Chapter nine: From day to day

Children of the Street – Chapter 9: From Day to Day
By Janusz Korczak

Leaves, faint from the heat, hung limply from the city trees. The burning sphere of the sun scorched the asphalt and the cobblestones. A fine dust lingered in the air. The school exam season had ended, and mothers had departed with their children for the countryside, to spas at home and abroad. Children of elegant parlors, students of stifling classrooms, were meant to breathe the fresh air of the mountains or the sea for two months. The city emptied of its inhabitants.

Only the fathers remained—the husbands chained to the city—and each, according to his means and inclinations, sought to sweeten the tedious evenings following a day of work in the sweltering heat.

The café at the intersection of two streets drew more customers than other establishments. People were pulled toward the wide terrace and… the billiard table. Inside the billiard hall, despite the open windows, a heavy heat prevailed, thick with the pungent scent of tobacco. Yet the atmosphere was free and cheerful. One could shed jackets and vests, sipping black coffee while reading newspapers and periodicals, playing chess or checkers, telling jokes, watching the billiard players, or even organizing a "little betting round." The stakes were small: for twenty kopeks, one could tensely follow the entire game. The bettors' fortunes rose and fell; the interest intensified as the game neared its end.

Antek, cinched in a white apron, circled between the tables. He served periodicals, lit cigars for the gentlemen, and took their hats and walking sticks. He knew all the guests here—many by their first and last names. It even seemed strange to him when a stranger happened to walk in; an unknown guest received the poorest service, had to wait an eternity for coffee, and would never manage to secure a fresh periodical.

Antek also knew the "markers" [1]. These were interesting men. They lived off billiards and knew how to do nothing but "Pyramid" [2] and "Carom" [3]. And what skill they had reached! The billiard ball obeyed their voices at the slightest hint, making spins and half-circles, bouncing several times off the table’s edge, and coming to rest exactly in the desired spot. True wizards! And how amusing it was when a "marker" played with a "sucker", throwing himself about, feigning a scowl, concentrating and aiming only to miss, lose, and pay up—all to entice the "sucker" into a high-stakes game and milk him for a few more rubles.

The "markers" spent entire evenings in the café, reveled through the night, and slept by day. Pale, small, their hands in constant nervous motion, cigars in their mouths, eyes darting, they carefully tracked every new guest, trapping them, drawing them into a game, and defeating them.

Antek was examining a new way of life once again. The place was cramped and stifling, but never boring. Every new guest was a new type, a new object for observation. He already knew the life of Powiśle (a poor neighborhood in Warsaw); now he was examining life in the city center.

Antek had not been accepted immediately. The owner had turned up his nose for a long time: "To tell the truth, I’d prefer a boy from the country... You aren't a brat, are you?" "No, sir." "Of course, everyone sings the same tune... Know this: my way is this—the first time he messes up, he gets a blow; the second time—his ears are pulled; the third time—a kick in the rear and out!"

The owner was pleased with Antek now. The boy was polite to the guests, the guests liked him, he knew how to behave, how to say something amusing, and he kept small bottles in his pocket: cognac and Benedictine liqueur. These were the "drops" for the regulars. "Antek, a black coffee!" Antek would run to the kitchen and shout: "One small black!" He would bring the coffee and ask with a mysterious smile: "Your teeth don't hurt, do they, sir?" "Oh, they hurt." Antek would scan the surroundings, pull out a bottle and glasses, and pour "toothache drops" into the coffee cup. The owner would pretend to be angry. "Listen, Antek, they’ll close my business because of you." The boy would reassure him: "Ah, don't worry, sir." "Well, well, just remember."

The manager concluded that it was better to take a "brat"—quick, shrewd, even if he steals—than a slow, clumsy country boy. Antek had two flaws: he stole, and he arrived late to the café. And these two flaws stemmed from a single source: Antek was in love.

The boy was living now on Czerniakowska Street, and he had a good life there. A locksmith who worked in a factory, his wife, and their four children. The eldest daughter was already married to a coachman; the married daughter’s two children, her husband, and Antek all lived in one room. In the kitchen lived the "hunchback" with her daughter.

