‘And specific gravity?’ asked Wokulski.
‘Listen to me,’ Geist interrupted, ‘and you will soon understand wherein the essence of my discoveries lies, although, I hasten to add, you will be unable to copy them. There are no miracles here, and no trickery; these are things so simple that an elementary school pupil could understand them.’
He took a steel cube from the table and handing it to Wokulski said: ‘Here is a ten-centimetre cube, solid, cast in steel; take it in your hand, how much does it weigh?’
‘Around eight kilograms …’
He handed over another cube of the same size, also steel, asking: ‘And this one?’
‘This one weighs around half a kilogram … But it is hollow …’ replied Wokulski.
‘Excellent! And how much does this cubic frame of steel wire weigh?’ asked Geist, handing it to Wokulski.
‘It weighs a dozen or so grams …’
‘So you see,’ Geist interposed, ‘we have three cubes of the same size and the same substance, but which differ in weight. Why? Because the solid cube has most steel particles, the hollow one fewer, and the wire the least of all. Imagine, then, that instead of using complete particles I succeeded in constructing something made of the frames of particles, and you will understand the secret of the discovery. It depends on a change in the internal structure of materials, which is no novelty even for contemporary chemistry. So, what do you think? …’
‘When I see the specimens, I believe you,’ replied Wokulski, ‘but when I leave this place …’ He made a gesture of despair.
Geist reopened the safe, looked in and produced a small fragment of metal reminiscent of bronze, which he handed to Wokulski: ‘Take this as an amulet against doubting my reason or veracity. This metal is some five times lighter than water, and it will remind you of our meeting. Moreover,’ he added with a smile, ‘it has one great property: it need fear no chemical reactions … It will vanish sooner than betray my secret … And now, be off, Mr Suzin, rest and ponder what you are going to do with yourself.’
‘I’ll come here,’ Wokulski murmured.
‘No, no — not yet,’ Geist replied, ‘you have not yet settled your accounts with the world; and, as I have money for the next few years, I don’t insist … Come back when nothing remains of your earlier illusions.’
He shook him impatiently by the hand, and led him to the door. On the stairs he said goodbye once more and returned to the laboratory. When Wokulski emerged into the yard, the gate was already open, and when he passed through and stood opposite his horse-drawn cab, it slammed shut.
Returning to town, Wokulski first of all bought a golden medallion, placed the fragment of new metal inside it and suspended it around his neck like a scapula. He wanted to go for a stroll, but noticed that the traffic tired him: so he went to his room. ‘Why have I come back here?’ he thought, ‘why don’t I go to Geist’s?’
He sat down in an armchair and lost himself in memories. He saw the Hopfer establishment, the dining-room and the customers who jeered at him: he saw his perpetual motion machine, and the model balloon he tried to steer. He saw Kasia Hopfer who had wasted away for love of him … ‘To work! Why don’t I set to work?’ His gaze mechanically fell on the table, where lay his recently purchased book of Mickiewicz’s poetry: ‘How often I used to read this,’ he sighed, picking it up. The book opened of its own accord, and Wokulski read: ‘I start up, I learn by heart phrases with which to curse your cruelty, learned and forgotten for the millionth time … But when I see you, I cannot understand why I am once again so calm, colder than clay, only to burn again, be silent as before …’
‘I know, now, by whom I am bewitched.’
He felt tears in his eyes, but controlled himself and they did not fall: ‘All of you poets have wasted my life … You have poisoned two generations,’ he whispered, ‘these are the results of sentimental views on love …’
He closed the book and hurled it into a corner, so that the pages fell apart. It bounced back from the wall, fell into the wash-stand then slithered with a mournful rustling to the floor. ‘Serves you right! That’s the place for you,’ Wokulski thought, ‘for who but you presented love to me as a holy mystery? Who taught me to despise ordinary women, and seek an unattainable ideal? Love is the joy of the world, the sun of life, a cheerful melody in the wilderness, but what did you make of it? A mournful altar, in front of which obsequies are sung over trampled human hearts!’
