Evidently they forget that one cannot wear fashionable collars in a shop, but just sell them — otherwise there would be no merchandise for the customers. And politicians should not place their hopes in successful individuals, but in great dynasties. Metternich was once as celebrated as Bismarck, Palmerston more so than Beaconsfield — yet who recalls them today? And the Bonaparte family under Napoleon I made Europe tremble, so did Napoleon III, who today, though some say he’s bankrupt, holds sway over the destiny of France through his faithful servants MacMahon and Ducrot.
You’ll see what the young Napoleon IV, now quietly studying the art of war in England, will achieve! But enough of that … In this journal of mine, I want to talk about myself, not of the Bonapartes, so that people may learn how good clerks are created, not to mention sensible (if not learned) politicians. No academies are required for this purpose, merely a good example, both at home and in the shop.
My father was a soldier when young, and in his old age he was a doorman at the Commission of Internal Affairs. He carried himself as erect as a gold block, had small whiskers and a pointed moustache; he wore a black kerchief around his neck and a silver ring in his ear.
We lived in the Old Town with my aunt, who ironed and mended linen for officials. We had two little rooms on the fourth floor, where there was little luxury but much happiness, at least for me. The most impressive object in our little room was the table at which my father would gum envelopes when he came back from work; in aunt’s room, most of the space was taken up by a wash-tub. I remember how I’d fly kites in the street on fine days, or blow soap-bubbles in the apartment when it rained.
The walls of my aunt’s room were entirely hung with portraits of saints; but although there were a great many, they did not equal the number of Napoleons adorning my father’s room. There was one portrait of Napoleon in Egypt, another at Wagram, a third before Austerlitz, a fourth in Moscow, the fifth on his coronation day, the sixth an apotheosis. But when my aunt, who resented so many secular pictures, hung up a brass crucifix on his wall, my father — not to offend Napoleon — bought himself a bronze bust and placed it over the bed.
‘You’ll see, you unbeliever,’ my aunt sometimes lamented, ‘you’ll roast in Hell for these notions …’
‘The Emperor won’t let them do me an injustice,’ my father replied.
Often my father’s old comrades came to see us: Mr Domański, who was also a doorman at the Treasury, and Mr Raczek who had a vegetable stand on the Dunaj. They were simple people (Mr Domański was even fond of absinthe), but thoughtful politicians. All of them, not excluding my aunt, held as firmly as possible to the belief that though Napoleon I had died in captivity, the Bonaparte family would rise again. After the first Napoleon, a second would be found, and even if he came to a bad end, another would come along, until the world had been put to rights.
‘We must always be ready for the first summons!’ said my father.
‘For no one knows the day, nor yet the hour,’ Mr Domański would add.
And Mr Raczek, pipe in mouth, signified his approval by spitting as far as my aunt’s door.
‘Spit in my wash-tub, and I’ll give you what for!’ my aunt cried.
‘I daresay, but I won’t take it,’ Mr Raczek muttered, spitting in the direction of the fireplace.
‘Oh, what ruffians these Grenadiers are …’ my aunt said crossly.
‘You always fancied Hussars, I know, I know …’
Later on, Mr Raczek married my aunt.
Wishing me to be quite ready when the hour of justice struck, my father himself worked on my education. He taught me reading, writing, gumming envelopes and — most important — drill. He started me drilling very early, when my shirt was dangling out of my knickerbockers. I remember how my father would shout: ‘Right turn!’ or ‘By the left — quick march!’ and would tug me in the proper direction by the tail of that garment.
They were very strict lessons.
Sometimes at night my father would awaken me with the cry ‘To arms!’ and would drill me then and there despite the cries and sobs of my aunt. He would end by saying: ‘Ignacy, be prepared, my child, for we do not know the day nor yet the hour … Remember that God sent the Bonapartes to put the world to rights and as long as there is no order and no justice in the world, then the Emperor’s last testament will not have been carried out.’
