Drohobych. Bruno Schulz replies to Zenon Waśniewski, who sent a letter after almost a month of silence.
Another break in the correspondence, this time caused by Zenon Waśniewski, who delayed another letter for a long time. We do not know its content. From Schulz’s answer it can be concluded that the addressee was full of remorse and regret. In his letter, Waśniewski apparently stated that the brevity of Schulz’s letters and correspondence must have been an expression of his caution both to Kamena*, which Waśniewski published at the time (since he did not send the promised prose excerpt) and to him personally (since he did not reciprocate confessions). Schulz vehemently denied: “For Kamena I have sincere respect and sympathy, as for a magazine raising the banner of pure uncompromising poetry”. He sees that the misunderstanding results from the differences in the mentality of the two of them: “Your fawn and Slavic soul will not understand the intricacies and winding paths that mine walks – this dark and meandering, knotted and tangled soul!”. Schulz sees in Waśniewski “a pleasant cordiality and a thoroughly sympathetic simplicity”, which he himself does not possess. Finally, he admits: “I am not capable of the exuberance that you expected of me”. The main reason, however, is, according to Schulz, the spiritual state he has been in since the appearance of The Cinnamon Shops*; “I am plunged”, he confesses to Waśniewski, “in a deep fall of my spirit and it seems to me that I cannot write anything more! I console and persuade myself that it is neurasthenia, but this aversion to writing has lasted for over six months and it gives me some doubts”. However, this “neurasthenia” would cover a much wider area. Schulz already wrote about this in a previous letter (dated April 24). It seems, however, that Waśniewski does not understand it. He asks a blunt question “What on earth is bothering you!?”, to which Schulz replies: “I can’t answer that. The sadness of life, fear of the future, some vague conviction about the pitiful end of everything. Some decadent Weltschmerz or whatever else in the devil”.
Schulz devotes a few sentences to the promised prose excerpt for Kamena. He even seems to have chosen something, “not actually an excerpt”, as he writes, “but a thing to some extent closed, entitled July Nights”. However, he cannot send it immediately because there are new internal obstacles: “I cannot find the energy to correct and rewrite it and I have it in a notebook in a rather raw state. I have a feeling as if by reworking this thing I would violate some kind of inspiration it grew out of, which I cannot achieve now”.
The rest of the letter is devoted to the upcoming summer holidays, which for Schulz and Waśniewski, as teachers, meant the possibility to manage their time more freely. As a consequence, Schulz declares: “I would love to meet with you. Where are you going after June 20? Maybe this place would be available to me during the summer holidays”. He points out that the modest financial resources at his disposal do not allow him to make big plans (such as accompanying Waśniewski on his trip to Italy, which he must have mentioned in his letter). “I should hide somewhere in the countryside and write”, he adds. “Maybe I will go to Zakopane to take care of my health. It depends on whether or not I receive a subsidy for it”. He assures Waśniewski that he wants to “stay in touch with him during the winter break”.
The name of Aleksander Leszczyc, an art dealer who organised painting exhibitions in holiday resorts during the summer holidays, appears for the first time in their correspondence. Schulz promises Waśniewski to find out from Leszczyc about the financial conditions when he meets him in Truskavets. (sr) (transl. mw)
See also: March 15, 1934, March 24, 1934, April 2, 193[4], April 24, 1934, June 23, 1934, August 28, 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)
