The Doll

by Bolesław Prus

  Thus, though Szlangbaum is a decent citizen in the fullest sense, yet no one likes him since he has the misfortune to be a Hebrew…In general, I have noticed over the last year or two that dislike of the Hebrews is increasing; even people who, a few years ago, called them Poles of the Mosaic persuasion, now call them Jews. And those who recently admired their hard work, their persistence and their talents, today only see their exploitation and deceit.

  When I hear such things, I sometimes think a spiritual twilight is falling on mankind, like night. By day all is nice, cheerful and good; at night, all is dark and dangerous. I think this, but can say nothing; for what does the opinion of an old clerk matter in the face of well-known journalists who can prove that Jews use Christian blood on their matzos, and should have their rights restricted. The bullets overhead, Katz, whistled a very different tune…

  This state of affairs affects Szlangbaum in a peculiar manner. Only a year ago, he called himself Szlangowski, he celebrated Easter and Christmas, and I am sure the most pious Catholic did not eat as much sausage-meat as he. I remember he was once asked in a café: ‘Don’t you care for ice-cream, Mr Szlangowski?’

  And he replied: ‘I prefer sausages, but without garlic. I can’t abide garlic.’

  He came back from Siberia with Staś and Dr Szuman, and at once found work in a Christian shop, though Jews offered him better pay. From that time on he has always worked for Christians, and not until this year was he sacked. Early in May he came to ask a favour of Staś.

  ‘Staś,’ he said humbly, ‘I will drown in Nalewki Street unless you help me.’

  ‘Why didn’t you come to me before?’ Staś asked.

  ‘I did not dare. I was afraid they might say of me that a Jew will creep in anywhere. And I would not have come today but for my children.’ Staś shrugged and at once took Szlangbaum on at wages of fifteen hundred roubles a year.

  The new clerk set to work at once, but half an hour later Lisiecki muttered to Klein: ‘What in the world stinks so of garlic, Mr Klein?’ Then, fifteen minutes after that, I don’t know why he added: ‘How these swines of Jews creep into the Krakowskie Przedmieście! Why don’t they stay in Nalewki or Świętojerska?’

  Szlangbaum was silent, though his red eyelids quivered. Fortunately Wokulski overheard both taunts. He rose from his desk and said in a tone which, I must say, I didn’t like: ‘Mr…Mr Lisiecki! Mr Henryk Szlangbaum was my colleague at a time when things were going very badly. So why not allow him to be my colleague today, when things are somewhat better?’ Lisiecki was embarrassed, realising that his job hung on a thread. He bowed, muttered something, then Wokulski went over to Szlangbaum and embraced him; ‘My dear Henryk, do not take these little things too much to heart, for we here appreciate each other as colleagues. I assure you that if you ever quit this store it will be with me.’

  Szlangbaum’s situation at once improved; today the others would sooner taunt (even insult) me than him. But has he found a defence against insinuations, looks and glances?…And all this is poisoning the poor fellow’s existence, so he sometimes tells me with a sigh: ‘If I weren’t afraid my children would become Jewish, I’d go and settle down in Nalewki once and for all.’

  ‘Then why, Henryk,’ I asked him, ‘don’t you get christened and have it over with?’

  ‘I’d have done so years ago, but not now. Today, I understand that as a Jew I am only despised by Christians, but as a convert I’d be despised by Christians and Jews alike. After all, I must live somewhere. Anyway,’ he added, more quietly, ‘I have five children and a rich father, whose heir I am…’

  This is strange. Szlangbaum’s father is an usurer, but his son, so as not to take a penny-piece from him, stays poor and works as a clerk.

  Sometimes I talk frankly about him to Lisiecki: ‘Why do you persecute him?’ I ask. ‘He conducts his house in a Christian manner and even has a Christmas tree for his children.’

  ‘Because he thinks’, said Lisiecki, ‘that it is more profitable to eat matzo with sausage than by itself.’

  ‘He was in Siberia, exposed to danger…’

  ‘Yes, but for profit…And it was for profit that he called himself first Szlangowski, and now Szlangbaum, because his old man has asthma.’

  ‘You mocked him for dressing up in peacock feathers, so he went back to using his old name.’