I cannot say that my father’s unshakeable trust in the Bonapartes and in justice was shared by his two comrades. Sometimes when Mr Raczek’s leg hurt him, he would curse and groan and say: ‘Eh, old man, you know we’ve been waiting too long for a new Napoleon. I’m turning grey and I’m not the man I was, and there’s still no sight nor sound of him. Soon they’ll turn us all into beggars at the church door, and I daresay Napoleon will join us for vespers.’
‘He’ll find young men.’
‘What kind of young men, eh? The best of them are in their graves and the youngest are — worth nothing. Some have never even heard of Napoleon.’
‘My boy has, and will remember,’ said my father, winking in my direction.
Mr Domański was still more dispirited.
‘The world is going to the dogs,’ he declared, shaking his head. ‘Food’s getting more expensive, a man’s wages are gobbled up in rent and even absinthe isn’t what it was. In the old days a glass would set a man right, but now you need a whole tumblerful and yet you’re still as empty as if you’d been drinking water. Even Napoleon himself wouldn’t live to see justice done!’
To this my father would reply: ‘Justice will be done even if Napoleon doesn’t come. But a Napoleon will be found all the same.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ muttered Mr Raczek.
‘And what if he is found, what then?’ my father asked.
‘We shall not live to see that day.’
‘I will,’ said my father, ‘and Ignacy will live still longer.’
Even then my father’s phrases engraved themselves deep in my mind, but later events gave them a miraculous and almost prophetic character.
Mr Raczek visited him every day, and once — looking at his skinny hands and sunken cheeks — whispered: ‘Well, old fellow, now surely we shan’t live to see Napoleon?’
To this my father calmly replied: ‘I’m not going to die until I hear.’
Mr Raczek nodded, and my aunt wiped away her tears and thought my father was rambling. How could they think otherwise if death was already at the door and my father was still awaiting Napoleon?
He was already very sick, had been given the last Sacraments, when Mr Raczek ran in a few days later, strangely agitated, and stopped in the centre of the room to cry: ‘Do you know, old fellow, that a Napoleon has turned up?’
‘Where is he?’ my aunt cried.
‘He’s already in France.’
My father rose, then fell back on his pillows again. Only he stretched out his hand to me and looked at me in a way I will never forget, and whispered: ‘Remember! Remember everything …’
With that, he died.
In later life I confirmed how prophetic my father’s views had been. We all saw how the second Napoleon’s star rose over Italy and Hungary; and although it sank at Sedan, I do not believe it has been extinguished for ever. What is Bismarck to me, or Gambetta or Beaconsfield, for that matter? Injustice will rule the world until a new Napoleon comes.
A few months after my father’s death, Mr Raczek and Mr Domański and my aunt Susanna took council together: what was to be done with me? Mr Domański wanted me to go into his office and slowly rise to a copyist; my aunt advised a trade, and Mr Raczek was all for the vegetable trade. But when they asked me what I wanted to do, I replied: ‘Go into a shop.’
‘Who knows if that wouldn’t be for the best?’ Mr Raczek commented. ‘And which shop would you like to work in?’
‘The one in Podwal Street, that has a sabre over the door and a Cossack in the window.’
‘I know,’ said my aunt. ‘He means Mincel’s.’
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‘We could try,’ said Mr Domański. ‘We all know Mincel.’
Mr Raczek spat into the fireplace in token of agreement.
‘Good gracious,’ my aunt cried, ‘that booby will start spitting at me next, now that my brother is gone … Oh, what an unhappy orphan I am!’
‘Big deal!’ Mr Raczek exclaimed. ‘Get married, my lady, then you won’t be one …’
‘Where shall I find anyone foolish enough to have me?’
‘Hm. I might take you myself, as I’ve no one to rub me with alcohol,’ Mr Raczek muttered, leaning heavily over to knock out his pipe.
My aunt burst into tears, then Mr Domański spoke up: ‘Why make such a to-do? You’ve no one to care for you, and he has no housekeeper; get married and look after Ignacy, and you’ll have a child ready-made. And a cheap one, too, for Mincel will give him food and lodging; you need only give him clothes.’
‘Eh?’ asked Mr Raczek, looking at my aunt.
