Illustrating poems about a disobedient girl, Trust lets his imagination run wild
One day Andzia saw a kitten
walking by and she was smitten!
As she bent to stroke its fur
Her aunt began to screech at her,
“Leave that little cat alone,
Or it’ll scratch you to the bone!”
But this warning she ignored
Because she was a naughty ward.
The cat swiped at her with its claw
And then the girl began to bawl.
The air filled with her frantic screams
For blood was pouring down in streams.
Then her auntie’s face grew graver
While Andzia cursed the cat’s behaviour.
Andzia’s aunt began to scold:
‘You didn’t heed what you were told!
You’re to blame for your distress
And for the blood now on your dress.
The blame does not lie with the cat
For it’s a scratcher – you knew that!
And furthermore, it’s quite a sin
To curse like that! So don’t begin!
But for your wound, here’s what we’ll do:
I’ve got a cure that’s tried and true.
A good, high-quality band-aid.’
Which Andzia heard as ‘marmalade’,
Because her hearing starts to fail
Whenever Auntie’s scolds prevail.
Through her tears a smile appeared
And then she said, greatly cheered,
‘That’s a cure I never doubt!’
And stuck her little tongue right out.
But her auntie in a flash
Put the band-aid on the gash.
When Andzia saw her auntie’s plan,
Once again, the tears began.
‘Now,’ she thought, ‘I’ll never stop
Until I get a lollipop.’
But her auntie’s remedies
Only came from pharmacies.
‘The only cure,’ her auntie quipped,
‘For naughty kids is to be whipped.’
A bundle of birch twigs appeared:
A remedy most greatly feared.
Dear reader! Would you like to know
The ending of this tale of woe?
It won’t take long to summarize:
Andzia was quick to apologize,
And on her neck the wound soon healed.
Did her auntie start to yield?
Yes! Perceiving the remorse,
She had a change of heart, of course.
She gave her honey, to be nice.
And the kitty caught four mice.
Translated by Scotia Gilroy
Illustrating poems about a disobedient girl, Trust lets his imagination run wild
Translation rights: Timof i Cisi Wspólnicy, timof@timof.pl
Foreign language translations: Rights to Andzia have been sold to France. Przemysław „Trust” Truściński is one of the most important Polish comic artists and illustrators, as well as the originator and the co-organiser of the first comic conventions and festivals in Poland. He created the Geralt character for the cult game „The Witcher”.
The heroine of these peculiar, surprising poems written by Bishop Piotr Mańkowski (1866-1933) is a little girl named Andzia. Breaking the rules dictated by adults, Andzia gets pulled into a maelstrom of extraordinary events. Sometimes a poem ends with merely a harmless reprimand, but other times with dismemberment or a lifelong debt. However, each poem’s ending is more humorous than gruesome. And the lessons that can be learned from them is that while it is safer to listen to your elders, disobedient children have the most wonderful adventures.
The nine poems by Bishop Mańkowski were discovered in Rome in 2007. They were inspired by the work of Heinrich Hoffmann, author of books about ‘Shaggy Peter’ (original: Der Struwwelpeter), who suffered terrible consequences for his unruly behaviour. In Andzia, Mańkowski also polemicises with the moralising works of Stanisław Jachowicz, the most popular Polish fairy tale writer of the 19th century.
Although Mańkowski is not always stylistically perfect, his feel for language cannot be denied. The lively phrasing and regular rhymes make the poems easy to read and quick to memorise. The author’s ingenuity is impressive as he leads Andzia from completely mundane situations into the most surprising and absurd regions of experience.
The poems were illustrated by Przemysław ‘Trust’ Truściński, one of Poland’s most talented comic artists from the generation that debuted in the 1990s. In Trust’s visual interpretation, Andzia is a brave, determined child similar to Little Nemo from Winsor McCay’s famous comics. Just like McCay, Trust lets his imagination run wild – the illustrations sometimes become detached from the text and drift away towards a surreal sequence of associations. However, while Nemo grappled with the oneiric delusions of a child’s imagination, Andzia is surrounded by the delightful technological innovations of the interwar period – automobiles, transatlantic planes, radio transmitters and tanks.
Tomasz Pstrągowski
Translated by Scotia Gilroy
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
