Repository path: workshop/translations/kamizelka/R06-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

T-kamizelka-R06-v1 — Bolesław Prus, «Kamizelka» (1882), Polish → English — the single pass

The R04 procedure step 2a artifact: the unrevised draft, written straight through from the source alone and committed in its own commit before the revision was begun. R04 says a draft reconstructed after the fact is not an R06 output; this one is not reconstructed.

No published English rendering was consulted, and none is reachable. Three exist in print (N. B. Jopson, The Slavonic Review IX, 1930–31; Olga Scherer, 1955; Ilona Ralf Sues, 1960); none is freely available, so tools/dependence_check.py could not be run. contamination: suspected is therefore a declaration without a measurement, which CLAUDE.md's standing rule requires be said on the artifact rather than passed over. The project's one previous Polish translation measured DEPENDENT?, an 18-token run against Curtin 1893 (T-janko-R06-v1-unitA, retired), and obscurity has three measurements against it as a protective factor.

Paragraph numbers are source-pl.txt's. The log is in ../R04-v1/translation.md.

[1] Some people have a bent for collecting curiosities, dearer or less dear, according to what each can afford. I too own a little collection, though a modest one, as collections usually are at the start.

[2] There is my play in it, the one I was still writing at grammar school during Latin lessons... There are a few dried flowers, which will have to be replaced with new ones, there is...

[3] It seems there is nothing further, apart from a certain very old and ruined waistcoat.

[4] Here it is. The front faded, the back worn through. Plenty of stains, buttons missing, a small hole at the edge, burnt no doubt by a cigarette. But the most interesting thing about it is the straps. The one that carries the buckle has been shortened and sewn back on in a way that is not a tailor's at all, and the other, along almost its whole length, is pricked full of holes by the buckle's teeth.

[5] Looking at it, you guess at once that the owner of the garment must have grown thinner every day and at last reached the point at which a waistcoat stops being necessary, while what turns out to be very necessary indeed is a dress coat buttoned up under the chin from the undertaker's warehouse.

[6] I confess that today I would gladly make over to somebody this rag of cloth, which is rather a nuisance to me. I have no cabinets for my collection yet, and I would not care, again, to keep an ailing scrap of a waistcoat among my own things. There was a time, though, when I bought it for a price remarkably above its worth, and would have paid dearer still, if the man had known how to haggle. A man has moments in his life when he likes to surround himself with objects that remind him of sorrow.

[7] That sorrow was not lodged with me, but in the flat of some near neighbours. From my window I could look every day into the inside of their little room.

[8] In April there were still three of them: the gentleman, the lady, and a small servant girl who slept, as far as I know, on a trunk behind the wardrobe. The wardrobe was dark cherry. In July, if my memory does not deceive me, there were only two of them left: the lady and the gentleman, because the servant had moved to the sort of people who paid her three roubles a year and cooked dinner every day.

[9] In October there was only — the lady, all alone. That is, not entirely alone, since there was still a good deal of furniture in the room: two beds, a table, a wardrobe... But at the beginning of November the unneeded things were sold off at auction, and of all the keepsakes of her husband there remained with the lady only the waistcoat which I now own.

[10] But at the end of November, one day, the lady called an old-clothes dealer up to the empty flat and sold him her umbrella for two zloty and her husband's waistcoat for forty groszy. Then she locked the flat, crossed the courtyard slowly, handed the key to the porter at the gate, looked for a moment at the window that had once been hers, on which fine flakes of snow were falling, and — vanished beyond the gate.

[11] The old-clothes dealer was left in the courtyard. He turned up the great collar of his coat, tucked the just-bought umbrella under his arm and, wrapping his hands, red with cold, in the waistcoat, muttered:

[12] "Old clothes, gentlemen... old clothes!..."

[13] I called him up.

[14] "Has the good gentleman something to sell?" he asked, coming in.

[15] "No, I want to buy something from you."

