On leaving the apartment of Mrs Stawska and her mother, I quitted the agent, in mutual pleasure. But when I returned home I pondered over the results of my survey of the tenants until my head was spinning.
I was supposed to settle the finances of the house, and here I have done so in such a manner that the income will certainly decrease by three hundred roubles a year. Hm! Perhaps Staś will reconsider and sell his acquisition, which was not in the least necessary, after all.
Ir is still poorly.
Politics are still much the same: continual uncertainty.
XXII
Grey Days and Baneful Hours
WITHIN fifteen minutes of leaving Warsaw by the Bydgoszcz railroad, Wokulski felt two peculiar, though completely different sensations: he was enveloped in fresh air, while he himself fell into a strange lethargy. He could move about freely, was sober; he thought clearly and rapidly, but nothing concerned him —neither his fellow travellers nor his destination. This apathy grew as the distance from Warsaw increased. Beyond Pruszków, he almost relished the drops of rain entering through the open window into the compartment; later, he was somewhat stirred by a violent thunderstorm on the far side of Grodzisk: he even longed for a thunderbolt to strike him dead. But, when the storm had passed, he sank into apathy again and did not concern himself with anything, not even with the fact that the neighbour on his right had gone to sleep against his shoulder, nor that the passenger opposite had taken off his boots and was resting his feet almost on Wokulski’s knees, in socks that were at least clean.
Around midnight, something like a dream descended upon him, or perhaps it was merely a still more profound apathy. He drew a curtain over the compartment lamp, shut his eyes and thought that this peculiar apathy would pass with the sunrise. But it did not; indeed, it intensified towards morning, and continued to increase. It made him feel neither good nor wretched: only indifferent.
Then his passport was collected, he had breakfast, bought another ticket, had his luggage moved to another train, and they travelled on. Another railroad station, another change of trains, another departure …The compartment rattled and shook; the engine whistled now and again, kept stopping …People speaking German began getting into the compartment in twos and threes …Then the Polish-speaking people disappeared altogether, and the compartment filled entirely with Germans.
The landscape changed too. Woods surrounded by dikes appeared, consisting of trees standing equidistant from one another, like soldiers. The wooden huts thatched with straw disappeared, and more two-storey houses with tiled roofs and gardens began coming into view. Another stop, another meal …An enormous city …Berlin, probably …Another departure …German-speaking people kept getting in and out of the train, but now they spoke with a slightly different accent. Then night and sleep …No, not sleep: merely apathy.
Two Frenchmen appeared in the compartment. The landscape was again entirely different: wide horizons, mountains, vineyards. Here and there a large, two-storey house, old and solid, screened by trees, enveloped in ivy. Another Customs inspection. A change of trains, two Frenchman and a Frenchwoman got in and made enough noise for ten. They were evidently well-bred people: nevertheless, they laughed, changed places several times and apologised to Wokulski, though he didn’t know why.
At one station, Wokulski wrote a note to Suzin: ‘Paris, Grand Hotel’, and gave it with a banknote to the conductor, not caring how much he gave him, nor even whether the telegram arrived. At the next stop, someone thrust a whole bundle of banknotes into his hand, and they travelled on. Wokulski observed it was night again, and again fell into a state which might have been a dream, or was perhaps only lassitude. His eyes were closed; yet he thought he was asleep and that this strange state of indifference would leave him in Paris. ‘Paris …Paris …’ he said, still asleep, ‘I’ve been looking forward to Paris for so long …This will pass …Everything will pass.’
Ten o’clock in the morning and another station. The train had stopped under a roof: noise, shouting, people running about. Wokulski was surrounded by three Frenchmen offering their services. Suddenly someone caught his arm: ‘Well, Stanisław Piotrowicz, I’m glad to see you.’
Wokulski stared for a moment at a giant with a red face and flaxen beard, then said: ‘Ah, Suzin …’ They embraced. Suzin was accompanied by two more Frenchmen, one of whom took Wokulski’s baggage check.
‘Glad you are here,’ said Suzin, embracing him again, ‘I thought I would hang myself here in Paris without you …’
‘Paris …’ Wokulski thought.
