Chapter 20 poland post office

I slept in a basket full of letters sent to and from Łódź, Lublin, Lviv, Torun, Krakow and Częstochowa Krakow, Torun, Krakow and Częstochowa.But I dreamed neither of the Madonna of Częstochowa nor of the Black Madonna.I didn't dream that I was eating the heart of Marcelek Bilsudski kept in Krakow, or the gingerbread that made the city of Thon famous.Nor did I dream of my never-repaired drum.I lie on the letters in the rollable basket, not dreaming.Oskar heard no whispers, whispers, small talk, or careless words.It is said that if you put many letters in a pile, you can hear them speak.The letters didn't say a word to me.I have never waited for mail, and no one has any reason to regard me as the recipient, let alone the sender.I retracted the antenna and lay on top of a mountain of mail.The mountain may be as pregnant as the whole world, a news is about to emerge.

All in all, it wasn't the letters that woke me up, not a letter from a Mr. Lech Milevczke in Warsaw to his niece in Schiedlitz in Danzig, an urgent letter that would have awakened a thousand years of history. turtle.What woke me up was not the sound of machine guns nearby, but the rumbling salvo of the twin turret guns of the two battleships in Freeport in the distance. Machine guns, twin turret guns.Do you just write it down casually like this?Could it be a rainstorm, a hailstorm, a late-summer storm like the one that came near and far when I was born?I was too fast asleep to make such speculations, and, while the sound was still in my ears, I, like all sleeping people, said exactly what it was all about: they Fight!

As soon as Oscar climbed out of the basket and put on his sandals, before he could stand still, he immediately worried about the safety of his drum, which could not withstand bumps.With both hands he dug a hole in the loose but stacked letters in the basket in which he slept.However, his actions are not rude and spiritually opposed but can constitute a neutral object of matter and spirit.For example, "Zhong Liyuan did not tear, break or even destroy the letters, but carefully put together the messy ones, and carefully picked up each letter (mostly with purple stickers and "Poland Post"). lettering stamp), picked up each postcard, and took care not to open the envelope, because the secrecy of correspondence should always be guaranteed in spite of this irreversible event that would change everything.

The machine gunfire grew louder, and the hole in the mail-filled basket dug wider and wider.Finally I thought it was all right, so I put my dying drum into the newly built fortifications, which were covered with three layers thickly, no, more than three layers, there were ten to twenty layers of envelopes, and it was like a mason. The method of biting bricks one by one as in building a solid wall. I want this protection to keep my drums safe from shrapnel and bullets.I had just finished when the first anti-tank shell exploded at about the height of the business hall on the front of the Post Office building on Hevelius Square.

The Polish post office is a solid brick building, and it is no problem to suffer dozens of such shells. There is no need to worry about a gap being blown up soon, which is big enough for the militiamen to rush in from the front as they usually practice. I left the secure, windowless letter room surrounded by three offices and a second-floor hallway to look for Jan Bronski.When I was looking for my supposed father Jan, I was naturally looking for Corbyella, the crippled house-sitter, and with even greater urgency.Last night, for drum repairs, I skipped dinner, took the tram into town, came to Hevelius Square, and went into this Polish post office (if it weren't for drum repairs, the post office would have nothing to do with me).Therefore, if I do not find the housekeeper in time, that is, before the sure attack, my disfigured drum will never be restored.

Therefore, although Oscar was looking for Yang, what he was thinking about was Kobiela.He folded his arms and walked up and down the long brick-paved passage a few times, but could find no one but himself.He could distinguish that the sporadic bullets were fired from the post office, while the continuous shooting was the opposing militiamen who were wasting ammunition.These guardians of thrift must have exchanged the postmark for another tool in their offices, but still use it like a postmark.There was no one sitting, standing, or lying in the aisle ready for a possible countercharge.Only Oskar patrolled, unarmed, without drums, in the wee hours of the morning, listening to the altar scriptures that made history, but he brought lead bullets instead of gold in his mouth.

