August 28, 1934, Tuesday

Drohobych. After the holiday silence, Bruno Schulz contacts Zenon Waśniewski and reports on how he spent the last weeks. He also mentions a project to write a novel for the Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny competition and a rejected job offer in one of the Warsaw newspapers. The case of the lottery ticket returns.

Schulz explains the almost two-month break in his correspondence with Waśniewski with the sudden deterioration of his health, which made him “[spent] his vacation on hypochondriacal contemplation and bitterly following the amazing and degrading symptoms of the disease”1. It was only in the last ten days of August that the writer underwent treatment in Lviv by doctor Stanisław Laskownicki2. The timid holiday plans he made at the beginning of June came to nothing: “I didn’t write anything all summer. What a waste of time. And I thought that I would enter the competition for the novel in Il. Kurier Codz.”3. Nothing else is known about these writing plans. Was Schulz really going to write a novel? The terms of the competition were clearly defined by the editors4: a collection of related stories was rather out of the question.

For the first and only time in all the correspondence that has survived, Schulz mentions that he was asked to “join one daily to do journalistic work”5 (probably during his spring stay in Warsaw). In the face of a growing reluctance to work at school (as he usually reports to Waśniewski: “I terribly don’t want to go back to school. I despair at the thought of metal works that I have no idea about. In general, this whole scenery scares me and bores me to the highest degree”6). He regrets not accepting this offer. Currently, he is applying for a sick leave of several weeks.

The issue of a ticket of the Polish National Class Lottery re-emerges in the letter. In almost the same words as two months ago, Schulz talks about the shopkeeper who urged him to buy a quarter of a ticket for 10 zlotys. He regrets that he did not take the offer. The lottery ticket bought for the company in the same shop won the jackpot and a judge he knew won 60,000 zlotys. “If I had bought the ticket then, maybe we wouldn’t be sitting at school today, but travelling somewhere in Italy or Spain”7, Schulz concludes. (sr) (transl. mw)

See also: March 15, 1934, March 24, 1934, April 2, 193[4], April 24, 1934, June 5, 1934, June 23, 1934, September 14, 1934, September 30, 1934, October 6, 1934, October 15, 1934, November 7, 1934. November 15, 1934, December 19, 1934, January 28, 1935, March 16, 1935, [March 25, 1935], June 24, 1935, July 13, 1935, August 3, 1935, [August 7, 1935], June 2, 1937, August 4, 1937, [5 January 1938], April 24, 1938. (transl. mw)

  • 1
    Letter from Bruno Schulz to Zenon Waśniewski dated August 28, 1934, [in:] Bruno Schulz, Dzieła zebrane, volume 5: Księga listów, zebrał i przygotował do druku Jerzy Ficowski, uzupełnił Stanisław Danecki, Gdańsk 2016, p. 72.
  • 2
    17–24 August 1934 – see: sick leave DSC_0050. About doctor Stanisław Laskownicki (1892–1978) see: Jan Leńko, “Profesor doktor wszechnauk lekarskich Stanisław Laskownicki – jeden z twórców urologii polskiej”, Urologia Polska 1991, no. 44/3.
  • 3
    Bruno Schulz, op. cit., p. 73. Schulz is referring to the jubilee competition announced by the editors of the Cracow-based Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny in 1934. The competition, resolved in 1935, brought 419 texts. The first prize went to the painter and writer Juliusz Kędziora for the peasant novel Marcyna, the next ones were: Gustaw Morcinek, The Engineer Szeruda (2nd prize), Helena Krumpel-Zakrzewska, The Red Child (3rd prize). Cf. Adam Bańdo, “Obraz kultury i literatury” [in:] Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny in 1918–1939 (results of the press analysis), “Annales Academiae Paedagogicae Cracoviensis. Folia 39: Studia ad Bibliothecarum Scientiam Pertinentia” Ch. IV,2006, p.133, as well as: Joanna Mikosz, “Obecność problematyki literackiej i tekstów literackich wśród innych komunikatów kulturowych w dodatkach okresy międzywojennego”, Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Litteraria Polonica Ch. 10, 2008, p. 293.
  • 4
    Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny 1934, available online: http://mbc.malopolska.pl/publication/33326, (access date:
  • 5
    Bruno Schulz, op. cit., p. 73.
  • 6
    Ibid, p. 72.
  • 7
    Ibid.