By the window stood the same black table, covered with a cloth once green, but now merely stained. On it were a large black inkwell and a large black sand-box fastened to the same base, with a pair of brass candlesticks for tallow candles which these days no one ever lit, and steel snuffers with which no one ever snuffed. An iron bed with a very thin mattress, a musket on the wall that no one ever fired, beneath the bed, a box containing a guitar and reminiscent of an infant’s coffin, a narrow leather sofa, two chairs also in leather, a large metal wash-basin and a small dark red cupboard — these constituted the furnishings of the room which, because of its length and darkness, looked more like a grave than a dwelling.
In a quarter of a century, neither the room nor the ways of Ignacy Rzecki had changed.
In the mornings he woke at six: for a while he listened to make sure the watch on the chair was still going, and looked at its hands which stood in one straight line. He wanted to get up at leisure, without undue haste: but because his cold feet and somewhat stiff arms were not sufficiently obedient to his bidding, he would jump out of bed, rapidly hop into the centre of the room and, after tossing his nightcap on the bed, run to the big wash-basin by the stove, and wash from tip to toe, neighing and snorting like a thoroughbred remembering a gymkhana.
During the rites of drying himself with a rough towel, he looked down with relish at his skinny calves and hairy chest, muttering: ‘I’m putting on weight, that I am …’
At the same time his old, one-eyed poodle, Ir, would jump off the sofa, shaking himself vigorously, no doubt to rid himself of dreams, and scratch at the door, behind which someone was heard industriously puffing at the samovar. Still hastily dressing, Rzecki let the dog out, said good morning to the servant, got the tea-pot out of the cupboard, misbuttoned his cuffs, ran into the yard to see what the weather was like, burned his tongue with hot tea, combed his hair without looking into the glass, and was ready by half-past six.
Making sure his tie was on, and his watch and wallet in his pocket, Ignacy took the big key from his table and, stooping a little, ceremoniously unlocked the door of the back shop, which was fastened with an iron bar. He and the servant went in, lit a few little gas-jets and, while the servant was sweeping the floor, Ignacy perused his timetable for the day through his eye-glasses:
‘Put 800 roubles into the bank, hm … Three albums and a dozen wallets to be dispatched to Lublin … That’s it! An order to Vienna for 1,200 guldens … Fetch the delivery from the railroad depot … Tell off that saddler for not sending the cases … A mere nothing, to be sure! Write to Staś … Oh, a mere nothing …’
When he had finished, he would light a few more gas-jets and by their glare would survey the merchandise in the showcases and cupboards.
‘Cuff-links, pins, wallets … good! … Gloves, fans, neck-ties, that’s it! … Walking-sticks, umbrellas, travelling bags … And here, albums, handbags … The blue one was sold yesterday, of course … Candlesticks, ink-wells, paper weight … The porcelain … why did they turn that vase around, I wonder? Surely? … No, no damage … Dolls with genuine hair, the puppetshow, the merry-go-round … Must put that merry-go-round in the window tomorrow, the fountain is already out of date … Oh, a mere nothing, to be sure! It’s almost eight o’clock … I’ll wager that Klein will be first, and Mraczewski last. Of course! … He met some governess or other and bought her a handbag on his account, and with a discount … As long as he doesn’t start buying without a discount and without a bill …’
So he muttered to himself and walked about the shop, stooping, his hands in his pockets, with the poodle following. When his master stopped and eyed an object, the dog would sit down and scratch his thick curls with his hind leg, while the dolls, large, medium and small, blond and brunette, standing in the cupboard in a row, would stare back at them with lifeless eyes.
The passage door squeaked and Klein, the lanky assistant, appeared with a dismal smile on his livid lips.
‘Just as I thought. Good morning to you,’ said Rzecki ‘Paweł! Turn off the lights and open the door!’
The servant shuffled heavily over and turned off the gas. After the rattling of bolts, the creaking of iron bars, daylight, the only customer who never fails, came into the store. Rzecki sat down at the cash desk by the window, Klein took his regular stand at the porcelain.
