Chapter six: The Mourning Feast

Children of the street Chapter VI
Janusz Korczak, 

VI. The Mourning Feast

In one of the houses near the train station, Mr. Wojciech served as a doorman. Mr. Wojciech had arrived in Warsaw from the countryside nine years earlier with his three children; today he already had six. The eldest had roamed the streets with Antek and for a while was even considered one of his friends. Later the two boys quarreled over some apples stolen from a cargo boat, and their relationship was broken off.

The suitcase weighed heavily on Antek now, and he remembered Wojciech and decided to leave his luggage with him.
“Good morning, Mr. Wojciech.”
“Oh, good morning. Where from, Antek?”
“From the village.”
“From the village?” The doorman leaned the broom against the ground, looked at Antek suspiciously for a moment, and repeated with drawn-out emphasis: “From the village?”

He glanced at the suitcase, at Antek’s neat clothes, and shook his head.
“Oh, my boy, I feel sorry for you. You’re leading yourself to ruin.”
“What do you know, Mr. Wojciech. Let’s go inside.”

Mr. Wojciech lived with his entire family in a small room, an added wooden structure. One corner was rented to his nephew—together they numbered nine souls, since the older children also sometimes slept at home, though that happened rarely.

“Shall we drink?” asked Antek.
“Why not?”

The boy pulled the vodka bottle he had bought on the way out of his pocket, blessed: “May God be with us,” and drank to Wojciech’s health. Then he handed a złoty to one of the little ones by the stove and sent him to buy rolls and sausage. One must know that among the inhabitants of Powiśle, it is not the host but the guest who brings the refreshments; this is self-evident: most of the time the host has no money at all, nothing to pawn or sell, and generally can no longer get credit at the nearby shops and kiosks.

Antek briefly told of his adventures, embellishing them with impressive details, and left his luggage with Wojciech, who had no idea of its contents.
“See you, Mr. Wojciech!” he called and ran out. Without answering the question, “So how are things in the village now?” he crossed the square, ran through the street, across the bridge to Zjazd, whistling a popular tune to himself:

You were my sweetheart,
You were my love.
I sent you to make a score.
They got you, they got you,
On a green meadow,
Chains on your hands,
Chains on your feet.

Antek scanned the city streets like a commander who has arrived at the battlefield. It seemed to him that Warsaw must have changed completely during the two days of his absence. He wandered through the streets aimlessly, turned several times toward the Vistula, but changed his mind.
“Maybe I should go to Father after all? … Ah, I still have time.”

He had no plan of action; first of all he wanted to meet someone, to consult, to chat a bit and… to show off.

He wasn’t satisfied with Wojciech.
“What does a simple peasant know? Not worth straining my throat for him. Felek is something else altogether,” he thought suddenly.

Felek was a well-known, prominent, serious figure. His father and grandfather had been shoemakers, but he, a rascal, had no interest in his fathers’ trade. His father and mother beat him, but the beatings didn’t help. Felek shouted, screamed, and ran away from home at every opportunity, dragging his “dry” leg behind him. In the end, they left him alone. “Dry Felek” became the leader of a gang of “street children.” He was the one who invented the most amusing pranks; he had the best pigeons, the kind that, if released at the right hour, would surely bring a “stranger” to the loft. The “stranger” would then be taken to the market and sold. Felek made three rubles a week on foreign pigeons. What did he need a father and mother for—like a millstone around his neck.

No one knew how “Dry Felek” learned to read and write—not even Felek himself. It was enough that by the age of twenty he earned a living writing petitions and statements for the court and other offices for anyone who needed them. Two years later, after his father’s death, Felek sold the workshop, squandered the money drinking with friends, and broke his second leg when he slipped from a roof while stealing pigeons from someone else’s loft.

No one knew how Felek became the owner of a boat. On the boat he had a small house, entirely his own. When he became disabled in both legs, he gave up the pigeon trade and sailed with his floating house on the Vistula, stopping each time in a different place, but never leaving the city. He spent the winter grounded on a sandbank in Praga.

