There are also smaller cafés such as Blajman’s, Frosz’s, Łopato’s, Esplanada,199 Narcyz,200 Bagatela, Bojmowicz’s,201 and so on. It is impossible to describe them all. Some are simply organs of certain cliques of smugglers, while others seek only a large turnover from the sale of tasty pastries. Others still are simply meeting places for prostitutes and their enthusiasts, or perhaps they count on chance clients. They exist, hence they must be successful. For otherwise the premises would be used in a more profitable way, as their number is insufficient. So running such establishments must be profitable.
The total number of these cafés exceeds 100 (including restaurants, taverns, and bars). [78] In the summer open-air cafés spring up like weeds. This is no surprise. But people are so avid for grass, trees, shade, oxygen, air, an ersatz of the countryside, parks, and gardens that these outdoor cafés meet the inhabitants’ needs only to a very limited extent. Moreover, their number is insufficient. There is no need to discuss them further because they are usually branches of the cafés and establishments described above.
***
What is the reaction of the street, the masses, the people? For let us be magnanimous and not mention the authorities. Nobody has vandalised any of the establishments yet. However, everybody—a beggar, poor man, pauper, and child—grates their teeth when the bourgeois, having gorged themselves and spent several dozen zlotys, dare say to a beggar that they have no change or cannot spare any money, or that [beggars] should not stink up the street, etc.
[79] But let us be honest!
Such cafés exist and they have a right to exist. But this is already too much of a justification. For if the rich exist, they need to have their cafés. For if they have nowhere to go, such establishments are necessary. For if there is such general and shameless public corruption, such establishments must exist, and they are just a natural consequence of the general situation.
