‘Here too, you were of a different mind six months ago,’ Rzecki interposed.
‘Not six months but ten years ago. Bah! I took poison after my fiancée died, but that is just another argument against your system. Today it almost sickens me to think I might have died, God knows why, or have married a woman who would have squandered my money.’
Rzecki rose: ‘So now your ideal is Szlangbaum?’ he said.
‘He’s not my ideal, but at least he’s an active man.’
‘Who has acquired the store accounts …’
‘He has the right to them. After all, he will be its owner in July.’
‘Meanwhile he’s demoralising his colleagues, his future clerks.’
‘He’ll dismiss them.’
‘And this “ideal” of yours, when he asked Staś for a position, was he thinking even then of taking over our store?’
‘He’s not taking it over, he’s buying it!’ the doctor cried. ‘Perhaps you’d sooner the store went to rack and ruin without finding a buyer? … And which of you is the smarter? — you, who after decades of work, have nothing — or he, who in the course of a year will have conquered such a fortress without, mind you, doing anyone an injustice, and paying Wokulski cash into the bargain?’
‘Maybe you’re right, though it doesn’t look that way to me,’ muttered Rzecki, glancing at him.
‘It doesn’t look that way to you, because you are one of those people who must grow over with moss, like stones, without moving from where they are. For you the Szlangbaums must always be clerks, the Wokulskis masters, and the Łęckis “Your Excellency”. No, sir! Society is like boiling water; what was below yesterday will come to the top tomorrow.’
‘And fall back into the dregs again the next day,’ Rzecki concluded. ‘Goodnight to you, doctor.’
Szuman shook him by the hand: ‘Are you angry?’
‘No. But I don’t believe in worshipping money.’
‘It’s a transitory phase.’
‘Who would swear to you that the dreams of Wokulskis or Ochockis aren’t transitory? A flying machine seems absurd, but only on the surface; I know something of it’s worth, as Staś has been explaining it to me for years. But if, for instance, a man like Ochocki were to succeed in making one, then just think which would be more valuable to the world: Szlangbaum’s ingenuity, or the dreams of Wokulski and Ochocki?’
‘Fiddle-de-dee,’ the doctor interrupted, ‘I shan’t be here to see it.’
‘If you were, you would surely have to change your plans a third time.’
The doctor grew embarrassed: ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ he said. ‘What business did you have with me?’
‘It concerned poor Mrs Stawska … She has really fallen in love with Wokulski.’
‘Ach … You might at least not bother me with such matters,’ the doctor rebuffed him. ‘When some are growing in wealth and power and others going bankrupt, he pesters me with the romance of some Mrs Stawska or other. You shouldn’t have played at Cupid.’
Rzecki left the doctor, so troubled that he did not even notice the brutality of the latter’s final words. Not until he reached the street did he realise it, and he felt cross with Szuman. ‘There’s Jewish friendship for you,’ he muttered.
Lent was not as boring as society had feared. First, Providence sent a flood of the Vistula, which gave rise to a public concert and several private musical evenings with recitations. Then a certain gentleman from Cracow, the hope of the aristocratic party, appeared in a series of lectures at the Agricultural Exhibition, attended by the best company. Next, Szegedyn was flooded, which again brought forth small collections but enormous traffic in the drawing-rooms. Amateur theatricals were held in the house of a countess, at which two plays were performed in French, and one in English.
Izabela took an active part in all these philanthropic activities. She attended concerts, busied herself with presenting a bouquet to the scholar from Cracow, appeared in tableaux vivants as the Angel of Mercy, and played in Musset’s On ne badine pas avec l’amour. Messrs Niwiński, Malborg, Rydzewski and Pieczarkowski quite showered her with bouquets, while Mr Szatalski confided to several ladies that he would very likely have to do away with himself that same year.
When news of the intended suicide spread, Mr Szatalski became the hero of parties, and Izabela acquired the nickname ‘the cruel’. When the gentlemen disappeared to play whist, ladies of a certain age found their greatest pleasure in bringing together Izabela and Szatalski by means of ingenious manoeuvres. They gazed with indescribable sympathy through their lorgnettes at the sufferings of the young man; it was almost as good as a concert. They grew angry with Izabela only when they saw that she appreciated her own privileged situation and seemed to say with each movement and glance: ‘Look, he loves me — he’s unhappy on my account.’