It was a cheerful life. When Antek returned home at midnight, the locksmith, his wife, the coachman, the coachman’s wife, the hunchback, and her daughter would gather in the kitchen, and Antek would read to them. The children slept, and if one of them woke up, Antek gave him a candy or a piece of chocolate, and he went back to sleep.

Antek read. The lamp stood before him on the table, everyone surrounding him in a circle. He would pull out his book, and the meager attic room would fill with a long line of heroes. "Read about the hunt, Antek," the coachman would ask. "Ai, you’re always with the hunt. He already read that." "Well, just once more."

The wood’s edge was thin; from its depths, a growl, A snapping of shrubs, and like thunder from clouds, A terrible bear emerged: Around him, hounds chased, lunging in rage; He rose on hind legs, cast an eye, and roared— Fright he unleashed, in his paws he seized shoulders, stumps, Charred roots, branches, thicket-reeds with stones And hurled them at his foes; a tree he uprooted while still Struggling, and right and left he swung it Like a club, and toward the heads of the two he moved: Toward the Count and Tadeusz. They stood motionless. [4]

"Well, that’s enough..." "Wait a moment," the coachman pleaded. "You don't understand this, but I..." "Oh, I know already—two fingers you lost in a hunt, and it’s not enough for you." "Read about the knife-fighter," the locksmith requested. "Alright," the coachman agreed.

And in the attic, the words of Mickiewicz rang out, the thread of his thoughts weaving into the thoughts of the listeners. Antek read sometimes fluently, sometimes struggling a bit, depending on how familiar the text was to him. He read, and in the pauses, he raised his eyes and looked into the black eyes of the girl, wondering in his heart how a "hunchback" could have such a beautiful daughter.

The clock struck one. Antek read on. He felt the gaze of several pairs of tired eyes and the two black torches of the girl’s eyes. For the first time in his life, he felt so good. He felt not a shred of fatigue after running around all day—and what wonder? He was young. But even the locksmith and the laboring women felt no weariness.

"And now the second book. Here, Antek, drink, so your throat doesn't dry up. Maybe you’ll eat something?" And then Zagloba, Skrzetuski, and Kmicic [5] were placed before them; they stood before the day-laborers in the attic and spoke to them. And they understood, more or less; they explained things to one another in their own way, offering interpretations.

The clock struck two. Antek set the book down… until tomorrow. Everyone dispersed. Only Antek stayed a moment longer to show the girl a few more new letters. "Wait. Soon you’ll know how to read too. Good night."

They parted, and Antek chatted for a long time with his roommates. Afterward, he pondered for a long while about this or that, about the book and about Zosia. How did the hunchback have such a beautiful daughter? Zosia, straight as a reed, with large eyes and hair so long and black, falling over her shoulders. Only the hunchback could have answered that question. The girl remained her sole memento of lost youth, a lone memory of isolated moments of joy in her life, proof of someone's guilt, the only visible sign of some disappointment, an echo of a wrong done to her. She loved her daughter boundlessly.

And this was the reason Antek was late for work and would secretly take a few chocolates, sweets, or a cake.

The café owner turned a blind eye to Antek’s two flaws because Antek was shrewd. But the café owner and his employees did not treat all the boys equally. Among them was also a clumsy boy, quiet and decent, obedient, an orphan from the country. His patron had given him to the café as a "gift." The boy slept there, ate there, and… took beatings from everyone.

Every shop, every institution—they are closed worlds within themselves, little kingdoms [6] with lives of their own, their own struggle for existence, with their characteristic conspiracies and schemes, with the power of the strong and the oppression of the weak.

No one dared touch Antek’s ear. Once, as if in jest but actually to test his strength and reaction, the "mafia" boys pulled Antek’s ear; he measured them eye-to-eye, furrowed his brow, and filtered three brief words: "Don't try it." And they left him alone.

Once, the owner tried to explain to him in clear words that coming to work at nine contradicted the accepted arrangements. It was Antek’s duty to clean the billiard hall. But Antek made his position very clear, mentioning in few words the hidden room with the green table for card games, the "toothache drops," and… silenced the owner for a long time.

