The trumpeter of Krakow

by Eric P. Kelly

The tune was a little morning hymn, the Heynal, brought into Poland, some said, in the earliest days of Christianity by missionaries who came from the south. It was a simple little air, intensely sweet and appealing, but at a certain place the trumpeter broke the tune off abruptly, leaving but the echo of an unfinished strain to float down from above. It was as if some one at that moment had taken the trumpet from his lips.

Joseph turned to his father in astonishment. “Isn’t he going to finish the song?”

The father smiled. “It is a long story, my son, and one that I will tell you at a later time.”

The trumpet sounded again from another window, then from the farther side, and finally at the north side toward the Florian Gate. Four times the trumpeter had sounded the Heynal, ending always with the broken note.

“He plays rather poorly,” added Pan Charnetski.

Now though Pan Charnetski was a country gentleman, he was accomplished in many crafts. After having graduated from the University of Krakow, he decided not to remain in one of the professions but rather to live on his father’s estate and manage it as had been the custom for the men in his family. He had retained a love of music which he had studied in the University and played well upon brass instruments, the straight trumpet, the curved trumpet, and the trumpet with keys. Therefore when he said that the trumpeter in the tower had not played well he knew of what he was talking.

The cart was now passing close to the Cloth Hall, and Joseph ceased to question his father any further concerning the song with the broken note because of the strange scenes which claimed his attention.

Here stood a group of merchants in bright gowns. Wealthy they must have been because their long coats were of fine cloth, some lined with fur and trimmed with many silks. Beneath the coats were costumes of tight-fitting cloth. Joseph saw one man with the color of the cloth in the trouser of the right leg different from the color of the cloth of the left trouser, which to the boy had a ludicrous look. But when he noticed that many other men wore the same kind of garment, tight-fitting to leg and thigh, and of different color upon each leg, he ceased to smile and began to wonder. The wonder did not leave off for a while, either, for other curiosities in dress caught his eye. The hats and head coverings were in their way as remarkable as the tight garments. Turbans were worn uniformly; some with pointed peaks, others simply masses of gayly colored cloth heaped up high on the head in twists and folds; grotesque ornaments, too, were worn on the head—one man even had a stuffed or an imitation rooster, with legs and comb and all, perched on the crown of his high hat. The merchants wore curious leather footgear, most of the sandals being of soft leather with long twisted points. One man had sticks thrust into the leather at the toes, making his sandals appear at least two feet long.

At the stalls around the Cloth Hall were all manner of wares which the sellers were advertising with loud cries. Here was a grain counter with different colored grains in open sacks. A woman in a blue gown which hung from a yoke at the shoulder, and with, a piece of cloth of the same color wound deftly around her head for a hat, was selling a few grains of corn to a traveling musician. He wore a long yellow garment all of a piece, including head covering like a cowl, and falling to the knees, below which the legs and feet were bare. This garment, was caught at the waist by a bright yellow belt. He carried under one arm a bagpipe with three protruding tubes, two for music, if it might be called such, and one for his mouth. In one hand he held a pouch of leather into which the woman was slipping grains of corn.

The Charnetskis drove by the stalls and shops of the glove makers where there were women working and buying, all dressed in bright-colored gowns; past the needle makers in leather aprons who sprawled over benches; past the sword makers with their neat forges and rows of shining steel blades; past the tub makers who were assembling wooden staves into tub bodies; past the smiths in their long black aprons leading horses into position where they could be shod. Here and there the red signs of the barber and bloodletter, here and there the huge flasks of green and blue denoting the stores of the apothecaries. True Catholics had upon the walls of their shops an ikon or a picture of the Holy Mother of God from the sacred shrine of Chenstohova; almost every merchant had some distinctive figure above the door of his shop to distinguish it from his neighbor’s; for example there was a hatter with the sign “Under the White Elephant,” and there was a shoemaker who had a stone head of Kazimir the Great for the satisfaction of himself and his customers. The numbering of public buildings was not known in that age, and buildings were distinguished by some such emblem which usually stood above the outer gate or door.