12 January 1938, Wednesday

Warsaw–Drogobych. Bruno Schulz returns home, goes to bed and writes a letter to  Romana Halpern, in which he explains his behaviour after his talk on Ferdydurke.

Schulz returns from Warsaw*, where the day before he had delivered a talk on Witold Gombrowicz’s novel*. The aggressive tone of some of the speeches and ensuing misunderstandings1 causes a deterioration in Schulz’s mental state, who leaves the Polish Writers’ Union premises before the discussion ends. He spends the final moments before leaving with his nephew Wilhelm Schulz*. Relieved, he returns home and goes to bed. He realises that in Warsaw he devoted too little attention to Romana Halpern*, who organised his talk. He writes a letter to her, in which he thanks her for help and apologises for not being able to spend more time with her, excusing it with his distraction. Taking the opportunity, he asks her to thank Wanda Kragen* from him,  with whom he did not have a chance to talk either2. (ts) (transl. ms)

 

See also: 11 January 1938*, 18 January 1938*, 31 January 1938*. 

  • 1
    “Tydzień kulturalny. W kraju”, Tygodnik Ilustrowany, 23 January 1938, no. 4, p. 81.
  • 2
    Bruno Schulz’s letter to Romana Halpern from 12 January 1938, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Księga listów, compiled and edited by Jerzy Ficowski, revised by Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016.