Then the question struck him: ‘If poetry has poisoned your life, who poisoned poetry? And why did Mickiewicz only yearn and despair, instead of laughing and rejoicing like the French street singers?
‘Because he, like I, loved a high-born lady who was to be the prize not of reason, labour, devotion and sacrifice even of genius but … of money and a title.
‘Poor martyr,’ Wokulski thought, ‘you gave of your finest to the nation, but what fault is it of yours that, in pouring out your own soul, you also poured out the sufferings with which it impregnated you? It is they who are guilty of your, my and our unhappiness.’
He rose and reverently picked up the scattered pages: ‘It is not enough that you were tortured by them, but are you to answer for their crimes as well? It is they who are guilty that your heart, instead of singing, groaned like a cracked bell.’
He lay down on the sofa and again thought: ‘What a strange country mine is, in which two entirely different races have for so long been living side by side: the aristocrats and the commoners. One claims to be a noble plant which has the right to drain dry the clay and manure, and the other either accedes to such claims, or else lacks the strength to protest against the injustice.
‘How did this all work out for the perpetuation of one class and the strangling in the embryo of every other! They believed so strongly in noble birth, that even the sons of artisans and dealers either bought coats of arms or pretended to be impoverished noble countrymen. No one had the courage to declare himself the child of his merits, and even I, fool that I am, spent several hundred roubles on the purchase of a noble patent.
‘Am I to go back there? What for? Here at least I have a nation living by all the talents with which man is endowed. Here the foremost places in society are not occupied by the mildew of dubious antiquity, but by essential forces which strive onwards — labour, intellect, will-power, creativity, knowledge, skill and beauty, and even sincere feelings. There, on the other hand, labour stands in the pillory, and depravity triumphs! He who makes a fortune is called a miser, a skinflint, a parvenu; he who wastes money is called generous, disinterested, open-handed … There, simplicity is eccentric, economy is shameful, artistry symbolised by shabby elbows. There, in seeking to acquire the denomination of a man, one must either have a title and money, or a talent for squeezing into drawing-rooms. Am I to go back there?’
He began to pace the room and count: ‘Geist is one, I am a second, Ochocki a third … We will find at least another two such, and after four or five years we will have exhausted the eight thousand experiments necessary to discover a metal lighter than air. And then what? … What will happen to today’s world at the sight of the first flying machine, without wings, without complicated mechanisms, and durable as an armoured ship?’
It seemed to him that the hum of the street outside his windows was growing and spreading, engulfing the whole of Paris, France, and Europe. And that all human voices melted into a great cry: ‘Glory! … Glory! … Glory! …’
‘Have I gone mad?’ he muttered. Hastily he undid his waistcoat, brought out the golden medallion from beneath his shirt and opened it. The scrap of metal, like brass and as light as a feather, was in its place. Geist had not deceived him; the door to the great invention was open. ‘I’ll stay,’ he whispered. ‘Neither God nor man would forgive me for neglecting this cause.’
Dusk was falling. Wokulski lit the gas lamp over the table, brought out paper and pen, and began writing: ‘Dear Ignacy, I want to discuss very serious matters with you, but as I am not c
oming back to Warsaw, please …’
Suddenly he thrust the pen aside: fear overcame him at the sight of the words he had written — ‘as I am not coming back to Warsaw …’
‘Why not go back?’ he whispered. ‘Yet — why should I? To meet Izabela again, to lose myself again?
‘I must settle these stupid accounts once and for all.’
He walked about, thinking: ‘There are two ways open: one leads to incalculable reforms for humanity, the other to pleasing and perhaps even winning the hand of a woman. Which shall I choose? For it is a fact that every new and important material, every new force has meant a new stage in civilisation. Bronze created classical civilisation, iron the Middle Ages; gunpowder completed the Middle Ages, and coal began the nineteenth century. Why hesitate: Geist’s metal could initiate a civilisation previously only dreamed of, and who knows whether it might not actually ennoble the human species …
‘And, on the other hand, what do I have? … A woman, who would not hesitate to bathe in the presence of a parvenu such as I. What am I in her eyes beside those élegants, for whom empty conversation, a happy idea, and a compliment constitute the most important things in life? What would that pack, not excluding herself, say at the sight of the ragged Geist and his immense discoveries? They are so ignorant, it would not even surprise them.