①The scriptures sung by the choir when the priest ascends the altar during the mass ceremony.Here is a metaphor for the prelude. ②It means good wishes. The office next to the post office courtyard was also empty.I thought to myself, how careless they are.In the direction of Schneidermeer Lane, it is different if there is no defense.There was a police station, separated from the post office yard and the parcel landing by a wooden fence.This is really a favorable offensive position that can only be found in comic strips.I pushed open the doors of the offices one by one: the registered mail room, the room of the postman delivering money orders, the payroll office, the telegram reception room.they are there.They shot from behind steel plates, sandbags, and overturned furniture. They saved ammunition and only fired a shot after a long time.

In most of the offices, some of the window panes had been hit by machine gun bullets from the militia.I glanced briefly at the shattered windows and compared them to the broken glass I sang with a diamond voice in peaceful times when I could breathe deeply and peacefully.At this time, I thought to myself, if I was asked to help defend the Polish post office, if the short and strong Dr. Mishan came to me, he was recruited not as the postmaster but as the commander of the army guarding the post office. If I serve in the Polish army, my voice will do its job.For the sake of Poland, for the Polish economy, which blooms wildly but always bears fruit, I put the glass of the house facing Hevelius Square, the glass of the house along the Rem River, and the entire row of glass on Schneidermeer Lane. The windows, including the glass of the police station, and the windows of the old city ditches and Knights Lane polished with long-range effects as before, made black holes for ventilation within a few minutes.This will cause confusion among militiamen and bystanders.This will produce the effect produced by many heavy machine guns, and will lead everyone to believe in miracle weapons from the very beginning of the war.Still, that didn't save the Polish Post Office.

-------- ①Here refers to the V-1 missiles and V-2 rockets used by the Nazis later. In 1944, Goebbels had hyped it up. Oscar didn't do this.That Dr. Michan with the Polish helmet on his head didn't enlist me. When I hurried down the stairs and broke into the business hall, I happened to trip over his leg and he gave me a hot slap in the face. , cursed loudly in Polish again, and went to his security work.I had no choice but to endure the slap.Everyone was very excited and scared, especially Dr. Mishan. After all, he was responsible, so it was understandable. The clock in the business hall told me it was twenty past four.When the clock hit twenty-one past four, I assumed that the original fighting had not damaged the clock's mechanism.The clock is still ticking.Time passed as usual, calmly, I don't know if this omen is good or bad.

Anyway, I'll have to look for Jan and Corbyella in the office first.I tried to avoid Dr. Michan, but I couldn't find either my cousin or the housekeeper.I noticed the damage to the glass in the business hall and the cracks and unsightly holes in the plaster on either side of the gate, and watched them carry away the first two people who were injured.One was an older gentleman with gray hair, carefully combed and parted.A bullet grazed his upper arm, and he talked and looked agitated while others bandaged the wound.As soon as someone wrapped up his minor wound with white gauze, he wanted to jump up, grab his gun, and lie down again behind those sandbags that were obviously not bulletproof.Thankfully a slight dizziness from the loss of blood forced him to fall to the ground again and calm down.At this time, the short, sturdy man in his fifties, wearing a steel helmet and with a corner of a knight's handkerchief protruding from the small breast pocket of his civilian clothes, that Dr. Michan, who had questioned Jan Bronski in detail last night The chief of the bureau, with the elegant gesture of a civil knight, ordered the wounded old gentleman to keep quiet in the name of Poland.

