January 18, 1938, Tuesday

(A) Drohobych. Bruno Schulz writes a letter to Romana Halpern.

(B) Drohobych. Bruno Schulz selects two drawings, writes dedications on them and sends them as a gift to Zenon Waśniewski.

(A) He mentions a reading on Gombrowicz’s Ferdydurke, diseases and plans for the future. He forwards the letter to Wanda Kragen*1.

See also: on the reading – January 12, 1938*, January 19, 1938*, January 20, 1938*, January 23, 1938*, January 31, 1938*; on Ferdydurke – including October 20, 1937, November 16, 1937; on the correspondence with Halpern – August 16, 1936*, September 19, 1936*, September 30, 1936*, [October 1936*], [beginning of November 1936*], November 15, 1936*, November 29, 1936*, December 5, 1936*, 30 April 1937*, July 24, 1937*, August 3, 1937*, August 16, 1937*, [between August 20 and August 26, 1937]*, August 30, 1937*, September 29, 1937*, October 13, 1937*, November 16, 1937*, 11 January 1938, January 12, 1938*, January 23, 1938*, January 31, 1938, February 6, 1938*, [about mid-February 1938*], February 21, 1938*, March 3, 1938*, March 10, 1938*, March 20, 1938*, March 31, 1938*, April 17, 1938*, May 19, 1938*, May 28, 1938*, June 8, 1938*, [after June 12, 1938*], July 12, 1938*, August 29, 1938*, October 13, 1938*, October 29, 1938*, December 26, 1938*, January 21, 1939*, [June 1939*]. (ts) (bt) (transl. mw) 

(B) The letter accompanying the drawings has not survived (if there ever was any at all)2. Perhaps Schulz wanted to increase the intensity of his contacts with Zenon Waśniewski*, whom he apologised to for his delay in almost every letter. In a peculiar exchange of gifts that started in 1934 between former college friends and now drawing teachers, artists and writers, the drawings were supposed to be Schulz’s favour for subsequent issues of Kamena* published by Waśniewski, systematically sent from Chełm* to Drohobych*. In this correspondence, in a letter from April 24 that year, Schulz wrote: “I received the Kamena and thank you very much. Isn’t that too generous favour for my small drawings?”3.

These “small drawings” were included in the thematic register of the recently published volume of Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass*, which Schulz did not send to Waśniewski “as [...] he wanted”. “Rój”, he explained, “gave me a small number of copies, which I immediately distributed among critics and influential people in Warsaw”4.

The works gifted to Waśniewski picked up themes common in Schulz’s works: a speeding carriage and women adored by men, here in the variant of a street following. (sr) (transl. mw) 

  • 1
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Romana Halpern dated January 18, 1938 [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 161.
  • 2
    Drawing dated January 18th. Schulz’s earlier letter was written in Poznań (probably on January 5), and the next one in Drohobych on April 24.
  • 3
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Zenon Waśniewski dated April 24, 1938, [in:] idem, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 93.
  • 4
    Ibid.