‘Let us suppose, in the end, that I married her, what then? … The salon of the parvenu would immediately be inundated with all open and secret admirers, cousins of varying degrees, and I don’t know who else! … And once again, I would have to close my eyes to their glances, deafen myself to their compliments, discreetly move away from their confidential conversations — about what? … About my shame or stupidity? …
‘A year of such existence would debase me to the point of lowering myself to suffer jealousy of such individuals …
‘Ah, would I not prefer to throw my heart to a hungry dog than to give it to a woman who cannot even guess at the difference between them and me.
‘Basta! …’
He sat down at the table once again and began a letter to Geist. Suddenly, he stopped: ‘I’m ridiculous,’ he said aloud, ‘I want to commit myself without settling my affairs …’
‘Times have changed,’ he thought. ‘Earlier, a man like Geist would have been the symbol for Satan, with whom an angel in the form of a woman was struggling for a human soul … But today — which is Satan, which the angel?’
Someone knocked. A servant entered and gave Wokulski a long letter: ‘From Warsaw,’ he murmured, ‘Rzecki? Is he writing me another letter? No, it’s from the Duchess … Perhaps to inform me of Izabela’s marriage?’
He tore open the envelope, but hesitated a moment before reading. His heart began beating faster. ‘What difference does it make to me?’ he muttered, and began:
Dear Stanisław, Evidently you are enjoying yourself in Paris, since you have apparently forgotten your friends. And the grave of your poor late uncle is still waiting for the headstone you promised, and also I should like your advice on building a sugar factory, which people are persuading me to undertake in my old age. Shame on you, Stanisław, and in the first place you should be sorry you do not see the blush on the face of Izabela, who is now with me and is quite excited to hear I am writing to you. Dear girl! She is staying with her aunt in the neighbourhood and often visits me. I suspect you caused her some great mortification; so do not delay in apologising, and come as fast as you can, straight to me. Bela will be staying here a few days longer, and perhaps I shall succeed in begging forgiveness for you …
Wokulski jumped up from the table and, opening the window, stood at it to reread the Duchess’s letter; his eyes glittered, a flush broke out on his cheeks. He rang once, again, a third time … Finally he ran into the corridor, shouting: ‘Garçon! Hey, garçon!’
‘Sir …?’
‘My bill!’
‘What bill?’
‘For the past five days. The total, d’you understand?’
‘At once, sir?’ the servant was surprised.
‘At once and … a carriage to the Gare du Nord. At once!’
XXIV
A Man Happy in Love
ON HIS return to Warsaw from Paris, Wokulski found another letter from the Duchess. The old lady entreated him to come at once, and stay a few weeks at her house: ‘Do not think,’ she concluded, ‘that I am inviting you on account of your recent successes, or showing off because I am acquainted with you. This sometimes happens, though not with me. I only want you to rest after your long labours, and perhaps relax at my house, where in addition to your tedious old hostess, you will also find the company of young and pretty women.’
‘What do young and pretty women concern me!’ Wokulski muttered. The next moment, however, he wondered what successes the Duchess was referring to? Could it be that his profits were known even in the provinces, though he had not mentioned them to anyone?
However, the Duchess’s words soon ceased surprising him when he surveyed his business interests. Since his departure for Paris, the turnover in trade had again increased and went on increasing every week. A dozen or more new merchants had started business dealings with him, and only one of his previous customers had withdrawn, writing to him a sharp letter declaring that as he did not run an arsenal, but an ordinary textile store, he saw no purpose in maintaining further relations with the firm of Mr Wokulski, with which he would settle all accounts by the New Year. The traffic in merchandise was so great that Ignacy, on his own responsibility, had rented a new warehouse, and taken on an eighth clerk and two despatchers.
When Wokulski looked through the ledgers (at Rzecki’s urgent request he set about them a few hours after returning home from the railway station), Ignacy opened the fireproof safe and, with a ceremonious expression, took out from it a letter from Suzin.
