And though I’d been a fool to let myself get stuck that time, the harvest came and went and my wounds healed and it was off to the dances again. And boy, did I like to have fun! I didn’t think the world was all that well set up, but if you got even a little bit scratched up in a fight, after the dance you somehow took a kinder view of things, you were more in the mood to work. One time I got a job for the railways building an embankment they were going to lay the track on, and with the money I earned I bought a brown suit with white stripes. Another time they were digging a pond at the manor and paying half a zloty per cubic yard. I bought a gabardine coat, a shirt, necktie, socks. I even thought about getting a watch and a cigarette case, I probably would have if the war hadn’t broken out. But even without the watch and cigarette case I was better dressed than many a rich man. I had a handkerchief that some people, they didn’t even know what it was for. You’d have had to look far and wide for another young buck like me. And so there wasn’t a single girl at the dance that didn’t want to dance with me. I could take my pick. Sometimes it happened that I wouldn’t come home from a party till the evening of the next day. Father would treat me like I’d just gotten back from hell. Have all the fun you like, damn you. You’ll see, before you know it you’ll have wasted all your life on fun. Then what’ll you say to God when your time comes — that you were busy having fun?
But what did I care about father. All he ever talked about was work and God. He never gave me any money for my ticket. So I’d sneak a quarter-bushel of rye from the attic and sell it to the Jew at half price. Or take a few eggs and then tell mother afterwards the hens didn’t seem to be laying properly. One time I shook almost every last pear out of the pear tree and took them to the railway workers for two groszes apiece. Another time a dogcatcher came through the village buying dogs. I untied our Reks and quietly, round the back of the barn so no one would see, I led him all the way to the end of the village, and I sold him to the catcher as he was already heading out. He was a fine dog, but there was a dance over in Boleszyce that Sunday. It would have been a pity not to go, though it was a pity about the dog as well. He kept rubbing against my leg and whimpering, like he knew what was going on. I started talking to him to make him feel better. This isn’t much of a life for you, Reks. From now on no one’s gonna make you watch out for housebreakers. You’ll be working in a better world. Dogs go to heaven too. Afterwards father went about in a daze, asking everyone in the village if they hadn’t seen our Reks. Because he liked him like no other dog before him, and Reks was fonder of him than of anyone else.
One time there happened to be no dance. So a bunch of us guys were standing around outside the pub on a Sunday afternoon. The young ladies were still all at home for some reason. They had to wash the dishes and clear up. The old women were on their way to late afternoon mass. We would have gotten something to drink, but none of us had two pennies to rub together. The Jew wouldn’t give credit, because each of us already had a tab with him. The sun was all hazy, like it was going to rain. And it was still a long ways till evening. If someone would at least have shown up and bought us a beer. Or gotten into a fight, except there wasn’t even any ragging going on, the boys were all kind of sleepy.
All of a sudden, far away down the road there’s a cloud of dust and three horses, and on the horses three riders. Who the heck could be riding to the village on a Sunday? They looked like they were in military uniform. They ride up to the inn, rein in their horses, and we see it’s a captain, a lieutenant, and a young lady. The captain just looks like a captain, the lieutenant the same, but the young lady takes my breath away. She’s wearing riding breeches and tall boots and spurs, a kind of black skull cap with a peak, she’s got a riding crop in her hand. She looks like an angel in riding clothes. The captain speaks up from the saddle:
“So then, boys! I see there’ll be no shortage of fellows ready to fight for their country if need be! Is there anything to drink in this inn of yours?”
“Sure there is!” The guys livened up, they were talking over each other. “Beer! Kvass! Lemonade!”
I had my eyes glued on the angel, I was staring at her like she was a picture. You’d meet good-looking girls in the village too from time to time, but I’d never seen a beauty like her ever before. Or was it just because of what she was wearing and the fact she was on horseback? In any case I must have been looking real hard, because the angel looked back at me and smiled. Then she slipped down off her horse light as can be, like a cat jumping down from the stove corner. The captain and the lieutenant dismounted as well.
“Mind our horses then, boys, while we go get a drink.”
The guys all rushed forward to hold the horses. Holding horses like those ones meant something. But wait up! I pushed them all aside. They gave them to me to hold.
“Out of my way, all of you, or you’ll be seeing stars!”
I gathered all three sets of reins together and wrapped them around my hand. The three riders went into the inn. After a short while they came out again. The captain mounted up first.
“Thank you, young man!”
The lieutenant followed. Then the angel put her foot in the stirrup. Whether she wasn’t lifting her other leg strongly enough or what, she tried once and twice, but it seemed the saddle was too high for her. And she looks at me. So I grab her under the backside with my right hand, my left still holding the reins, and I hoist her up into the saddle. And then, as if of its own accord my hand ran down her thigh and her boot to the spur, and at the spur I squeezed her foot. She closed her eyes for a second, then she smiled, though kind of sadly. At that moment someone lashed me on the head with a riding crop. The angel exclaimed:
“Oh!”
I turned around. It was the lieutenant.
“Save your hands for your pitchfork, you peasant!” he hissed furiously. “Here, so you don’t feel wronged.” He threw a coin down at my feet. I gave his horse a mighty whack on the rump that made him jump in the saddle. Then they rode away.
The guys ran forward to pick up the coin. I was going to head home — I couldn’t drink with that kind of money. It would have been like selling your soul to the devil. But they grabbed me and forced me into the pub. And before I knew it there was a glass in front of me and it was, down the hatch, because it’s thanks to you. Pity he didn’t hit you twice and give us more. Then, when we’d had a few drinks we started a fight and smashed the place up. Benches, tables, beer mugs, glasses, whatever came to hand got used. One of them picked up a barrel of beer, and when he slammed it down on the floor we all got covered in foam. The Jew hid under the bar shouting:
“Police! Police!”
Every window in there got shattered. The door came off its hinges. And I broke a bottle over my best friend Ignaś Magdziarz’s head so hard he fell to his knees and wept:
“Why, Szymuś? Why?”
I didn’t know why either, and I wept with him, because he looked like someone had dipped his head in a bucket of pig’s blood.
“I don’t know, Ignaś. I don’t know. Maybe if you’d gone for me I wouldn’t have gone for you. Someone had to go for someone. Don’t cry. Next time we go to a dance you can smash me over the head with a bottle. I won’t say a word. I’ll even buy you a drink afterwards.”
But we were young. When we were enjoying ourselves we did it with all our might, with all our soul, as if we were going to be gone from the world the next day. And I had youth enough for two inside, it was bubbling out of me. There was no right or wrong moment, if there was a chance to have fun you did. There were times when inside you didn’t feel like doing anything at all, but outside you were having a ball, drinking and dancing like nobody’s business. Inside you’d be sad, but you could cheer up the saddest person. And the young ladies thought I was the best fun of all the guys in the village.