The second wounded man was lying on a hay sack, struggling to breathe.He gave no sign of wanting to get back behind the sandbag.He yelped every once in a while and wasn't afraid to be ashamed because he had been shot in the stomach. Oscar was about to check the row of people behind the sandbags again, to see if the two he was looking for were inside.At this time, two shells exploded above and beside the gate almost simultaneously, shaking the business hall.The cabinet they moved to the gate was shaken open, bundles of receipts fell out, scattered and flew all over the sky, then floated down again, gliding on the ground, covering the square brick floor.Where is the use of documents?Needless to say, the remaining panes were broken, and large and small pieces of plaster fell from the walls and ceiling.They dragged the third wounded man out of the lime smoke to the center of the hall, and then, by order of Dr. Michan in the helmet, carried him to the second floor. The wounded post office clerk groaned with each flight of stairs.Oscar followed him and the man who carried him.No one called Oscar back, no one asked him why he was following him, and no one slapped him like Mishan just did.He also tried to be careful not to trip the legs of the post office defenders. I followed the men slowly up the stairs to the second floor.At this time, it turns out that I guessed right.They carried the wounded into the windowless and therefore secure letter room where I had been.They also thought that, without a mattress, the letter basket, though too short, was a softer place for the wounded.I regretted burying my drum in a rolling basket full of undeliverable letters.Will the blood of these battered and holed postmen and salesmen see through ten or twenty layers of mail and stain my drum, which has hitherto only been painted with paint?What have my drums to do with Polish blood?Let them stain their bills and loose-leaf papers with their own blood!Let them pour out the blue ink from the inkwell, and fill it with red blood!Let them turn their handkerchiefs and starched white shirts half-stained with blood into the red and white Polish flag!Now it's about Poland and not about my drums!If they insist that even if Poland is lost, she must remain red and white, must my drum have to be stained with blood to make it taste of Poland enough to be lost along with it? It was only slowly that I settled down: it wasn't Poland at all they cared about, it was my shapeless drum.Jan lured me into the post office to give the workers a signal to call the police, and Poland was not enough of a signal to summon them.At night, when I sleep in my rolling letter basket (the basket doesn't roll, and I don't dream), the waking Poles whisper, as if passing a password: A dying child's toy drum comes to us Came to take refuge.We are all Polish.We must protect it.What's more, England and France have signed a treaty of guarantee with us. While I was confining my freedom of movement by these futile abstractions in front of the half-closed door of the letter-room, the first shots of machine gunfire rang out in the yard of the post office.Sure enough, as I expected, the militiamen dispatched from the police station on Schneidermeer Lane and launched their first attack.We all immediately went into a mess.The door of the parcel room above the loading dock where the postal vehicles were parked was blown to pieces by the militiamen.They then entered the package room, and then to the package receiving room, and the door to the business hall had been opened. The men who had carried the wounded upstairs into the letter-basket where I buried the drum rushed out, and the rest followed them.From the sound I figured they were fighting in the ground floor hallway, and then made their way to the parcel reception room.The militia had to retreat. Oscar first hesitated, and then purposefully walked into the letter storage room.The wounded man's face was yellow-green, his teeth were bared, and his eyes were rolling under closed lids.Blood streaks hung from his mouth.His head was slumped over the side of the letter basket, so there was little danger of the letters being soaked in blood.Oscar had to tiptoe to reach the basket.The man's ass was right where I buried the drum.Oscar first took care not to touch the man and not tear the letter, then he pumped vigorously, and finally pulled out dozens of letters from under the groaning man. Today I want to say that I was already touching the edge of the drum.At this moment the men rushed up the stairs again and came down the passage.They drove the militia out of the parcel room and became the initial victors.They are back.I hear them laughing. I hid behind a mail basket by the door and waited until they got to the wounded man.Talking loudly, gesticulating, and cursing under their breath, they