King Matt the First

by Janusz Korczak

  But Matt had no idea what was happening. He was very merry and said: “Oh, now everything’s turned blue. Everything looks so pretty.”

  “Professor,” cried the doctor. “Tell those savages that Matt has been poisoned.”

  The professor translated quickly. The king of the cannibals clutched his head, did a sad somersault, and ran off like an arrow.

  “Here, drink this, my white friend,” he cried, handing Matt some terribly bitter, sour liquid in an ivory bowl.

  “Phooey, I don’t want any,” cried Matt. “Oh, now everything’s green. The gold chair is green, and the doctor’s green, too.”

  Bum Drum grabbed Matt by the waist, put him on the table, propped his mouth open with an ivory arrow, and forced the bitter drink down Matt’s throat.

  Matt struggled and spat, but he swallowed the drink, and his life was saved.

  In fact, black circles had already started spinning around in front of Matt’s eyes. But there were only six of them, and all the rest were still green. Matt didn’t die, but he slept for three days.

  THE WITCH DOCTOR was very ashamed that he had tried to poison Matt. But Matt forgave him. To make up for what he had done, the witch doctor promised to show Matt his greatest magic tricks, which he had been allowed to perform only three times in his entire life.

  Everyone sat in front of a tent on tiger skins. Matt couldn’t understand all of the witch doctor’s tricks. A few were explained to him.

  For example, the witch doctor took a little animal out of a box and held it in one hand. The animal, a sort of little snake, wound itself around the witch doctor’s finger, stuck out its thin little tongue, made a strange hiss, and then, taking hold of the finger in its mouth, stood with its tail straight up in the air. The witch doctor pulled off the snakelike creature and showed everyone the drop of blood on his finger. Matt could see that the savages thought this was the best trick of all, though some of the others really were better. But then Matt was told that the snakelike creature was worse than a leopard or a hyena because its bite caused instant death.

  The witch doctor walked through fire, flames burst out through his mouth and nose, but he never even said “Ouch.”

  Then the witch doctor made forty-nine enormous snakes dance to the tune of his flute. Then he blew on an enormous palm tree, which was about a hundred years old; the palm tree began slowly bending, until it finally broke. Then he stretched a rope between two trees and walked through the air on it as easily as if he were on a plank. Then he threw an ivory ball in the air. As it fell, he tilted back his head—the ball struck his head and disappeared without a trace. Then he whirled around for a very long time, and when he stopped, everyone saw that he now had two heads and two faces, one of which was laughing and the other crying. Then he took a little boy, cut off his head with a sword, and put it in a box. The witch doctor danced wildly around that box, and when he kicked the box, someone inside began playing the flute. The box was opened and there was the little boy, fine as could be. The boy stepped out and began doing gymnastics. The witch doctor repeated the trick with a bird: he let the bird go, it flew high in the air, and then he shot it with an arrow. The bird fell, pierced by the arrow. Then the bird pulled out the arrow with its beak, fluttered its wings, and flew over to the witch doctor to return the arrow.

  Matt thought it was worth it to be poisoned a little to see so many tricks.

  Matt toured his friend’s country, traveling mostly by camel and elephant. He saw many villages in the enormous and beautiful forests. The huts where people and animals lived together were very dirty inside. Many of the people were sick, but it was easy to cure them. The doctor gave them medicine, and they were very grateful to him. In the forests, they often came across the bodies of people who had been torn apart by wild animals or bitten by poisonous snakes.

  Matt felt very sorry for these poor people who had been so good to him.

  Why didn’t they build railroads for themselves, put in electric lights, why didn’t they have movie theaters, why didn’t they build themselves comfortable houses, why didn’t they buy rifles to defend themselves against those terrible animals? After all, they had so much gold and so many diamonds that the children used them for toys.

  These poor people suffered so much because their white brothers did not want to help them and were afraid of them. Then Matt got an idea—when he returned home, he would write at once to the newspapers that anyone who couldn’t find work should go help Bum Drum’s people by building stone houses and railroads for them.

  Matt was thinking how to help the cannibals, but he was also wondering where he would find the money he needed to make reforms in his own country.

  One day, they visited a large gold mine, and Matt asked King Bum Drum to lend him a little gold. Bum Drum started laughing wildly; he said that he had no use for gold and would give Matt as much as his camels could carry.

  “Me, make loans to a friend? No, my friend can have anything he wants. Bum Drum loves his friend and wants to serve him all his life.”

  When Matt was getting ready for his journey back, the king of the cannibals arranged a great celebration in honor of their friendship. This is what it was like.

  Once a year, all the tribesmen gathered in the capital and selected those who would be eaten by the royal court during the upcoming year. The people who were chosen were terribly happy, and those whom the king did not choose were very upset. The people who would be eaten danced a wild dance of joy, and those who had not been chosen crawled around on their hands and knees in a sort of mourning dance. They sang, too, but a sad song which made it sound as if they were crying.

