The Doll

by Bolesław Prus

  ‘You find slanderers everywhere.’

  ‘But nowhere to such an extent as here. Elsewhere, a parvenu like me would have enemies, but I’d also have recognition that would compensate for the injustices. But here …’

  He made a gesture. I drank up another glass of tea and brandy in one gulp, to give myself courage. Staś, hearing footsteps in the passage, walked to the door. I guessed he was awaiting the Prince’s invitation. My head was already whirling, so I asked: ‘And do the people for whose sake you’re selling the store appreciate you any better?’

  ‘Suppose they do?’ he asked, pondering.

  ‘And will they love you more than the people you are deserting?’

  He hastened to me and looked me swiftly in the eye. ‘If they do?’ he retorted.

  ‘Are you certain?’

  He cast himself into an armchair. ‘How should I know?’ he murmured, ‘how should I know? What’s certain in this world?’

  ‘Has it never occurred to you,’ I said with increasing boldness, ‘that you may not only be exploited and cheated, but even laughed at and despised? Tell me, have you never thought of that? Anything can happen in the world, so one should take care to avoid, if not disappointment, then at least becoming a laughing-stock. The devil take it!’ I concluded, banging the table with my glass, ‘a man can make a sacrifice if he has the wherewithal, but he cannot let himself be misused.’

  ‘Who is misusing me?’ he cried, rising.

  ‘All the people who don’t respect you as you deserve.’

  My own boldness appalled me, but Wokulski made no reply. He sat down on the sofa and clasped his hands behind his head, a sign of unusual emotion. Then he began talking about the store accounts in a completely calm voice. Towards nine, the door opened and Wokulski’s butler came in. ‘Here’s a letter from the Prince,’ he cried.

  Staś bit his lip and stretched out one hand without rising. ‘Give it to me,’ he said, ‘and go to bed.’

  The servant went out. Staś opened the envelope slowly, read the note — and after tearing it into several pieces — threw it into the stove.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  ‘An invitation to the ball tomorrow,’ he replied, drily.

  ‘Aren’t you going?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of it.’

  I was dumbfounded. And suddenly the most brilliant idea in the world occurred to me. ‘You know,’ said I, ‘maybe we might spend the evening at Mrs Stawska’s tomorrow?’

  He sat up and replied with a smile: ‘Come, that wouldn’t be a bad idea! A most agreeable woman, and I haven’t been there for ages. We must take the opportunity to send a few toys for the little girl.’

  The wall of ice which had formed between us now burst. We both regained our earlier frankness and talked of past times until midnight. On saying goodnight, Staś told me: ‘A man sometimes makes a fool of himself, but sometimes he regains his common sense. May God reward you, my old friend!’

  My dear, beloved Staś! I’ll marry him to Stawska even if I burst in the attempt.

  On the day of the Prince’s ball neither Staś nor Szlangbaum were in the store. I guessed they must be arranging the sale of our business. At any other time, an incident like this would have spoiled my mood for the entire day. But this day I didn’t think once of the disappearance of our firm, and its replacement by a Jewish name-plate. What did the store matter to me, as long as Staś was happy, or had at least got out of his miseries? I must marry him off, come what may …

  That morning I sent Mrs Stawska a note announcing that Wokulski and I were coming for tea that day. I ventured to add a box of toys for Helena. It included a forest with animals, a set of dolls’ furniture, a little tea-set and a brass samovar. Total: 13 roubles, 60 kopeks, with packing.

  I still have to think how to get around Mrs Misiewicz. Then I’ll make a pair of pliers out of Grandma and the little daughter, and will so squeeze the pretty mother by the heart that she’ll have to surrender before Midsummer Day. (Oh, confound it! And that husband abroad? Well, what of him, let him look after himself … Besides, for some ten thousand roubles we’ll get a divorce for desertion and very likely he’s dead.)

  When the store closed, I went to Staś. The footman, holding a starched shirt in one hand, opened the door. Passing the bedroom, I saw a tail-coat over a chair, a waistcoat … Could it be that our visit would come to nothing?

  Staś was reading an English book in his study (God alone knows what he wants with studying English! A man can marry even if he’s deaf and dumb, after all.) He greeted me cordially, though not without a certain hesitation. ‘I must seize the bull by the horns,’ thought I, and without putting down my cap, I said: ‘Well, come, there’s no point in lingering. Let’s be off, else the ladies will be going to bed.’