Antek was a man to be reckoned with. The orphan from the country was "something," someone who could be pushed around because he didn't know how to defend himself. Antek was confident; he knew it wouldn't be hard for him to find another place. The orphan trembled with fear that they would throw him into the street in a city that was foreign to him.

The hot summer months passed, the autumn months passed as well; winter was already peeking from nearby, and nothing in Antek’s life had changed. He continued to walk the path paved for him by the late Bronek—had a small incident not occurred.

Once, Antek was two whole hours late. The owner boiled with rage and because of that… he beat the orphan. And how do you punish the boy? By a very simple method: you hit him in the face, pull his ears, his hair; the boy bursts into tears. "Stop howling and crying, you rogue. Stop whimpering and don't shriek." And after every sentence, another shower of blows fell upon him.

Antek’s blood froze in his veins. He remembered how such beatings turned Loony Józek into a criminal. It occurred to him that if he, Antek, weren't such a big "bastard," he would be the one catching the blows. He decided to intervene for the weak. "Why are you hitting him, sir?" he asked, looking straight into the flushed face of their bread-giver. "And you, son of thieves, what business is it of yours? Be glad I’m not touching you." "You can try."

The owner’s flushed face turned blue. He grabbed a wooden frame for holding newspapers, but Antek leaped aside. "Get out of here! Be gone. Understand? Not only are you drifting off, you’re going to incite the others against me... your foot shall not tread here again." "Oh, oh, why not?" With a mocking smile, Antek removed his apron, walked with a slow step to the corridor, took his coat, put on his hat at an angle, and said: "Good day to you, sir." And he walked out whistling into the street.

The next day, the police conducted a search of the café. The owner suffered many troubles. The orphan received an extra portion of beatings.

Now Antek had plenty of time to devote to reading. He did not worry about a livelihood. He was sure he would manage. "Enough with this slavery. I’ll get a job in a shop and I’ll have Sunday free. When you don't have even one day free a week—that’s a dog’s life."

Antek felt, perhaps, when he said these things, that five hundred boys employed in cafés and bakeries could not attend Sunday school [7] because even on Sunday people drink coffee and eat cakes. But that’s not part of the story.

Antek got a job in a perfumery. There he became acquainted with a new branch of employment, learned new roles. The customs office, the post, pharmacy warehouses, commission sales, warehouse workers—a new field of observation. He learned to know the stifling smell of the factory, balloons, glass vats, bottles, retorts with colored liquids, chemical compounds, a constant play of colors and scents.

Despite the varied occupations, the experiences were monotonous, because Antek now met fewer people and dealt more with objects. Something pushed him into the heart of life, into the center of experience. What was Antek looking for? Perhaps the realization of the ideals written about in books.

Antek did not stay long in the perfumery. He went to work in a tobacco warehouse, from there—to a wine merchant, then to a bookstore. At the tobacco warehouse, he became acquainted with black-market cigars; at the wine merchant—with counterfeit wines, which the wine-taster worked on for whole days in the cellar, mixing, trying, tasting.

The bookstore gave him more. A "polished" boy, bold to the point of insolence, shrewd to the point of cunning, felt embarrassed before the piles of books, shelves full from floor to ceiling. It seemed to him that here was another world, other people. He was disappointed. It might be cleaner here, brighter, but not for a messenger boy, not for a "street child." In the mornings, Antek wiped dust from bundles of sheet music, then handed books to a shipping company for booksellers, delivered bundles of books to customers' homes or the post. He learned to weigh book parcels, stick stamps, tie ropes. He knew on which shelves the history books were, the nature books, mathematics, medicine, novels, folk books, and children’s books; he became acquainted with the names of many authors and composers and knew the names of several dozen books. On Saturday, large piles of periodicals arrived that needed to be signed, the pages counted. Shipments went out to the provinces. Antek had his own district where he distributed periodicals to subscribers.

"So this too is a shop, just a shop and nothing more. They sell books here like they sell wine, cigars, or coffee elsewhere. The clerks wrap books here just as they wrap bottles elsewhere, no more." So he was just a messenger boy, exactly as he had been everywhere else.

