After Bread: A Story of Polish Emigrant Life to America

by Henryk Sienkiewicz, Thomas H. Bullick, Vatslaf A. Hlasko

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1897. Not illustrated. ... chapter H. in new york. Ik New York, starting from Broadway in the direction of Chatham Square and crossing several streets, the traveler meets a part of the city more and more poor, neglected, and squalid. The streets are very narrow. The houses, built, perhaps, by the Dutch colonists, have become cracked and warped with old the roofs have sunk in, the plaster has dropped from the walls, and the walls themselves have so settled that the cellar windows are level with the street. Strange crooked lines have taken the place of the usual straight American uneven walls, and roofs crowd and terrace one upon another with their broken slates and shingles. In wet weather pools of water stand in the streets, muddy and thick. The windows of the dilapidated houses look down upon these puddles, in which can be seen pieces of paper, pasteboard, glass, wood, and clippings of the streets, or rather their layers of mud, are littered with this rubbish; everywhere can be seen dirt, filth, disorder, and human misery. In these quarters are boarding-houses, where one can live for two dollars a week; also saloons, where they entice unfortunate men to go on whaling vessels; secret agents from Venezuela, Ecuador, and Brazil, who persuade people to colonize the tropics and who furnish the yellow fever with quantities of victims; restaurants, who feed their gaests on salt meat, rotten oysters and fish, that perhaps are cast up on the beach by the water; private gambling houses, Chinese laundries, mariners' rests and dens of crime, misery, hunger, tears. "And yet this part of the big city is crowded, for all emigrants who cannot find even temporary lodgings in Castle Garden gather here, dwell, live, and die. Also, it could be said, that if immigration consists of the re...

Genres: Fiction, Polish Literature, Classics, Novella

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1880

About the author

Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkiewicz (also known as "Litwos"; May 5, 1846–November 15, 1916) was a Polish journalist and Nobel Prize-winning novelist. He was one of the most popular Polish writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 for his "outstanding merits as an epic writer."

Born into an impoverished gentry family in the Podlasie village of Wola Okrzejska, in Russian-ruled Poland, Sienkiewicz wrote historical novels set during the Rzeczpospolita (Polish Republic, or Commonwealth). His works were noted for their negative portrayal of the Teutonic Order in The Teutonic Knights (Krzyżacy), which was remarkable as a significant portion of his readership lived under German rule. Many of his novels were first serialized in newspapers, and even today are still in print. In Poland, he is best known for his historical novels "With Fire and Sword", "The Deluge", and "Fire in the Steppe" (The Trilogy) set during the 17th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, while internationally he is best known for Quo Vadis, set in Nero's Rome. Quo Vadis has been filmed several times, most notably the 1951 version.

Sienkiewicz was meticulous in attempting to recreate the authenticity of historical language. In his Trilogy, for instance, he had his characters use the Polish language as he imagined it was spoken in the seventeenth century (in reality it was far more similar to 19th-century Polish than he imagined). In The Teutonic Knights, which relates to the Battle of Grunwald in 1410, he even had his characters speak a variety of medieval Polish which he recreated in part from archaic expressions then still common among the highlanders of Podhale.

In 1881, Sienkiewicz married Maria Szetkiewicz (1854-1885). They had two children, Henryk Józef (1882-1959) and Jadwiga Maria (1883–1969).

Reviews

[Iza Bela]

Zguba zaprawdę była to pewna

[Galicius]

I had no idea when I first read this frightening story in my elementary school that years later I would visit Chatham Square. Fortunately it was as a visiting tourist that I stumbled into a much changed landmark in the early 2000’s than it must have looked in the late 19th Century.