  ‘For which he’ll get a hundred thousand roubles when his father dies,’ Lisiecki replied.

  Then it was my turn to shrug and fall silent. It was wrong to call himself Szlangbaum, but Szlangowski was just as bad: wrong to be a Jew, wrong to be a convert…Night is falling: a night in which everything looks grey and uncertain…

  Moreover, Staś suffers for this. Not only did he take Szlangbaum into the shop, but he also supplies goods to Jewish merchants and has let several Jews into his firm. Our own people protest and threaten, but Staś is not to be frightened: he is determined and will not yield, even if they boiled him in oil. How will this all end, for goodness sake?

  But in straying thus from my subject I have forgotten several very important details. I have in mind Mraczewski, who has for some time either been thwarting my plans or deliberately leading me into error. The lad was dismissed from our shop because he was rather insulting about Socialists in the presence of Wokulski. Later, however, Staś allowed himself to be persuaded and immediately after Easter he sent Mraczewski to Moscow and even raised his wages. For more than one evening I have pondered over the meaning of this journey, or rather exile. But when, three weeks ago, Mraczewski came thence to collect goods, I comprehended Staś’s plan at once.

  Physically, the young man had changed little: always talkative and handsome, but perhaps somewhat paler. He said he liked Moscow, particularly the local women, who had more experience and spirit, and fewer prejudices than ours. I too, when young, used to think that women had fewer prejudices than today.

  All this is merely an introduction. For Mraczewski brought with him three very dubious individuals, whom he called ‘prikashchiki’, and a whole package of pamphlets. The ‘prikashchiki’ were supposed to see about something or other in the shop, but they did so in such a manner that none of us caught sight of them. They wandered about the town for days at a time, and I would take my oath they were preparing the way for a revolution in our country. Seeing that I had my eye on them, they always feigned drunkenness whenever they came near the shop, and talked to me about nothing but women, claiming—despite Mraczewski—that Polish women were ‘stunning’—only very like Jewesses. I pretended to believe everything they said, and discovered by means of skilful questioning that the districts they knew best were those around the Citadel prison. It was there that they conducted most business. And that my guesses were well founded was shown by the fact that these ‘prikashchiki’ even attracted the attention of the police. Within ten days at most, they have been taken three times to police-stations. Clearly, they must have important contacts, for they were freed.

  When I communicated my suspicions of these ‘prikashchiki’ to Staś, he merely smiled and replied: ‘This is only the beginning!…’ From this, I conclude that Staś must have gone far in his relations with the nihilists.

  But, pray picture my amazement when, having invited Klein and Mraczewski to my room for tea, I discovered that Mraczewski is a worse Socialist than Klein…This Mraczewski who lost his position in our shop for insulting Socialists! I was struck dumb with amazement for the entire evening; only Klein was quietly gratified, while Mraczewski talked. I have never heard anything like it in all my life! This young man proved to me, by quoting very clever people, that all capitalists are criminals, that the earth ought to belong to those who cultivate it, that factories, coal-mines and machines ought to be the property of everyone, that there is no God or Soul which priests invented to trick people into paying tithes. He added that when they start the revolution (he and the three ‘prikashchiki’), then we shall all work only eight hours a day, and enjoy ourselves for the rest of the time, even t
hough everyone will have a pension when old, and a free funeral. Finally he said that paradise will not come to this world until everything is held in common: the earth, buildings, machines and even wives.

  As I am a bachelor (people even call me an old one) and am writing this journal honestly, I must confess that this communality of wives rather pleased me. I must even say that I gained some sympathy for Socialism and the Socialists. But why do they have to have a revolution, when people might have wives in common without it? This was what I thought, but Mraczewski himself cured me and at the same time thwarted my plans very badly.

  In passing, I must say I sincerely wish Staś would marry. If he had a wife, he would not consult so often with Collins and Mrs Meliton, and if children came along he might break off his dubious contacts. For how can a man like him, with his military nature, be in contact with people who will certainly never go openly into battle against the armed enemy? Neither Hungarian nor any other infantry would fire at a disarmed opponent. But times are changing. So I very much want Staś to marry and I think I have found him a partner.