‘Well, get the lad apprenticed first, then … maybe I’ll risk it,’ replied my aunt. ‘I’ve always had the feeling I’d end my days badly …’
‘Let’s be off to Mincel’s’ said Mr Raczek, getting up. ‘But mind you don’t let me down, now,’ he added, shaking his fist at my aunt.
He and Mr Domański went off and returned an hour and a half later, both very red in the face. Mr Raczek was breathing heavily, and Mr Domański had some difficulty in keeping steady on his feet, probably because our stairs were awkward.
‘Well?’ asked my aunt.
‘The new Napoleon has been thrown into prison!’ answered Mr Domański.
‘Not prison, the fortress, ow … ow …’ added Mr Raczek and threw his cap on the table.
‘Yes, but what about the boy?’ asked my aunt.
‘He’s to go to Mincel’s tomorrow with his clothes and his linen,’ said Mr Domański.
‘Not in the fortress, ow … ow … but in Ham-ham … or is it Cham … I don’t even know.’
‘Why, you’re drunk, you fools!’ cried my aunt, seizing Mr Raczek by the arm.
‘Listen here, no familiarities,’ cried Mr Raczek, ‘familiarities after the wedding, not now … He’s to go to Mincel’s tomorrow with his clothes and his linen … Oh dear, poor Napoleon!’
My aunt pushed Mr Raczek out of the house, then Mr Domański, and threw his cap after him.
‘Be off, you tipsy boobies!’
‘Long live Napoleon!’ cried Mr Raczek, and Mr Domański began singing:
‘Passer-by, when your eyes this way you incline,
Come closer and ponder this inscription …
Come closer and ponder this inscription …’
His voice died away slowly as if he were descending into a well, then silence fell, but that voice reached our ears again from the street. After a while there was an uproar down below, and when I looked out I saw a policeman taking Mr Raczek to the police-station.
Such were the incidents preceding my taking up the trade of shop-keeper.
I had known Mincel’s shop for a long time, for my father used to send me there to buy paper, and aunt for soap. I would always hurry there with joyful curiosity to look at the toys in the window. As I recall, there was a large mechanical Cossack in one window, which jumped and waved its arms by itself, and in the doorway were a drum, a sabre and a wooden horse with a real tail.
The interior of the shop looked like a large cellar; I could never see the far end of it because of the gloom. All I know is that pepper, coffee and herbs were sold on the left, at a counter behind which huge cupboards rose from floor to ceiling. But paper, ink, plates and glasses were sold at the counter to the right, where there were glass cupboards, and for soap and washing-powder one went into the depths of the shop, where barrels and piles of wooden boxes were visible.
Even the rafters were loaded. Suspended there were long rows of bladders full of mustard seeds or paint, a huge lamp with a shade, which burned all day long in winter, a net full of corks, and finally a stuffed crocodile, nearly six feet long.
The owner of the shop was Jan Mincel, an old man with a red face and a tuft of grey hair on his chin. At all hours of the day he would sit by the window, in a leather armchair, dressed in a blue fustian robe, a white apron and a white nightcap. In front of him on a table lay a great ledger, in which he kept the accounts, and just above his head was a bunch of canes, intended mainly for sale. The old man took money, gave change, wrote in his ledger and sometimes dozed off, but despite all these tasks, he watched with unbelievable vigilance over the flow of business throughout the entire shop. From time to time, he tugged at the string of the mechanical Cossack for the diversion of passers-by in the street, and also — which pleased us least — he punished us with one of the canes for various offences.
I say ‘us’ because there were three candidates for corporal punishment: myself, and the old man’s two nephews, Franz and Jan.
I became aware of my master’s watchfulness and his skill in using the cane on the third day of work at the shop.
Franz was measuring out ten groszy-worth of raisins for a woman. Seeing that one raisin had fallen on the counter (the old man had his eyes closed at this moment), I stealthily picked it up and ate it. I was about to extricate a pit which had got between two teeth when I felt something like the heavy touch of burning iron on my back.
‘You rascal!’ old Mincel roared, and before I realised what was happening, he had slashed me several times from top to toe with his cane.
I coiled up with the pain, but from that time on I never dared taste anything in the shop. Almonds, raisins, even bread-rolls tasted like dust and ashes to me.