‘The master isn’t back yet, haven’t you received a letter?’ Klein inquired.
‘I expect him back in mid-March, within a month at most.’
‘Providing another war doesn’t keep him.’
‘Staś … that’s to say Mr Wokulski,’ Rzecki corrected himself, ‘writes to me that there will be no war.’
‘But stocks are falling and I read that the British fleet has set out for the Dardanelles.’
‘That’s nothing, there’ll be no war,’ Rzecki sighed. ‘Besides, how could a war concern us if no Bonaparte takes part in it?’
‘The Bonapartes’ career is over.’
‘Is that so?’ Ignacy smiled ironically. ‘For whose benefit, pray, did MacMahon and Ducrot arrange that coup-d’état last January? Believe me, Mr Klein, Bonapartism is still a power to be reckoned with.’
‘There’s one that’s stronger.’
‘What is it?’ Ignacy asked crossly. ‘Gambetta and the Republic, eh? Bismarck, eh?’
‘Socialism …’ whispered the starveling clerk, concealing himself behind the porcelain.
Ignacy put his eyeglasses on more firmly and sat up in his chair as if, with one blow, to overturn any new notions that might contradict his views, but was prevented from doing so by the appearance of the second clerk, the one with the beard.
‘Good morning to you, Mr Lisiecki,’ he turned to the new arrival. ‘A cold day, is it not? What’s the time, my watch must be fast … Surely it is not a quarter after eight yet?’
‘For goodness sake! Your watch is always fast mornings but slow evenings,’ Lisiecki replied sharply, wiping his frost-covered moustache.
‘I’ll wager you played whist all last night?’
‘But of course! Do you think your haberdashery store and your grey hairs suffice a man for a whole day?’
‘Why, sir, I prefer to be a little grizzled than bald,’ Ignacy exclaimed indignantly.
‘For goodness sake!’ Lisiecki hissed. ‘My bald spot, if anyone happens to notice it, is a sad family heirloom, while your grey hair and your nagging ways are the fruits of old age, which … I suppose I ought to respect.’
The first customer entered: it was a woman in a cape with a kerchief around her head, who wanted a brass spittoon … Ignacy bowed and offered her a chair, while Lisiecki disappeared behind the cupboards and came back after a while to hand her the desired object with a dignified gesture. Then he wrote the price of the spittoon on a bill, passed it over his shoulder to Rzecki and retired behind his counter with the air of a banker who has just donated some thousand roubles to charity.
The squabble over grey hair and baldness was laid aside.
Not until nine did Mraczewski enter, or rather rush into the shop; he was a handsome blond young man something over twenty, with eyes like fire, a mouth like coral and a moustache like a poisoned stiletto. He rushed in, bringing a trail of perfume with him, and exclaimed, ‘Upon my word, it must be half-past eight! I’m a scatterbrain, a no-good, yes I am … I’m a wretch, but I couldn’t help it, my mama was taken ill and I had to find a doctor. I tried half a dozen of them…’
‘The ones you give presents of handbags to?’ Lisiecki inquired.
‘Handbags? Goodness, no. Our doctor wouldn’t even accept a tie-pin. He’s an honest man … Mr Rzecki, surely it’s half-past nine? My watch has stopped …’
‘It is nearly nine,’ said Ignacy, with particular emphasis.
‘Is that all? Who’d have thought it? And I’d decided to come first today, even earlier than Mr Klein …’
‘So as to get away before eight, I daresay,’ Lisiecki put in.
Mraczewski fastened up
on him his blue eyes, in which the utmost astonishment appeared.
‘How did you know?’ he asked. ‘Well, upon my word, this fellow must be a prophet. It so happens that today, on my word of honour … I have to be in town before seven, even if it’s the last thing I do, even if … I have to give in my notice.’
‘You can make a start by doing that,’ Rzecki exclaimed, ‘and you’ll be free before eleven, mark my words! You should have been a lord, not a shop-assistant, and it surprises me you never went in for that calling — you’d always have plenty of time then, Mr Mraczewski. Oh yes, indeed!’