Wokulski sometimes found himself at these gatherings, he saw the ladies’ lorgnettes directed at Szatalski and Izabela, he even heard the remarks which buzzed around his ears like wasps, but he understood nothing at all. No one bothered about him, since they knew he was a serious suitor.
‘Unhappy love causes a great deal more interest,’ Miss Rzezuchowska once whispered to Mrs Wąsowska.
‘Who knows where unhappy even tragic love really is, here?’ Mrs Wąsowska replied, looking at Wokulski.
Fifteen minutes later, Miss Rzezuchowska asked to have Wokulski introduced to her, and during the next quarter of an hour informed him (lowering her eyes as she did so) that in her opinion, the most beautiful role a woman can play is to cherish wounded hearts that are suffering in silence.
One day at the end of March, Wokulski called on Izabela, and found her in high spirits: ‘Excellent news,’ she exclaimed, greeting him with unusual cordiality, ‘did you know that the famous violinist Molinari is here?’
‘Molinari?’ Wokulski echoed, ‘ah yes, I saw him in Paris.’
‘You speak so coldly of him?’ Izabela was surprised, ‘can it be you didn’t care for his playing?’
‘I confess, madam, that I didn’t even notice how he played.’
‘That is impossible … You can’t have heard him. Mr Szatalski says (though he always exaggerates) that after hearing Molinari, he could die without regrets. Mrs Wywrotnicka is delighted with him, and Mrs Rzezuchowska plans on giving a party for him.’
‘He strikes me as a rather second-rate violinist.’
‘Come, sir … Mr Rydzewski and Mr Pieczarkowski were able to see his album, composed entirely of press-cuttings. Mr Pieczarkowski says that Molinari’s admirers presented it to him. All the European critics call him a genius.’
Wokulski shook his head: ‘I saw him in a concert-hall where the most expensive seat cost two francs.’
‘That’s impossible, it can’t have been him … He got a decoration from the Holy Father, another from the Shah of Iran, he has a title … Second-rate violinists do not acquire such honours.’
Wokulski gazed in amazement at Izabela’s flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. These were such powerful arguments that he doubted his own memory, and replied: ‘Possibly … possibly.’
But his indifference towards art affected Izabela in a disagreeable manner. She turned sulky and talked rather coolly to Wokulski for the rest of the visit.
‘I’m a fool,’ he thought on leaving. ‘I always have to come out with something that displeases her. If she’s so fond of music, she may regard my opinion of Molinari as sacrilege.’ And all next day he bitterly reproached himself for his ignorance of art, his naiveté, lack of delicate feeling and even for lack of respect to Izabela. ‘It’s certain,’ he told himself, ‘that this violinist who has made such an impression on her is better than I care to own. A person must be stuck up to utter such decisive judgements as I did, the more so as I can’t have known anything of his playing.’
Shame overwhelmed him. On the third day he received a brief note from Izabela. ‘Sir,’ she wrote, ‘you must arrange for me to meet Molinari, it is essential, essential …
I have promised my aunt to persuade him to play at her house for the Orphanage benefit; you will understand how much this means to me.’
At first, it seemed to Wokulski that to approach the violinist of genius would be one of the most difficult tasks he had ever been commanded to execute. Fortunately he recalled knowing a musician who had not only met Molinari, but was already following him everywhere, and accompanying him like a shadow. When he confided his problem in the musician, the latter opened his eyes very wide, then frowned, but finally, after long pondering, replied: ‘Oh, this will be difficult, very difficult, but we’ll see what can be done. But I must prepare him, make him well-disposed to you. Do you know what we’ll do? Call at his hotel tomorrow, at one in the afternoon. I’ll be there for lunch. Then you can discreetly summon me through a servant, and I’ll arrange an audience for you.’
