‘Open the window,’ the doctor said to the servant. ‘Oh, come,’ he added, looking ironically at Rzecki, ‘your face is on fire, eyes glassy, your pulse beats so that one can hear it in the street.’
‘Did you hear, sir, what he was saying about Staś?’ Rzecki asked.
‘He was right,’ Szuman replied. ‘The whole town is saying the same thing, though they are wrong to call Wokulski bankrupt, for he is merely a nincompoop of the type I call the Polish Romantics.’
Rzecki gazed at him, almost alarmed.
‘Don’t stare at me so,’ Szuman went on, in a calm tone, ‘you’d do better to decide whether I am right or not. After all, the man never acted rationally once in his life. When he was a clerk, he thought about inventions and the university. When he entered the university, he got involved in politics. Later on, instead of making money he became a scholar, and came back here so poor that if it hadn’t been for Mrs Mincel, he’d have starved to death. Finally he began making a fortune, not as a tradesman, but as the admirer of a young woman who had the established reputation of a coquette. That wasn’t all, for as soon as he had both the girl and the money in his hands, he threw them away, again, and today what is he doing, where is he? Tell me, sir, is he wise? He’s a nincompoop, an out-and-out nincompoop,’ said Szuman, gesticulating. ‘A thoroughbred Polish Romantic, always searching for something outside reality.’
‘Will you say this to Wokulski, doctor, when he comes back?’ Rzecki asked.
‘I’ve already told him a hundred times, and if I don’t tell him again, it’ll only be because he isn’t coming back.’
‘Not coming back?’ whispered Rzecki, turning pale.
‘He isn’t coming back, for either he’ll blow out his brains somewhere, if he comes to his senses, or he’ll set himself some new Utopian goal … Perhaps the inventions of that mythical Geist, who must be an out-and-out lunatic.’
‘But did you never chase after Utopias, doctor?’
‘Yes, but I was poisoned by the atmosphere that the lot of you caused. I came to my senses in time, however, and that enabled me to make a very precise diagnosis of similar cases … Well, take off your dressing gown, sir, let’s see the results of an evening spent in jovial company.’
He examined Rzecki, told him to go straight to bed and not to turn his apartment into a tavern in future. ‘You’re another example of a Romantic — except that you had less opportunity to commit follies,’ the doctor concluded.
After which he departed, leaving Rzecki in a very depressed frame of mind. ‘That chatter of his has done me more harm than the beer,’ Rzecki thought, and a moment later he added in an undertone: ‘Yet Staś might at least drop me a line … Goodness only knows the thoughts that find their way into a man’s brain!’
Confined to bed, Ignacy was excruciatingly bored. So, to pass the time, he read the history of the Consulate for goodness knows how many times, or meditated on Wokulski.
But both these pastimes, instead of calming him, only irritated him … The book reminded him of the marvellous history of one of the greatest of all conquerors, in whose dynasty he had placed his faith in the world’s future, and which dynasty had, in his eyes, fallen under the Zulu spear. The meditations on Wokulski, on the other hand, led him to the conclusion that his much-loved friend and unusual man was on the road to some kind of moral bankruptcy at least. ‘He wanted to do so much, he might have done so much, yet he did nothing,’ Ignacy would repeat, with grief in his heart. ‘If only he would write where he is, at least, and what his plans are … If only he’d let me know he is still alive!’
For some time, vague yet foreboding premonitions had been troubling Mr Rzecki. His dream after Rossi’s performance when he saw Wokulski leap after Izabela from the Town-hall tower came to his mind. Then, again he recalled Staś’s strange and foreboding phrase: ‘I should like to die alone, and destroy all traces of my existence!’
How easily a wish of that kind may be carried out by a man who says only what he feels, and knows how to carry out what he has said!
Dr Szuman, visiting him every day, did not add to his ease of mind at all, and almost bored him by repeating one and the same comment: ‘Really, a man must be either a complete bankrupt or a lunatic to leave so much money behind in Warsaw, without giving any instructions and not even letting anyone know where he is!’
Rzecki either argued with him or privately admitted he was right.
One day the doctor called on him at an unusual time, to wit, ten o’clock in the morning. He threw his hat on the table and cried: ‘Well, now — wasn’t I right to say he’s a nincompoop?’