Dry Felek’s popularity grew steadily. Everywhere the boat anchored, people brought him letters to read. They asked him to write petitions and consulted him on all sorts of important matters. Many stories were told about him; according to common belief, Felek was the author of the famous saying that “without a good ‘musician’ you can’t pull off a big job.” (I must explain that “a big job” means a major theft, and a “musician” is a burglar’s key.) One thing was known for sure: that Felek had once sat “in the cage,” but that had been long ago in his childhood.

When our Antek came to visit Dry Felek, the boat dweller was at the height of his fame. Antek hurried through Kshonzencha Street, and after half an hour’s walk reached Felek’s boat, which at that moment served as a temple of learning.

Felek was a gifted teacher; he even had some kind of book from which he could teach a small child to read and write within a single season—from the thawing of the Vistula in spring until it froze again in the middle of winter.

At that moment there were five rascals with him, among them also Jędrek, the doorman’s son.

“I’m telling you, miserable weaklings,” lectured Felek, leaning on his crutches, “a person who doesn’t study is like a beast. And learning—it’s not as hard as you think. All you need is a head, brains in your head, and a will. As you can see, you good-for-nothings, my entire education consisted of nothing more than a head, eyes, ten fingers, and a dry leg.”

Dry Felek spoke with passion, and sparks of inspiration shone in his black eyes.
“You’re donkeys and will remain donkeys and ignoramuses, just like your parents. Well then, Limpy, keep reading.”

Limpy, an orphan of both parents, was Felek’s pupil. The malicious ones claimed that Limpy had become so dear to Dry Felek because one of his legs was shorter than the other.

“A lame man loves a lame man because both are lame,” Andrzej once dared to say in Felek’s presence… and paid dearly for it, because he got a crutch in the face and lost several teeth. From that moment on, everyone was ready to swear that only the two of them walked straight and the entire world limped.

“I walk on four legs and I’m a man,” Felek used to say when in a good mood, “and you walk on two and you’re animals.”

There was something else interesting about the Dry One. He didn’t drink vodka at all and hated drunkards.

“Good morning, Mr. Felek,” said Antek as he entered.
“You say ‘Blessed be the name of our Lord,’ you little squirt, not good morning. When will I knock some sense into your head?”

Two weeks earlier, after reading some book about repentance, Felek had become very religious.

“…If only you knew, Mr. Felek, what I’m about to tell you…”
“I already know perfectly well. What do you think, you idiot, that I don’t know?”
“And what do you know, Mr. Felek?”
“Well, gentlemen have taken you and Mania under their protection.”
“And do you know who took us? A count took us, Mr. Felek.”
“Of course, everyone knows it was a count.”
“And he took us to the village!”
“Obviously he took you to the village.”
“And how do you know, Mr. Felek?”
“When you know as much as I do, then you’ll know how I know.”
“Well then, tell me how I’m here now, if you’re so smart.”

Felek’s self-assurance irritated Antek.
“You ran away.”

Antek was taken aback.
“You ran away—and you did well to run away. That way you might grow into a decent man, because there you would have been wasted. Oh, and what a gentleman’s suit they dressed you in! That’s all they know how to do. Hey, Limpy! Bring wood for the stove.”

By “bring wood,” Felek did not mean that Limpy should actually go and buy any, but that he should do whatever he pleased—rip stakes from a fence, find some, steal some—so long as he brought it, otherwise he’d get a beating.

Limpy went out.

“If you, Felek…”
“‘Mister’ to you, donkey.”
“If you, Mr. Felek, want, I can give you this suit as a present.”
“Hand it over, hand it over—I’ll find you something better and more respectable.”

The new shoes and the intact suit weighed on Antek.
Felek hobbled over to a large chest, rummaged and searched, then turned to the “storehouse” behind a screen and found what he was looking for. Antek changed clothes. Rumor had it that Mr. Felek kept stores of various garments, as well as false beards and mustaches, wigs, and many other items useful for changing one’s appearance as needed.

“Maybe you know how my father’s doing?”
“If he has money, he’s drinking. That’s known. He’ll drink till he drops like an animal, by the fence.”

Dry Felek began to curse, flew into a rage at Antek, and nearly threw him out. In the end he mastered himself, restrained his anger, and continued the lesson.
“Hey, Józek, don’t sleep, you calf’s eyes. Read. Read! Do you hear, or what?”
“And you—lie down and sleep,” he said to Antek.

