But they do concern Bishop So?tyk. He has already ordered new vestments from the Jewish tailors, and new winter shoes. He spends the evenings with friends, goes to the opera, and to dinners where his presence is requested. Unfortunately, it still happens—he himself laments it extremely—that later he has his carriage take him home so he can change clothes and, according to his own time-honored custom, venture back out to a certain inn on the outskirts of town, where he plays cards. Lately he has managed to wager only small sums, so as not to greatly increase his already massive debt, and this improves his self-esteem somewhat. If only this were the single weakness that plagued mankind!
Another friend of Za?uski’s appears in Warsaw, Katarzyna Kossakowska, a woman as sly as a fox—So?tyk does not particularly like her, but he respects her and even fears her a bit. She has real missionary zeal, and she spreads word of her cause to everyone she encounters—she is seeking every kind of support in the capital for those Jewish heretics. She quickly unites those who can help in the matter of convincing the king himself to issue a letter of safe conduct that will protect those miserable souls, who now cling to the Christian faith. It becomes a fashionable topic at the salons, at formal dinners, in the corridors of the opera; everyone speaks of the so-called Jewish Puritans. Some with great excitement, others with a lofty, cool Polish irony. The bishop receives from Kossakowska an unexpected present of a gilded silver chain with a heavy cross on it, also silver, studded with stones. The piece is valuable and rare.
The bishop would have involved himself to a greater degree in this cause of hers had it not been for this business of waiting. He does, in point of fact, have competitors. As soon as Bishop Andrzej Za?uski dies in Kraków, he will have to act quickly, be the first to appear before the king and make an impression upon him. It is a good thing the king is in Warsaw, far from his beloved Dresden and Saxony—but with those places now plundered by Frederick Augustus, it is safer for him here.
What a credit it would be in the eyes of God to bring all those Jewish heretics into the bosom of the church. The world has never seen such a thing—and it is only in Catholic Poland that such a thing could ever happen. The entire world would hear of us, thinks Bishop So?tyk.
While he has been waiting, the bishop has devised a fabulous plan. Namely, he has ordered hired cannoneers with mortars to be positioned all along the road from Kraków to Warsaw, each at a distance of several miles, and just as soon as his man at the bishop’s in Kraków learns that Za?uski has died, he will let the first cannoneer know to fire in the direction of Warsaw. At that signal, the second cannoneer will fire, and then the third, and so on, in a chain that links them all the way to Warsaw, and in such a way, by this unusual post, Bishop So?tyk will be the first to know, before any of the official letters sent by the messengers are brought in. The idea was provided to him by Joseph Za?uski, who had found it in some book, and who understood his friend’s impatience.
Za?uski would like to go to Kraków to see his dying brother, but December has been strangely warm—the rivers have flooded, and many roads are impassable, so that he, too, is dependent upon So?tyk’s mortar post.
There is now talk of a papal letter regarding the matter of the ongoing—though lately less frequent—accusations against the Jews of using Christian blood. Rome’s stance is clear and irrevocable: such accusations have no basis whatsoever. This embitters Kajetan So?tyk, as he confides over dinner to his friends Katarzyna Kossakowska and the bishop Joseph Za?uski.
“I have heard the testimonies myself. I sat through a whole trial.”
“I’d be curious as to what kinds of things Your Excellency would say under torture,” Kossakowska says, making a wry face.
Za?uski, too, is familiar with the matter, as So?tyk related to him in great detail the events in Markowa Wolica several years ago.
“I would like to broach this subject in some sort of scholarly work,” he says slowly. “And take the time to study all the sources to which I have access in the library. And there are numerous sources on it from all over the world. If the bishop were not taking up so much of my time . . .”
He would like nothing more than to immerse himself completely in his studies and never leave his library. But there is a pained expression on his lively face, which displays every shade of emotion. He says:
“What a shame that everything must be written in French now, rather than in our holy Latin, which, too, discourages me from writing, for my French is not the best. And yet everything is suddenly parlez, parlez . . . ,” he says, trying to mock this language he doesn’t like.
“. . . the words are all so sorry.” Kossakowska finishes the popular Polish phrase on his behalf. “As though one’s throat were all dried out from speaking it.”
A servant instantly appears to refill her glass.
“I can only summarize my views.” Bishop Za?uski looks attentively at So?tyk, but the latter is fully absorbed in nibbling meat off rabbit bones and seems not to hear. So he turns to Kossakowska, who has already finished eating and is now fidgeting, wanting to smoke her pipe:
“I have based these views on an in-depth study of sources, but above all on my reflections upon them, as facts recorded and promulgated without rational reflection can be misleading.”
He pauses for a moment as though attempting to recall those facts. In the end, he says:
“So I came to the conclusion that the whole misunderstanding arose from a simple mistake with words, or rather, with Hebrew letters. The Hebrew word d?a?m”—the bishop now traces the Hebrew signs on the table with his finger—“means at once ‘money’ and ‘blood,’ which might lead to any variety of misrepresentation—when we say that the Jews lust after money, it seems that we are saying they lust after blood. And to this was added the popular fantasy that it was Christian blood. That is where the whole fairy tale came from. And there might also be a second reason: during weddings, they give the newlyweds a drink of wine and myrtle known as h-a-d-a-s, and they call blood h-a?d-a-m, which could have also led to accusations. ‘Hadam,’ ‘hadas’—they’re practically the same, do you see, Your Ladyship? Our nuncio is right.”
Bishop So?tyk throws the little bones he hasn’t quite finished working on onto the table and roughly pushes his plate away.
“Your Excellency is making a mockery of me and my testimony,” he says, surprisingly calmly, but in a formal tone.
Kossakowska leans in to both of them, these corpulent men with the snow-white napkins at their throats, their cheeks red from wine:
“Truth for truth’s sake is not worth looking into. The truth in itself is always complicated. What we want to know is what truth we can use, and how.”
And not concerning herself with etiquette, she goes ahead and lights her pipe.
In the morning, the mortar post finally delivers the sad news that the Bishop of Kraków Andrzej Za?uski has died. In the afternoon, Kajetan So?tyk appears before the king. It is December 16, 1758.
Mrs. Kossakowska, wife of the castellan of Kamieniec, writes to Senator ?ubieński, Bishop of Lwów