[16] "Then the worshipful gentleman will be wanting an umbrella?..." the little Jew replied.

[17] He threw the waistcoat on the floor, shook the snow off his collar and set about opening the umbrella with great exertion.

[18] "Now that's a fine article!..." he said. "For snow like this, only an umbrella like this... I know the worshipful gentleman could have an umbrella all of silk, two of them even. But that's only good for summer!..."

[19] "What do you want for the waistcoat?" I asked.

[20] "Vot vaistcoat?..." he answered, taken aback, thinking no doubt of his own.

[21] But he collected himself at once and quickly picked up the one lying on the floor.

[22] "For dis vaistcoat?... The good gentleman is asking about dis vaistcoat?..."

[23] And then, as though a suspicion had woken in him, he asked:

[24] "Vot vould the worshipful gentleman vant with a vaistcoat like dis?!..."

[25] "How much do you want for it?"

[26] The whites of the Jew's eyes flashed yellow, and the tip of his long nose reddened still further.

[27] "The worshipful gentleman will give... a little rouble!" he answered, spreading the goods out before my eyes in such a way as to show all their merits.

[28] "I'll give you half a rouble."

[29] "Half a rouble?... a garment like dis?... It cannot be!" said the dealer.

[30] "Not a grosz more."

[31] "Long life to the worshipful gentleman and his joke!..." he said, clapping me on the shoulder. "The gentleman knows himself vot a thing like this is worth. It isn't a garment for a small child, after all, it's for grown persons..."

[32] "Well, if you can't let it go for half a rouble, then be off. I shan't give more."

[33] "Only don't let the gentleman be angry!" he broke in, softening. "On my conscience, I can't do it for half a little rouble, but — I'll leave it to the gentleman's own judgment... Let the gentleman say himself what it's worth, and I'll agree!... I'd sooner make it up out of my own pocket, so long as what the gentleman wants comes about."

[34] "The waistcoat is worth fifty groszy, and I am giving you half a rouble."

[35] "Half a rouble?... Let it be half a rouble then!..." he sighed, pressing the waistcoat into my hands. "Let the loss be mine, so long as I don't stand here making vind with my mouth... this vind!..."

[36] And he pointed with his hand at the window, beyond which a cloud of snow was whirling.

[37] When I reached for the money, the dealer, evidently remembering something, snatched the waistcoat away from me once more and began rapidly going through its little pockets.

[38] "What are you looking for in there?"

[39] "Maybe I left something in the pocket, I don't remember!" he answered in the most natural tone in the world, and, handing back my purchase, added:

[40] "Let the illustrious gentleman throw in a ten-piece at least!..."

[41] "Well, keep well!" I said, opening the door.

[42] "I fall at your feet!... I have a very decent fur coat at home besides..."

[43] And still sticking his head back over the threshold, he asked:

[44] "And maybe the worshipful gentleman would like me to bring some sheep's cheeses?..."

[45] A few minutes later he was calling in the yard again: "Old clothes! old clothes!..." — and when I stood at the window, he bowed to me with a friendly smile.

[46] The snow began to fall so heavily that it grew almost dark. I laid the waistcoat on the table and fell to musing, now about the lady who had gone out beyond the gate to nobody knew where, now about the flat standing empty beside my own, now again about the owner of the waistcoat, over whom an ever thicker layer of snow was piling up...

[47] Only three months ago I heard the two of them talking together on a fine September day. In May the lady even — hummed some song once, and he laughed as he read the Holiday Courier. And today...

[48] They had moved into our tenement at the beginning of April. They got up fairly early, drank tea from a tin samovar and went out into town together. She to her lessons, he to his office.

[49] He was a minor little clerk, who looked at his department heads with the sort of wonder a traveller feels at the Tatras. For that he had to work a great deal, whole days at a stretch. I even used to see him at midnight, by the lamp, bent over his little table.

[50] The wife usually sat beside him and sewed. Sometimes, glancing at him, she would break off her work and say in an admonishing tone:

[51] "Come, that will be enough now, go to bed."