‘But never mind me,’ Suzin went on, ‘you’ve become so stuckup among those miserable gentlefolks of yours that you don’t care about me any more. But it would have been a pity if you’d let the money slip. You’d have lost some fifty thousand roubles.’
The two Frenchmen accompanying Suzin reappeared and told them everything was ready. Suzin took Wokulski by the arm and led him out to a square containing many omnibuses and one- and two-horse carriages, with drivers sitting up in front or behind. After a few dozen paces they came to a two-horse carriage with a footman. They got in and drove off. ‘Look,’ said Suzin, ‘this is the rue La Fayette, and that the Boulevard Magenta. We’ll drive all the way down the rue La Fayette to our hotel near the Opéra. Paris is more a miracle than a city, I assure you. Wait till you see the Champs-Elysées and the Seine and the Rivoli…Oh, it’s a marvel, I assure you. Perhaps the women are a trifle too forward here. But tastes differ. In any case, I’m delighted you’re here: fifty thousand roubles aren’t to be sneezed at…Ah, there’s the Opéra and the Capucines, and this is our abode…’
Wokulski caught sight of a huge, five-storey building, wedge-shaped, with an iron balcony encircling the second floor, standing in a street planted with young trees and packed with omnibuses, carriages, people on horseback and on foot. The traffic was as thick as if at least half of Warsaw had gathered to stare at an accident; the roadway was as smooth as the pavement. He realised he was in the very heart of Paris, but felt no emotion, no curiosity. Nothing mattered.
The carriage drove through an imposing gate; the footman opened the carriage door; they stepped out. Suzin took Wokulski by the arm and conducted him into a small room which, after a moment, began ascending. ‘This is an elevator,’ Suzin said. ‘I have two apartments here, one on the first floor at a hundred francs a day, the other on the third at ten. I took one for you at ten francs. It can’t be helped—the Exhibition, you see.’
They emerged from the elevator into a corridor and a moment later were in an elegant drawing-room with mahogany furniture, a large bed under a canopy and a wardrobe with a huge mirror in place of the door. ‘Sit down, Stanisław Piotrowicz. Do you want something to eat and drink, here or in the restaurant? Well, the fifty thousand are yours…I am delighted.’
‘Tell me,’ Wokulski spoke for the first time, ‘what am I to get the fifty thousand for?’
‘Perhaps more than that…’
‘Very well, but what’s it for?’
Suzin threw himself into an armchair, clasped his hands over his belly and burst out laughing: ‘Well, merely for asking for it…Another man wouldn’t have asked…But, being you, you must know why you’re making so much money. You idiot!’
‘That’s no answer.’
‘Then—I’ll tell you,’ said Suzin, ‘first because you taught me sense in Irkutsk for four years. Had it not been for you, I wouldn’t be the Suzin I am. Well, Stanisław Piotrowicz, I am not one of your people, I do return a favour for a favour.’
‘That’s not a reply either,’ Wokulski interposed.
Suzin shrugged. ‘Please don’t ask me for an explanation here; you’ll understand when we go downstairs. Perhaps I’ll buy some Parisian haberdashery, or a dozen or so merchant ships. I don’t know a word of French or German, so I’ll need a man like you.’
‘I know nothing of ships…’
‘No matter. We can find railroad, mercantile and military experts here…I’m no
t concerned with them, but with a man who can talk on my behalf…for me…In any case, keep your eyes open when we go downstairs, and your lips sealed, and when we leave you will not recall a word of what has passed. You are capable of that, Stanisław Piotrowicz, so ask me no more. I’ll make my ten per cent, I’ll pay you ten per cent of my profits, and the matter ends. But do not ask why, nor against whom…’
Wokulski was silent.
‘American and French industrialists are coming to see me at four o’clock. Will you join us?’ Suzin asked.
‘Very well.’
‘And now for a stroll around the town.’
‘No, I’ll go to sleep now.’
‘Very well. Let’s go to your apartment.’
They left Suzin’s room and went into a completely identical apartment a dozen yards away. Wokulski threw himself on the bed, Suzin went out on tip-toe and closed the door. After Suzin’s exit, Wokulski closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep. Not so much to fall asleep, perhaps, as to dispel some insistent thought on account of which he had fled from Warsaw. For a time it seemed to him to have been dispelled, or that it had stayed behind and was now anxiously in search of him, wandering from Krakowskie Przedmieście to Aleje Ujazdowskie: ‘Where is he? Where is he?’ the spectre was whispering.