bandaged the wounded man. Two anti-tank shells exploded above the business hall one after another, and then fell silent again.The salvos of the two battleships opposite Freeport Westplatte were regular, murmuring like a good-natured man.People are used to the sound. I slipped out of the mail room without being noticed by the men with the wounded man.I left the drum behind and went back to Jan, my imaginary father and cousin and Corbyella the housekeeper. The third floor is the dormitory of Nacharnik, the secretary general of the post office.He had sent the family to Bramburg or Warsaw in good time.I searched first in the storage rooms on the side of the post office yard, and then found Jan and Kobiela in the children's room of the Nacharnik dormitory. It was a bright and pleasant room, wallpapered in a pleasant colour, though it had been damaged in several places by stray bullets.There are two windows, and when the world is peaceful, you can look out of the Hevelius Square from the window, which must be a lot of fun.An undamaged rocking horse, various balls, a castle of knights and many overturned lead soldiers, both cavalry and infantry, an open cardboard box containing many small rails and trains, many dolls, broken programs No, the doll's hut, the mess in the room, all in all, this mass of toys shows that Nacharnik, the post secretary, is the father of two spoiled children, and it must be a boy and a girl.Fortunately, they have been evacuated to Warsaw, and they have saved me the trouble of finding me. I have experienced this experience with the Bronski brothers and sisters.The postmaster boy must have been sad to say goodbye to his children's playground full of lead soldiers.Thinking of this, I feel a little gloated.Perhaps the boy stuffed a few lancers into his trouser pockets so that he could use them to reinforce the Polish cavalry later in the battle to defend the fortress of Modlin. -------- ① Soldiers cast in lead, children's toys.In the past it was mistranslated as tin soldier. Oscar says too much about lead soldiers.Still, he couldn't get around one fact.On a shelf there are toys, picture books and games.On the top shelf are small musical instruments.A honey-yellow trumpet stood silently beside a set of little clocks which tinkled as they went into battle, that is to say, as shells exploded.On the outer right is an accordion, brightly colored, with its bellows open.Parents must have been hasty enough to give their offspring a violin, smaller in size but with four strings just like the real thing.Next to the violin, there was something, white, intact, with some blocks around it to keep it from rolling off, it was incredible, a red and white painted tin drum. I didn't even think about getting the drums off the stand by myself at first.Oscar knew he couldn't reach it, and because of his dwarf-like stature, whenever he couldn't do anything, he had to ask adults for help. Jan Bronski and Corbyella lay on their stomachs behind the sandbags, which reached a third of the height of the French windows.Yang is under the window on the left.Under the window on the right is Corbiera.It dawned on me at once that the concierge would not have the time now to take out my drum, which must have been crushed under the wounded man, and repair it.Because Corbyella is busy.Every once in a while he would shoot through the hole he had left in the sandbag wall towards the corner of Schneidermeer Lane at the end of Heveliusplatz, where, not far in front of the Radonna Bridge, a bridge had just been erected. Anti-tank guns. Yang huddled into a ball and lay there, his head was hidden somewhere, and his whole body was trembling.I only recognized him by his stylish dark gray suit, which was now covered with plaster and sand.His leather shoes were also gray and the laces on his right foot were loose.I knelt down and tied his shoelaces.When I was fastening, Jan twitched, and his overly blue eyes peeped out from his left sleeve, staring at me, watery and incomprehensibly blue.Oscar took a rough look and concluded that he was not injured, however, he was crying silently.Jan Bronski was frightened.I just pretended I didn’t see him crying, and pointed to the tin drum of Nacharnik’s son who had been evacuated, and with obvious gestures asked Jan to use the blind corner of the nursery more carefully, go to the shelf, and remove the drum for me .My cousin didn't understand me.My imaginary father didn't understand me.My poor mother's lover was so frightened that he could do nothing but be frightened, and my gestures to him for help only added to his fright.Oscar wanted to yell at him, but was afraid of being spotted by Corbyella, who seemed intent on listening only to his own gunfire. So I crouched behind the sandbag to Jan's left and next to him, passing on my composure to my hapless