[Wiktor Seweryn]

[9/10] – (2026) – tak sobie wyobrażam londyńską przygodę misia Paddingtona, gdyby nie został przygarnięty przez rodzinę Brownów, bowiem: "Nie ludzie też znęcali się nad nią, ale życie i jego warunki. Co w tym amerykańskim wirze i w tym olbrzymim businessie miał robić ten polny kwiatek lipiniecki? Jak sobie radzić? Wóz też tamtejszy musiał przejechać przez nią i zgnieść jej wątłe ciało, jak każdy wóz przejeżdża po kwiatach, co na jego drogę padły…"

[Ala]

3,75/5

[roksannaa]

Henryk mnie zaskakuje pozytywnie (czasem)

[Anna P (whatIreallyRead)]

A second bilingual Polish/Ukrainian edition of classics I picked up. I mostly referred to the parallel text for the dialect of the peasants and the outdated words/grammar. I think it would have been too difficult to read otherwise.

This one included a few short stories, with the titular Za chlebem being the longest one. They focused on the difficult and perilous lives of peasants, which is also a common topic in XIX-century Ukrainian classics, so I felt right at home.

The only story I didn't like was the one about the Gold Rush in California with no Polish characters. That's an ok topic but that's not what I come to Sienkiewicz for. Overall pretty cool and I'm happy I read some Polish classics!

[Melinda]

This was a fascinating look at a pair of peasants from Poland who go to America. It's the tale of two people who don't succeed by any stretch, but who don't fail... exactly. They... have no idea what to do as not-peasants!

[Allecandria]

Poryczałam się na książce. A to nie jest jakieś częste u mnie. Nie spodziewałam się czegoś, co wywoła we mnie aż takie emocje... i aż tak mnie zmiecie z planszy. 5 gwiazdek by było, gdyby była dłuższa.

[Assayah]

Trochę się męczyłam, dobrze, że była krótka. Przekaz ma, ale nie jest taki, że by mnie jakoś "dotknął" i zmienił życie.

[Karol Nguyễn]

I like the way Sienkiewicz creating marvelous adventure, but I also hate the way he had to dramatically sabotage his characters in the end of every story. "Za Chleblem", to me, is quite an interesting topic, and it's still relevant so far: Is the grass realy greener on the other side? Is one's life going to be better if he/she choose to give up the current life and move somewhere so far away, carry along nothing but vague hopes and dreams.

[Анна Шляхова]

Realistic, tough stories about emigrants.

[Zuzanna]

(3.5) Rather depressing, kept me wondering how close the story was to possible real life inspirations.

[Martyna Knap]

jakie to było smutne i can’t

[Emilia]

Sienkiewicz musiał mieć depresję...

[martynka | ostatnisnap]

wciągnęłam się i już miałam nadzieję, ale heniek jak zwykle musiał napisać smutną nowelę

[julia]

3.5
og grona gniewu

[Marta]

gdybym miała złotówkę za każdą poszkodowaną przez wawrzona marysię w nowelkach jakie dzisiaj przeczytałam, miałabym dwa złote. nie jest to dużo, ale dziwne, że wydarzyło się to dwa razy

[Hadrian]

6,5/10

[Melyna]

Quietly devastating and deeply human

I picked up For Bread not really knowing what to expect, and it completely broke my heart in the best way. It’s not one of those immigration stories where everything magically works out — this one feels truer. It’s about the people who arrive in America with nothing, without connections, without knowing the system, and find themselves completely overwhelmed and stuck.

What struck me most was how ordinary the characters are. They’re not heroes or villains — just regular people trying to survive in a world that doesn’t care much about them. That made the story hit even harder. It doesn’t wrap things up neatly. It’s slow, sad, and real.

It reminded me that behind every statistic or headline, there are people — often lost, often alone, and just trying to make it. I won’t forget this one for a long time.

[Rosecasanova]

beautiful book, blue with gold, red and pink gilt roses on the cover; at least that's what the 1898 version looks like. I just started reading, so far so good. It's a story about immigrating to the U.S. from Poland. I'll let you know.

[Kristína]

Táto poviedka sa mi až tak nepáčila. Pôvodne som chcela dať aj nižšie hodnotenie. Prvá polovica ma totiž vôbec nebavila, našťastie druhá bola lepšia. Príbeh rozprávala o otcovi a dcéra, ktorí odchádzajú do Ameriky, za chlebom. Ale tam je to inak, ako si predstavovali atď atď...

[Anna]

Very good if you're really interested. Most people in Poland had heard of this in primary school or in high school and later forgot about it.