‘Come, when you were his age, you ran after skirts too,’ Lisiecki remarked. ‘Why waste time preaching?’
‘I never did!’ cried Rzecki, thumping on the counter.
‘For once, in a way, he admits he’s been useless all his life,’ Lisiecki muttered to Klein, who smiled and raised his eyebrows very high at the same time.
Another customer entered and asked for a pair of galoshes. Mraczewski moved forward to meet him.
‘Galoshes for the gentleman? What size, may I ask? Ah, the gentleman doesn’t recall! Not everyone has the time to remember the size of his galoshes, that is our business. Will the gentleman permit me to measure …? Pray, take a seat. Paweł! Bring the rag, take off the gentleman’s galoshes and wipe his shoes for him …’
Paweł ran up and hurled himself at the newcomer’s feet.
‘If you please …’ the flustered customer began.
‘Allow me …’ said Mraczewski rapidly, ‘that is our duty. I think these will do,’ he went on, proffering a pair of galoshes tied together. ‘Very good, they look fine; you have such a very normal foot, sir, that one can’t go wrong as to size. The gentleman will no doubt require his initials added — what are they?’
‘L. P.,’ the customer muttered, as if drowning in the clerk’s rapid flow of eloquence.
‘Mr Lisiecki, Mr Klein, pray add the initials. Do you require your old galoshes wrapped, sir? Paweł! Wipe the galoshes and wrap them up … But perhaps the gentleman prefers not to carry an unnecessary package? Paweł! Throw the old galoshes away … That comes to two roubles fifty. No one will make off with galoshes that have initials on them, and it is always so disagreeable to find quite worn-out rubbish instead of articles one has just purchased …’
Before the customer could come to his senses, he was fitted with the new galoshes, given his change and conducted to the door with low bows. He stood for a while in the street, vacantly gazing through the glass, behind which Mraczewski bestowed on him a sweet smile and radiant look. Finally he shrugged and went on his way, no doubt thinking to himself that elsewhere galoshes without initials might only have cost ten zloty.
Rzecki turned to Lisiecki and nodded in a manner that signified admiration and satisfaction. Mraczewski caught this from a corner of his eye, ran over to Lisiecki and said in an undertone:
‘Just look, doesn’t our boss look like Napoleon III in profile? That nose … that moustache … that imperial …’
‘Napoleon with gallstones,’ Lisiecki retorted.
Ignacy grimaced with distaste at this witticism. However, Mraczewski got permission to leave before seven that evening, and a few days later acquired a note in Rzecki’s private journal:
‘He was at the Huguenots in the eighth row of the stalls with a certain Matilda …’
Mraczewski might have found some consolation to discover that the same journal contained notes about his colleagues, the cashier, the messenger-boys and even the servant Paweł. How Rzecki knew these and similar details of the lives of his fellow employees is a secret he never confided in anyone.
Towards one o’clock that afternoon, Rzecki handed over the cash-box to Lisiecki whom, despite their continual bickering, he trusted the most, and disappeared into his room to eat dinner brought in from a restaurant. At the same time Klein left, then returned to the shop at two: whereupon he and Rzecki remained on duty while Lisiecki and Mraczewski went for dinner. By three, they were all in their places once more.
At eight in the evening they closed: the clerks went off, and only Rzecki remained behind. He made out the day’s accounts, checked the cash, planned his activities for the morrow and wondered whether everything had been done that should have been done that day. For he paid for any neglected duties with insomnia and dismal dreams of the shop in ruins, of the final decline and fall of the Bonaparte dynasty and with the thought that all the hopes he had ever had in his life were only nonsense.
‘Nothing will ever happen! We’re doomed, and there’s no hope,’ he groaned, tossing on his hard mattress.
But if the day had gone well, Ignacy was content. Then before going to bed he would read the History of the Consulate and Empire, or look at newspaper cuttings of the Italian war of 1859 or sometimes, though less frequently, he would get his guitar out from under the bed and play the Rakoczi March on it, joining in with his feeble tenor.