Antek flung himself onto the couch and heard two voices: one spoke to him about “street children,” and the other was Felek’s voice.
The first voice said:
“There are children there who could be the pride of the nation.”
The second voice said:
“For my learning I had nothing more than a head, eyes, ten fingers, and a dry leg.”

Antek couldn’t fall asleep.

“You probably think,” preached Felek to them, leaning on his crutches, “that since Adam and Eve people knew how to read and write. Of course not. It took a long time before they invented those little signs I’m teaching you. Just as Copernicus didn’t immediately discover that the earth goes around the sun, and Columbus didn’t immediately discover America. It’s because to weaklings like you it seems that besides the Vistula and Warsaw there’s nothing else in the world. You don’t know that the Vistula flows from the Carpathian Mountains to the Baltic Sea, and that there are millions upon millions of cities like Warsaw in the world. And in those cities live not only people like us, but also black people—really black, like chimney sweeps. And such a person could bathe from morning till night and still remain black, because he’s a Negro. And the English used to kill those Negroes and make shoes out of their skin. Because they had no forests and no animals. Only after Napoleon forbade making shoes from blacks did they have to stop.”

Jędrek gazed at Dry Felek with such admiration that it was easy to read on his face that he had completely forgotten the beating awaiting him at home for “hanging around God knows where” instead of helping his father sweep the street.

“Well then, Jędrek, read slowly, don’t rush.”

Antek still couldn’t sleep.

Dry Felek began to grow irritated because the fire in the iron stove was dying and the place was getting cold. At last Limpy came running, flushed and out of breath.
“What took you so long?”
“Because I had nowhere to snatch from.”

And the bundle of wood was shoved into the stove.

Antek began to whistle between his teeth.
“Well then, children, clear out.”

“Sir, I beg you,” Limpy began, “Franek the bricklayer died in the night.”
“I knew he’d die. The drink killed him.”
“True. He made a bet with Szczepan who would drink more. You know, it was yesterday at the blacksmith’s wife’s. Franek drank a bottle of alcohol and collapsed right away. Didn’t even make it home.”
“Bottle or no bottle—serves that swine right. God have mercy on his soul. There are two little ones left there; you can bring Olek here. Though it’ll be hard with such a tiny tot—well, never mind. But maybe Walenty will take him.”

Dry Felek sat down to peel potatoes.

“But…,” Limpy continued, “Wacek from the straw and mats got two weeks because of the beans.”
“What a fool. I told him to bribe the witness.”

Antek rose from the couch.
“Not sleeping?”
“Can’t.”
“You heard?”
“I heard.”
“Now you know what your father’s doing?”
“I know.”
“You going to be like that too?”
“I do what I want.”
“You’re tough.”
“That’s how I feel like it.”
“Then get out of my sight.”
“I’m just going.”

“And crack your head while you’re at it.”

Szczepan—he is Antek’s father. Yes, his father had bet Franek the bricklayer who would drink more vodka. Franek died because the alcohol finished him off, and Antek’s father lived. What does it matter to the cripple that his father made a bet with Franek? Franek didn’t have to make a bet if he didn’t know how to drink.

On the Vistula’s bank they were loading sand onto boats. The work was in full swing. Dozens of people hurried, pushing wheelbarrows over planks laid on the shore. It was the last sand shipment of the year. A little farther on were two sand pits. The wagons took turns; men with blackened faces swung shovels rhythmically and filled the wagons with sand. Soon the Vistula would be covered with ice. Instead of sand, they would haul blocks of ice. Then they would return to sand again.

Antek sat down on a beam.
Children ran about among the planks, collecting chips and small bits of wood in their baskets. Antek knew some of them. There were Piotrek, Władek, Monika, Kasia, Józik, Zuzia—he didn’t know the others. There were many here, like a swarm of ants.

Amid the shouts, curses and insults were heard. People were working, and during work one had to say something “strong,” to warm up a bit.

Antek heard two voices; he was angry at his father, at the cripple, at that count, at Mania, at the lady who had shown them the pictures on the screen.