  Sometimes our emporium (as was our shop) is visited by a lady of extraordinary charm. Dark-haired, with grey eyes, wonderfully beautiful features, imposing stature and tiny hands and feet—perfection itself! I once saw her getting out of a droshky, and must say that what I caught sight of made me quite feverish…Oh, honest Staś would find great comfort in her, for she is well proportioned, her lips like ripe berries…and her bosom! When she comes in, dressed up to the nines, I think an angel has entered, its wings folded over its bosom…

  I believe she is a widow, for I never see her with a husband, only with her little daughter Helena, who is pretty as a picture too. If Staś marries her, he would have to break once and for all with the Nihilists, because any time left over from looking after his wife, would be spent caressing her child. But such a wife would not leave him much free time.

  I had already formulated my plan and was wondering how to make the lady’s acquaintance and introduce Staś to her, when suddenly the devil brought Mraczewski back from Moscow. Pray imagine my vexation when, on the day after his arrival, the young scamp came into the shop with my widow! And how he fussed around her, how he rolled his eyes, how he strove to guess her every thought…Fortunately I am not a stout man, for this impudent flirtation would surely have brought on an apoplectic stroke.

  When he came in again a few hours later, I asked him with the most indifferent expression in the world who the lady had been. ‘You like her?’ he said, ‘champagne…not a woman,’ he added, winking shamelessly, ‘but she’s not for you, she’s wild about me…Oh, my dear sir, what temperament, what a figure! If you knew what she looks like in a peignoir.’

  ‘I thought as much, Mr Mraczewski,’ I replied, sternly.

  ‘But what have I said?’ he protested, rubbing his hands in a manner that struck me as lustful, ‘I’m saying nothing! The greatest virtue a man can have, Mr Rzecki, is discretion, particularly in the more confidential relationships…’

  I interrupted him, feeling I would despise him if he went on. What times these are, what people! For had I the good fortune to attract the attentions of such a lady, I would not even dare to think of such things, let alone shout them at the top of my voice in a store the size of ours. But when in addition, Mraczewski unfolded to me his theory of the communality of wives, I at once thought: ‘Staś a nihilist, and Mraczewski a nihilist too…So let the first marry and the second will then introduce communality…But it would be a shame for Mraczewski to get a woman like that.’

  At the end of May Wokulski decided to have our shop blessed. On this occasion I noticed once again how times are changing. In my young days too, merchants used to have their shops blessed, making sure that the ceremony was carried out by an elderly and pious priest, that there was genuine holy water, a new censer and an organist fluent in Latin. After the ceremony, during which almost every cupboard and object was sprinkled and prayed over, a horseshoe would be nailed over the threshold of the shop to attract customers. Only then did they think of something to eat and drink—usually a glass of vodka, sausages and beer. But nowadays (what would the contemporaries of old Mincel have had to say?) the first question is how many cooks and footmen will be required, how many bottles of champagne, how much wine and what sort of a dinner will be served? For the dinner was the main attraction of the ceremony, since the guests were not concerned with who is to perform the blessing, but what would be served at the dinner.

  The evening before the ceremony, a dumpy, sweating individual rushed into the shop: I could not say whether his collar had dirtied his neck, or vice versa. He produced a thick notebook from his worn overcoat, put on a greasy pince-nez and began walking about with an expression that alarmed me. ‘What the devil?…’ thought I, ‘can he be from the police, or is he the landlord’s secretary making an inventory?’ I crossed his path in order to ask him, as civilly as could be, what he wanted.

  But the first time he muttered: ‘Please don’t interrupt,’ and the second he unceremoniously pushed me aside. My amazement was all the greater, for some of our gentlemen bowed to him very politely and rubbed their hands, as though in the presence of a bank-manager at least, and explained everything to him.

  ‘Well,’ said I to myself, ‘the poor devil can hardly be from the insurance company. They don’t employ such shabby fellows.’

  Finally Lisiecki whispered to me that the gentleman was a very eminent journalist, who was going to describe us in the newspaper. I grew excited to think that I might see my own name in print, something which has only happened once before, when it appeared in the Police Gazette after I lost my identity papers. In a moment I realised that everything about this man was great: a great head, a great notebook and a very great hole in the sole of his left shoe. But he kept walking about the shop, puffed up like a turkey-cock, and writing away…

  At length he said: ‘Hasn’t there been any kind of incident here lately? A small fire, a burglary, an embezzlement, a fight?’