  The king scratched his finger with a sharp shell, and then Matt scratched his own. The king of the cannibals licked a drop of blood from Matt’s ring finger, and Matt had to do the same. Matt found this ceremony unpleasant, but the sad experience of almost being poisoned had taught him not to refuse anything and to do everything required of him. There was one more ceremony after the licking of the blood; Matt was thrown into a pond full of snakes and crocodiles, then King Bum Drum jumped into the pond and pulled Matt out. Then Matt was greased up with some sort of oil and he had to jump into a roaring fire. But Bum Drum jumped in right behind him and pulled Matt out of the fire so swiftly that only a few of Matt’s hairs were a little singed. Then Matt had to jump to the ground from a very tall palm tree, but Bum Drum caught him so deftly that Matt was not hurt in the least.

  The professor explained to Matt what all this was about: licking blood meant that if Matt was in the desert without water, his friend would give him his own blood to drink so Matt wouldn’t die of thirst; the other ceremony meant that if Matt was ever threatened by danger—by fire, or in the air, or surrounded by enormous crocodiles in the water—his brother Bum Drum would risk his own life to rush to Matt’s rescue.

  “We Europeans,” said the professor, “write everything down on paper, but they don’t know how to write and so this is how they make their contracts.”

  Matt was sorry to leave. Now he very much wanted to convince the foreign kings that even though the cannibals were wild they were still good people, and all the kings should become friends with them and help them. But, first, one reform would have to be made—they would have to stop being cannibals.

  “Bum Drum, my friend,” said Matt when they were talking on their last evening together, “I urge you to stop being a cannibal.”

  Matt spent a long time explaining that it was wrong to eat people, that the foreign kings would never forgive that, and that Bum Drum had to introduce a reform against eating people; if he did, lots of Europeans would come and help them make progress, so that all the people in their beautiful country would have a good life.

  Bum Drum listened to Matt sadly and then said that, once before, a king had tried to do just that, but he had been poisoned. It was a very hard reform to make, but he would give it some more thought.

  Matt walked a little way into the forest after their conversation. The m
oon was shining beautifully. The world was lovely and still. But then Matt heard a rustling sound. What could that be? A snake or tiger coming at him?

  He walked a little farther. There was another rustling sound. Someone was behind him. Matt pulled out his revolver and waited.

  But it was just a little girl, jolly Klu Klu, the cannibal king’s daughter. Matt saw her clearly in the bright moonlight. He wondered what she wanted.

  “What do you want, Klu Klu?” asked Matt, using the cannibal language, which he could now speak a little.

  “Klu Klu kiki rets—Klu Klu kin brum.”

  She said a lot more, but Matt could understand only a few words of it. He saw that Klu Klu was very sad and had tears in her eyes. Matt felt sorry for little Klu Klu. And so he gave her his watch, a mirror, and a pretty little bottle. But Klu Klu didn’t stop crying.

  What could the matter be?

  They went back, and Matt asked the professor to interpret. The professor told Matt that Klu Klu was saying that she loved Matt very much and wanted to go with him back to his kingdom.

  Matt asked the professor to tell Klu Klu that she could not come to his kingdom alone, but her father, Bum Drum, would soon be invited to Europe, and then, of course, she could come with her father.

  And that was the last Matt thought of little Klu Klu, especially since there was so much work to do before they left.

  Fifty camels were loaded with boxes of gold and precious stones, delicious fruits of every kind, drinks, African delicacies, and also wine and cigars as gifts for the ministers. Matt said that in three months he would send cages to transport the wild animals for his zoo; he also warned Bum Drum that he might send some things by airplane and not to be frightened if a white man came flying in on a great iron bird.

  The next morning, they climbed up on their camels and started on their way. The journey was hard, but they were all seasoned travelers now and so the desert did not exhaust them as much as before.

  MEANWHILE, MATT’S MINISTERS had written the entire constitution and now were just waiting for him to return.

  They waited and waited, but there was no sign of Matt. No one had any idea where Matt was. They knew that Matt had gone by ship to Africa and then taken a train to the garrison at the beginning of the desert; that Matt’s group had lived in tents and the garrison officer had spoken with Matt. Then camels sent by the cannibal king had arrived, and that was the last anyone had heard of Matt.

  Then one day a telegram arrived, saying that King Matt was alive and well and that he had set sail for home.

  “He never fails, that Matt,” said the foreign kings enviously.

  “That lucky Matt,” said the ministers, sighing. If it was hard to deal with Matt when he came back from war, what would it be like when he returned from the land of the cannibals?

  “When he came back from the war, he put us in jail. Who knows what he learned over there? This time he might eat us.”

  Matt returned in a very jolly mood, because his journey had been such a great success. He was tanned and taller, he had an excellent appetite, and not knowing what the ministers had been worrying about, he decided to joke around a little.

  When they had all assembled for the royal conference, King Matt asked: “Have the railroads been repaired?”

  “They have,” said the minister.

  “That’s good, because otherwise I would have ordered you cooked in crocodile sauce. And have new factories been built?”

  “Many,” said the Minister of Industry.

  “That’s good, because otherwise I’d have you stuffed with bananas and roasted.”

  The ministers looked so frightened that Matt burst out laughing.

