“I’m neither a beggar nor an idiot. I have my dignity; and I accept charity only from Lawyer Kraykowski.”
I conceived a plan of hypnosis, a constant, unwavering pressure with the aid of a thousand little facts, mystical signs that, without penetrating the consciousness, would create a subconscious state of necessity. On the wall of the building in which she lived I drew in chalk an arrow and a large K. I won’t enumerate all my intrigues, some more adroit than others; she was enwrapped in a web of strange occurrences. A shop assistant in a fashion boutique referred seemingly by mistake to “her husband, the lawyer.” The concierge, encountered on the steps, said that Judge Krajewski had asked if the umbrella had been returned. Krajewski-Kraykowski, judge-lawyer: Caution was needed; dripping water wears away a boulder. It was unclear how on earth she could have returned from the city with the lawyer’s fragrance on her dress—his invigorating scent of violet soap and eau de cologne. Or for example such an incident: Late at night the telephone rings—she’s awoken from her sleep, she hurries to pick up and she hears a stranger’s voice saying peremptorily: “At once!”—and nothing more. Or a slip of paper stuck in her door with nothing on it but a line of poetry: “Hush, my child, and don’t you kray.”
But I was gradually losing hope. The lawyer had stopped visiting her; it seemed that all my efforts had come to nothing. I could already foresee the moment of final capitulation, and I was afraid: I felt I would be unable to reconcile myself to this. The affront to the lawyer in this regard was something I could not bear, even if he himself were untroubled by it. For me it would be the ultimate outrage, an injury and a disgrace. Ultimate—yes, ultimate, that is the right word. Unable to believe it, I nevertheless trembled before the inevitable end that was approaching.
And indeed ... but there is after all such a thing as mercy! And oh, how artful they were—and incidentally, I’m angry at the lawyer for keeping it secret—did he not know that I was suffering? Was it by chance? Oh no, it wasn’t chance, it was the heart! I was on my way home one evening, walking along the Aleje, when something prompted me to step into the park. I really should have gone to bed early that night, because the next morning at dawn I was going to attach a little gilt plate to the lawyer’s door with the inscription LAWYER KRAYKOWSKI; but something prompted me to enter the park. I did so—and right at the far end, beyond the pond, I saw ... ah! ah! I saw her large hat and his bowler. Oh, the naughty so-and-sos, the rascals, the little rogues! So while I’d been tiring myself out, they had been meeting here in secret from me—and so cleverly! They must have made use of taxicabs!—They turned into a side path and sat on a bench. I hid in the bushes. I expected nothing, I was thinking about nothing—there was nothing I wanted to know; I just crouched behind a bush and quickly counted leaves, without a second thought, as if I weren’t there at all.
And suddenly—the lawyer embraced her, held her close and whispered:
“Here—nature ... Do you hear? The nightingale. Now, quickly —while it’s singing .... To its music, to the rhythm of its song ... if you please!”
And then ... oh, it was cosmic, I couldn’t stand it any longer—as if all the forces of the world had gathered within me in a great frenzy, as if a terrible pile, an electrical pile, the pile of the vertebral column, or the pile of a funeral pyre, had given me a mighty jolt—I jumped up and began shouting at the top of my voice, across the whole park:
“Lawyer Kraykowski gave her ...! Lawyer Kraykowski gave her ...! Lawyer Kraykowski gave her ...!”
The alarm was raised. Someone was running, someone was fleeing, people suddenly appeared from every direction; and I was seized once, twice, three times, I was knocked off my feet and I danced like never before, with foam on my lips, in twitches and convulsions—a bacchic dance. I don’t recall what happened next. I woke up in the hospital.
My health is deteriorating. My recent experiences have exhausted me. Lawyer Kraykowski is leaving tomorrow in secret from me (though I know about it) to a small mountain village in the eastern Carpathians. He wants to disappear in the mountains for a few weeks and he thinks that maybe I’ll forget. I’ll follow him! Yes, I’ll follow him! Everywhere I shall follow that guiding star of mine! But it’s unclear whether I’ll return alive from the journey; these emotions are too strong. I may die suddenly on the street, by the fence, and in such a case—a card must be written—they should send my body to Lawyer Kraykowski.
