I have to admit, of those that came to the Home chasing whatever job they had, to this day I can still recall only the old man Lentenoski in a lively way, happily. Curse me, with immeasurable happiness. He came to the Home every day and, on a small two-wheel cart, with his lively, little horse, he brought bread. I still happily remember that magnificent, little old man and that black bread brought in the cart. But there was something else here too, the dear Headmaster did not have that same frightening power and brutality when faced with uncle Lentenoski. How many times, during one of his enraged, mindless actions would he stop himself when he heard the sweet ringing of the hooves of the pony on the cobbled pavement, when he heard the happy, sing-song voice of uncle Lentenoski. In some strange way the good uncle tamed the rage in him; in an instant he made a good man from the brutal one; from the enraged man, he made a reasonable being. Uncle Lenten was the only ordinary, non-official person who had the power to stop the worst rage.
The strangest thing was, from time to time, he would, all of a sudden, disappear somewhere, would be lost. For days he’d be nowhere to be seen, for months, sometimes we thought he was never coming back. Where he went, why he hid for so long, no-one knew. Only God, as they say, and his weak soul knew the reason. But just when we thought he was never going to return, all of a sudden, totally unexpectedly, he would appear, as though he’d sprung up from the dust. All of a sudden one early morning, you’d be woken by that sweet jingling of his pony, its constant, happy murmuring, humming. Even if it was over the wall, we could already see him coming, curse me, like some grand marshall. Oh uncle Lentenoski, may your dreams turn to gold. “Uncle Lentenoski is back,” listen how the children talk and how, as if commanded, they would fly to the entrance door to meet him.
“Hey, it’s uncle Lenten!” they announced, in case someone had fallen asleep. Everyone had to be there to greet him on arrival.
“Lenten, Lenten!” came the happy clamour, one over the other, out of turn; who would be the first to shake his hand. We shook hands like great old friends.
In time, we got used to his ever more frequent disappearances, his strange life. It was precisely for that reason that the older residents thought up a separate name for uncle Lentenoski, they called him hermit of the seasons. Always, when he returned from his, to us very unusual trip, without exception, he would bring us back a story, and that was always connected with the seasons. If it was Summer, then the man in the story would be walking along a dusty road, through dry, wasted fields, through burnt down villages. Uncle Lenten knew all the villages by heart and would list off a million unknown places. The man would walk for a long time without break. Curse me, tortured by the thirst, without water for hours, with a parched soul. I swear, that man was always alone and on the road.
“Where was the man going?” one of the children would ask trembling, with a tear in his eye.
“The man, my dear little one,” uncle Lenten would gently say to the child, “the man was going through the villages and all the settlements, to all the towns and all the homes, my dear little one.”
We already knew, I swear, and however hard and wearying that road was, however ruthless the sun was, the road poisonous, he persevered, no-one could hold him back, my dear little one.
“What was the man after, uncle Lenten?” one of the children would ask quiet, with fear.
“What was the man after, well,” uncle Lenten would twirl his military moustache a little, he would wink from on high, happily, then as he was spending ages thinking about it, looked around, looked at the child and at last would say “Well, nothing, my dear, some little hermit or other, ha!”
At that moment, always somehow eager to evade, he thought up all sorts of clever things, he stood the whole time, he would make the pony lower its head, to be a clever “boy”, to say hello to the students, because they were very educated people, wise, because the young boys are also good little ponies, gentle hearted. Then he would miaow like a kitten, make every sort of sound, like a jay bird, like a cuckoo. He thought up thousands, thousands of other games, just to get away somehow. But that was impossible, he was closed in on all sides by our thirsty, shining looks. Our looks begged him, told him, “tell us dear old man, tell us uncle Lentenoski, tell us what was that man looking for?”
After a few centuries we found that out too. That man was looking for his family, his house, his children, the mother of his children. Curse me, that’s what the man was looking for.
With a tremor in his voice one of the boys would dare to ask him:
“Well, uncle Lenten, did he find his children?”
Then uncle Lentenoski cleverly would shake his head, left to right, whether he found them or not, you children don’t understand anything. After that he would start to tell us all about it with his sweet, gentle hearted voice.
“On his way he met Autumn, my dear little one, scary Autumn!”
“Oh, cursed Autumn,” the words would, all of a sudden, tear away from our hearts, “cursed Autumn,” we would curse.
“Cursed Autumn,” uncle Lentenoski would whisper, too, “cursedly bad season,” he would smile a quick, distant smile, like a rambling ray across the sky of a storm, like a rainbow in Spring over the fields. Curse me, old Lentenoski had a rainbow in his eyes.