Then he would dream of the wide Hungarian plains, the blue and white ranks of armies veiled in clouds of smoke … Next morning, however, he was always cross and complained of a headache.
His most agreeable days were Sundays, when he thought over and drew up plans for window displays during the coming week.
His view was that the windows summarised the contents of the store and should at the same time attract the attention of passers-by, either with the smartest merchandise, by handsome window-dressing, or by the use of diverting contrivances. The right-hand windows were earmarked for luxurious articles, usually displaying a bronze bust, a porcelain vase, a whole china set for a boudoir table, around which were arranged albums, fans, wallets and candlesticks accompanied by walking-sticks, umbrellas and innumerable small but elegant objects. In the left-hand window, which contained displays of neck-ties, gloves, galoshes and perfumes, toys, mostly mechanical, occupied the central position.
Sometimes during this solitary task of arranging, the child awoke again in the old clerk. Then he would bring out and set up all the mechanical toys on the table. There was a bear that climbed a post, a cock that crowed, a mouse that ran, a train that ran on rails, a circus clown which trotted along on a horse and pulled another clown behind it, and some couples who waltzed to the strains of indistinct music. Ignacy would wind up these figures and set them all in motion at the same time. And when the cock began to crow, flapping its stiff wings, when the lifeless couples danced jerkily, stopping every now and then, when the leaden passengers in the train began to stare at him in amazement, and when all this world of dolls took on a sort of fantastic life in the flickering gas-light, then the old clerk leaned on his elbow and laughed at them quietly and muttered: ‘Ha ha! Where are you off to, you travellers? And you there, acrobat! Why risk your neck in that fashion? And why do you dancers squeeze one another so tightly? The springs will run down and you’ll end up back in your boxes again … It’s vanity, all vanity! Yet all of you, if you could but think, probably believe this is something very splendid.’
After such soliloquies, he would replace the toys hastily and walk about the deserted store, irritable, followed by his shabby dog.
‘Trade is vanity … politics too … that journey to Turkey as well … Life is mere vanity and folly, of which we’ve forgotten the start and don’t know the end. Where does the truth lie?’
Because he would sometimes make such remarks aloud and in public, Ignacy was regarded as highly eccentric, and solemn matrons with eligible daughters sometimes declared: ‘This is what being a bachelor does to a man!’
Ignacy very rarely left his home, and even then only for short periods, and would usually wander around those streets in which his colleagues and fellow clerks lived. Then his dark-green coat or his tobacco-coloured topcoat, his ash-coloured trousers with the black stripe and his faded top-hat — but most of all his timid manner — attracted general attention. Ignacy knew this and it discouraged him more and more from taking strolls. He preferred to spend holidays lying on the bed and staring for hours
at a time at the barred window, behind which could be seen the grey wall of the neighbouring house, adorned by a solitary window, also barred, in which a pot of butter sometimes stood, or the remains of a hare.
But the less he went out, the more frequently he would dream about a long voyage into the countryside or even abroad. More and more often in these dreams he came across green fields and shady woods, through which he wandered, remembering his youth. Gradually a profound yearning awoke within him for these landscapes, and he decided to go off for the whole summer as soon as Wokulski came back.
‘At least once before I die, for a few months,’ he would tell his colleagues who, for some reason, smiled at these plans.
Voluntarily cut off from nature and humanity, absorbed in the shallow and restricted whirlpool of the shop and its business, he increasingly felt the need to share his thoughts. But because he mistrusted some people and others would not listen to him and because Wokulski was away, Rzecki talked to himself and — with the utmost secrecy — kept his journal.
III
The Journal of the Old Clerk
… I have been noticing for some years, with regret, that there are far fewer good clerks and sensible politicians in the world than there used to be, for everyone imitates the latest fashions. A humble clerk will equip himself every quarter with new-fangled trousers, a more original hat, and will fasten his tie differently. In the same way, politicians today change their beliefs every quarter: once they all believed in Bismarck, yesterday it was Gambetta and today it’s Beaconsfield, who until recently was a Hebrew.