huge credit and sometimes said to me he would not settle down until Stanisław Piotrowicz had made at least a million roubles. And to refuse such a friend such a small favour, when it’s well paid into the bargain!’ Mraczewski burst out.
Ignacy opened his mouth, then bit his lip. At this moment he very nearly said that Wokulski was buying the Łęcki house, and had given Rossi expensive gifts.
Klein and Lisiecki approached the cash-desk. As they were not busy, Mraczewski began talking to them, and Ignacy was again left alone over his ledger. ‘What a misfortune,’ he thought, ‘why doesn’t Staś go to Paris for nothing, and when Suzin asks him to? Some evil spirit has bound him to these Łęckis. Can it possibly be true that…? No, he isn’t so stupid…All the same, it’s a pity about the trip and the ten thousand roubles…My goodness, how people change, to be sure…’
He bowed his head and, his finger moving up and down, added up columns of figures as long as Nowy Świat and Krakowskie Przedmieście. He calculated without making a single error, though he softly muttered and at the same time thought to himself that his Staś was on the brink of some fatal precipice.
‘It’s all in vain,’ a voice hidden in the very depths of his soul whispered to him, ‘Staś has got himself involved in some important affair…It must be political, for a man like that wouldn’t go off his head for a woman, even if she were that Miss…herself…Oh, for goodness sake, I’ve made a mistake…He refuses, he despises ten thousand roubles—he who eight years ago had to borrow ten roubles a month from me to eat like a beggar…And now he’s throwing away ten thousand, bricking up ninety thousand, making presents worth dozens of roubles to actors…For goodness sake, I don’t understand it at all! And yet he’s supposed to be a positivist, a man who thinks realistically…They call me an old romantic, yet I wouldn’t commit such follies…Well, however, if he has got himself involved in politics…’
These meditations filled in the time until the closing of the store. His head ached a little, so he went for a stroll to Nowy Zjazd, and went to bed early when he reached home.
‘Tomorrow,’ he told himself, ‘I’ll find out what is really going on. If Szlangbaum buys the Łęcki house and pays ninety thousand roubles, that will mean Staś has really supplied him and is already completely off his head. But what if Staś don’t buy the house, what if it’s only gossip?’
He fell asleep and dreamed he saw Izabela in the window of a big house, and Wokulski, who was beside him, wanted to hurry to her. Ignacy tried to prevent him in vain, until sweat bathed his entire body. Wokulski tore himself away and disappeared into the gateway of the house. ‘Staś, come back!’ Ignacy cried, seeing the house begin to collapse. And in fact, it caved in altogether. Izabela, smiling, flew out of it like a bird, but there was no trace of Wokulski.
‘Perhaps he ran into the yard, and is safe,’ thought Ignacy and he woke up with his heart beating fiercely.
Next morning, Ignacy awoke a few minutes before six; he recalled that this was the day of the auction of the Łęcki house and that he was to watch the spectacle, so he jumped out of bed like a goat. He ran barefoot to the big hand-basin, poured cold water all over himself, looked at his spindly legs and muttered: ‘It looks to me as if I’ve gained some weight.’
During the intricacies of his toilet, Ignacy made so much noise that he woke Ir. The grubby poodle opened the only eye he had left, and on seeing his master’s unusual activity, jumped from his box to the floor. He stretched, yawned, put out first one back leg then the other, and sat down for a while at the window, outside which were heard the painful consequences of a hen having its neck wrung; then, seeing that nothing had really happened, Ir went back to bed. Meanwhile he was so discreet or perhaps so vexed with Ignacy on account of the false alarm, that he turned his back on the room, nose and tail to the wall, as much as to say: ‘I prefer not seeing your bony shanks…’
Rzecki dressed in the twinkling of an eye and drank his tea up like lightning, without looking either at the samovar or at the servant who brought it. Then he hurried to the store, which was still closed, did accounts for three hours without paying any attention to the customers or the conversation of the ‘gentlemen’, and at ten precisely said to Lisiecki: ‘Mr Lisiecki—I’ll be back at two.’
‘Unheard of!’ Lisiecki muttered, ‘something very unusual must have happened for the old fellow to go into the town at this time of day…’
Upon reaching the pavement in front of the store, Ignacy was seized with remorse. ‘What am I up to?’ thought he, ‘what concern of mine is the auctioning of palaces, not to mention an apartment house?’ And he hesitated whether to go to the court or return to the store. At this moment he saw a droshky passing along Krakowskie Przedmieście, with a tall, thin, ill-looking woman in a black dress inside. The lady was just looking at their store and in her sunken eyes and slightly livid lips, Rzecki saw a look of profound hatred. ‘Goodness, it’s Baroness Krzeszowska,’ Ignacy muttered, ‘of course she’s on her way to the auction. There’s going to be an unpleasant scene…’
However, doubts awoke within him. Who knows whether the Baroness was really going to the court? Perhaps it was only gossip. ‘It would be worth making sure,’ thought Ignacy and he forgot his duties as manager and senior clerk, and began following the droshky.
The wretched nag ambled along so slowly that Ignacy was able to keep the vehicle in sight along the entire boulevard to the Zygmunt Column. At this point the driver turned left and Rzecki thought: ‘Obviously the old girl is going to Miodowa Street. It would come cheaper if she rode a broom-stick…’
Rzecki, too, got to Miodowa by passing the front of Retzler’s café (which reminded him of his recent spree) and through Senatorska Street. Here, passing Nowicki’s tea warehouse, he stepped in for a moment to say good-day to the proprietor, then hastily fled, muttering: ‘What will he think to see me in the street at this hour? Of course he’ll think I’m the most wretched of managers, who wanders around the town instead of staying in the shop. What a fate!’
Ignacy’s conscience troubled him for the remainder of the way to the court-house. It took the form of a bearded giant in a yellow silk jacket and yellow trousers who eyed him affably and at the same time ironically, and said: ‘Tell me, Mr Rzecki, what respectable tradesman wanders around the town at this hour of the day? You’re as much of a merchant as I am a ballet-dancer…’ And Ignacy felt he could not reply a single word to his stern judge. He blushed, sweated and was on the verge of going back to his ledgers (making sure Nowicki would see him), when he suddenly beheld the former Pac Palace.
‘The auction will be held here,’ said Ignacy and forgot his scruples. The bearded giant, in a yellow silk jacket, dissolved before the eyes of his soul like mist.
On considering the situation, Ignacy noticed first of all that two huge gates and a double door led into the building. Then he saw four different sized groups of Hebrews with very solemn faces. Ignacy did not know which way to go, but approached the door at which most of the Hebrews were standing, guessing that the auction would be held there.
At this moment a carriage drove up to the building with Mr Łęcki inside. Ignacy was unable to restrain his feelings of respect for those fine grey whiskers and of admiration for Łęcki’s good humour. Mr Łęcki did not at all look like a bankrupt whose property was being auctioned off, but more like a millionaire come to his notary to take up the small sum of a hundred and more thousand roubles.
Mr Łęcki got ceremoniously out of the carriage, approached the court door with a triumphant step and at the same moment an individual who looked like an idler, but who was in reality a lawyer ran up to him. After a very brief and even casual greeting, Mr Łęcki asked this individual: ‘Well—what and when?’