Antek knew that several older boys attended Sunday schools. Yes, but they reached the bookstore after finishing several grades of school. One had to pass an exam there. What exam? What did one need to know? What did one have to do to be accepted into such a school? Those boys would be clerks; he would be a servant carrying heavy bags twice a day and distributing periodicals, bringing bundles to the train station and the post. Ah, Tralala! To run, to scramble, to ruin your legs and in old age to go begging—just to do something else.

Many times he earned a few rubles, sometimes even more than ten. Tomorrow is payday: he’ll take his five rubles, three bonuses, snatch something, whatever happens to be there, and… vanish. And that’s what he did. "And now to revel a bit, compensation for the year wasted on miserable work in the stifling air."

Here is a street theater [8]. It was housed in a shop open to the street. A barrel organ plays, a crowd of children surrounds the entrance lit by four lanterns. Pictures are pasted on the display window glass. A "magician" dressed in red leotards, shivering with cold, a wide ribbon wrapped across his body, invites the children to come inside. "Admission—ten groschen. For the lame and hunchbacks, only five. The blind and headless—for free!" Antek went in.

Here, here was his home; here he was pushed unintentionally by all those he had met in his travels among the "gentlemen." First and second bells. The barrel organ doesn't stop playing. The player, with a red nose, turns the handle with closed eyes, and the box emits a somber and screeching sound mimicking something like a waltz, like a piece of an opera. "Honored audience, wonderful American magic tricks. He who has not seen, it’s time he sees; he who has seen, let him come up himself. Sword swallowers and a breakfast of red-hot iron. Entry for hunchbacks and the lame only five kopeks; the blind and headless for free!"

The third bell rings and the curtain, made of a red sheet printed with blue flowers, rises. The audience is at peak tension. A bit of a sword swallower, a bit of a card guesser, a bit of frying an omelet inside a top hat. Intermission. The curtain falls. A young girl appears [9] with bluish lips. She goes down to the audience with a plate in her hand. She is dressed in a white dress, dirty and miserable, and white darned stockings. "Please give what each can, for afterward we collect no more." She passes through the crowd with a twitch on her face trying to resemble a smile. Antek knows her. He used to meet her in Powiśle among the gang children.

A bell rings. The second part of the show. A magician-juggler and a girl. "Honored audience, here is the famous gymnast, a Spanish dancer, an amazing wonder-child." The barrel organ returns to play. The girl takes the edges of her dress, lifts the hem, and stands on tiptoe.

Suddenly Antek shudders: he heard behind him a familiar drunken voice. "I also need to see what they’re doing here," calls the swaying drunkard. Antek retreats, tries to slip away, but the drunkard seizes his shoulder with force and stares at him insistently. The barrel organ wails. The girl dances on stage. The soot-stained lamps flicker. "Antek, is that you?" the drunkard asks. "Father, leave me alone." "Antek, is that you?" the drunkard repeats. Antek frees his shoulder and tries to escape. The magician comes out from behind the scenes: "Quiet there!" he commands in a threatening voice. "Antek, stay!" the father cries in a pleading tone. He clings convulsively to Antek’s arm. The audience begins to get annoyed. "Get out!" the magician orders. "Come, Antek, come." He holds him with great force and goes out with him in swaying steps to the street. "Antek, Antek, you don't want to know your father? Antek, for God’s sake, how can you do such a thing, Antek." "And how, for God’s sake, can a father sell his child?" "Wait, I’ll explain to you, you see, I’ll explain everything... only don't run away. Come to me." "I don't want to." "Come, come," the father pleads, pulling the boy. "You know? Mania’s mother died. You see, I’m alive." "And what do I care?" "What kind of son are you? And what did I do to you?" "He! Ho! What did you do to me?"

Antek pushed his father. The drunkard fell, rolled into the gutter; tears flowed from his eyes, true tears flowed down his cheeks. "My child, my son." And the tears mixed with the sewage water flowing in the ditch.

Antek ran. He did not know why he pushed his father. He was not angry with him. Why did he leave him there in the mud, why did he refuse to speak with him? Perhaps because it was the first time his father had spoken to him kindly.