  “Gentlemen,” said Matt, “there’s no reason to be afraid of me. I didn’t become a cannibal, and I even hope I may have convinced my friend Bum Drum to quit his savage habit of eating people.”

  The ministers would never have believed Matt’s tales of adventure if he hadn’t arrived with an entire train full of gold, silver, and gems. The ministers finally cheered up when Matt handed out the presents King Bum Drum had sent them—excellent cigars and delicious African wines.

  Matt’s proclamation of democracy was soon made public. It said that the newspapers would print a list of what the ministers and the king wanted to do and then everyone could voice his opinion, either by writing to the paper or by speaking out in parliament. At last the whole country could express its approval or disapproval of the ministers.

  “All right, then,” said Matt. “Now please write down what I want to do for the children. Now I have money of my own and can take care of them. And so every child is to be given two balls to play with in the summer and skis for the winter. Every day after school, all children are to be given a piece of candy and a nice piece of cake. Each year, the girls will be given dolls, and the boys will get jackknives. Every school should have a seesaw and a merry-go-round. Also, pretty color pictures are to be added to all schoolbooks. That is only the beginning, because I am thinking of introducing many other reforms. So please figure out how much it will cost and how much time will be needed to get everything done. I would like your answer in a week.”

  You can imagine how happy the children were when they found out about all this. Matt had already given them a lot, but the newspapers said it was only the beginning and there would be much more to come.

  Any child who knew how to write wrote to King Matt requesting this, that, or the other. Sacks of letters from children began arriving at the royal chancellery. The secretary would open the letters, read them, then throw them away. That’s how things were always done at royal chancelleries. Matt didn’t know that. One day he saw a servant carrying a basket of papers to the royal rubbish heap.

  Maybe he’s got some rare stamps in there, thought Matt, who collected stamps and had a whole album of them. “What are those papers and envelopes?” he asked.

  “How should I know?” said the servant.

  Matt looked and saw that they were all letters to him. He immediately ordered those letters brought to his room, and then he summoned his secretary.

  “What sort of papers are these, Mr. Secretary?” Matt asked.

  “Those are unimportant letters to Your Royal Majesty.”

  “And you ordered them thrown out?”

  “That’s how it has always been done.”

  “Then it was badly done,” cried Matt impulsively. “If a letter is written to me, then I am the only one who can know if it’s important or not. Don’t read my letters, send them to me. I’ll know what’s to be done with them.”

  “Your Royal Majesty, a great many letters of all sorts are sent to kings. And if people found out that the kings actually read them, there’d be such mountains of letters that there’d be no dealing with them. As it is, there are five officials whose only job is to read those letters and choose which ones are important.”

  “And which letters are important?” asked Matt.

  “The letters from foreign kings, various manufacturers, and various great writers.”

  “And which ones are unimportant?”

  “It’s mostly children who write to Your Royal Highness. Any time they get an idea, they sit down and write a letter. And some of them scribble so badly, you can barely read what they write.”

  “All right, then. If it’s too hard for you to read letters from kids, I’ll read them. And you can give those officials other jobs. I’m a kid, too, for your information, but I’ve won a war against three grownup kings and I’ve made a journey that no one else dared to.”

  The royal secretary made no answer but only bowed and left. Matt began reading the letters.

  Matt was the sort of boy who did everything with enthusiasm. Hour after hour passed, but Matt kept on reading and reading.

  Several times, the master of ceremonies peeped through the keyhole of the royal study to see what Matt was doing and to find out why he wasn’t coming to dinner. But he saw the king bent over his papers, and so he was afr
aid to go in.

  Matt soon saw for himself that it was too big a job for him. Some letters were very hard to read, and Matt began throwing them away. But some were very nicely written and very interesting. One boy wrote Matt a letter telling him how to make ice skates. Another boy told Matt his dreams. And there was a boy who wrote about his beautiful doves and rabbits and said that he wished to give King Matt two doves and one rabbit as a present but didn’t know how to go about it. One girl wrote a little poem about King Matt and sent it to him with a pretty drawing. Another girl told about her doll, who was very happy because soon she would have a little sister. Many of the letters came with drawings. One boy sent Matt a present of a book of drawings entitled King Matt in the Land of the Cannibals. They were not very accurate, but they were pretty and gave Matt pleasure.

  But most of the letters were requests. The children usually asked for ponies, bicycles, or cameras. One boy asked if he could be given a real soccer ball instead of just a plain old ball. One girl wrote that her mother was sick and they were poor and couldn’t buy medicine. There was a student who had no boots and couldn’t go to school; he even sent his school report, which said that he was a good student but had no boots.

  Maybe it would be better to give the children boots instead of dolls and balls, thought Matt, who had learned to respect boots during the war.

  Matt kept reading, but now he had started to feel awfully hungry. So he rang his bell and ordered his dinner brought to his study because he had urgent work and had to stay at his desk.

  Matt sat up late into the night with those letters. The master of ceremonies peeped through the keyhole again to see why the king wasn’t going to bed. All the servants wanted to go to bed, but they couldn’t before the king did.

  Matt put the letters with requests in a special pile. After all, that girl’s mother had to be given medicine. And that good student really needed a pair of boots.