Bishop Kajetan So?tyk has a serious problem. Even prayer, deep and sincere prayer, can’t wash away his thoughts. His hands sweat, he wakes up too early, as the birds are just beginning their songs, and he goes to bed late, for obvious reasons. So his nerves never get a good rest.
Twenty-four cards. Each player receives six, and then a thirteenth is turned up to indicate the trump suit, meaning the one that will beat every other. The bishop can only calm down once he has been seated at the table, or perhaps once the trump card is lying there, exposed. Then a feeling like a blessing comes over him. His mind finds its proper balance, a wondrous equilibrium, his eyes focus on the table and on the aspect of the cards, taking everything in with just a glance. His breathing evens out, the sweat releases its hold over his forehead, his hands become dry, certain, quick, his fingers shuffle the cards smoothly, revealing one after the next. This is his moment of real delectation—yes, the bishop would prefer never to eat again, and to give up all other corporeal pleasures, rather than relinquish this instant.
The bishop plays Mariage with equals. Not long ago, while the canon of Przemy?l was staying here, they would play till morning. He also plays with Jab?onowski, ?ab?cki, and Kossakowski—but it’s not enough. Which is why recently something else has started happening, though he hates to even think of it.
He pulls his vestments up over his head, changes into ordinary clothes, and puts on his cap. Only his valet, Antoni, knows about what happens, and Antoni is almost like family and gives no indication that he is taken aback by it in any way. One ought not to be taken aback by a bishop, a bishop is a bishop, he knows what he’s doing when he asks you to take him to a tavern on the outskirts of town, to a place he must know people will be playing Pharo for money. The table will be occupied by traveling merchants, noblemen in the middle of a journey, foreign guests, clerks carrying letters, and all variety of adventurers. In taverns not overly clean, and smoky, it feels like everyone is playing, the whole world, and like cards unite people better than faith or language. You sit down at the table, you fan out your cards, and there follows an order that is understandable to anyone. And one must simply adapt to that order, if one wishes to win. The bishop thinks it’s like a kind of new language that unites them in a brotherhood for that one night. When he is short on cash, he has them summon some Jew, but that one only lends small sums. For larger amounts, he gets promissory notes from the Jews in ?ytomierz, guaranteeing them eventual repayment with his signature.
Anyone who sits at the table can play. Of course the bishop would prefer a better class of people, would prefer to play with peers, but they only rarely have enough money, most of which seems to be in the possession of traveling merchants or Turks, or officers, or others, people from unknown climes. When the banker pours the money out onto the table and shuffles the cards, those who wish to play against him, the punters, come and occupy their seats, each with his own deck. A player takes from this a single card or more and places it before him, and on it, he lays his stake. Having shuffled, the banker reveals all of his cards in turn, laying the first down by his right hand, the second by his left, the third again by his right, the fourth by his left—and so on till the whole pack is dealt out. The cards to the right are what the house takes, while those to the left go to the punters. Therefore, if a person placed before him a seven of spades, and on it a ducat, and in the banker’s deck the seven of spades falls to the right, then the player loses his ducat; if it falls to the left, then the banker pays out a ducat to the punter. This rule also has exceptions: the last card but one, though placed to the left, goes to the bank. When a punter has won, he may end the game, or he may play anew starting with a different card, or he may also parole. That’s what Bishop So?tyk always does. He leaves the money he wins atop his card, bending up the corner of the card. If he loses then, he has still lost only the sum with which he started.
It is a more honest game—all in the hands of the Lord. How could anyone possibly cheat?
As the bishop’s card debts grow, he calls upon God to shield him from a scandal when it all comes out. He demands divine cooperation—after all, he and God are on the same side of this battle. But God acts somewhat sluggishly, and sometimes it seems like He wants to make another Job out of Bishop So?tyk. It sometimes happens that the bishop curses Him; then of course he repents and begs forgiveness—as everyone knows, he is hotheaded. He gives himself a fast by way of penance and sleeps in a hair shirt.
No one knows yet that he has put his bishop’s insignia in hock in order to pay off some of his debts. With those ?ytomierz Jews. They didn’t want to take it, he had to talk them into it. When they saw what was in the bishop’s chest, which he had covered in sackcloth for disguise, they jumped back and started wailing and lamenting, waving their hands like they had seen some ungodly thing in it.
“I can’t accept this,” the eldest of them said. “To you, this is worth more than silver and gold, but to me it’s just metal for the scales. If we were found with these, they’d beat us within an inch of our lives.”
So they grumbled, but the bishop insisted, raised his voice, frightened them. They took the insignia, and they paid him for it in cold, hard cash.
The bishop, who has not managed to get the money back by playing cards, now desires to take the insignia back by force, even if he has to send in some armed men. Apparently they keep it in a little room under the floorboards. If anyone found out, the bishop’s life would not be spared. So he is prepared to do whatever it takes to ensure that the insignia is restored to his residence.
Meanwhile he tries to win it back at Pharo, trusting blindly in divine intervention on his behalf. And it’s true: he starts out doing well. The room is very smoky, there are four of them at the table: the bishop himself; a traveler dressed in the German style, but who speaks good Polish; a local nobleman who speaks Ruthenian and curses in the same, with a young girl, almost a child, who sits on his lap, whom the nobleman pushes away when the cards aren’t going in his favor but sometimes also pulls close to caress her almost fully naked chest, drawing reproachful looks from Bishop So?tyk; and finally, some merchant who looks to the bishop like a converted Jew, who is the one who has been winning so far. Before every deal, the bishop feels sure his cards will appear in the proper column, and during every deal he watches in disbelief as they go down on the other side. He genuinely can’t believe it.
Polonia est paradisus Judaeorum . . .