Antek ran to the Vistula, stopped on the bank, peered at the long row of lanterns, looked at the bridge, took step after step forward without taking his eyes off the river’s depths. He took one more step, but retreated [10].

He went toward Praga. Once more he stopped on the bridge and looked into the dark depths of the river that lazily rolled thick sheets of ice. Antek continued to walk, bumping into passersby, shivering with cold and from the thoughts that flooded his mind. No, he would not return to his apartment, nor to Zosia; he would not return today, would not return ever. How did that hunchback have such a beautiful daughter? And maybe Zosia’s children would also be hunchbacks?

On the Marecka road [11], at a distance of one verst [12] from Targówek, there is an inn [13]. it has stood there since time immemorial and it symbolizes an important chapter in the history of the children of Warsaw. Today, not a shred of past glory remains in it.

Antek knew he would meet someone there, someone he could "stick" to, that he would find there what he had not found in his journey among the "gentlemen," that he would find there brotherhood, equality, sympathy. There he would become part of a whole, whereas here he could only be something detached, like a fallen leaf that is trodden upon. He would come there, go inside, treat the guests, spend his rubles on them, but also find there friends, people who would take an interest in his fate, help him realize his plans, stand by him in time of trouble.

Antek passes through New Praga [14], turns to the field, passes under the railway bridge. The train thunders on the bridge, rushes past, flashing with its dozens of lit windows. Afterward, only the road, deep silence. Two rows of trees turning black on both sides. The sky is covered with dirty clouds.

Antek knows that Loony Józek walked the same path a year earlier. "What happened to him? Someone said he joined 'the butter-man' [15]." A cool wind blows. Suddenly, from behind a tree, a hunched figure dressed in rags emerges. "Who’s there?" the man asks. "One of ours," Antek replies. "And who are you after?" The figure approaches Antek and the man in rags peers into his eyes. The night wanderer’s jaws tremble, his teeth chatter. "After Tralala. Is he in the inn?" "Not yet." "And will he come?" "Why wouldn't he come? Do you have vodka?" "No. Come with me to the inn. I’ll treat you." "I can't. I’m on guard today." And the man slips quietly from the road and disappears behind the tree. Meanwhile, a loud whistle is heard. It’s a sign that one of "ours" is approaching. A few more figures peek from behind the trees with the same question: "Do you have vodka?" "No." "Drop dead then. And cigarettes, do you have any?" Antek treats them to cigarettes.

He enters the inn. The place is still empty. Two men sit by the table, playing dice. They observe the boy with attention. "Who did you come for?" "For Tralala." "Ah. Do you have money?" "I do." "Want to play?" "If I lose, will you treat me?" "Respect to you!"

Within five minutes, not a brass farthing remained to Antek. He had "redeemed himself." He is "one of ours," because he doesn't care about money; it’s only important to him to "treat." "Treat us now." "Wait. Ours will be here soon." "Then treat again. I’ve frozen from the cold." Antek isn't cold, but he wants to drink; to drink as much as possible and let it be the strongest vodka. "Serve us, here." The boy drinks a glass of alcohol. The others watch him with a smile. Tears gather in his eyes, but he doesn't blink. "You’re a bastard," they praise him. "Want another one?" "Even ten," Antek replies.

Footnotes:

[1] Scorekeepers in billiards.

[2] A game with 16 balls initially arranged in a triangle.

[3] Billiards—hitting one ball into the other two.

[4] From Pan Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz.

[5] Characters from Sienkiewicz’s Trilogy.

[6] A metaphor from Positivist evolutionary theory.

[7] Professional state schools where studies were held on non-working days like Sundays.

 [8] Here in the sense of a small traveling circus.

[9] One of Korczak's recurring childhood memories.

[10] Suicidal urge, a reminiscence haunting Korczak from a young age.

[11] From Warsaw to Marki.

[12] Unit of length: 1,067 meters.

[13] A real inn where Korczak conducted research on life on the fringes of society.

[14] A neighborhood in the Praga district of Warsaw.

[15] A person who produces and sells butter; here, a nickname.