‘What has happened?’ asked Ignacy, knowing in advance to whom he was referring.
‘What has happened is that that madman left Moscow a week ago and … Guess his destination!’
‘Paris?’
‘Certainly not … He went to Odessa, and from there he plans to go to India, from India to China and Japan, then across the Pacific to America! I can understand him taking a journey around the world, I’d have recommended it myself. But not to write a single word, leaving people who like him and some two hundred thousand roubles behind in Warsaw. To do that, my goodness, a man must have a highly developed psychosis.’
‘Whence this news?’ asked Rzecki.
‘From the best of all sources — Szlangbaum, to whom it is very important that he should find out Wokulski’s plans. After all, he has to pay him a hundred and twenty thousand roubles early in October … If dear Staś shoots or drowns himself, or dies of yellow fever … D’you see, sir? Then we may go to the Devil for the whole sum, or at least use it for six months interest-free. Surely you know Szlangbaum by this time? It was he, after all, who wanted to cheat … me, of all people!’
The doctor hurried about the room and gesticulated as though he himself were touched by the initial stages of a psychosis. Suddenly he stopped in front of Ignacy, gazed into his eyes and seized him by the hand: ‘What’s this? Your pulse is over a hundred. Did you have a temperature today?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Not yet, indeed! I can see …’
‘Less of this,’ Rzecki interrupted. ‘Can it be that Staś has done anything like that?’
‘That old Staś of ours, despite his romanticism, perhaps wouldn’t have, but this Mr Wokulski, in love with her ladyship Miss Łęcka, might do anything. As you see, he’s doing his best …’
After this visit from the doctor, Ignacy began to admit to himself that he was poorly. ‘It would be absurd,’ he thought, ‘if I were to kick the bucket now … Pooh! It’s happened to better men than me. Napoleon the First … Napoleon the Third … little Lulu … Staś. But — why Staś? After all, he’s travelling to India.’
He pondered, rose from bed, dressed properly and went to the store, much to the dismay of Szlangbaum, who knew Ignacy had been forbidden to get out of bed. On this account, Ignacy felt much worse next day: so he stayed in bed twenty-four hours, and went to the store again for a few hours.
‘Does he think that the store is a morgue, then?’ said one of the Jewish clerks to Mr Zięba who, with characteristic sincerity, admitted that the witticism was very good.
In the middle of September, Ochocki came to Warsaw from Zasławek for a few days and visited Rzecki. At the sight of him, Ignacy regained his good spirits. ‘What brings you here?’ he cried, warmly embracing the beloved inventor.
But Ochocki was sombre. ‘What but bad news?’ he replied. ‘Did you know, sir, that Mr Łęcki is dead?’
‘The father of that … that …’ said Ignacy, in surprise.
‘None other. And who knows but it wasn’t on account of her …’
‘For Heaven’s sake!’ Rzecki crossed himself. ‘How many men does that woman mean to destroy? To my own knowledge, and I am sure it is no secret to you either, if Staś fell upon bad times, it was entirely due to her.’
Ochocki nodded.
‘Can you tell me what happened to Mr Łęcki?’ asked Ignacy, curiously.
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‘It’s no secret,’ replied Ochocki, ‘Early this summer the marshal proposed to Izabela.’
‘Him? He’s old enough to be my father,’ Rzecki interposed.
‘Perhaps that’s why the young lady accepted him, or at least didn’t refuse. So the old man collected the belongings left by his two former wives, and went into the country to stay with the Countess … Izabela’s aunt, where she was staying with her father.’
‘He must have been crazy.’
‘It has happened to wiser men than he,’ Ochocki went on. ‘Meanwhile, though the marshal considered himself her suitor, Izabela used to go every few days — and later every day — to the ruins of the old castle at Zasław, with a certain engineer … She said it helped relieve her ennui.’
‘And the marshal didn’t react?’
‘He kept silent, naturally, but the women persuaded the young lady it wasn’t proper to behave in that manner. She had but one reply on such occasions: “The marshal ought to be glad I’m marrying him, but I am not getting married in order to renounce my own pleasures.”’