The Memoirs of Stefan Czarniecki
1
I was born and raised in a most respectable home. It is with great emotion that I run toward you, my childhood! I see my father, a handsome man of lofty stature, with a face in which everything—gaze, features, and gray-tinged hair—all combined into the very image of perfect noble breeding. I see you too, mother, in spotless black, with no other adornment than a pair of antique diamond earrings. And I see myself, a small, solemn, thoughtful lad, and I feel like weeping at those shattered hopes. Perhaps the only imperfection in our family life was the fact that my father hated my mother. Actually, “hate” is the wrong word; rather, he could not abide her, though why—I was never able to say; and this was the beginning of the mystery whose vapors led me in my adult years to moral ruination. For what am I today? An upstart—or better, a moral bankrupt. What do I do, for example? When I kiss a lady’s hand I lick it moistly, after which I quickly take out my handkerchief: “Oh, pardon me,” I say, and wipe it with the handkerchief.
I noticed early on that my father avoided my mother’s touch like the plague. More, even—he avoided her eyes, and when he spoke to her he would most often look to the side or study his fingernails. There was nothing sadder in its way than that lowered gaze of my father’s. Sometimes, on the other hand, he would look askance at her with an expression of boundless disgust. For me it was incomprehensible, since I felt no aversion whatsoever toward my mother; quite the opposite, though she had put on considerable weight and was spreading in every direction, I liked to cuddle up to her and lay my little head on her lap. But in such conditions how is it possible to explain the fact of my existence, how I had come to be? I must have been created, as it were, by force, with gritted teeth, in contravention of natural impulses; in a word, I suspect that for some time, in the interest of marital duty, my father suppressed his repugnance (for he placed the honor of his manhood above all else) and that the fruit of this heroism was myself—a little child.
After this superhuman and in all probability one-time exertion, my father’s revulsion flared up with elemental power. I once heard him shouting at my mother as he cracked his fingers: “You’re losing your hair! Before long you’ll be as bald as a coot! A bald woman; do you understand what that means to me—a bald woman! A bald spot on a woman ... a wig ... no, I can’t take it!”
And he added more calmly, in a quiet voice laden with suffering: “Oh, how awful you are. You have no idea how awful you are.
Besides, the bald spot is just a detail, the nose too; one detail or other can be awful, that can happen in the Aryan race too. But you’re awful through and through; you’re imbued with hideousness from head to toe; you’re hideousness itself .... If there were at least one part of you free from the element of hideousness I’d at least have a starting point, some base, and I swear I’d concentrate upon it all the feelings I vowed to you at the altar. Oh dear Lord.”
For me this was beyond comprehension. How was my mother’s bald spot worse than my father’s bald spot? And my mother’s teeth were even better; there was one white eye-tooth with a gold filling ... And why for her part was my mother not disgusted by my father, but quite the opposite, she liked to caress him—in the presence of guests, for it was only then that my father would not shudder. My mother was replete with majesty. To this day I can see her, sponsoring a charitable raffle, or at a dinner party, or leading the servants in an evening meditation in her private chapel.
My mother’s piety was unparalleled; it was not so much ardent as voracious—a voracity for fasting, prayer, and good works. At
the appointed hour we would appear, myself, the valet, the cook, the chambermaid and the concierge, in the pall of the black-lined chapel. After prayers had been said the lesson began. “Sin! Hideousness!” my mother would declare forcefully, and her chin would sway and tremble like the yolk of an egg. Perhaps I am not speaking with the respect owed to those dear shades? Life has taught me this language, the language of mystery.... But let us not get ahead of events.
Occasionally my mother would summon me, the cook, the valet, and the maid at an unusual time. “Pray, you poor child, for the soul of that monster your father; all of you, pray for the soul of your master, sold to the devil!” On some occasions, we would sing litanies till four or five in the morning under her direction, until the door opened and my father appeared in a tailcoat or a tuxedo, with an expression of supreme distaste on his face. “On your knees!” my mother would exclaim, swinging and undulating toward him, her outstretched finger pointing at the image of Christ. “Off with you, to bed, to sleep!” my father would order the servants imperiously. “These are my servants!” my mother would reply, and my father would leave hurriedly, to the accompaniment of our supplicatory lamentations before the altar.
What did this mean, and why would my mother speak of his “filthy deeds?” Why was she disgusted by my father’s deeds since my father was disgusted by my mother? A child’s innocent mind is lost in such secrets. “He’s a libertine!” my mother would say. “Remember, all of you—don’t stand for it! Whoever does not cry in outrage at the sight of sin should tie a millstone round their neck. One cannot feel enough disgust, contempt, and hate. He took a vow, and now he’s disgusted? By hell’s fires! He’s disgusted by me—but I’m disgusted by him too! The Day of Judgment will come! In the next world we shall see which of us is better. A nose!
