“What can I do?”
“Get them to let me leave. Let me break loose. That’s all I dream of. To break loose. Back out. I’d leave on foot—except that you’re likely to nab me in the fields somewhere and … Please persuade them to let me go, convince them that I won’t hurt anyone, that I’m fed up, that I can’t stand it any more. I want to be—at peace. At peace. Once we separate, there will be no difficulties. Please, sir, do it for me, I implore you, because, you know, I can’t … Help me escape. I’m turning to you because I can’t be all alone against everyone else, like an outlaw, lend me your hand, don’t leave me like this. We don’t know each other, but I’ve chosen you. I’ve come to you. Why do you all want to persecute me now that I’ve become totally harmless—completely so! It’s all done with.”
This was an unexpected hitch in the shape of this man who started shaking.… what was I to tell him? I was still full of Vaclav, and here, in front of me, this man is spewing—enough, enough, enough!—and asking for mercy. In a flash I saw the total disaster of the problem: I couldn’t turn him away because now his death was intensified by the life trembling in front of me. He had come to me, he became close and hence enormous, his life and death were now mounting in front of me, sky high. At the same time his arrival returned me—by wresting me from Vaclav—to duty, to our action under Hipolit’s leadership, and he, Siemian, was becoming merely the object of our activity … and, as an object, he was thrown outside us, excluded from us, and I couldn’t acknowledge him, or communicate with him, or really talk with him, I had to keep my distance and, by not letting him close to me, I had to maneuver, play politics … and so my spirit stood on its hind legs like a horse before an insurmountable obstacle … because he was calling upon my humanity and getting close to me as a human being, while I wasn’t permitted to see him as a human being. What kind of answer should I give him? The most important thing was—not to let him get close to me, not to let him sink into me! “Sir,” I said, “there is a war on. The country is under occupation. Desertion under these conditions is a luxury we cannot afford. We have to watch one another. You know that.”
“This means … you don’t really want … to talk with me?”
He waited a moment, as if savoring the silence that was separating us more and more. “Sir,” he said, “haven’t you ever been caught with your pants down?”
Again I didn’t answer, increasing the distance. “Sir,” he said patiently, “Everything fell away from me—I have nothing. Let’s talk without further ado. Since I’m coming to you by night, as a stranger to a stranger, let’s talk and skip the rest, shall we?”
He fell silent and waited for me to say something. I said nothing.
“No matter what your opinion of me is,” he added with apathy. “I chose you—as my savior or my killer. Which do you prefer?”
I then handed him an obvious lie—as obvious to me as it was to him—and thus I finally threw him out of our circle: “I know nothing about any threats against you. You’re exaggerating. It’s nerves.”
This floored him. He said nothing—he didn’t move, he didn’t leave, he just remained … passive. It was as if I had deprived him of the ability to leave. And I thought this could go on for hours, he won’t move, why should he move—he’ll stay here … and keep weighing me down. I didn’t know what to do with him—and he couldn’t help me because I had rejected him, thrown him out, and without him I found myself with regard to him—alone … as if I were holding him in my hand. And between me and him there was nothing but indifference, cold unfriendliness, revulsion, he was a stranger to me, he was disgusting! A dog, a horse, a hen, even a bug were more pleasing to me than this man, in his years, worn out, his whole history written all over him—a grown man can’t stand another grown man! There is nothing more repulsive to a grown man than another grown man—I’m talking, of course, about older men, their history written on their faces. He was not attractive to me, no! He was incapable of winning me over. He was unable to put himself into my graces. Unable to please me! His spiritual being was as repulsive to me as his carnal being, just like Vaclav’s, even more so—I was repulsive to him, just as he was repulsive to me, we would have locked horns like two old aurochs—and the fact that I, in my wasted state, was equally disgusting to him intensified my disgust for him even further. Vaclav—and now he—both hideous! And I with them! A grown man can be bearable to another grown man only in the form of self-denial, when he denies himself for the sake of something—honor, virtue, nation, struggle. … But a grown man merely as a grown man—what a monstrosity!
