{"product_id":"the-salt-of-the-earth-isbn-9781782274728","title":"The Salt of the Earth","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe classic pacifist novel by a major Polish writer, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt the beginning of the twentieth century the villagers of the Carpathian mountains lead a simple life, much as they have always done. Among them is Piotr, a bandy-legged peasant, who wants nothing more from life than an official railway cap, a cottage, and a bride with a dowry.\u003cbr\u003eBut then the First World War reaches the mountains and Piotr is drafted into the army. All the weight of imperial authority is used to mould him into an unthinking fighting machine, forced to fight a war he does not understand, for interests other than his own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Salt of the Earth\u003c\/i\u003e is a classic war novel and a powerfully pacifist tale about the consequences of war for ordinary men.'One of the great Central European war stories, on a par with the works of Jaroslav Hašek.' - \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eLos Angeles Review of Books\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Lively, faithful, and sensitive to the cultural nuances that make the novel such a rich tapestry of the Austrian-Hungarian monarchy prior to WWI.' - \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWorld Literature Today\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Wittlin's... irony and quiet fury are those of the idealistic ascetic steeped in the Old Testament and the \u003ci\u003eOdyssey\u003c\/i\u003e. His compassion for the ignorant and lowly of the earth, breathed into his work, imparts to it a glowing poetic quality and a sublimity of soul... It is a volume to be read again and again. It has the satisfying quality of good music.' - \u003ci\u003e\u003cb\u003eVirginia Quarterly Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'One of the small number of contemporary works which extend into the sphere of the mythical and epical' - \u003cb\u003eThomas Mann\u003c\/b\u003eOne of   the small number of contemporary works which extend into the sphere of the   mythical and epical. --Thomas MannJózef Wittlin, born in 1896, was a major Polish poet, novelist, essayist and translator. He studied in Vienna, where he met Joseph Roth and Rainer Maria Rilke, before serving in the Austro-Hungarian army in the First World War. His experiences during that war inspired him to write The Salt of the Earth, which was first published in 1935. It was awarded the Polish National Academy Prize, won Wittlin a nomination for the Nobel Prize, and has since been translated into 14 languages. Józef Wittlin also translated Homer's Odyssey into Polish, published several collections of poetry, many of which were strongly pacifist, and penned numerous essays including 'My Lwów', which is included in City of Lions, also published by Pushkin Press. With the outbreak of the Second World War he fled to France and then to New York, where he died in 1976.ii\u003cbr\u003e Everyone stood up. The old rococo armchairs heaved a sigh\u003cbr\u003e of relief, suddenly free of the burden of venerable bodies.\u003cbr\u003e Below, outside the gateway, the crash of the palace guard’s\u003cbr\u003e hobnailed boots rang out. Traditionally, soldiers of the 99th\u003cbr\u003e Moravian Infantry Regiment had the privilege of guarding\u003cbr\u003e these sacred places.\u003cbr\u003e “\u003ci\u003eGewehr heraaaaaus!\u003c\/i\u003e” yelled the sentry, like a locomotive\u003cbr\u003e whistle administering the last rites to victims of a disaster.\u003cbr\u003e The guard presented arms.\u003cbr\u003e A tall, bald-headed, distinguished-looking man, smiling\u003cbr\u003e frostily beneath a thin black moustache, cleared his throat.\u003cbr\u003e Today it was he who was to fulfil the most important role.\u003cbr\u003e Already as a child he had been fond of history. Very. Once\u003cbr\u003e more he glanced provocatively in the direction of the ministers\u003cbr\u003e poised stiffly in anticipation. Their faces, which now took\u003cbr\u003e on a ceremonial expression, though they were customarily\u003cbr\u003e sour and morose, bore witness to a severe hardening of the\u003cbr\u003e arteries. The worn-out vessels were now having difficulty\u003cbr\u003e pumping these gentlemen’s true-blue blood to their hearts.