—A spirit! A spirit has no nose, nor bald spot, and zealous faith opens the gates of future heavenly delights. There will come a time when your father will be writhing in torments and will implore me as I sit at the right hand of Jehovah, that is, I mean, of the Lord God, to give him my moistened finger to lick. We’ll see then if he will be disgusted!”—In fact, my father was also devout and regularly went to church, but never to our chapel at home. Often, in his perfect elegance, he would say with that aristocratic narrowing of his eyes: “Believe me, my dear, it’s a faux pas on your part, and when I see you before the altar with that nose and those ears and lips of yours—I’m convinced that Christ himself feels ill at ease. I don’t deny your natural right to piety,” he added, “quite the contrary—from the religious point of view a neophyte is a beautiful thing; but there’s no getting away from it! Nature cannot be won over by pleading; and remember the French saying: “Dieu pardonnera, les hommes oublieront, mais le nez restera.”
In the meantime I was growing up. Sometimes my father would take me on his knee and, at length, anxiously inspect my countenance. “The nose so far is mine,” I would hear him whisper. “Thank the Lord! But here in the eyes and the ears ... the poor child!”—and his noble features would fill with pain. “He’s going to suffer terribly when he grows to awareness; I wouldn’t be surprised if at that point something happens within him along the lines of an inner massacre.”—What awareness was he speaking of, and what massacre? And in general—what ought to be the coloration of a rat born of a black male and a white female? Ought it to be mottled? Or was it also possible, when the opposing hues were of exactly equal strength, that such a union could produce a rat without hue, without color ... but again I see that with my impatient digressions I am getting ahead of things.
2
In school I was diligent, a model student, yet I did not enjoy universal popularity. I remember the first time I stood before the principal, willing, earnest, filled with resolve, with the eagerness that always characterized me, and the principal took me benevolently by the chin. I thought that the better I worked, the more I would earn the approval of my teachers and schoolmates. But my good intentions shattered against the impassable wall of a mystery. What mystery? Bah! I did not know, and in fact I still do not—I only felt I was encircled on all sides by a mystery that was alien and hostile, yet charming, and which I was unable to penetrate. For is it not charming and mysterious, that little rhyme—“One, two, three, every Jew’s a flea, all the Poles are orioles, you are it, not me”—with which my schoolmates and I would count each other out on the playground? I sensed that it was charming—I recited it with relish and deep feeling—but why it was charming, that I was unable to comprehend, and it even seemed to me that I was completely unnecessary, that I ought to stand to the side and merely watch. I compensated with assiduity and good behavior, but my assiduity and good behavior earned me the antipathy not only of the students but also, and this was stranger and more unjust, of the teachers too.
I also remember:Who are you? A little Pole.
What’s your sign? The eagle bold.
And I remember my late lamented teacher of history and Polish literature—a quiet, rather torpid old man who never raised his voice.—“Gentlemen,” he would say, coughing into a great silk kerchief or cleaning his ear with a finger—“What other nation was the Christ of nations? The bulwark of Christianity? Which other had Prince Joseph Poniatowski? As concerns the number of geniuses, especially precursors, we have as many of them as the whole of Europe combined.” And without a moment’s notice he would begin: “Dante?”—“I know, sir!”—I would jump up right away—“Krasiński!”—“Molière?”—“Fredro!”—“Newton?—“Copernicus!”—“Beethoven?”—“Chopin!”—“Bach?”—“Moniuszko!” —“You can see for yourselves, gentlemen,” he would conclude. “Our language is a hundred times richer than French, which is supposedly the most perfect tongue. What does the Frenchman have? Petit, petiot, très petit at the most. But what riches we have: small, little, titchy, tiny, teeny, teeny-weeny, teensy-weensy, and so on.” Despite the fact that I answered the best and the fastest, he didn’t like me. Why not? That I did not know, though he once said, coughing, in an odd, knowing, and confidential tone: “The Poles, gentlemen, were always lazy, for laziness is inseparably associated with great ability. Poles are able but lazy rogues. The Poles are a strangely likable nation.” From that moment my enthusiasm for learning was somewhat dampened, but this too failed to win me the favor of my pedagogue, even though in general he had a weakness for lazy rascals.