These precautions and the tone in which they were uttered affected Wokulski disagreeably; nevertheless he went to the hotel at the appointed time: ‘Mr Molinari is in?’ he asked the porter. The latter, who knew Wokulski, sent a page upstairs then began passing the time in conversation: ‘You can’t think, sir, how busy the hotel is with this Italian! People flock to see him as though he were a sacred image, but mostly they’re ladies …’
‘Is that so?’
‘Yes, sir. One of them first of all sent him a letter, then a bouquet, then came in person, wearing a veil and thinking no one would recognise her … You can’t think, sir, how the staff laughed! He doesn’t see them all, though one of ’em gave his footman three roubles. But sometimes when he’s in a good humour, he’ll take two more rooms, one on either side of the corridor, and entertain a lady in both … He’s a determined beast.’
Wokulski glanced at his watch. Some ten minutes had passed in waiting, so he said goodbye to the porter and went upstairs, feeling anger beginning to boil within him. ‘Stupid fool!’ he thought, ‘and as for those light women of easy virtue …’
On the way he met the page, who was out of breath. ‘Mr Molinari, sir,’ he said, ‘told me to ask you to wait a little longer.’
Wokulski felt like seizing the page by the scruff of the neck, but hesitated and — went downstairs again.
‘Are you leaving, sir? What am I to say to Mr Molinari?’
‘Tell him to … You understand me?’
‘I’ll tell him, sir, but he won’t understand,’ the page replied, pleased and, hurrying back to the porter, said: ‘At least there’s one gentleman here so has sized up that Italian scoundrel … The dog! He is all puffed up, but he looks at a penny three times before he’ll give you it. Son of a bitch, monster … wretch … vagabond … skunk!’
There was a moment in which Wokulski felt resentful towards Izabela. How could she be so enthusiastic about a man that even the hotel staff made fun of? How could she join his long list of female admirers? And, after all, was it proper to make him seek acquaintance with such a humbug?
But he cooled down at once: the very correct idea occurred to him that as Izabela didn’t know Molinari, she was simply letting herself be borne along on the current of his reputation. ‘She’ll get to know him and will cool down,’ he thought, ‘but I am not going to serve as a go-between.’
When Wokulski got home, he found Węgiełek, who had been waiting for him an hour. The lad looked more at home in the city, but was somewhat thin. ‘You’ve lost colour, grown thin,’ said Wokulski, contemplating him, ‘have you been misbehaving?’
‘No, sir, I’ve been ill for ten days. Something in my neck was so painful that the doctor operated. But I went back to work yesterday.’
‘Do you need money?’
‘No, sir. I only wanted to speak to you about going back to Zasławek.’
‘So that’s what is bothering you. Have you learned anything?’
‘Indeed I have. I’ve done some carpentry and cabinet-making. I’ve learned how to make pretty baskets, and draw too. Even paint a bit, if it comes to that.’ As he spoke, he bowed, blushed and squeezed his cap in one hand.
‘Good,’ said Wokulski after a moment, ‘you’ll get six hundred roubles for tools. Enough? When do you want to go home?’
The lad blushed still more, and kissed Wokulski’s hand. ‘Sir, begging your pardon, I’d like to get married … Only I don’t know …’ He scratched his head.
‘To whom?’ asked Wokulski.
‘To Maria, who lives with the coachman Wysocki’s family. I live there too, upstairs.’
‘So he wants to marry my repentant?’ Wokulski thought. He walked about the room, and said: ‘Do you know Maria well enough?’
‘Why not? After all, we meet three times a day, and sometimes I spend Sunday with her, or both of us do, with the Wysockis.’
‘I see. But do you know what she was a year ago?’
‘I do, sir. Hardly had I got there by your kindness, than Mrs Wysocka right away says to me: “Take care, young fellow, for she’s of easy virtue …” So I knew from the very start what she was: she never pulled the wool over my eyes at all.’
‘How did it come that you want to marry her?’
‘Goodness knows, sir, one way or another. At first I used to laugh at her, and when anyone passed the window, I’d say: “A friend of Maria, no doubt, as you’ve eaten bread from more than one stove.” But she didn’t say anything, only looked down, turned her sewing-machine until it steamed, and reddened up to the eyes. Later on, I noticed someone was doing my laundry for me; so, at Christmas, I bought her an umbrella for ten złoty, and she bought me six linen handkerchiefs, with my name on them. But Mrs Wysocka said: “Don’t be taken in, young fellow, she’s after you!” But I never let it into my head — though if she’d not been a wicked woman, I’d have married her come Shrovetide.