cousin and imaginary father.After a while, I thought he calmed down a bit.My even breathing made his pulse more or less even.I called Jan's attention to Nacharnik's son's tin drum again.I turned his head slowly and gently until it was on the toy shelf.However, I was too hasty, and Yang still didn't understand what I meant.Fear drilled from the soles of the feet to the top of the head, and from the top of the head to the soles of the feet, perhaps blocked by the insoles and soles of the shoes.Fear wanted to vent, but it bounced back, passing through the liver, spleen, and stomach, occupying his poor head, squeezing his blue eyes to the point of bursting out, and the intricate capillaries appeared from the top of the eyes.Oscar had never had the chance to see his imaginary father's eyes before. It took me a little effort and effort to get my cousin to retract his eyeballs and make his heart beat a little more evenly.All these efforts of my aesthetics were in vain.The civilian army used field howitzers for the first time, aiming with a telescope, trying to flatten the iron fence in front of the post office building.They knocked down the brick pillars one by one and pulled out the iron fence.The accuracy of shooting is amazing, which shows that their daily training has reached a very high level.There were fifteen to twenty brick columns, and every time one was knocked down, my poor cousin Yang suffered a blow to his heart and spirit, as if not only the bases of the columns were blown up, but also the imaginary god statues that lived on them. , that was familiar to my cousin and indispensable in his life. Only this way of thinking can explain why Yang screams every time the howitzer hits a wall pillar, and he may have consciously and purposefully shouted like my glass-destroying cry, which may also have a cutting effect. The efficacy of diamonds in glass.Jan yelled enthusiastically, but aimlessly, and ended up letting Corbyella lay his crippled, scrawny housekeeper's body beside us, lifting his skinny, eyelashless bird's head, watery His gray eyes turned slowly towards our fellow sufferers.His body was shaking.Jan just whimpered to himself.He lifted Jan's shirt and quickly checked him for any wounds - I almost laughed - he couldn't find any wounds, turned Jan over again, on his back, squeezed Jan's jaw, and shook Got it rattling, forcing Jan's blue eyes to look into Kobyella's watery gray eyes, swearing at him in Polish, spitting in his face, and finally throwing the gun at him.Yang kept the gun in the firing hole all the time, and never let go of a single shot, even before the safety was released.The butt of the gun hit his left kneecap squarely.After all the pain of the mind, Young had his first taste of physical pain, and he seemed to be enjoying it, as he grabbed the gun.However, when the metal part of the gun passed the cold feeling from his fingers to his blood, he was afraid again, but, encouraged by Kobiela's persuasion and cursing, he finally crawled towards his own shooting hole. My imaginary father, though full of effeminate fantasies, had a view of war so realistic that he had no imagination at all, so it was difficult if not impossible for him to muster up courage.He neither glanced at the firing surface under his control through the firing hole, nor searched for a worthy target to aim at, but just tilted the gun, his body was far away from the gun, and the muzzle of the gun was facing Hevilius He emptied the magazine quickly and blindly over the roofs of the houses on the other side of the Square, and then, with both hands free, crawled back behind the sandbags.From his hiding place Jan cast a begging look at the house-sitter, like a schoolboy admitting his mistake with shame and exasperation after failing to finish his homework.Corbyella rattled her teeth several times, then laughed loudly, as if she didn't want to stop laughing, but then stopped suddenly, startling people, and kicked Bronski in the shin. Although Young is the secretary of the post office and his boss.Corbyella withdrew his foot in the shapeless shoe again and was about to kick Jan in the ribs when a burst of machine gun bullets shattered the remaining glass above the nursery, sending smoke billowing from the ceiling.He hurriedly stepped on the orthopedic shoe to the ground, threw himself behind his gun, and fired rapidly, one shot after another, as if he wanted to make up for the time wasted by Yang.The bullets he fired also accounted for a small share of the total ammunition consumption of World War II, anyway. Didn't the inspector see me?He is always serious and difficult to approach, just like those wounded soldiers who always ask others to respect them and keep a certain distance.But now he keeps me in this airy little room that smells of lead bullets.Perhaps Kobiela thought this