After settling matters with me in this way, the old man hung the cane up, entered the sale of raisins in his ledger and, with the most benevolent look in the world, began to tug at the Cossack by its string. Looking at his half-smiling face and blinking eyes, I could hardly believe that this jovial old gentleman had such power in his arm. And it was not until this moment that I noticed how the Cossack, seen from within the shop, looked less comical than from the street.
Our shop dealt in groceries, haberdashery and soap. The groceries were sold by Franz Mincel, a young man a little over thirty, with red hair and a sleepy face. It was he who most frequently got trouncings from his uncle, for he smoked a pipe, came to work late, disappeared from home at night and, above all, was careless about weighing out goods. However, Jan Mincel — the younger, who was in charge of the haberdashery and, apart from his clumsiness, was distinguished by the mildness of his nature, was beaten for sneaking out coloured paper and writing letters on it to young ladies.
Only August Katz, who sold the soap, never suffered any disciplinary admonition. This underfed weakling of a man was marked by his extraordinary punctuality. He came to work first, cut up the soap and weighed the soap-powder like a machine; he ate whatever was set before him, almost ashamed to betray any physical needs. At ten in the evening he disappeared.
I passed eight years in these surroundings, and each day was as similar to the next as drops of autumn rain. I rose at five, washed and swept the shop. At six I opened the main door and the window, and opened the shutters. At this moment August Katz would appear from somewhere outside, take off his top-coat, put on his apron and take his place in silence between a barrel of grey soap and a column consisting of bricks of yellow soap. Then old Mincel used to hurry in through the yard, muttering: ‘Morgen!’ straighten his night-cap, take the ledger out of a drawer, sit down in his armchair and give the mechanical Cossack several tugs. Jan Mincel did not appear until afterwards, then, having kissed his uncle’s hand, he would take his place at his counter, where he caught flies in summer and in winter drew figures with his finger.
They usually had to bring Franz into the shop. He came in with his eyes sleepy, yawning, kissed his uncle’s hand indifferently and scratched his head all day long in a manner which might have indicated great weariness or great grief. Hardly a morning passed without his uncle, eyeing hi
s tactics, grimacing with derision, asking him: ‘Well … where did you go, you rascal?’
Meanwhile noises began in the street, and more and more passers-by moved along beyond the shop-window. Now a servant girl, then a woodcutter, then a gentleman in a cap, or a tailor’s apprentice, or perhaps a lady wearing a cloak — they passed to and fro like figures in a moving panorama. Carriages, droshkies, carts drove down the street — to and fro … more and more people, more carts and carriages, until finally one great flood of traffic was flowing along, from which someone would pop into our shop from time to time on an errand: ‘A twist of pepper …’ ‘A pound of coffee, please …’ ‘Rice …’ ‘A half-pound of soap …’ ‘A groszy’s worth of bay leaves …’
Gradually the shop filled up, mainly with servant girls and poorly dressed women. Then Franz Mincel scowled the most, as he opened or shut drawers, wrapped up groceries in twists of grey paper, ran up his ladder, wrapped things, all with the dismal look of a man forbidden to yawn. Finally, so many customers collected that both Jan Mincel and I often had to help Franz out.
The old man kept writing and giving change, sometimes touching his white night-cap, the blue tassel of which hung down over one eye. Sometimes he tugged at the Cossack, and sometimes seized a cane with the speed of lightning and used it upon one of his nephews. I could rarely understand what was amiss: for his nephews were reluctant to explain the causes of his irascibility.
About eight o’clock the number of customers decreased. Then a fat servant girl would appear out of the depths of the shop with a basket containing rolls and mugs (Franz always turned his back to her), then the mother of our master, a thin old lady in a yellow dress, with a great cap on her head and a jug of coffee in her hand. Putting this vessel on the table, the old lady would squeak:
‘Gut Morgen, meine Kinder! Der Kaffee ist schon fertig …’
And she would pour the coffee into the white mugs.
Old Mincel would go up and kiss her hand, with: ‘Gut Morgen, meine Mutter!’
For this, he obtained a mug of coffee and three rolls.