[52] "And when will you go to bed?..."

[53] "I... I'll just finish a few more stitches..."

[54] "Well... then I'll write a few more lines..."

[55] Again the two of them bent their heads and did their own work. And again after some time the lady would say:

[56] "Lie down!... lie down!..."

[57] Sometimes my clock answered her words, striking one.

[58] They were young people, neither handsome nor plain, altogether quiet. As far as I remember, the lady was considerably slighter than her husband, who was of quite a stout build. I would say even too stout for so small a clerk.

[59] Every Sunday, around noon, they went out for a walk, arm in arm, and came home late in the evening. Dinner they no doubt ate in town. Once I met them at the gate that divides the Botanical Garden from the Łazienki. They had bought themselves two mugs of excellent water and two large gingerbreads, wearing the calm faces of townspeople who are used to eating hot ham with horseradish at their tea.

[60] On the whole, poor people need very little to keep their spiritual balance. A little food, a great deal of work and a great deal of health. The rest somehow finds itself.

[61] My neighbours, as far as it seemed, lacked neither food nor at any rate work. But the health did not always hold up.

[62] Somewhere about July the gentleman caught cold, and not badly at that. By a strange coincidence, however, he suffered at the same time so violent a haemorrhage that he actually lost consciousness.

[63] It was already night. The wife, having settled him on the bed, brought the porter's wife into the room and ran herself for a doctor. She enquired at five houses, but found barely one, and that by accident, in the street.

[64] The doctor, glancing at her by the light of a flickering lamp, thought it proper to calm her first of all. And since she staggered at moments, no doubt from exhaustion, and there was no cab in the street, he offered her his arm, and explained as they went that a haemorrhage still proves nothing.

[65] "A haemorrhage may come from the larynx, from the stomach, from the nose, from the lungs rarely ever. Besides, if a man has always been well, has never coughed..."

[66] "Oh, only sometimes!" the lady whispered, stopping to catch her breath.

[67] "Sometimes? that is nothing yet. He may have a slight bronchial catarrh."

[68] "Yes... it is a catarrh!" the lady repeated, aloud now.

[69] "He has never had pneumonia?..."

[70] "Indeed he has!..." the lady answered, stopping again.

[71] Her legs were shaking a little under her.

[72] "Yes, but a long time ago, I suppose?..." the doctor caught it up.

[73] "Oh, very... very long ago!..." she confirmed hurriedly. "Back that winter."

[74] "Eighteen months ago."

[75] "No... But still before the new year... Oh, a long time ago!"

[76] "Ah!... What a dark street this is, and the sky a little overcast into the bargain..." said the doctor.

[77] They went into the house. The lady asked the porter fearfully what news there was — and learned that there was none. In the flat the porter's wife also told her that nothing had been heard, and that the sick man had been dozing.

[78] The doctor woke him carefully, examined him and also said that it was nothing.

[79] "I said at once that it was nothing!" the sick man put in.

[80] "Oh, nothing!..." the lady repeated, pressing his sweating hands. "I know perfectly well that a haemorrhage may come from the stomach, or from the nose. With you it is certainly from the nose... You are so stout, you need exercise, and you sit still all the time... Isn't it true, doctor, that he needs exercise?..."

[81] "Yes! yes!... Exercise is necessary in general, but the lady's husband must lie up for a few days. Can he go away to the country?"

[82] "He cannot..." the lady whispered sadly.

[83] "Well — never mind! Then he will stay in Warsaw. I shall come and see him, and in the meantime — let him lie still and rest.

[84] But if the haemorrhage should be repeated..." the doctor added.

[85] "Then what, sir?" the wife asked, going white as wax.

[86] "Well, then nothing. The lady's husband will rest, it will seal itself over in there..."

[87] "In there... in the nose?" said the lady, clasping her hands before the doctor.