  Wokulski laid aside the book, and pondered. ‘A nasty evening,’ he said, ‘it’s snowing.’

  ‘That won’t prevent other people from going to the ball, so why should it spoil our evening?’ I replied, as though I didn’t know what he meant. It was as though I’d stung him. He jumped up, and ordered his great-coat. The servant, as he helped him into it, said: ‘Mind and be back right away, sir, for it’s time to dress, and the barber is coming.’

  ‘No need,’ Staś replied.

  ‘Surely you won’t go dancing without combing your hair?’

  ‘I’m not going to the ball.’

  The servant threw up his hands in surprise, and struck an attitude. ‘Whatever are you thinking of today!’ he cried, ‘you behave as if you was wrong in the head … Mr Łęcki begged you so …’

  Wokulski left the room hastily and slammed the door in the face of his impudent servant. ‘Aha,’ thought I, ‘so the Prince realises Staś may not come, and sent, as it were, his father-in-law with an invitation! Szuman is right to say they won’t want to let go of him, but even so, we’ll get him away from you all!’

  A quarter of an hour later, we were at Mrs Stawska’s. The delight with which we were received! Marianna had spread clean sand in the kitchen, Mrs Misiewicz had on a silk, snuff-coloured dress, and Mrs Stawska had such fine eyes, a blush and lips that a man could have kissed such a pretty woman to death. I don’t want to exaggerate, but goodness me! Staś gazed at her with great attention all evening. He didn’t even have time to notice that little Helena was wearing a new scarf.

  What an evening it was! How Mrs Stawska thanked us for the toys, how she sweetened Wokulski’s tea for him, how she brushed him with the edge of her sleeve several times! Even today, I am sure that Staś will come here as often as possible, at first with me, then later — without.

  In the middle of supper, a good or perhaps bad spirit directed Mrs Misiewicz’s eyes to the Courier. ‘Just look, Helena,’ she said to her daughter, ‘there’s a ball tonight at the Prince’s.’

  Wokulski grew sombre and instead of gazing into Mrs Stawska’s eyes, began staring at his plate. Taking courage, I remarked, not without irony: ‘Just think of all the fine company to be at such a one’s as the Prince’s! Costumes, refinement …’

  ‘Not as fine as you might suppose,’ the old lady replied. ‘Often the dresses aren’t paid for, and as for refinement! One thing is certain — it’ll be one thing in the drawing-room with the counts and princes, but another in the cloakroom, with the poor people.’

  How very apt the old lady was, with her criticism. ‘Just listen to her, Staś,’ I thought, and I went on to inquire: ‘So great ladies aren’t very refined in the way they treat working girls?’

  ‘My dear sir!’ replied Mrs Misiewicz, with a wave of the hand, ‘we know one shop-girl those ladies give work to, for she is very clever and cheap. Sometimes she’s in floods of tears when she comes back from them. How often she has to wait to fit a dress, to make improvements, for the bill! And their tone of voice in conversation, such rudeness, such bargaining … This shop-girl says (upon my word!) that she’d sooner deal with four Jewish women than with one great lady. Though no doubt nowadays the Jewess
es have become spoiled too: when one of ’em gets rich, she starts talking nothing but French, bargaining, complaining …’

  I wanted to ask if Miss Łęcka dressed with this shop-girl. But I was sorry for Staś. His face had changed so, poor devil.

  After tea, Helena began setting up the toys she’d just received on the carpet, exclaiming with joy; Mrs Misiewicz and I sat by the windows (the old lady just can’t keep away from those windows!), while Wokulski and Mrs Stawska installed themselves on the couch: she had some sewing, he a cigarette.

  As the dear old lady began telling me with the utmost enthusiasm what an excellent county prefect her late husband had been, I didn’t hear very much of what Mrs Stawska and Wokulski were saying. But it must have been interesting, for they said in low voices: ‘I saw you, madam, at the Carmelites, at the graves.’

  ‘And I recall you best, sir, when you came to the apartment house where we were living, last summer. And I don’t know why, but it seemed to me …’

  ‘And the trouble there was with the passports! … Goodness knows who collected them, who he gave them back to, whose names he wrote in them …’ Mrs Misiewicz was telling me.

  ‘Of course, as often as you please,’ said Mrs Stawska, blushing.