Franek was dead. Józek the “loony” rented a “corner” at Franek’s place. It had been a long time since he’d met up with Loony . He ought to go. Maybe he’d sleep at his place, or maybe at the “hotel.”

Three “hotels” were famous and in demand at that time. One, the “Europejski,” in the canal leading to the park in Praga; the second, in the “Pipes,” on Agrykola Avenue, inside actual sewer pipes; the third, the “Karpacki,” in the cellars behind the Ujazdowski Hospital. Besides these, the kilns at the brickworks were also well known, but those were good only in winter, during the hard frost.

He wouldn’t go to Father. He had wanted to spend the night with Dry Felek, but if that one was cursing his father…

Antek turned toward the apartment of Franek, who had passed away.
From the street, a white fence stretched along. Beyond the fence lay a wide yard; on the right stood wooden houses; on the left were stables for carriage horses. At the far end, deeper in, there was a workshop in a two-story building.

Antek headed for the workshop.

In the yard children were playing at “horses,” with buttons, at circus, at “peel,” and at thieves.

Antek entered the stairwell, went down to the cellar, and pushed the door before him.

In the center of a dark room, on a door laid across two chairs, the deceased lay covered with a sheet, and a candle burned at his side. There was no one there.

Franek the bricklayer lay still, dressed in a short brick-colored coat, ankle boots on his feet, and a red scarf wrapped round his neck. The deceased lay so quietly as if he had never caused any scandals, as if he had never killed one of his three wives with a punch in the belly, as if he had never slit a man’s throat, never stolen, never swung his fists all around him, as if he had never mixed mortar, hauled bricks, built houses, as if he hadn’t twice fallen from a height of two stories and lain four months in a hospital, and finally as if he hadn’t drunk himself to death, leaving behind two orphans from his third marriage.

Antek looked at Franek’s face and recalled one of the images he had seen there, on the screen, in Zaruz, and he sighed.

For a long time Antek stared wide-eyed at the corpse and thought something, and felt something—but within himself, and he did not know exactly what he felt or what he thought. He spat on the floor, twisted his mouth as if smiling, and said:
“What can you do, Mr. Franek—after vodka you need a snack… from the earth.”

A street child knows how to think and feel in a human way, but he is unable—or perhaps ashamed—to express his thoughts and feelings in words.

Loony  came in with a cigarette in his mouth and a cap on his head.
“God, Antek, how’d you get here? You ran away?”
“Of course.”
“See that clown there. Nice, eh? A pity—he was a big so-and-so. There won’t be anyone to play us the accordion anymore, eh?”
“Well, of course.”
“Did Mania stay there?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how it was. Take a cigarette.”

They sat on the bed and Antek began to tell:
“I’m telling you, how much gold the bastard had. Such barrels stood there…”
“Everyone knows.”
“I’m telling you, the whole cellar was full of money and gold and banknotes.”
“Did you bring anything?”
“Fifteen pieces.”
“Show me.”
“Here. Look.”
“Oh, I don’t believe it… you couldn’t take more?”
“How could I? Wolves like that were standing there by the cellar, and so many soldiers that I was scared.”

Józek knew Antek was “working” him, but he wasn’t looking for the truth; he wanted to hear something interesting, nothing more. And Antek told him a story. Loony , of course, knew that Antek would never tell him the truth.

“Listen, where did everyone scatter to?”
“They got scared and went to various neighbors. Only I sleep here. Want to stay with me?”
“Why not?”

And so the two boys talked about many interesting things, ate sausage, drank vodka, and smoked cigarettes until they lay down to sleep.

And Franek the bricklayer lay calmly, as if he had not had so many friends with whom he worked and with whom he “drank away” money, and as if it had not been he but someone else who had played the accordion so well.
“Such is life.”

The boys slept. The candle burned.

The next day they began to think about the funeral. Three families—the families of his three deceased wives—gathered to confer and decided to honor the memory of the departed. At last a coffin was found, the death certificate located, and a funeral carriage arrived. Since it was Sunday and a sunny day, many people followed the coffin. Antek and Loony  walked too, and so did five-year-old Olek and eight-year-old Witka. Grown-ups stroked the little orphans’ heads pityingly.