way: This is a children's room, so Oscar can stay and play during the breaks in the battle. I don't know how long we lay there like this.I lay between Young and the left wall, both of us behind sandbags.Kobiela crouched behind his gun, shooting for two of them.Around ten o'clock, the gunfire gradually subsided.How quiet!I could hear the buzzing of flies, the voices and commands from the other side of the Hevelius Square, and the low rumbling of the two ships of the line in the harbour.It was a fine-to-cloudy September day, the sun gilded everything, and the air was thin, sensitive, and poorly transmitted.In a few days it will be my fifteenth birthday.I wish I had a tin drum, as I do every September.What is worth less than a tin drum?I give up all the treasures of the world, and I am determined to think only of a red and white tin drum. Yang didn't move at all.Kobiela took a deep breath evenly, Oscar heard that he had fallen asleep.He took advantage of this short interval of fighting to take a nap. After all, all people, even heroes, always take time to take a nap to recover from fatigue.I was the only one awake, thinking about the tin drum. At my age, I was so stubborn.It was getting quieter and quieter, except for a fly that was exhausted under the scorching heat and made a weak buzzing sound.No, it's not just now that I think of Nacharnik's tin drum.During the exchange of fire, amidst the sound of guns and guns around, Oscar also kept staring at it helplessly.However, now I see that the opportunity is coming, and I can't miss this great opportunity anyway. Oscar stood up slowly, with very light movements, bypassing the shards of glass, and walked towards the wooden shelf where the toys were placed with a clear goal.I thought to myself, using a children's chair, stacking the building block boxes, and building a step, not only is it stable, but also the height is completely enough, and I can immediately occupy this shiny new tin drum.At this time, Kobiela yelled and stopped me, and then the housekeeper grabbed me mercilessly.I desperately pointed at the tin drum in front of me.Corbyella pulled me back.I stretched out my arms towards the tin drum.The cripple hesitated, and just as he was about to stretch his hands high, and I was about to be the lucky one, a burst of machine guns fired into the nursery, and anti-tank shells exploded in front of the gate.Kobiela pushed me to the corner where Jan was lying, and he threw himself behind the gun and fired again, and was already firing the second load of bullets, and my eyes still hadn't left the tin drum. Oscar lay there.When this clubfoot, watery-eyed, eyelashless bird head dragged me back from my near goal and back into the corner behind the sandbag, Jan Bronski, my lovely blue-eyed The cousin didn't even lift his head.Oscar is crying?No!I just got more and more angry.Fat, bluish-white, eyeless maggots multiply and seek out a tasty carcass.What has Poland to do with me?What do those Poles have to do with me?They have their own cavalry!Let them mount!They kissed your lady's hand, and when they found out, it was too late. It turned out that what they kissed was not your lady's pushing fingers, but the unpainted muzzle of a field howitzer.At this time, the virgin born to Krupp began to vent his feelings.She smacked her lips, parodied the sound of gunfire as she had heard it on the weekly newsreel, and threw a colored firecracker containing inedible candy at the post office door, trying to open a breach if it did. After opening the gap, you have to go through the business hall that broke the gap, and gnaw off the stairs. In this way, no one can go up and no one can go down.Then came her retinue, under cover of machine guns, and some in sleek armored scout vehicles with brightly painted names: Ostermark and Sudeten.When they are not satisfied, they drive and rattle, wear armor, and scout back and forth in front of the post office.These are two young ladies who are enthusiastic about culture. They are going to visit a palace, but the gate of the palace is not open.These two beauties were spoiled and spoiled, they wanted to go in and see everywhere, and now they got impatient, and cast their gazes, leaden gray, aggressive, and of the same caliber, on everyone in the palace. To go into one of the visible rooms, and make them feel warm, cold, and narrow to the owner of the palace. -------- ① Krupp, a German steel company.A virgin born by Krupp, referring to the cannon made by the factory. Just as an armored reconnaissance vehicle—an Ostermark, I remember—was coming up from Knights Lane toward the post office again, Jan, my cousin who had been dead for so long, lifted his right leg into the After the firing hole, I hope that the reconnaissance vehicle can find his leg and shoot at it; or some stray bullet will spare him