  ‘And I won’t be intruding?’

  ‘A charming couple,’ I said in an undertone to Mrs Misiewicz.

  She glanced at them and replied, sighing: ‘What of it, even supposing poor Ludwik is dead?’

  ‘Let’s trust in God …’

  ‘That he’s alive?’ asked the old lady, not betraying any delight at all.

  ‘No, I don’t mean that …’

  ‘Mama, I want to go to bed now,’ Helena exclaimed.

  Wokulski rose from the sofa and bade goodbye to both ladies. ‘Who knows,’ thought I, ‘if the fish hasn’t taken the bait?’

  Outdoors snow was still falling: Staś accompanied me home and waited in the sledge until I’d entered the gate, I don’t know why. I walked in, then paused in the passage. And only then, when the door-man had shut the gate, did I hear the bells of the departing sledge in the street. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ I thought. ‘Let’s see where you’re off to now.’

  I dropped in at my room, put on my old greatcoat and top-hat and thus disguised went out half an hour later into the streets. Staś’s apartment was in darkness, so he wasn’t home. Where might he be? I hailed a passing sledge and got out a few minutes later not far from the Prince’s house. Several carriages were standing in the street, others still driving up; already the first floor was lit up, music playing, and in the windows, dancing shadows fluttered past from time to time. ‘Miss Łęcka is there,’ thought I, and somehow my heart ached.

  I looked around. Goodness, what clouds of snow! I could barely see the gas-lights flickering in the wind. Bed-time.

  Wanting to hail a sledge, I crossed the street, and … almost bumped into Wokulski … standing under a tree, covered with snow, staring into the windows: ‘So that’s it! Even if it’s the death of me, my friend, you’re to marry Mrs Stawska!’

  Faced with this peril, I decided to act energetically. Next morning I went to Szuman, and said: ‘Do you know, doctor, what has happened to Staś?’

  ‘What, did he break a leg?’

  ‘Worse. Despite being invited twice, he wasn’t at the Prince’s ball but around midnight he disappeared from his house, and there, standing out in the snow, he watched the windows. Do you understand me?’

  ‘I do. No need to be a psychiatrist, for that.’

  ‘So,’ I went on, ‘I have decided irrevocably to marry off Staś this year, even before Midsummer Day.’

  ‘To Miss Łęcka?’ the doctor caught me up. ‘I’d advise you not to get involved in that.’

  ‘Not to Miss Łęcka, but to Mrs Stawska.’

  The doctor began tapping his head: ‘It’s a madhouse,’ he cried. ‘Everyone included … You obviously have water on the brain, Mr Rzecki,’ he added, a moment later.

  ‘You insult me, sir!’ I cried impatiently.

  He stopped, seized my lapels and said crossly: ‘Listen to me, sirrah … I’ll use a simile you ought to understand. If you have a drawer full of wallets, for example, could you put ties in the same drawer? You couldn’t. So, if Wokulski has his heart full of Miss Łęcka, how can you push Mrs Stawska in?’

  I disentangled his hands from my lapels, and replied: ‘I’d take out the wallets and put the ties in, d’you see, learned sir?’

  And I left at once, for his arrogance vexed me. He thinks he has a monopoly of common sense. From the doctor I went to Mrs Misiewicz. Mrs Stawska was at her store, I sent Helena into the other room to her toys, sat myself down with the old lady and began without more ado: ‘Dear madam! Do you think that Wokulski is an honourable man?’

  ‘Oh, my dear Mr Rzecki, how can you ask such a thing? He lowered the rent in his own house for us, saved Helena from disgrace, gave her a position at seventy-five roubles, sent little Helena ever so many toys …’

  ‘Very well,’ I interrupted, ‘if you agree, madam, that he is a fine man, you must also admit, in the utmost secrecy, that he is very unfortunate.’

  ‘For goodness sake!’ the old lady crossed herself, ‘he unfortunate, who has such a store, a company, a huge fortune? He who recently sold his apartment house! Unless he has debts I know nothing of.’

  ‘Not a penny,’ I said, ‘and, after settling his business affairs, he has some six hundred thousand roubles, although two years ago he only had thirty thousand, plus the store of course. But, madam, money isn’t everything, for a man has a heart as well as a pocket-book.’

  ‘Yet I hear he’s getting married, to a pretty young lady, a Miss Łęcka.’