[88] "Yes... in the nose! Of course. Let the lady calm herself, and leave the rest to God. Good night."

[89] The doctor's words so calmed the lady that, after the fright she had been going through for several hours, she felt almost gay.

[90] "Well, and what was so terrible about it!" she said, laughing a little and crying a little.

[91] She knelt down by the sick man's bed and began kissing his hands.

[92] "What was so terrible!" the gentleman repeated quietly, and smiled. "Think how much blood runs out of a man in war, and afterwards he is well all the same!..."

[93] "Only don't say anything now," the lady begged him.

[94] Outside it had begun to grow light. In summer, as everyone knows, the nights are very short.

[95] The illness dragged on considerably longer than had been thought. The husband no longer went to the office, which troubled him the less in that, as a clerk on wages, he did not need to take leave, and could come back whenever he pleased and — if a place could be found. Since he was healthier when he stayed at home, the lady arranged for a few more lessons in the week and with their help met the household's needs.

[96] She usually went out into town at eight in the morning. Around one she came back for a couple of hours to cook her husband's dinner on the little stove, and then ran out again for a while.

[97] The evenings, at least, they spent together. And the lady, so as not to be idle, took in a little more sewing.

[98] Somewhere at the end of August the lady met the doctor in the street. They walked together a long time. At last the lady seized the doctor by the hand and said in a pleading tone:

[99] "But do come and see us all the same. Perhaps God will grant it!... He grows so much calmer after every visit of yours..."

[100] The doctor promised, and the lady went home looking as though she had been crying. The gentleman too, from being forced to sit still, had turned somehow irritable and full of doubt. He began reproaching his wife with being too anxious about him, with his being going to die in spite of it all, and at last he asked:

[101] "Didn't the doctor tell you that I shan't live a few months?"

[102] The lady went numb.

[103] "What are you saying?" she said. "Where do you get such thoughts?..."

[104] The sick man flew into a rage.

[105] "Oh, come here to me, here!..." he said violently, seizing her by the hands. "Look me straight in the eyes and answer: didn't the doctor tell you?"

[106] And he sank a feverish stare into her. It seemed that under such a look a wall would have whispered out a secret, if it had had one.

[107] A strange calm appeared on the woman's face. She smiled gently, bearing that wild stare. Only her eyes seemed to have glazed over.

[108] "The doctor said," she answered, "that it is nothing, only that you must rest a little..."

[109] The husband suddenly let her go, began to tremble and to laugh, and then, waving his hand, said:

[110] "There, you see what a nervous creature I am!... I had got it fixed in my head that the doctor had given me up... But... you have convinced me... I am easy now!..."

[111] And he laughed more and more merrily at his own fancies.

[112] Nor did such a fit of suspicion ever recur. The wife's gentle calm was, after all, the best indication the sick man had that his condition was not a bad one.

[113] And on what grounds should it have been bad?

[114] There was a cough, true, but — that was from the bronchial catarrh. Sometimes, from sitting so long, blood appeared — from the nose. Well, he had something like a fever too, but properly speaking it was not a fever, only — a nervous state of that kind.

[115] On the whole he felt healthier and healthier. He had an irresistible desire for some long excursions, only — he was a little short of strength. There even came a time when he would not lie in bed by day, but sat on a chair dressed, ready to go out, if only this momentary weakness would leave him.

[116] Only one detail disturbed him.

[117] One day, putting on his waistcoat, he felt that it was somehow very loose.

[118] "Can I have grown as thin as that?..." he whispered.

[119] "Well, naturally you must have got a little thinner," his wife answered. "But one mustn't exaggerate, after all..."

[120] The husband looked at her attentively. She did not even lift her eyes from her work. No, that calm could not be put on!... His wife knows from the doctor that he is not so very ill after all, so she has no reason to worry.

[121] At the beginning of September the nervous states, like a fever, came on more and more strongly, almost whole days at a time.

