“You see, you must not break down due to 1 major exam. It is essential to gain peace now, to have this belief that it is superior to current accidents, to take a leading attitude. You shouldn't consider your matriculation to be obsolete, as a formality to be endured due to the fact that it is simply a test of your endurance, your nerves, your cold blood. First of all, you guys gotta go to the advanced school with the peace of the people who are convinced of the victory...
The general conversation becomes more free. Everyone “makes peace.” We're going to the movies at 8:00.
Exam
Actually, even though it was so recent, I don't remember much about those writing exams. I know that I smiled at my colleagues and was very balanced. The president read us the rules, something about the elder exams, the judge's and educational attitude to the abiturer, the sad consequences of cheating, etc. In general, this fifteen-minute speech just before the nem exam itself, erstwhile the nerves are strained most, proved how small he was aware of the psyche of the passing. After a fewer minutes of serious professors' faces, the green table, the water caraf, the rules and the chairman's speech began to make me laugh. Tadek, who sits next to me, says silently: “This is simply a shed!”
You can't smoke and you can't leave, even though your Polish exam takes 5 hours. As time grows, more and more I want to burn. She's getting nervous. I start writing faster and faster, abruptly I find this very guiding thought that was needed to develop, I finish, I give the sheets and I salute the gentlemen of the committee. I go out first and with wonderful satisfaction I smoke six cigarettes 1 by one. The next days are the same, only that from a abroad language 1 can compose little, as long as there are no mistakes, and from mathematical subjects in general seldom anyone writes anything.
Would I get chopped up?
The day of the oral exam comes. To tell you the truth, everyone fears him more than the writer. You don't know what they're gonna ask and how they're gonna ask. I'm yet in. The professors are hanging around the table on the railings of the chairs like gazelles. I think so. Immediately after the first questions (this is the past exam), I conclude that they do not ask from subjects, but yes, in the kind of “intelligent”. Question — answer, question — answer, question — God, really, these questions are getting dumber and more and more not about...
The president who is examining past comes to Rome: “Why would you let yourself be chopped up for Roman culture? - What? I'm very surprised. The president repeats the question.— First of all, I wouldn't get chopped up... And I'm starting to talk about the regulation of law. A day before that, I was diligently forging tens of dates, preparing to talk the full paper on all subject, but specified questions make me passionate. — What guarantees the power and power of the state in the April Constitution? I'm truly stupid. Actually, you can say anything. 1 can begin the hymn of praise for the strengthening of the President's power, about the "so effective" simplification of the "parliamentary dissection", about (how many times have we been told) the wonderful aurea mediocritas of the constitution, which "is neither parlmentary nor totalitarian, only goes the indirect way, which proves the actual political wisdom of its creators...", etc. Finally, I recite: “Every generation should strive to increase the strength and seriousness of the state.” - Well, that might be... you're going to hesitate to say yes from behind the green table. A fewer more questions like, "What do they value the Bar Confederates for" and "What is anarchy?" I bow with respect to the committee and leave.
New spelling
I've got any friends down in the hallway that I gotta tell about the exam dozens of times. The Latin prof. is leaving. I run up to him. He's old, and he's got the best of them all in his head, although he's widely regarded as a wanker.
— Professor, I expected everything, but yes... Actually, I don't know why the hell did I learn this story.
Dude's laughing. “You inactive have a four,” he says.
— So what? You see, a professor, you can either ask questions from overworked subjects, or you can ask questions "to intelligence", but not 5 or nine...
The door opens and the manager calls Mietka to Polish. We sit on the stairs and smoke cigarettes. It's 5 minutes. abruptly Mietek runs out of class, where the exam takes place. He's red and nervous.
— What happened?
- Oh, shit! They asked me what I thought of a fresh spelling...
- Well?
—And I said that she wasn't truly needed..., it made a immense impression, they said I'd get 2 from Polish and threw me out. After a while, the chief runs out of class. He invents Mietko and introduces him with a gurney. erstwhile we come home from the exam, like a senior, Mietek tells the remainder of his adventure:
- I'm coming in from behind the green table. Everyone's looking at me like I'm in trouble. “But you are an anarchist, a complete anarchist,” says the President. “Professor — I tell him — I am not an anarchist, but the fact is, I have written in an old spelling for so many years... I've been explaining it to him for a long time. Finally, he said that, yes, Polish I know that I will get my graduation, but he, the president of the state examination committee, imposes on me a moral work (yes, a special, moral duty) to learn fresh spelling. We laughter by licking the pingwin. Wiesiek is in a cynical mood:
— They taught us... they taught us by heart as much as possible. We were good students... if we wanted to, no 1 would know we were, even if we were 8 years old! We know the rebellion, but we besides know how to trample our beliefs deep where they cannot be seen. They taught us hypocrisy. All my life, I can't pull this hypocrisy out of me, I can't destruct it.
Rysiek lights a cigarette: “When we defended ourselves, with all our strengths against what they put into our heads, erstwhile we organized ourselves for joint action, erstwhile we were here at school, we tried to fight to make things different, to make things better, and to have the last 1 raised “stately” we were all fighting. any acted openly, could suspend, pour out, harass, set degrees, others thought that it was worth the "a little" of evil, a fewer years of infamy to pay for the graduation... That's what happened to us.
— Do you think all of these bitter seniors are prepared to live? Are truly patterns and dates and fresh spelling, that's it? Do they realize that they are raising either the pussies, the egoists, or the oppositionists, the determined, the men of combat?
‘Falanga’
At the corner of Alea and Marszałkowska we meet 2 colporteurs of "Falanga". We're entering the gate. We're putting on, Wiesiek and I, armbands. We take numbers from them. Wiesiek leaves first. We begin to cry out so full of breast-feeding, so far we have never been allowed to: — “Falanga”, a national-radical writing! “Falanga”! This — a national-radical 1 we emphasize with peculiar pride. — A Jewish-communist organ, “Falanga”! It's a fresh number. We're happy.
Jan Matuszinski
National-Radical Scripture “Falanga”, 1937