  ‘That is his misfortune: Wokulski cannot, must not marry her.’

  ‘Is there something the matter with him? Such a healthy man …’

  ‘He must not marry Miss Łęcka, she is no match for him. He needs a wife like …’

  ‘Like my Helena!’ Mrs Misiewicz interposed promptly.

  ‘That’s it!’ I cried, ‘and not only like her, but her in person. Her very self, Mrs Helena Stawska is what we need for his wife.’

  The old lady burst into tears: ‘Do you know, my dear Mr Rzecki, that this is my fondest wish? For I’ll give my word that good Ludwik is dead … I’ve dreamed of him so often, and every time he was either naked, or somehow different from what he used to be …’

  ‘Besides,’ said I, ‘even if he isn’t dead, we’ll get a divorce.’

  ‘That’s it! Everything can be got for money.’

  ‘Just so! The whole point is that Mrs Stawska mustn’t be obstinate.’

  ‘Worthy Mr Rzecki!’ cried the dear old lady, ‘she, I promise you, is in love, poor little thing, with Wokulski. Her good humour is gone, she doesn’t sleep nights, only sighs, the poor little woman’s growing thin, and when you both were here yesterday, something happened to her … I, her own mother, didn’t recognise her.’

  ‘So! Basta!’ I interrupted, ‘my hand on it that Wokulski will be here as often as possible, and you … Pray make Mrs Stawska well disposed to him. We’ll tear Staś out of the hands of that Miss Łęcka, and … surely, by midsummer, the wedding …’

  ‘For goodness sake — but what about poor Ludwik?’

  ‘He’s dead, he’s dead,’ said I, ‘I give my word he is.’

  ‘Hm, in that case, God’s will be done …’

  ‘Only pray keep it a secret. There’s a great deal at stake.’

  ‘What do you take me for, Mr Rzecki,’ said the old lady, offended. ‘Here,’ she added, tapping her bosom, ‘here all secrets are buried as though they were in a tomb. And especially the secret of my own child and that noble man.’

  Both of us were deeply moved. ‘Well, now,’ said I after a moment, getting ready to take my leave, ‘could anyone have supposed that such a small thing as a doll might help make two people happy?’

  ‘A doll? How so?’

  ‘How so? Why, if M
rs Stawska hadn’t bought the doll in our store, there’d have been no court case, Staś wouldn’t have worried about Mrs Stawska’s fate, Mrs Stawska wouldn’t have fallen in love with him, so they wouldn’t have got married … For, strictly speaking, if any warm feeling has been aroused in Staś for Mrs Stawska, it’s only since the court case.’

  ‘Aroused, you say?’

  ‘Hm! Didn’t you see how they were whispering yesterday, on that couch? Wokulski hasn’t been so lively for a long time, nor so excited as yesterday.’

  ‘Heaven has sent you, my dear Mr Rzecki!’ cried the old lady, and on bidding her farewell, she kissed my brow.

  Today I’m really pleased with myself and even if I didn’t want to, would have to admit I have the brains of Metternich. How I came upon the notion of Staś falling in love with Mrs Stawska, how I arranged everything so as not to be interrupted … Today I haven’t the slightest doubt that both Mrs Stawska and Wokulski have fallen into the trap. She has been growing thin for several weeks (but is still prettier, the mischievous thing!) and he’s quite lost his head. Providing he isn’t at the Łęckis in the evening, which rarely happens in any case, for that young lady is everlastingly at balls, then the young fellow goes over to Mrs Stawska’s, and stays there up to midnight. And how lively they are, as he tells her tales of Siberia, Moscow, Paris … I know this because Mrs Misiewicz tells me everything next day, as the greatest secret, of course.

  Only one thing I didn’t like. On learning that Wirski sometimes visits our ladies to let off steam, I set off to warn him. I was just leaving home, when I met Wirski in the passage. Of course I turned back, lit the lamp, we talked a little about politics … Then I changed the subject, and began formally: ‘I have to inform you, confidentially …’

  ‘I know what you mean!’ he said, laughing.

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘Why, that Wokulski is in love with Mrs Stawska!’

  ‘Good God,’ I cried, ‘whoever told you?’

  ‘First of all, don’t be afraid of betraying a secret,’ he said, gravely, ‘because in our house, the secret is as good as buried in a well.’