‘Suppose it follows me here?’ Wokulski asked himself. ‘Well, surely it won’t find me here in this huge city, in such a vast hotel.’ But then he thought: ‘Maybe it’s already looking for me here?’
He closed his eyes still tighter and began swaying on the mattress which seemed unusually wide and exceptionally springy. Outside his door in the hotel passage people were talking and hurrying about as though something had just happened; outside the window there was an ill-defined noise consisting of the rattle of countless carriages, bells ringing, human voices, trumpets, revolver shots and goodness knows what else, but all stifled and distant. Then he imagined a shape was looking in at him through the window, and later that someone was going from door to door in the passage, knocking and asking: ‘Isn’t he here?’
In fact, someone came up and knocked and even banged on his door, but getting no answer they went away again. ‘It won’t find me, it won’t…’ Wokulski thought. Then he opened his eyes, and his hair stood on end. Facing him he saw a room exactly like his own, the same bed with a canopy, with himself on the bed. It was one of the most profound shocks he ever experienced in his life, to see with his own eyes that here, where he believed himself entirely alone, he was nevertheless accompanied by an inseparable companion—himself.
‘An ingenious system of espionage, to be sure,’ he muttered, ‘these wardrobes fitted with mirrors are ridiculous.’ He jumped off the bed, his double did the same, just as quickly. He ran to the window, so did the other. He feverishly opened his valise to change, and the other began changing too, clearly with the intention of going into the town. Wokulski felt he must flee from this room. The spectre from which he had fled Warsaw was already here; it was standing on the threshold.
He washed, put on clean linen, changed. It was barely twelve-thirty. ‘Three hours and a half,’ he thought, ‘I must do something to fill them…’
Hardly had he opened the door when a servant said: ‘Monsieur?’ Wokulski asked him the way to the stairs, gave the man a franc and hurried down from the third floor like a man pursued. He went out of the gate and stopped on the pavement.
It was a wide street, lined with trees. Just then, half a dozen carriages and a yellow omnibus, weighed down with passengers above and below, flew past him. On the right, far off somewhere, a square could be seen; on the left—at the foot of the hotel—a small awning, under which a throng of men and women sat at small round tables, practically on the pavement, drinking coffee. The men, as though décolleté, wore flowers or ribbons in their button-holes and crossed one leg over the other precisely as high as was appropriate in the vicinity of five-storey houses; the women were slender, slight and dusky, with fiery glances, yet modestly dressed.
Wokulski turned to the left and saw, around the corner of the hotel—that very same hotel!—another awning, another throng of people drinking something alongside the pavement. Here there must have been a hundred people, if not more; the gentlemen wore insolent expressions, the ladies were vivacious, friendly and quite unaffected. One- and two-horse carriages continued to roll by, a constant stream of pedestrians hurried past in both directions, a yellow and green omnibus passed through, its route frequently intersected by that of brown omnibuses, all full up inside, their roofs all loaded down with passengers above.
Wokulski found himself in the middle of a square from which seven streets led off. He counted them once, twice—seven streets…Where was he to go?…In the direction of the trees, perhaps…Two of the streets intersecting at a right angle were thus lined…
‘I will follow the hotel wall,’ thought Wokulski. He made a half turn to the left and stopped, amazed.
In the distance to the left a formidable edifice was visible. On the ground floor, a series of arcades and statues; on the first, huge stone columns and slightly smaller marble ones with gilded capitals. In the corners at the level of the roof were eagles and gilded statues, poised above the gilded forms of capering horses. The roof was smooth at the near end, farther off was a cupola culminating in a crown, and farther still, a three-cornered roof, also bearing a group of figures on its pinnacle. Everywhere marble, bronze, and gold; columns, statues, medallions everywhere…
‘The Opéra?…’ thought Wokulski. ‘But there is more marble and bronze here than in the whole of Warsaw?…’ Recalling his shop, the pride of the city, he coloured, and walked on. He felt that Paris had overwhelmed him at the very first step and—he was content.