[122] "It's nonsense!" said the sick man. "On the turn from summer to autumn the healthiest man gets some irritation or other, everybody is out of sorts... The only thing that surprises me is this: why does my waistcoat sit looser and looser on me?... I must have grown dreadfully thin, and naturally I can't be well until I put on flesh, there's nothing for it!..."

[123] The wife listened to this attentively and had to admit that her husband was right.

[124] The sick man got up out of bed every day and dressed, although without his wife's help he could not pull on a single article of clothing. This much at least she got out of him, that on top he wore not a frock coat but a paletot.

[125] "It's a wonder," he said more than once, looking in the glass, "it's a wonder I have no strength. Why, look at me!..."

[126] "Well, the face always changes easily," his wife put in.

[127] "True, only that I am growing thinner in myself as well..."

[128] "Are you sure it isn't your imagination?" the lady asked, with an accent of great doubt.

[129] He fell to thinking.

[130] "Ha! perhaps you are right... Because even... for some days now I have noticed that... somehow... my waistcoat..."

[131] "Oh, give over!" the lady broke in. "Surely you haven't got fatter..."

[132] "Who knows? Because, as far as I can judge by the waistcoat, then..."

[133] "In that case your strength ought to be coming back."

[134] "Oho! you would like it all at once... First I must at least put on some flesh, surely. I'll even tell you that even when I do get my flesh back, I still shan't get my strength back at once...

[135] And what are you doing there behind the wardrobe?..." he asked suddenly.

[136] "Nothing. I'm looking in the trunk for a towel, and I don't know... whether it's clean."

[137] "Don't strain yourself so, your voice is quite changing with it... That's a heavy trunk, after all..."

[138] Indeed, the trunk must have been heavy, for the lady had actually got flushed patches on her face. But she was calm.

[139] From then on the sick man paid more and more diligent attention to his waistcoat. And every couple of days he would call his wife over and say:

[140] "There now... just look. Convince yourself: yesterday I could still get a finger in here, look — here... And today I can't any more. I really am beginning to put on flesh!..."

[141] But one day the sick man's joy knew no bounds. When his wife came back from her lessons, he greeted her with shining eyes and said, deeply moved:

[142] "Listen to me, I'll tell you a secret... I have been cheating a little, you see, with this waistcoat. To set your mind at rest, I took the strap in a little myself every day, and that is why — the waistcoat was tight... That way I took the strap yesterday to the very end. I was worrying already, thinking the secret would come out, when suddenly today... Do you know what I am going to tell you?... Today, I give you my most sacred word, instead of taking the strap in, I had to let it out a little!... It was positively tight on me, though only yesterday it was somewhat looser...

[143] Well, now I believe too that I shall be well. I myself!... Let the doctor think what he likes..."

[144] The long speech had so exhausted him that he had to move to the bed. There, however, as a man who is beginning to put on flesh without taking in any straps, he did not lie down, but leaned back in his wife's arms as though in an armchair.

[145] "Well, well!..." he whispered. "Who would have expected it?... For two weeks I deceived my wife that the waistcoat was tight, and today it really is tight of itself!...

[146] Well... well!..."

[147] And they sat on, nestling against each other, the whole evening.

[148] The sick man was moved as he had never been.

[149] "My God!" he whispered, kissing his wife's hands, "and I thought I should go on growing thinner like that until... the end. For two months, only today, for the first time, I have believed that I can get well.

[150] Because everyone lies to a sick man, and a wife most of all. But the waistcoat — that will not lie!..."

[151] Today, looking at the old waistcoat, I see that two people worked at its straps. The gentleman — moved the buckle along every day, to set his wife's mind at rest, and the lady every day — shortened the strap, to give her husband heart.

[152] "Will the two of them ever come together again, to tell each other the whole secret of the waistcoat?..." I thought, looking at the sky.

[153] There was almost no sky left above the earth. Only snow was falling, so thick and so cold that even in the graves the ashes of men were freezing.

[154] Yet who shall say that beyond those clouds there is no sun?...