Warsaw. Bruno Schulz meets Zofia Nałkowska.
The most extensive and, at the same time, the only testimony placing this event in time is the account written down in February 1979 by Alicja Giangrande, a Polish painter of Jewish origin, who lived in Argentina. In Giangrande’s narrative, Bruno Schulz appears on Easter Sunday 1933 at Nowy Świat 33 in Warsaw, in a guest house run by a sculptor Magdalena Gross (friend of Debora Vogel* and Hanna Nałkowska--Bickowa*, Zofia’s sister). He wishes to meet someone competent in literary studies to evaluate the manuscript of The Cinnamon Shops. Schulz arrives in Warsaw by the so called “Skiing-Dancing-Bridging” train and intends to return to Drogobych, taking the same train in the evening. For this reason, he asks Magdalena Gross to arrange a meeting with Nałkowska* on the same day. In a telephone conversation, Gross obtains Nałkowska’s consent to the meeting. Giangrande mentions Schulz’s agitation: “Getting into the cab, he suddenly turned around: ‘And my briefcase?’ He’d left it with the manuscript upstairs! Because of all those emotions, he almost forgot it”.
Schulz goes to meet Nałkowska in her apartment at Marszałkowska 4. He leaves the manuscript, goes back to the guest house and there he waits for a reply. At around 7 p.m., Nałkowska calls Magdalena Gross and declares – according to Giangrande’s memoir – “This is the most sensational literary revelation I have ever read. Tomorrow I’m running to the publisher to settle all the necessary details”. Nałkowska tries to publish Schulz’s book in the Publishing House called “Rój”*.
The role of Magdalena Gross in establishing contact between Schulz and Nałkowska is confirmed in a less detailed recollection Ficowski received in 1948 from Paweł Zieliński, Magdalena Gross’s husband: “My wife told me that one time (I cannot remember the exact date) someone (I do not remember the name) had told her that a novice writer had come to Warsaw and he wanted to present to Mrs Nałkowska his manuscript and ask her to evaluate it; he has been looking for a friend of Nałkowska’s to make it easier for him. Knowing how many duties Nałkowska had, my wife, reluctantly at first, agreed to become a connection between Zofia and Schulz. However, the impression that my wife had when she had met Schulz was of the kind that she immediately called Zofia, asking her to accept Schulz”. The rest of the story is consistent with Giangrande’s account. Perhaps the person who informed Magdalena Gross about Schulz’s arrival in Warsaw was Debora Vogel*.
In the first two editions of the Regiony wielkiej herezji* Jerzy Ficowski presents the event in a slightly different way: “One day she was visited in Warsaw by the intimidated and fearful Schulz. The presence of a few more people took away whatever was left of his self-confidence; so he asked the writer for half an hour alone. Nałkowska read the passage, and then – delighted and taken over – she supported the case and led to the publication of The Cinnamon Shops in “Rój” in December 1933”. According to Jerzy Kandziora, this is a fictionalised version of what really happened, and Ficowski’s approach is not about just telling the story in his own words, but also about delivering detail “on a certain episode, on the location in psychological action, in a story, in a broader image of Schulz”. Perhaps, however, this is not Ficowski’s narrativisation, but Zofia Nałkowska’s version of the events; Ficowski met her a number of times in reference to the Schulz research in the early 1950s. Nałkowska does not mention the first meeting with Schulz in her Diaries. For the first time Schulz appears there as her correspondent in the entry of 11 July 1933*.
Adam Ważyk* in his book Kwestia gustu mentions that Schulz visited him with a manuscript of The Cinnamon Shops the day before the appointment with Nałkowska. (mr) (transl. mw)
See also: 15 April 1933*, June 1933*, December 1933*, 15 February 1934*, 20 April 1935*, 8 February 1939*.
