He was the first man on the moon...
Adapted and read by Anna Piwowarska
Directed and produced by Amy Drozdowska
There once lived a nobleman called Mr. Twardowski. He was a respected Kraków citizen as well as a talented alchemist, which means he was very good with all kinds of spells and potions. However, like most humans, Mr. Twardowski had a flaw - he was very arrogant. He truly believed that he was better than ordinary people. And because he thought he was so great, he didn’t ever want to die. Mr. Twardowski wanted to live forever and he made his mission to find out how to do so.
One day, he found an ancient book which gave instructions on how to make the devil appear. So, at midnight, Mr. Twardowski snuck out of the city limits and went out onto a lonely hillside, where he began to chant loudly, summoning the devil to show himself.
Surprisingly, the devil appeared immediately. And what was even more surprising was that the devil looked like any ordinary gentlemen – dressed from head to toe in elegant, expensive clothing and with impeccable manners. His voice was smooth and charming and he was utterly professional. Before Mr. Twardowski knew it, they had made a pact. It turns out that the devil made pacts with humans all the time and was a clever negotiator. Mr. Twardowski would indeed escape death and get to live forever, but in return, the devil would receive his soul. Unfortunately, that was the way it was done. After all, you don’t get something for nothing, especially when you’re dealing with the devil. But Mr. Twardowski was not stupid either. He added one strange but important condition to the pact– the devil had no right to his soul until the day that Twardowski set foot in Rome.
The devil quickly wrote up the agreement on some bulls hide and told Mr. Twardowski to sign it with his blood. So Twardowski pricked his finger with the tip of his sword and willingly signed the agreement. He had heard that Rome was indeed a beautiful city, but he was happy to avoid it if he meant he got keep his soul. And now that the devil was his servant, Mr. Twardowski could order him to do whatsoever he wanted. He was over the moon!
The first thing that he ordered was for the devil to bring him all the silver in the whole of Poland. The devil did so and buried it with sand in the town at Olkusz, so only Mr. Twardowski knew where it was hidden and could spend it at his leisure.
Mr. Twardowski ordered many other things and everything he thought of, the devil gave to him immediately. So, for example when he demanded a horse, it was not just an ordinary horse, of course. Mr. Twardowski wanted a painted, live horse made of wood– in all the colours of the rainbow –that would be visible from miles away and that could run for hours without ever getting tired. And if that was not enough, for very long journeys, Mr. Twardowski ordered a cockerel, which ran faster than any stallion. For no one in the whole of the land had a cockerel that you could ride, or one could that run so fast. And if that was not enough, Twardowski ordered that he himself could fly in the sky without the use of wings. He also wanted to be able to sail along the Vistula River without the help of sails or oars. One could say that Mr. Twardowski was really just a bit of a show-off.
The noblemen also used black magic to get himself a wife. He had had his eye on a pretty girl for a while but the girl was very picky and cunning in her own way. She had stated that she would only marry the man who guessed what insect she kept in a special dark bottle in her pantry. No one had done so yet. However, with the extraordinary powers that he had received form the Prince of darkness, Mr. Twardowski had little trouble telling her that the mysterious bottle held a Queen bee.
However, it seems that once Mr. Twardowski got his ideal bride, he didn’t treat her very well. His young wife owned a ceramics shop in the centre of Kraków and Twardowski would take great pleasure in riding his carriage right next to it, so all the carefully crafted ceramic pots would fall and shatter to the ground. His wife screamed and swore at him but Mr. Twardowski would merely laugh raucously and rub his hands with glee at all the trouble and mess that he’d caused. It would seem that devil was already getting a hold of his soul.
Now the Prince of Darkness was starting to get a little impatient. He had given Mr. Twardowski a great deal but so far had not received anything in return. So one night, he asked the nobleman to meet him in a deep, dark forest. He put the matter plainly. He told Mr. Twardowski that he’d had his fun and now was the time to make his way to Rome so the devil could take his soul. To that, Twardowski answered simply but firmly - ‘No’. The devil had had enough. Who did this arrogant nobleman think he was? Enraged, the devil pulled a tree out of the ground and with its roots and started to beat Mr. Twardowski on his legs, wounding him badly. Then, the cunning devil disappeared and returned disguised as a peasant. The innocent kind looking man told the wounded nobleman that there was an inn nearby where a doctor resided that could help him with his ailments. Without a moment’s hesitation, Mr. Twardowski let the peasant help him and limped with him to the nearby inn, eager for some help to relieve the unbearable pain in his leg.
However, as soon as he entered the Inn, all manner of birds landed on the roof and started to squawk and shriek, as if warning him of something very ominous… He looked around and saw that hanging above the door was a sign, with the name of the inn – it was called ‘Rome’. That is when Mr. Twardowski knew he had been tricked. For although, Mr. Twardowski was not in the Italian capital city he was still, in a manner of speaking, in Rome.
Just as Mr. Twardowski was cursing for being so stupid, the peasant turned himself back into the devil and sat smiling smugly at him. He was dressed well, better than Mr. Twardowski himself who truthfully was looking a little worst for wear after his tussle in the forest. But despite his nobleman’s disguise, it was still obvious to all in the inn that they were in the presence of the master of evil. For the first time, Mr. Twardowski noticed that the devils horns stuck out of his three cornered hat and that his expensive, well-cut coat was not able to distract the attention away from his hairy, clawed hands. How could he not have noticed how evil and horrible the devil looked, before hand? Perhaps, Mr. Twardowski had just been too arrogant to see that realize that you just don’t make pacts with the devil…
The Prince of Darkness wasted no time. He cackled wickedly, grabbed Mr. Twardowski and with a swirl of wind and soot, the two shot up through the chimney. The frightened birds flew up from the roof and Twardowski and the devil disappeared in the dark, gloomy night sky. They flew higher and higher into the darkness and as they flew Mr. Twardowski looked down at the world. Villages appeared as small as mosquitoes, towns looked no larger than flies and Kraków itself was the size of a spider. Mr. Twardowski felt more sad than frightened. Down there he had left everything that he had loved – his home, his wealth, his books. He even started to miss his disapproving, ceramic –making wife.
So, in his sadness, he started to sing a song. It was a song that he remembered from his childhood, when he used to go to church with his grandmother and listen to her sing with her warm, kind voice during Mass. He hummed this song with longing and nostalgia for the life he had left behind on earth and when he finished humming it, he looked around and realized that he was no longer flying up in the air and that the Prince of Darkness was no longer by his side. The holy song had caused the devil to disappear. However, Mr. Twardowski was far from being saved as from the gloomy night, he heard a booming devilish voice shouting:
“You will remain here, in limbo, until judgment day.”
And so that’s where Mr. Twardowski remains till today. And if you look very hard when there is a full moon, you will see him there – a small, black mark on the moon – waiting for judgment day... This is Mr. Twardowski – one could say, the first man on the moon.