\u003cbr\u003e It was common knowledge whom these hearts were beating\u003cbr\u003e for. History itself would testify to whom they had promised to\u003cbr\u003e give the “last drop” of their blood. Especially as nobody had\u003cbr\u003e asked it of them. Meanwhile, the blood was battling against\u003cbr\u003e its own degeneration.\u003cbr\u003e The agreeable gentleman’s gaze next came to rest on\u003cbr\u003e Maria Theresa’s silver wig; from the enormous portrait, she\u003cbr\u003e was sizing up the bald heads and beards gathered around the\u003cbr\u003e table with her large, unashamedly masculine eyes. Above the\u003cbr\u003e wig, over the gilt frame, the large stones set in the crown of\u003cbr\u003e St Stephen surmounted by its leaning cross glowed with fiery\u003cbr\u003e reds, greens and purples. The crown blazed in the glow of the\u003cbr\u003e setting sun; it shed multi-coloured tears, but the Empress’s\u003cbr\u003e eyes glowed even more intensely. Her arteries had never\u003cbr\u003e hardened.\u003cbr\u003e A carriage rumbled up to the gateway. A crash of rifle butts\u003cbr\u003e on the command to order arms. Down below a dry cough.\u003cbr\u003e The magnificent double doors were flung open. Two\u003cbr\u003e svelte guards officers had assumed their positions either side\u003cbr\u003e of the entrance, as motionless as two statues in the foyer of\u003cbr\u003e the court theatre. A secret ritual suddenly enclosed the two\u003cbr\u003e living bodies in deep silence, as though in chilly niches of\u003cbr\u003e marble. The ringing of the spurs, sounding like broken glass,\u003cbr\u003e was muffled in that silence.\u003cbr\u003e Ceremonial expressions rapidly came over the gentlemen’s\u003cbr\u003e faces. The short, stocky Chief of the General Staff knitted his\u003cbr\u003e bushy eyebrows. He inclined his greying, close-cropped head\u003cbr\u003e slightly to one side towards his left breast, where the most\u003cbr\u003e illustrious crosses and stars were soon to blossom. The bald,\u003cbr\u003e elegant gentleman, the Foreign Minister, shifted impatiently\u003cbr\u003e from foot to foot. The patent-leather shoes that he had to\u003cbr\u003e wear on official occasions had given him bunions. One had\u003cbr\u003e to create a good impression at the embassy! He was the only\u003cbr\u003e one in this company to wear a fragrance. Very discreetly, mind\u003cbr\u003e you. He was accustomed to importing his fragrances directly\u003cbr\u003e from Paris. He didn’t trust the local products.\u003cbr\u003e All of a sudden, two old men in general’s uniform, with\u003cbr\u003e sashes the colour of scrambled eggs draped across their chests,\u003cbr\u003e escorted in a third old man in a bright blue tunic. He was\u003cbr\u003e stooping, leaning on a silver-handled cane. All three of them\u003cbr\u003e had grey sideburns and they were as alike as peas in a pod. The\u003cbr\u003e life they had shared over many years—the shared boredom\u003cbr\u003e and the shared pleasures—had conferred on them the same\u003cbr\u003e appearance. If it were not for the Golden Fleece beneath the\u003cbr\u003e third button on the breast of the stooping figure, a stranger\u003cbr\u003e in this house would be unable to tell which of the three old\u003cbr\u003e men was by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, Apostolic\u003cbr\u003e King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, King of Dalmatia, Croatia\u003cbr\u003e and Slavonia, King of Galicia and Lodomeria, King of Illyria,\u003cbr\u003e Archduke of Upper and Lower Austria, Grand Duke of\u003cbr\u003e Transylvania, Duke of Lorraine, Carinthia, Carniola, Bukovina\u003cbr\u003e and Upper and Lower Silesia, Prince-Count of Habsburg and\u003cbr\u003e Tyrol, Margrave of Moravia, King of Jerusalem, etc., etc., and\u003cbr\u003e which were the two aides-de-camp, Count Paar and Baron\u003cbr\u003e Bolfras.\u003cbr\u003e The ministers and the generals bowed their heads. Just one\u003cbr\u003e of them, a third replica of His Majesty with sideburns, stood\u003cbr\u003e erect. He had the right to do so. On his breast—considerably\u003cbr\u003e younger than the Emperor’s, it’s true—he also wore a Golden\u003cbr\u003e Fleece. He was, after all, the grandson of the victor of Aspern,\u003cbr\u003e Archduke Karl.