The traffic of omnibuses and pedestrians grew at an alarming rate. Every few paces found verandahs, little round tables, people sitting by the pavement. A carriage, with a footman behind, was followed by a cart pulled by a dog, an omnibus overtook him, then two people with handbarrows, then a larger cart with two wheels, then a lady and gentlemen on horseback and again an endless stream of carriages. Closer, by the pavement, stood a cart with flowers, another with fruit; opposite was a pieman, a news vendor, a junk dealer, a knife grinder, a bookseller…
‘M’rchand d’habits…’
‘Figaro!…’
‘Exposition!…’
‘Guide Parisien!…trois francs!…trois francs!…’
Someone thrust a book into Wokulski’s hand. He paid three francs and crossed the street. He walked quickly, but despite this he could see that everything was overtaking him: carriages and dogs. Why, this was some great race; and so he quickened his pace, and though he still overtook no one, he was now attracting attention. He was solicited above all by the vendors of books and newspapers; women looked at him, the men laughed at him in a mocking manner. He felt that he, Wokulski, who made such a stir in Warsaw, was here as overawed as a child and—he liked it…Ah, how he longed to be a child once more, back in the days when his father was seeking the advice of his friends: should he send him to a merchant, or to school?
Here the street curved somewhat to the right. For the first time, Wokulski noticed a three-storey house and a kind of melancholy overcame him. A three-storey house among the five-storeyed!…What a pleasant surprise…
Suddenly a carriage with a groom on the box passed by, with two women inside. One was unknown, the other…‘Can it be?’ Wokulski whispered, ‘no, impossible…’ Nevertheless, he felt his energies ebb away. Fortunately there was a café alongside. He threw himself into a chair close to the pavement, a waiter appeared, asked something and then brought iced coffee and cognac. At the same time a flower-girl pinned a rose in his button-hole, and a newspaper vendor laid Figaro in front of him. He tossed her ten francs, gave him a franc, drank the coffee and began reading: ‘Her Majesty Queen Izabela…’
He crumpled the newspaper, thrust it into his pocket, paid for the coffee without finishing it, and rose. The waiter was eyeing him surrep
titiously; two customers, twirling light canes, crossed their legs still higher and one of them stared insolently at him through a monocle. ‘Suppose I were to hit that nincompoop on the jaw?’ Wokulski thought, ‘tomorrow a duel, perhaps he’d kill me…But if I killed him?’ He walked past the nincompoop and stared into his face. The nincompoop’s monocle fell down his waistcoat and he lost his inclination to scoff.
Wokulski walked on and looked attentively at the buildings. What splendid shops! Even the most paltry looked better than his, although it was the finest in Warsaw. Stone houses: almost each floor had great balconies or balustrades along the entire façade. ‘This Paris looks as though all the inhabitants must feel the need of constant communication, either in the cafés or on their balconies,’ Wokulski thought. The roofs were impressive too, high, loaded with chimney-stacks, prickly with chimney-pots and spires. A tree or lamp or kiosk or column mounted with a globe rose every few paces along the streets. Life was effervescent here, so powerfully that it was unable to use up its energies in the neverending traffic, in the swift rush of people, in the erection of five-storey houses, so it had also burst out of walls in the forms of statues or bas-reliefs, and out of the streets in the shape of innumerable kiosks.
Wokulski felt he had been extricated from stagnant water and suddenly plunged into boiling water which ‘storms and roars and foams’. He, a grown man, energetic in his own climate, felt like a sensitive child here, impressed by everything and everyone. Meanwhile, all around him, the city ‘seethed and boiled and roared and foamed’. Unable to see any end to the crowds, carriages, trees or dazzling store windows, or even of the street itself, Wokulski was gradually overcome with stupefaction. He stopped hearing the passers-by chattering, then grew deaf to the cries of the street traders, finally to the rattle of the wheels. Then it seemed to him he had seen such houses, traffic, cafés before: still later, he thought that it wasn’t so impressive after all, and finally his critical faculties awoke and he told himself that although more French was to be heard in the streets of Paris than in Warsaw, yet the local accent here was worse, the pronunciation less clear.