At times he would close one eye, and then the whole class would prick up their ears. “Hm?” he would say. “Springtime, eh? It goes through your bones, draws you out into the meadows and the woods. The Pole was always, as they say, a good-for-nothing and a wild one. He wouldn’t stay in one place, not a bit of it ... that’s why the women of Sweden, Denmark, France, and Germany are so fond of us, but we prefer our own Polish women, for their good looks are famous the world over.” This speech and others like it had such an effect on me that I fell in love—with a young lady who used to do her homework on the same bench as me in the Łazienki Park. For a long time I had no idea how to begin, and when I finally asked: “Will you permit me, miss? ...”—she didn’t even respond. The next day, however, I consulted with my pals, got a grip on myself, and pinched her, upon which she narrowed her eyes and started giggling ...
It had worked—I returned in triumph, exhilarated and sure of myself, but also curiously perturbed by that to me incomprehensible giggling and narrowing of the eyes. “You know what?” I said on the playground. “I’m also a wild one, a rogue, a little Pole; it’s a pity you couldn’t have watched me yesterday in the park, or you’d have seen a thing or two ...” And I told them everything. “Moron!” they said, but for the first time they listened to me with interest. Then one of them shouted: “A frog!” “Where? What? Smash the frog!” They all rushed off, and I followed them. We set about lashing it with sticks till it died. In a fever of excitement, proud that I had been admitted to their most exclusive pastimes and seeing in this the beginning of a new era in my life:—“You know what!” I exclaimed.—“There’s a sw
allow too. A swallow’s gotten into the classroom and it’s banging against the windows—just wait a minute ...” I brought the swallow and, to stop it flying away, I broke its wing, and then picked up my stick. Meanwhile everyone had gathered round. “The poor thing,” they said, “the poor little bird; give it some bread and milk.” And when they saw me raising my stick, my classmate Pawelski narrowed his eyes till his cheekbones stood out distinctly and smacked me painfully in the mug.
“He got it in the mug!” they shouted. “You’ve got no honor, Czarniecki, don’t let him, fight back, smack him in the mug.”—
“How can I?” I replied. “I’m the weaker one. If I try to fight back I’ll get smacked again and I’ll be doubly humiliated.”—Then they all descended on me and beat me up, showering me with mockery and malicious taunts.
Love! What bewitching, incomprehensible absurdity—pinching, squeezing, even snatching in an embrace—how much it contains! Bah! Today I know what to hold onto; I see here the secret affinity with war, because in war too the purpose is in fact to pinch, to squeeze, or to seize in an embrace; but at that time I was not yet one of life’s bankrupts—quite the opposite, I was full of goodwill. To love? I can say boldly that I was drawn to love because I hoped in this way to break through the wall of the mystery; and with enthusiasm and faith I bore all the eccentricities of this most bizarre of emotions in the hope that I would nevertheless eventually understand what it was all about.—“I desire you!”—I would say to my beloved. She would fob me off with generalizations. “You’re nothing but a nothing, Mr. Czarniecki!” she would say enigmatically, staring into my countenance. “A daddy’s little pet, a mama’s boy!”
I shuddered: a mama’s boy? What did she mean by that? Could she have guessed ... because I myself had already guessed to some extent. I had understood that if my father was well-bred to the marrow of his bones—my mother was also well-bred, but in a different sense, in the Semitic sense. What had inclined my father, that impoverished aristocrat, to marry my mother, the daughter of a rich banker? I now understood his anxious looks as he inspected my features, and the nocturnal excursions of this man who, going to waste in his abominable symbiosis with my mother, was following the higher dictates of the species in seeking to pass on his race to worthier loins. I understood? In truth I did not understand, and here once again there rose the bewitching wall of the mystery—I knew in theory, but I personally felt no aversion toward either my mother or my father; I was a devoted son. And today too I do not entirely comprehend; not knowing the theory, I do not know the color of a rat born of a black male and a white female; I imagine only that I constitituted an exceptional case, an unheard-of instance, namely, that the antagonistic races of my parents, being of precisely the same strength, were so perfectly neutralized in me that I was a rat without color, without hue! A neutral rat! This is my fate, this is my mystery, this is why I was always unsuccessful and, taking part in everything, I was unable to take part in anything. And it was for this reason I was overcome by unease at the sound of the phrase: mama’s boy—the more so because it was accompanied by the slight lowering of the eyelids by which I had been burned a number of times already in life.