Lviv. A week later, the 12. issue of Sygnały is published, where the editors print A July Night by Bruno Schulz, as well as, a few pages later, his artwork Undula.
Schulz took a long time to prepare the piece of his prose promised to Karol Kuryluk. It was not until September 28 that he sent the text to the editorial office, hoping that A July Night* would be published in the October issue of Sygnały. Happily, the completion of the 12th issue was delayed, for which the editors apologised in the last page’s note, and A July Night, a tiny “short story” as Schulz called it in the attached letter, was submitted to print.
In the same issue, on a different page, the editors published an artwork with the caption “Bruno Schulz: Undula. Woodcut”. It was a work from the series The Booke of Idolatry*, made in the cliché-verre technique* like the other ones. It is difficult to decide whether the error in the technique resulted from the carelessness of the editors, or perhaps, which cannot be ruled out, Schulz himself called his artwork a familiar “woodcut”, which he often did. Undula* (elsewhere and in other variants titled Undula at Night or Undula Goes into the Night) is not strictly an illustration, although its atmosphere corresponds to the aura of A July Night.
In 1937, Schulz would include the story in Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass*. The author does not illustrate A July Night in this edition. The book version of the text does not differ much from the magazine version. Only twelve differences can be noted, most of which are obvious proofreading errors, while the rest result from the application of the editorial standard by the Rój* publishing house: they change “supremacy” into “advantage” and the regionalism of Lesser Poland “spaźniać” with “spóźniać” [to be late] used in Warsaw. It can be concluded that Schulz as an author was respected more in the young Lviv editorial office of Sygnały than among the metropolitan editors. (sr) (transl. mw)