‘On Ash Wednesday, Wysocki told me how things stood with Maria. Some lady in velvet had agreed to take her into service, but what kind of service, for goodness sake! She kept wanting to run away, but they kept ahold of her, and said: “Either stay here, or we will send you to prison for theft.” “What have I stolen, then?” says she. “Our incomes, you heathen,” they shout. And she’d have stayed there until doomsday (so Wysocki said), if Mr Wokulski hadn’t seen her in church. Then he bought her out, and saved her.’
‘Go on, go on,’ Wokulski exclaimed, seeing Węgiełek hesitate.
‘It struck me at once,’ Węgiełek continued, ‘that it wasn’t wickedness, but misfortune. And I asked Wysocki: “Would you marry Maria?” “One wife is more than enough,” says he. “But if you was single?” “Well,” says he, “how can I say, not having any interest in women?” Seeing the old man didn’t want to talk, I swore at him, so that in the end he said: “I wouldn’t marry her, because I wouldn’t be sure that the old ways didn’t come back to her. When a woman’s good, she’s good, but when she’s wanton, she’s no good.”
‘Meanwhile, at the beginning of Lent, the Good Lord afflicted me with such pains that I had to stay home and the doctor operated on me. And didn’t Maria start coming to see me, to make the bed, bandage my wound … The doctor says that if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have kept to my bed another week. Sometimes I’d be irritable, particularly when I felt badly, so one day I says: “What are you doing all this for, Maria? You think I’m going to marry you, but I’d be a fool to take a girl who has served ten …” But she didn’t answer, only looked away and her tears came…“After all, I understand,” she says, “that Mr Węgiełek won’t marry me.” Then I, beggin’ your pardon, sir, came all over pitiful when I heard that. And I told Mrs Wysocka: “You know, I might marry Maria.” And she says: “Don’t be silly, for…” But I dare not say it…’ Węgiełek suddenly stopped, and again he kissed Wokulski’s hand.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, Mrs Wysocka told me—that if I marry Maria, I might offend Mr Wokulski, after his kindness to us all. Who knows but what Maria don’t visit him?…’
Wokulski stopped in front of him. ‘Is that what you’re afraid of?’ he asked. ‘I give you my w
ord of honour I never see this girl.’
Węgiełek sighed with relief: ‘Thank God for that. For in the first place, I wouldn’t dare get in your way, sir, after all your kindness, and then again…’
‘Then again—what?’
‘In the second place, sir, she went wrong through misfortune, wicked people misused her, and that wasn’t her fault. But if she should have wept over me when I lay sick, and came to visit you too, sir—then she would be such a wicked woman, that she’d be like a mad dog that has to be killed lest it bite people.’
‘And so?’ asked Wokulski.
‘Well, now I’ll marry after the holiday,’ Węgiełek replied. ‘After all, she can’t suffer for other people’s sins. It wasn’t her wish.’
‘Do you have any other matters to discuss?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Then farewell, and call on me before your wedding. She will get five hundred roubles dowry, and whatever is necessary for linen and the household.’
Węgiełek left him, very moved.
‘That is the logic of simple hearts,’ Wokulski thought, ‘contempt for crime, and pity for misfortune.’
The simple citizen became, in his eyes, an emissary of eternal justice, which brought tranquillity and forgiveness to a fallen woman.
At the end of March, a great party was given at the Rzezuchowskis’ in honour of Molinari. Wokulski received an invitation addressed by the fair hand of Miss Rzezuchowska. He arrived quite late, just as the maestro had let himself be persuaded to make the audience happy by playing one of his own compositions. One of the local musicians sat down to accompany him at the piano; another brought the maestro his violin; a third turned over the accompanist’s music; a fourth took his place behind the maestro with the intention of emphasising by his expressions and gesticulations the most beautiful or hardest passages. Someone asked those present for silence: the ladies sat down in a semi-circle; the men gathered behind their chairs. The performance began.