toys. Wladek's initial distant and detached admiration for the Baron developed into respect and, when the time came for the boy to return to the little cottage in the forest to rejoin his father and mother for Christmas, he became distressed at the thought of leaving Leon.
His distress was well - founded. Despite the initial happiness he felt at seeing his mother, the short space of three months that he had spent in the Baron's castle had revealed to him deficiencies in his own home of which he had previously been quite unaware. The holiday dragged on. Wla - dek felt himself stifled by the little cottage with its one room and loft~ and dissatisfied by the food dished out in such meagre amounts and then eaten by hand: no one had divided by nine at the castle. After two weeks Wladek longed to return to Leon and the Baron. Every afternoon he would walk the six wior - sta to the castle and sit and stare at the great walls that surrounded the estate. Florentyna, who had lived only among the kitchen servants, took to returning more easily and could not understand that the cottage would never be home again for Wladek. The trapper was not sure how to treat the boy, who was now well - dressed, wellspoken, and talked of things at six that the man did not begin to understand, nor did he want to. The boy seemed to do nothing but waste the entire day reading. Whatever would become of him, the trapper wondered. If he could not swing an axe or trap a hare, how could he ever hope to earn an honest living? He too prayed that the holiday would pass qw*ckly.
Helena was proud of Wladek, and at first avoided admitting to herself that a wedge had been driven between him and the rest of the children.
But in the end it could not be avoided. Playing at soldiers one evening, both Stefan and Franck, generals on opposing sides, refused to have Wla - dek in their arn lies.
'Why must I always be left out?' cried Wladek. 'I want to learn to fight too.'
'Because you are not one of us,' declared Stefan. 'You are not really our brother!
There was a long silence before Franck continued. 'Ojciec never wanted you in the first place; only Matka was on your side.'
Wladek stood motionless and cast his eye around the circle of children, searching for Florentyna.
'What does Franck mean, I am not your brother?' he demanded.
Thus Wladek came to hear of the manner of his birth and to understand why he bad been always set apart from his brothers and sisters. Though his mother's distress at his now total self - containment became oppressive, Wladek was secretly pleased to discover that he came from unknown stock, untouched by the meanness of the trapper's blood, containing with it the germ of spirit that would now make all things seem possible.
When the unhappy holiday eventually came to an end, Wladek returned to the castle with joy. Leon welcomed him back with open arms; for him, as isolated by the wealth of Ms father as Wladek was by the poverty of the trapper, it had also been a Christmas with little to celebrate. From then on the two boys grew even closer and soon became inseparable. When the summer holidays came around, Leon begged his father to allow Wladek to remain at the castle.
The Baron agreed for he too had grown to love Wladek. Wladek was overjoyed and only entered the trapper's cottage once again in his life.
When Wladek and Leon had finished their classroom work, they would spend the remaining hours playing games. Their favourite was chowanego, a sort of hide and,seek; as the castle had seventy - two rooms, the chance of repetition was small. Wladek's favourite hiding place was in the dungeons under the castle, in which the only light by which one could be discovered came through a small stone grille set high in the wall and even then one needed a candle to find one's way around. Wladek was not sure what purpose the dungeons served, and none of the servants ever made mention of them, as they had never been used in anyone's memory.
Wladek was conscious that he was Leon's equal only in the classroom, and was no competition for his friend when they played any game, other than chess. The river Strchara that bordered the estate became an extension to their playground. In