After the funeral, as was fitting, a mourning feast was held—not in a tavern but in the deceased’s apartment, his cellar in Powiśle.

Two candles burned; a liter bottle of vodka stood on the table, and the guests recalled the deceased.
“Yes, it’s a pity about the man.”
“Sure it’s a pity.”
“Here, Olek; here, Witka. Drink a little, you orphans.”

This one and that one wiped away a tear with a sleeve; this one and that one blew her nose into her apron; and since it wasn’t proper to get emotional on dry throats, a new bottle of vodka appeared.

“It’ll be good for the departed and easier on his soul—God will help—when he sees that with vodka we bring his memory to mind.”
“And just think, only a week ago… who would have believed it.”

Several neighbors had gathered and come. A new guest brought a new bottle. The windows darkened, steam condensed on the panes, the room grew warmer from smoke and breath, from vodka and tears, but the mood became merrier.

“Look, the accordion’s left. Maybe we should play?”
“Leave it—the neighbors will get annoyed.”
“To hell with them. What’s it to them?”

A few more glasses, a few more jokes and jests, and then they began to play—and to dance.
The three families of the three deceased wives of the departed decided to honor the memory of Franek the bricklayer.

The belongings migrated from the apartment, one after another, to the pawnbroker: the scarves, the jacket, the coat.

Loony  took the accordion and began to play, first something sad, then a merry tune. The children gathered around him; Olek and Witka sat on a trunk, gobbled candies, and looked around through the clouds of smoke, their eyes shining from the vodka. Olek was five, Witka was eight.

The dancing began, first hesitantly, then with an ever-increasing tempo. New guests arrived. They jammed the cellar entrance. Drops of water trickled from the walls. The candles burned with a dim flame. The accordion wailed louder and louder. Drunken cries could be heard far off. Mothers nursed their infants—some milk and some punch. Several children cried.

Olek and Witka sat on the trunk, high above the leaping, shouting, cursing crowd—or snoring on the beds.
“Poor orphans,” one of the women would say now and then, kissing the children on the mouth, and a blast of alcohol breath struck their faces.

Olek’s eyes were wet and gleaming with a violet sheen; in them were drawn amazement and fear. His gaze asked, “Is this life?”—the first response of an awakening soul. Yes: a five-year-old asks that question with his eyes. With his mouth he may never express it.

Witka no longer asked. She wasn’t afraid. She did not see before her a total event but isolated occurrences, and she fastened her gaze on details; she no longer questioned them; she simply watched… She did not fear this life.

Loony  handed over the accordion; his arms fell, limp from exhaustion.

He went out with Antek into the yard.

Stars glittered in the sky. The stables loomed black in a long row in the distance, and the fence whitened in the darkness. Dim lights rose from the cellar windows. From there came the sounds of the accordion, like the merry melody of an oberek, but in truth horribly grim.

“Listen, Loony ,” Antek began after a long moment of silence, “I’m telling you, they’re a bunch of rotten swine in there.”
“And what did you think?”

The conversation faded.
“Listen, Loony , my head is spinning terribly…”
“And what did you think?”

Again a pause.
“Listen,” Antek began again, making a desperate effort, “I think something filthy is going on in there, something. Listen, Loony , I’m telling you. Come on, it’s cold.”

“I don’t want to go back.”
“What’s with you?”
“Tell me… well, what does it matter.”
“You see. Remember what I tell you. Everyone’s crazy, and that’s all. Sometimes I am too, you understand, like… but I say to myself: everything’s crazy, that’s it…”

In the cellar, shouting began.
“They’re fighting!” cried Antek.
“Everything’s crazy.”
“Come!”
“Sure.”

Józek sat down on the step and peered at the sky; once more he said, “Everything’s crazy,” and fell asleep.

Antek tried to squeeze into the room, but they pushed him back from the stairwell.

A violent brawl had broken out in the cellar. The accordion fell silent. The floor was stained with blood. Children cried, women shrieked.

Olek and Witka sat in a corner of the room on the trunk and watched what was happening. Olek’s eyes expressed astonishment; Witka’s—curiosity.

Antek watched what was happening over the shoulders of those near him—and thought to himself:
“No, they’re not crazy.”
But what they were, he did not know.