‘Why this formality?’ Wokulski asked with a smile.
‘Letters from Suzin must have particular attention,’ Rzecki answered emphatically. Wokulski shrugged and read it. Suzin proposed a new deal for the winter months, almost as important as the Parisian one.
‘What would you say to this?’ he asked Ignacy, having explained what it was about.
‘Staś,’ said the old clerk, looking down, ‘I trust you so implicitly that even if you burned down the city, I’d still feel sure you had done it with a noble aim in mind.’
‘You are an incurable dreamer, old fellow!’ Wokulski sighed, and broke off the conversation. He did not doubt that Ignacy again suspected him of some political machinations.
Rzecki was not the only one to think this. Going home, Wokulski found a whole pile of visiting-cards and letters. During his absence, some hundred influential people, titled and wealthy, had called on him, at least half of whom he did not know. The letters were still more remarkable. They were either requests for assistance, or for recommendations to various civil and military authorities, or else anonymous letters, mostly insulting. One called him a traitor, another a flunkey who had acquired so much skill in servility at Hopfer’s that today he voluntarily put on livery for the aristocracy, if not worse. Another anonymous letter accused him of protecting a woman of bad reputation; yet another reported that Mrs Stawska was a coquette and adventuress and Rzecki a cheat, who was stealing the rent of the newly acquired apartment house and sharing it with the agent, a certain Wirski.
‘Some fine rumours are circulating about me, to be sure,’ thought Wokulski, looking at the heap of papers.
In the street, too, whenever he had time to notice, he realised he was the object of general interest. Many persons bowed to him; sometimes complete strangers pointed to him as he passed; but there were also some who turned away their heads with obvious dislike. Among them he noticed two acquaintances from Irkutsk, which impressed him in a disagreeable manner.
‘What are they up to?’ he thought, ‘have they gone crazy?’
On the day after his return to Warsaw, he replied to Suzin that he accepted the offer, and would go to Mo
scow in mid-October. Late that evening he left for the Duchess’s estate, which lay a few miles from the recently constructed railroad.
He noticed at the railroad station that here, too, his person attracted attention. The station master introduced himself and ordered a separate compartment for him; the chief conductor, showing him to his seat, said that he intended to find him a comfortable place where he might sleep, work or talk without interruption.
After a long delay, the train slowly moved off. It was already deep night, no moon and no clouds, and there were more stars in the sky than usual. Wokulski opened the window and eyed the constellations. Siberian nights came to his mind, when the sky was usually almost pitch black, strewn with stars like a snowstorm, where the Little Bear moved almost overhead, while Pegasus, Hercules and the Heavenly Twins shone lower on the horizon than in his country. ‘Could I, a clerk in Hopfer’s, have known anything of astronomy,’ he thought bitterly, ‘if I had not been there? And should I have heard anything of Geist’s discoveries if Suzin had not forced me to go to Paris?’
And he saw with his inner eye his own long and unusual life, which seemed to extend from the far east to the far west: ‘Everything I know, everything I have, everything I can still achieve, does not come from here. Here I have found only humiliation, envy or applause of dubious value when I was successful: if I had not been successful, those who bow to me today would have trampled me underfoot.’
‘I will leave here,’ he whispered, ‘I’ll go away! Unless she prevents me … For what will my fortune give me, if I cannot use it to suit myself? What is the value of a life spent decaying between the club, my store and drawing-rooms where one has to play whist to avoid gossip, or gossip to avoid playing whist?
‘I wonder,’ he said to himself after a moment, ‘why the Duchess invited me so pointedly? Perhaps it was on Izabela’s account?’ He felt hot and slowly sensed a change take place in his soul. He recalled his father and uncle, Kasia Hopfer, who so loved him, Rzecki, Leon, Szuman, the prince, and many many others, who had shown him proof of undoubted goodwill. What was all his education and wealth worth if he were not surrounded by kindly hearts; what use would Geist’s greatest discovery be if it were not to prove a weapon which would ensure the final victory to a better and nobler race? …
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