‘And I daresay the marshal caught them unawares in those ruins,’ Rzecki interrupted.
‘Oh no … He didn’t even go there. Even if he had, he’d have been persuaded that Izabela was taking the naive engineer along in order to brood over Wokulski.
‘That, at least, is what was supposed,’ said Ochocki. ‘I remarked to her myself that it wasn’t proper to yearn for one admirer in the company of another. But she replied in her own way: “He should be glad I permit him to look at me.”’
‘That engineer must have been a proper donkey!’
‘Not entirely, since for all his naivety, he too noticed what was going on, and stopped going with the young lady to brood in the ruins. At the same time, however, the marshal — jealous of the engineer — left for Lithuania in such a huff that Izabela and the Countess had hysterics and good old Łęcki, without even a word of reproach, died of apoplexy.’
On finishing his tale, Ochocki clutched his head with both hands and laughed aloud. ‘And to think,’ he added, ‘that a woman of this kind turned the heads of so many men!’
‘She is a monster!’ Rzecki exclaimed.
‘No. She’s not even stupid or bad either, basically … She’s only a woman like thousands of others in her world.’
‘Thousands?’
‘Alas, yes,’ Ochocki sighed. ‘Imagine, sir, a class of wealthy people who eat well and do very little. A man must use up his energies in some way: if he doesn’t work, he must turn to depravity, or at least excite his nervous system … And for depravity and excitement he needs pretty, elegant, witty women, well-bred or rather trained in that particular direction … That is the only career open to them.’
‘And Izabela joined their ranks?’
‘They enlisted her, rather. I am sorry to say this, but I must tell you, sir, so that you may know what sort of woman Wokulski came into contact with.’
The conversation broke off — Ochocki started it again by asking: ‘When is he coming back?’
‘Wokulski?’ replied Ignacy. ‘He has left for India, China, America.’
Ochocki threw himself into a chair. ‘That’s impossible!’ he exclaimed, then added, after thinking, ‘And yet …’
‘Have you some evidence that he hasn’t gone there?’ Rzecki asked in a lower voice.
‘None at all. I was only surprised by his sudden decision. When I was here last time, he promised to settle a certain matter for me. But …’
‘The former Wokulski would certainly have settled it. However, the new one has forgotten not only your business … But his own too.’
‘I expected him to leave,’ said Ochocki, as though to himself, ‘but I don’t like this suddenness. Has he written to you?’
‘Not a word to anyone,’ the old clerk replied.
Ochocki shook his head. ‘It had to happen,’ he muttered.
‘Why did it have to happen?’ Rzecki burst forth. ‘Is he a bankrupt, then, or unemployed? A store like his, a company, are they nothing? Couldn’t he have married a pretty, fine woman?’
‘Other such women are still to be found,’ Ochocki interposed, ‘and they would do very well,’ he said, in a more lively way, ‘though not for a man with his disposition.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ Rzecki asked, to whom a conversation about Wokulski caused as much pleasure as though it had been about his mistress, ‘what do you mean by that? Did you get to know him well?’ he asked, insistently, and his eyes sparkled.
‘It was easy to know him. He was, in a word, a man of wide soul.’
‘Just so!’ cried Rzecki, waving his hand and gazing at Ochocki with admiration. ‘But what did you mean by “wide soul”? Well said! Explain yourself, though — and clearly!’
Ochocki smiled. ‘You see, sir,’ he said, ‘people with small souls are only concerned with their own matters, they don’t think beyond the present day, and they have a horror of unknown things. Providing they are at ease and well-fed … But a fellow like Wokulski concerns himself with the interests of thousands, sometimes he looks decades ahead, and any unknown or unresolved thing attracts him irresistibly. It isn’t social benefaction, but a force. Just as iron moves to a magnet, or a bee adheres to its hive without thinking, so this kind of man is drawn to all ideas and unusual work.’
Rzecki pressed both his hands and trembled with emotion. ‘Szuman …’ he said, ‘the wise doctor Szuman declares Wokulski is a nincompoop, a Polish Romantic.’
‘Szuman’s a fool, with that Jewish classicism of his!’ Ochocki replied. ‘He doesn’t even suspect that civilisation wasn’t created by Philistines or by businessmen, but by just such nincompoops … If sense was a matter of thinking about income, people would still be apes.’