\u003cbr\u003e The armchair the Emperor sat down on was covered in\u003cbr\u003e red plush and it stood close to Maria Theresa’s portrait. For a\u003cbr\u003e moment, the Empress’s eyes seemed to be searching, over the\u003cbr\u003e top of Franz Joseph’s head, for the bushy eyebrows of little\u003cbr\u003e Baron Conrad, Chief of the General Staff, in order to remind\u003cbr\u003e him that the highest decoration an officer of the Imperial and\u003cbr\u003e Royal Army could be awarded is, was, and always would be\u003cbr\u003e her own Order, the Order of Maria Theresa. Conrad knew\u003cbr\u003e how one gained it. He knew Heinrich von Kleist’s \u003ci\u003ePrince of\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003eHomburg \u003c\/i\u003evirtually off by heart.\u003cbr\u003e Just then, dusk began to sprinkle fluff on the old portraits,\u003cbr\u003e exaggerating their outlines. The portraits grew and grew and\u003cbr\u003e grew, eventually merging into a continuous grey mass along\u003cbr\u003e with the wallpaper and the wood panelling of the elegant\u003cbr\u003e room. Prince Eugene of Savoy, with a final glint of his sleek,\u003cbr\u003e mirror-like black armour, disappeared into the gloom, where\u003cbr\u003e only a moment earlier his golden sceptre and the signet ring\u003cbr\u003e on his finger had clearly stood out. Maria Theresa’s crinoline\u003cbr\u003e billowed like a gigantic, bulbous cushion filling with water.\u003cbr\u003e One might have expected that at any moment the old matriarch\u003cbr\u003e of the Habsburgs would emerge from her gilt frame,\u003cbr\u003e powerfully elbowing aside these old sclerotics, and casually\u003cbr\u003e sit down next to the wilting offspring of her exuberant lifeblood.\u003cbr\u003e She would embrace the old man in her plump arms,\u003cbr\u003e injecting vigour into his pale, withered being, and burst into\u003cbr\u003e lusty peals of laughter.\u003cbr\u003e But the lights in the crown of St Stephen are going out one\u003cbr\u003e by one; the fiery glints in her eyes grow dim.\u003cbr\u003e A valet enters. He turns on the electric lights in the crystal\u003cbr\u003e chandeliers. Not all of them, however, because His Imperial\u003cbr\u003e Majesty cannot bear bright lights. With a trembling hand, he\u003cbr\u003e dons his spectacles. After a short while, he removes them again\u003cbr\u003e and spends a long time cleaning them with a handkerchief.\u003cbr\u003e At this point the bald Count Berchtold, the Foreign Minister,\u003cbr\u003e loses his patience. He takes some documents from his briefcase,\u003cbr\u003e casting his gaze sternly, yet respectfully, in the Emperor’s\u003cbr\u003e direction. His Parisian fragrances not unpleasantly tickle\u003cbr\u003e the nostrils of his immediate neighbour, His Excellency von\u003cbr\u003e Krobatin, the Minister for War. This aroma at dusk arouses\u003cbr\u003e in him memories of his youth. Those wonderful Hungarian\u003cbr\u003e girls really know how to kiss!\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor has finished polishing his spectacles. The\u003cbr\u003e starchy faces of the highest state dignitaries come back to life.\u003cbr\u003e Not a trace of sclerosis now.\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor is speaking. In a dull tone of voice, he is\u003cbr\u003e thanking them for something or other. What his dear Count\u003cbr\u003e Berchtold spoke about yesterday had greatly saddened him.\u003cbr\u003e If he was not mistaken, that meant—if his memory served\u003cbr\u003e him correctly—Belgrade? He was happy to acknowledge that\u003cbr\u003e feelings were growing strong among his beloved peoples, who\u003cbr\u003e were demanding, demanding…\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor could not recall what it was that the beloved\u003cbr\u003e peoples were demanding.\u003cbr\u003e So they began explaining to him. There was something the\u003cbr\u003e Emperor, despite everything, was still unwilling to understand\u003cbr\u003e at any price, apparently. At first, they explained matters to him\u003cbr\u003e patiently, like a mother to her child, but eventually they lost\u003cbr\u003e their composure and started gesticulating. When the light\u003cbr\u003e finally dawned, they began bargaining with him. The Emperor\u003cbr\u003e went on the defensive for some time, resisting, hesitating,\u003cbr\u003e coughing, and recalling the murdered Empress Elisabeth. At\u003cbr\u003e one point he even stood up unassisted, striking the table so\u003cbr\u003e forcibly with his silver-handled cane that the two statuesque\u003cbr\u003e guardsmen flinched and Maria Theresa’s eyes sparkled.