  ‘God forbid,’ I ventured to put in.

  ‘That is a shame,’ he replied, ‘the finest advertisement for a shop would be if someone were to hang himself in it…’

  I turned to stone on hearing this. ‘Perhaps the gentleman’, I ventured with a bow, ‘would select some small object or other which we shall send without obligation…’

  ‘A bribe?’ he asked, eyeing me as if I were Copernicus’s statue, ‘we are in the habit,’ he added, ‘of buying what we fancy: we take bribes from no one.’ He put on his greasy top-hat and walked out, with his hands in his pockets, like a minister. But when he was on the other side of the street I could still see the hole in his shoe.

  I must revert to the blessing ceremony. The main part of the proceedings, i.e. the dinner, took place in the great hall of the Europejski Hotel. The hall was adorned with flowers, huge tables placed in a horseshoe, music brought, and at six that evening, some hundred and fifty people gathered. Who was not present! Mainly merchants and manufacturers from Warsaw, the provinces, Moscow, even Vienna and Paris. There were also two counts, a prince and a quantity of gentlefolk. I will not mention the drink, for I do not know which there was more of—leaves on the vegetation adorning the hall, or bottles. The entertainment cost us three thousand roubles, but the sight of so many people eating was truly impressive.

  When the Prince rose and drank Staś’s health, when the music struck up (I don’t know what the tune was, but something very pretty), and a hundred and fifty people roared: ‘Long live Wokulski!’ then I had tears in my eyes. I hurried to him and whispered as I congratulated him: ‘See how they love you!’

  ‘They love the champagne,’ he replied. I saw that the cheers meant nothing to him. He did not even smile when one of the speakers (who must have been a literary gentlemen, for he said a great deal and made no sense) said that either in his own name or that of Wokulski (I forget which) this was the finest day of his life. I noticed that Wokulski mostly stayed nea
r Łęcki, who is said to have frequented European royalty before his bankruptcy…Always these wretched politics…

  At the start of the banquet everything was very seemly: now and then one of the guests rose and made a speech, as if to talk off the wine he had drunk and the food he had eaten. But as more and more empty bottles were removed, so the decorum disappeared in proportion, and finally there was so much din that it almost drowned the band. I was as cross as the devil himself, and wanted to scold someone, even if only Mraczewski. Drawing him away from the table I only managed to say: ‘What is all this for?’

  ‘For?’ he echoed, gazing blankly at me, ‘it’s for Miss Łęcka…’

  ‘Are you mad? What’s for Miss Łęcka?’

  ‘These business deals…the store…this dinner…all for her…And it was because of her that I was kicked out of the shop,’ said Mraczewski, leaning on me for he couldn’t keep his feet.

  ‘What?’ I asked, seeing he was quite tipsy, ‘so you were kicked out of the shop on her account, were you? And perhaps it was on her account that you were sent to Moscow?’

  ‘Of course it was…of course. She whispered one little word.…And I got three hundred roubles a year more. Iza can make the old man do anything she wants.’

  ‘Come, off to bed with you,’ I said.

  ‘Certainly not…I’m going to join my friends…Where are they? They’d handle Iza better…She wouldn’t lead them a dance as she does the old man…Where are my friends?’ he began shouting. Naturally I had him taken to a room upstairs. I suspect, though, he was only pretending to be tipsy in order to bedevil me.

  By midnight the hall was like a mortuary or hospital; they kept having to take people upstairs or out to a droshky. Finally I found Dr Szuman, who was sober too, and took him to my room for tea.

  Dr Szuman is a Hebrew, but an unusual man for all that. He was once to have been christened, for he fell in love with a Christian girl, but as she died he left matters alone. People even say he poisoned himself from grief, but was saved. Today he has quite abandoned his medical practice. He has a large fortune, and busies himself with investigating people and their hair. A small, yellow man, he has an alarming gaze before which nothing can be hidden. But as he has known Staś for years, he must know all his secrets.