and scratch his calf or heel, and this wound will allow this soldier to exaggerate. He limped off the line of fire. It is very strenuous to maintain such a posture.Jan Bronski had to put his legs down after a while.So he rolled over, on his back, so that he had enough strength to support the hamstring with both hands, and let the calf and heel hang behind the firing hole, making it possible for stray or aimed bullets to hit it It increased even more. Whether it was then or today, I have a clear understanding of Yang's psychology.Therefore, when Corbyella saw his boss, the post office secretary Bronski, put on such a contemptible and desperate posture, I could completely understand him and lose his temper.The caretaker jumped up, jumped to our side, reached on top of our heads, rushed over, grabbed Yang's clothes, lifted him up with the clothes, threw them down again, and grabbed him again, He tore his clothes, and beat him with his hands, once left, once right, just as he withdrew his right hand, his left hand was already knocked down, and as soon as his right hand was lifted into the air, his left hand came up, and he clenched his hands into a big fist, Xiang Yang Bronski, my cousin, Oskar's imaginary father, beat down hard.At this time, there was a loud noise, perhaps the sound made by angels spreading their wings in worship to God, and at this time, a song was sung, like the sound of ether in the radio. At this time, it was not Bronski who was hit, but Bronski. It was Corbiera who caught it; and now the shells made a great joke, the bricks burst with laughter, the fragments turned to dust, the plaster turned to powder, the wood found the ax, and this ridiculous nursery A leg was bouncing, the Kurt-Kruse doll was broken, and the rocking-horse slid from end to end, trying so hard to throw a rider on its back!Everything in the building block box was messed up. The Polish Lancers occupied the four corners of the children's room at the same time. Finally, the wooden shelf on which the toys were placed finally fell down. , like the trumpet blows something, all in all, everything sounds at the same time, like a rehearsing band, shouts, crackles, hisses, bells, crashes, crackles, rattles Squeaks, squeaks, coughs, high-pitched voices echoed high, bass burrowed beneath the floorboards.And I, as a three-year-old should be, was close to the window when the shell hit, in the safety of the nursery.At this time, the tin skin, the tin drum, fell in front of me.It just had a few flecks of paint chipped off, not a single hole.Oscar's new drums! As soon as I lifted my eyes from the new drums that rolled out of nowhere at my feet, I immediately felt compelled to do Jan Bronski a favor.The housekeeper's heavy body was pressing on him, and he couldn't push it away no matter what.I thought at first Jan had been hit too because his whimpers were so natural.In the end, when we rolled Kobiela aside, who was also groaning naturally, I realized that Young's injuries were minor.Just shards of glass scratched his right cheek and the back of one hand.I made a hasty comparison, and concluded that my supposed father's blood was much brighter red than that of the housekeeper.The upper thigh of the janitor's trousers was already stained with dark red plasma. Who tore and jumbled Jan's dainty gray blouse, I don't know.Is it Corbyella or the shell?Anyway, the shoulders were torn, the gusset was showing, the buttons were off, the stitches were ripped, and the pockets were inside out.I beg you to forgive poor Jan Bronski.He was busy picking things out of his pockets during the storm before he dragged Kobyella out of the nursery with my help.He had recovered his comb, pictures of his mistresses—among them a bust of my poor mother—and his unopened wallet.He picked up the Shikat cards scattered all over the room by himself, which was not only strenuous for him, but also dangerous, because part of the sandbags used for cover had been blown away.He wants to find all the thirty-two cards.However, he did not find the thirty-second sheet, so he looked unfortunate.When Oscar found it between two untidy dollhouses and handed it to him, he smiled, even though it was a seven of spades. When we dragged Corbyella out of the nursery and finally reached the passage, the caretaker said feebly something Jan Bronski could understand: "Is there nothing missing?" the cripple asked anxiously. road.Jan reached into his trousers, gave the old man a full squeeze between the legs, and nodded to Corbyella. We were all lucky: Corbyella kept his pride, Jan Bronski recovered thirty-two cards, including the seven of spades, and Oscar got a new tin drum.With every step he took, the drum hit his knee.Jan and a man Jan called Victor helped the housekeeper, who was bleeding and weak, down to the second floor and into the mail room.