\u003cbr\u003e Archduke Friedrich, the grandson of the one of Aspern\u003cbr\u003e fame, leapt to his feet. He approached His Majesty and bent\u003cbr\u003e over the pink ear from which wads of grey cotton wool protruded.\u003cbr\u003e At some length, he poured certain weighty words\u003cbr\u003e into that ear. As he bent over, the two Golden Fleeces on the\u003cbr\u003e Habsburgs’ chests found one another and for a few moments\u003cbr\u003e they swung in unison. Then the Emperor conceded. He\u003cbr\u003e yielded to the will of his beloved peoples.\u003cbr\u003e He had just one wish; let them display the traditional\u003cbr\u003e oak leaves on their helmets. And they must sing. Here the\u003cbr\u003e monarch was interrupted again by Archduke Friedrich,\u003cbr\u003e who spoke up to remind him that in the twentieth century\u003cbr\u003e his soldiers no longer wore helmets, only soft caps. The\u003cbr\u003e Emperor apologized; he hadn’t been on manoeuvres for such\u003cbr\u003e a long time. He was visualizing the old heads of veterans of\u003cbr\u003e Novara, Mortara and Solferino, the Pandours, Radetzky…\u003cbr\u003e Shamefacedly, he turned to the Minister for War as a pupil\u003cbr\u003e to his teacher.\u003cbr\u003e “Perhaps Your Excellency will be so good as to remind me\u003cbr\u003e how many troops I have?”\u003cbr\u003e “Thirty-eight divisions in peacetime, not counting the\u003cbr\u003e Landwehr or the Honvéds.”\u003cbr\u003e “Thank you. I have thirty-eight divisions!”\u003cbr\u003e Thirty-eight divisions! Franz Joseph relished in his imagination\u003cbr\u003e every division individually, delighting in the multitude and\u003cbr\u003e the diversity of colours represented by these numbers, sworn\u003cbr\u003e to serve him in life and death. He conjured up in his mind the\u003cbr\u003e last parades at which he had been present, the last simulated\u003cbr\u003e battles, in which the enemy’s soldiers were identified by red\u003cbr\u003e ribbons in their caps. On that occasion he had personally, on\u003cbr\u003e horseback, led one of the warring armies, and his adversary\u003cbr\u003e had been none other than Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the\u003cbr\u003e throne, murdered four weeks earlier. His memory did not fail\u003cbr\u003e him here. That was unforgettable! Old passions were revived\u003cbr\u003e in the old man as he recalled it. For a while, he felt the old\u003cbr\u003e aversion for his mock enemy in the manoeuvres, whose actual\u003cbr\u003e death he and the entire Imperial and Royal Army were now\u003cbr\u003e bound to avenge. The old man felt a rush of blood to his head\u003cbr\u003e at the thought that this obstinate opponent, who had waited\u003cbr\u003e in vain for so many years for him to die a natural death, still\u003cbr\u003e gave him no peace even after his own death. Something in\u003cbr\u003e the old man’s mind declared, triumphantly, “Look, I have\u003cbr\u003e outlived him after all!” But even this single unspoken victory\u003cbr\u003e was moments later overshadowed by sorrow for his unforgettable\u003cbr\u003e only son Rudolf, who had also been unfortunate: “\u003ci\u003eMir\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003ebleibt nichts erspart!\u003c\/i\u003e”*\u003cbr\u003e An uncomfortable silence descended on the room.\u003cbr\u003e Berchtold’s cloying perfume was in the air, drifting like\u003cbr\u003e incense over the bodies of the murdered. “Adieu, Parisian\u003cbr\u003e perfumes!” The road is cut off. The Triple Alliance, the Triple\u003cbr\u003e Entente! Count Berchtold knew very well what this meant.\u003cbr\u003e He recognized the odour of the impending course of history.\u003cbr\u003e It smelt of restriction to local products. But in the eerie\u003cbr\u003e silence not even the jovial Krobatin noticed that scent. He\u003cbr\u003e had never smelt powder either, but he was Minister for War,\u003cbr\u003e nonetheless.\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor was deep in thought. His light blue, watery\u003cbr\u003e eyes grew dim behind his spectacles. His clean-shaven chin\u003cbr\u003e sank into his golden collar; only the whiskers of his sideburns\u003cbr\u003e protruded. The glittering cross on the crown of St Stephen\u003cbr\u003e leant even farther, threatening to fall on the old man’s head.