Nałkowska* moved into the apartment at Marszałkowska 4/1 in Warsaw* in November 1917. She lived there until September 1936 with a break between 1922 and 1926 – which is when she lived in Grodno after her marriage to Jan Jur-Gorzechowski.
She shared the apartment with her mother, Anna Nałkowska (née Šafranek), sister Hanna, and grandmother Antonina Šafrankowa. According to the memoirs of Pola Gojawiczyńska, it was Nałkowska’s mother’s name that hung on the door plate. The members of the household were accompanied by a “very old and infirm sighthound called Diana”.
It was a large multi-room apartment, larger than the three-room apartment at Podchorążych 101, to which the Nałkowski ladies moved in 1936. The decoration of the apartment can be recreated both from the memories of visitors and from Nałkowska’s few diary entries about the matter.
Here is how Mieczysław Bibrowski describes room layout and equipment: “It was a spacious apartment with a lot of furniture, knick-knacks, books, great atlases, travel souvenirs, vintage magazines and manuscripts collected over long years, and among all there was a huge archaic globe. From the big room, just behind the entrance hall, the door to the left led to Nałkowska’s studio, where she later received me. I remember a rocking chair, a typewriter in a suitcase on a glass desk, some rather uncomfortable sofa with a high back in a curved Art Nouveau form, and Nałkowska’s wide woollen scarf hanging on an arm of a chair”.
Maria Kuncewiczowa also drew attention to what was – in her opinion – the eclecticism of equipment typical for the intelligentsia: “The place the Nałkowski ladies lived in had a little bit of everything: portraits of Witkacy with phosphorus-green metaphysical streaks, Young-Polish magazines Chimera and some ribbons alongside mahogany furniture with door knockers; a grand piano under a throw suitable for the horse of King John [III Sobieski]; here and there girlish pieces of furniture made of burl wood; a cupboard in the dining room. And books”.
Witold Gombrowicz*, recalling his visits in Nałkowska’s apartment, drew attention to another peculiar element of the decor – a palm tree. “Her home was one of Warsaw’s literary life centres. Immediately after the publication of the first book, I was introduced into this room, whose main decoration was a palm tree in a pot of enormous size, grown with tender care by Zofia herself, who adored bizarre shapes of nature”.
The uncomfortable furniture mentioned by Bibrowski appeared in Nałkowska’s study as early as 1918, bought for the fee she received for the novel Hrabia Emil [Count Emil]: “I bought myself a table made of an antique mahogany console, a mahogany armchair and chairs, a small chest of drawers and a secretary desk: everything was old and beautifully restored; I also have a shelf for all books, well matching all this furniture. In front of me there is an old golden Turkish shawl covering the wall. The other one lies on the table and the ground. It is nice, exactly what I once dreamt of. So I can already be old and I use it a little bit”.
When Schulz visited the apartment at Marszałkowska 4 in the 1930s, the room had already been renovated: “It has been beautifully wallpapered again; it has painted windows; the furniture has been freshly covered with dark matter matching the old mahogany, and the empire bed, serving as a couch during the day, has two bolsters and is now completely identical to the one carrying Mme Récamier on the portrait by David”.
The apartment at ul. Marszałkowska 4 served as a literary and artistic salon. This is how Karolina Beylin remembered it: “In her [i.e. Nałkowska’s – M.R.’s note] home gathered the most prominent artists of this period, but she did not close the door to young novice writers, musicians and visual artists”. There were also Nałkowska’s name-day receptions, gathering distinguished figures of the literary life of interwar Poland (one of them brought the news of the death of Józef Piłsudski*).
Schulz first appeared in the apartment at ul. Marszałkowska on 16 April 1933* with the manuscript of The Cinnamon Shops, following the recommendation of Magdalena Gross*. As it later turned out, this was not a one-time visit. We know about Schulz’s visits to Warsaw in June, August* and November 1933*. Accompanied by Zofia Nałkowska, he spent a whole week in Warsaw in April 1934*. In his letter to Zenon Waśniewski*, Schulz informs him that his address would be Marszałkowska 4. He adds, however, that he will be there at “a hall of residence for state teachers”. During this visit, Nałkowska holds a meeting for Schulz enthusiasts from literary and artistic circles. Her apartment is also the setting of “the only night together”. Most likely, Marszałkowska 4/1 was where Schulz sent his abundant and today unknown correspondence to Nałkowska.
The second culmination of Bruno Schulz’s visit to the Marszałkowska apartment falls on the first half of 1936, when he was on a half-year vacation. Schulz arrives at Nałkowska’s place on New Year 1936*, informing her about his wedding plans. During his subsequent visits, Schulz met such personas as Alfred Łaszowski (see 23 January 1936*), Władysław Baranowski, Henryk Berlewi, Włodzimierz Pietrzak, Witold Gombrowicz (see 4 February 1936*), Zofia Villaume and Wojciech Natanson (see 15 July 1936*).
Nałkowska presents a comprehensive summary of nearly twenty years spent in the apartment at Marszałkowska St. in an entry of 29 September 1936. She lists significant events of her life that took place in that apartment: “This is the last day in this apartment, to which we moved exactly eighteen years ago. A lot of things have happened here: my second wedding, Hania’s wedding, grandma’s death. My returns from Grodno, from Brest, my return from Królewska, return from Paris. Actually, not able to write here because of the street noise and bad light, but have written a lot anyway”. She then lists a number of members of the Polish literary circles of the first half of the 20th century who have passed through her drawing room. This pantheon of fame is divided into the dead, the living, the “later ones”, foreigners, people “from the society”. Schulz is included in the group known as “today’s society” with such people as “Gombrowicz, Rudnicki, Łaszowski, Pietrzak, Miciński, Szemplińska, Breza”. (mr) (transl. mw)
