The Doll Read Online Free PDF Page A

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.
    â€˜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.
    â€˜The master isn’t back yet, haven’t you received a letter?’ Klein inquired.
    â€˜I expect him back in mid-March, within a month at most.’
    â€˜Providing another war doesn’t keep him.’
    â€˜Staś … that’s to say Mr Wokulski,’ Rzecki corrected himself, ‘writes to me that there will be no war.’
    â€˜But stocks are falling and I read that the British fleet has set out for the Dardanelles.’
    â€˜That’s nothing, there’ll be no war,’ Rzecki sighed. ‘Besides, how could a war concern us if no Bonaparte takes part in it?’
    â€˜The Bonapartes’ career is over.’
    â€˜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.’
    â€˜There’s one that’s stronger.’
    â€˜What is it?’ Ignacy asked crossly. ‘Gambetta and the Republic, eh? Bismarck, eh?’
    â€˜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.
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜For goodness sake! Your watch is always fast mornings but slow evenings,’ Lisiecki replied sharply, wiping his frost-covered moustache.
    â€˜I’ll wager you played whist all last night?’
    â€˜But of course! Do you think your haberdashery store and your grey hairs suffice a man for a whole day?’
    â€˜Why, sir, I prefer to be a little grizzled than bald,’ Ignacy exclaimed indignantly.
    â€˜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