‘Blessed words … Beautiful words!’ the old clerk repeated. ‘But pray explain, sir, in what way a man like Wokulski might … so to speak … get involved in trouble?’
‘Frankly, I am surprised it came so late, sir,’ replied Ochocki, with a shrug. ‘After all, I know his life and I know that this man has almost stifled here, ever since his childhood. He had scientific aspirations, but there was no way to satisfy them; he had wide social instincts, but no matter what he touched in that field, all fell through … Even that wretched little company he founded brought nothing but complaints and hatred down on his head.’
‘You are right, sir … You are right,’ Rzecki repeated. ‘And then that Izabela …’
‘Well, she might have satisfied him. With personal happiness, he would have come to terms with his environment more easily, and used up his energies in a way which is possible here. But he made a bad choice.’
‘And what now?’
‘How should I know?’ Ochocki murmured. ‘Today, he is like an uprooted tree. If he finds suitable soil, and he may do so in Europe, and if he still has the energy — then he will set to some kind of work, and who knows but what he won’t really begin living? But if he is worn out, which is also possible at his age …’
Rzecki put a finger to his lips. ‘Hush … Hush!’ he interrupted. ‘Staś has the energy, that he has! He will still go on … on …’
He came away from the window and, leaning against the doorpost, began sobbing. ‘I’m so poorly …’ he said, ‘so upset … Apparently I have heart disease … But it’ll pass, it’ll pass. Only — why did he run away like this? Hide himself? Not write?’
‘Oh, I can understand so well,’ Ochocki exclaimed, ‘that horror a broken man feels for things which remind him of the past. How well I know it, even from my own little experience. Imagine, sir, that when I took my matriculation at the high school, I had to get through the seventh grade Latin and Greek courses in five weeks, for I’d never wanted to study them. Somehow I got through the exam, but I worked so hard before-hand that I overdid things. From then on, I’ve never been able to look at Latin or Greek, or even think about them. I can’t bear to look at the school building, I avoided the fr
iends who studied with me, I even had to leave the apartment where I’d studied night and day. That lasted a few months, and I really didn’t get over it until … Do you know what I did? I threw all the Greek and Latin textbooks into the fire, and burned the horrible things. They smouldered an hour, then I had the ashes thrown into the garbage can, and recovered! Although even to this day, I get palpitations at the sight of Greek letters or Latin irregulars … panis, piscis, crinis … Ugh, how loathsome! So don’t be surprised,’ Ochocki concluded, ‘if Wokulski has gone away to China. Long torment may drive a man out of his senses … Though even that passes …’
‘But at the age of forty-six, sir?’ Rzecki inquired.
‘With his strong organism? His powerful brain? Well, I’ve talked too much … Goodbye to you, sir.’
‘What, are you leaving?’
‘Yes, for St Petersburg,’ Ochocki replied. ‘I have to look after the will of the late Duchess, which her grateful family want to have annulled. I shall probably stay there till the end of October.’
‘As soon as I have news from Staś, I’ll let you know. Just send me your address.’
‘I’ll inform you as soon as I hear something. Although I doubt … Goodbye!’
‘Come back soon!’
The conversation with Ochocki revived Ignacy. The old clerk seemed to have regained strength by talking to a man who not only understood his beloved Staś, but also recalled him in many respects. ‘He was just the very same,’ Rzecki thought. ‘Energetic, sober and yet always full of high impulses.’
We may say that the convalescence of Ignacy began on this day. He left his bed, changed his robe for a frock-coat, spent more time in the store and even went out frequently into the streets. Szuman was delighted with the success of his cure, thanks to which the development of heart disease had been halted. ‘What the future holds,’ he said to Szlangbaum, ‘no one knows. But it’s a fact that the old man has been better for several days. He’s regained his appetite, and above all, his apathy has gone. I had the same experience with Wokulski.’
But in truth, Rzecki was encouraged by the hope that sooner or later, he’d have a letter from his Staś. ‘Perhaps he’s in India by this time,’ he thought, ‘so by the end of September I ought to have news … Well, it’s easy for such things to be delayed: I bet anything that in October…’