\u003cbr\u003e He remained silent, engrossed in the sombre catacombs of\u003cbr\u003e cadaverous recollections.\u003cbr\u003e The tension continued to mount at the round table. The\u003cbr\u003e old armchairs were creaking. The sclerosis in the veins of\u003cbr\u003e the paladins advanced another step. Eventually, the Crown\u003cbr\u003e Council’s impatience broke the bounds of etiquette. The\u003cbr\u003e generals began to whisper.\u003cbr\u003e * “I am spared nothing!”\u003cbr\u003e “Time is running out! He must sign.”\u003cbr\u003e Krobatin could not last any longer without a cigarette. At\u003cbr\u003e this point, Berchtold touched Count Paar’s elbow. The latter\u003cbr\u003e placed a large sheet of paper before the Emperor. The second\u003cbr\u003e replica of the Emperor held a pen with (as court ceremonial\u003cbr\u003e procedures dictated) a new, unused steel nib. All eyes were\u003cbr\u003e turned towards the Emperor’s dried-up, frail hand. At last,\u003cbr\u003e he came to and adjusted his spectacles. Everyone heaved a\u003cbr\u003e sigh of relief.\u003cbr\u003e The monarch spent several minutes coldly perusing the\u003cbr\u003e rigid black rows of letters. He paid strict attention to every\u003cbr\u003e word, every punctuation mark. But after he had read the first\u003cbr\u003e sentences, his eyelids reddened and he had a burning sensation\u003cbr\u003e in his eyes. His spectacles misted up. Lately, the old man had\u003cbr\u003e found reading very tiring, especially in artificial light. He now\u003cbr\u003e looked away from the sheet of paper and, noting the Crown\u003cbr\u003e Council’s impatience, dipped the pen with a trembling hand\u003cbr\u003e into the open black maw of the inkwell. The hand returned\u003cbr\u003e with the nib now steeped in the poisonous fluid and settled\u003cbr\u003e shakily on the paper like a pilot feeling for the ground below\u003cbr\u003e as he lands. Soon the left hand came to its assistance, holding\u003cbr\u003e the paper steady.\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor was placing his signature, so long awaited by\u003cbr\u003e the ministers. As soon as the name “Franz” was written, the\u003cbr\u003e pen ran out of liquid breath; the ink ran dry. As the Emperor\u003cbr\u003e reached for the inkwell once more, the quivering pen slightly\u003cbr\u003e scratched the thumb of his left hand. A tiny drop of blood\u003cbr\u003e squirted from his thumb. It was red. No one noticed that he\u003cbr\u003e had scratched his thumb; he quickly wiped it and, with a single\u003cbr\u003e flourish, added “Joseph”. The ink was blue.\u003cbr\u003e Count Berchtold picked up the document. The following\u003cbr\u003e day it was translated into all the languages of the Austro-\u003cbr\u003e Hungarian Empire. It was printed and displayed at all\u003cbr\u003e street-corners in cities, towns and villages. It began “To my\u003cbr\u003e peoples…”. For the illiterate, it was read aloud by town criers.\u003cbr\u003e The Emperor rose with the assistance of his aides-de-camp.\u003cbr\u003e He was not accustomed to shaking hands with his officials.\u003cbr\u003e On this occasion, however, he shook the hand of the prime\u003cbr\u003e minister. In the doorway, he turned once more and said—it\u003cbr\u003e was unclear to whom—\u003cbr\u003e “If I am not mistaken, blood will be spilt.”\u003cbr\u003e Then he left. Archduke Friedrich offered Finance Minister\u003cbr\u003e Biliński a Havana cigar. From down below, the crash of the\u003cbr\u003e hobnailed boots of the 99th Regiment infantrymen was heard.\u003cbr\u003e A crash of rifle butts on the command to order arms. At the\u003cbr\u003e nearby barracks the lights-out bugle call was sounded. It was\u003cbr\u003e nine o’clock.\u003cbr\u003e At nine o’clock, the soldiers throughout the Austro-\u003cbr\u003e Hungarian Empire go to bed.","brand":"Pushkin Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304488390885,"sku":"NP9781782274728","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781782274728.jpg?v=1767741324","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-salt-of-the-earth-isbn-9781782274728","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}