Yet he chose me. He presented himself to me—and now he was not giving in. He was here in front of me. I coughed, and this little cough made me aware that the situation was becoming more and more difficult. His death—even though revolting—was now only a step away from me, like something that could not be avoided.
I was dreaming of only one thing—that he would leave. I’ll think about it later, let him leave first. Why shouldn’t I say that I agree with him and will help him? It wasn’t binding, I could, after all, turn this promise into a ruse and a maneuver—if I were to decide to destroy him, that is, and reveal everything to Hipolit—actually, this would be advisable, for the sake of the goals of our activity, our group, to secure his confidence and to manipulate him. If I decide to destroy him … then what’s the harm in lying to a man whom one is destroying?
“Listen, please. First of all—control your nerves. This is the most important thing. Come down to lunch tomorrow. Say that you had a nervous crisis and it’s now passing. That you are returning to form. Pretend you’re all right. For my part, I’ll also talk to Hipolit and try somehow to arrange your departure. Now go back to your room, someone could come here.…”
I had no idea what I was saying. Truth or lie? Help or treason? It will become clear later—but now let him go away! He rose and drew himself up. I didn’t notice any trace of hope, not a muscle twitched, he tried neither to thank me nor to please me, not even by his gaze … because he knew in advance that nothing would succeed, that there was nothing left for him except to be, to be as he is, to be his own awkward being, his unpleasant self—whose destruction, however, would be even more disgusting. He was merely blackmailing me with his existence. … Oh, how different this was from Karol!
Karol!
After Siemian’s departure I began writing a letter to Fryderyk. It was a report—I reported on both these nocturnal visits. And this was the document by which I was clearly presenting myself to our joint activity. I was presenting myself in writing. I began a dialogue.
XI
Next day Siemian appeared at lunch.
I rose late and came down just as everyone was coming to the table—and then Siemian appeared, shaved, pomaded, and perfumed, a handkerchief sticking out of his breast pocket. This was the arrival of a corpse—we had been, after all, in the process of putting him to death for two days running, without a break. The corpse, however, kissed Madame Maria’s hand with the grace of a cavalryman and, having greeted everyone, explained that “the indisposition that had overcome him was beginning to pass,” that he was feeling better—that he was fed up with stewing by himself upstairs while “the whole family was gathered here.” Hipolit himself moved a chair toward him, his place setting was quickly arranged, our attention to him returned as if it had never changed, he sat down—as overpowering and overbearing as he had been that first evening. Soup was served. He asked for vodka. This must have been no trifling effort—corpse talking, corpse eating, corpse drinking, an effort violently wrested from his all-powerful disinclination, wrested merely by the power of fear. “My appetite isn’t the best yet, but I’ll try a little soup.” “A swig of vodka, if you please.”
The lunch … miserable yet marked by hidden dynamics, abounding in exuberant crescendos and imbued with contradictory meanings, blurry, like a text written within another text … Vaclav at his place next to Henia—he must have had a talk with her and “won her over with his re
spect,” because they both showed a great deal of attention to each other, now and again exchanging pleasantries, she became more refined and he became more refined—they both became more refined. As far as Fryderyk was concerned—loquacious as always, sociable, but obviously pushed into the background by Siemian, who imperceptibly took the reins. … Yes, even more than when he first appeared, there was a contagion of obedience and inner tension with regard to his wishes, the tiniest ones, which began with him as a request and ended with us as commands. Since I already knew that it was wretchedness dressed up, out of fear, in his former, now lost, imperiousness, I saw this as a farce! At first it was masked as the good-heartedness of an East Poland officer, a bit Cossack-like, a bit swashbuckling—yet gloom began to ooze from all his pores, gloom, as well as the cold, apathetic indifference that I had noticed yesterday. He was turning dark and ugly. And this entanglement, taking place within him, must have been unbearable to him, while before our eyes and out of fear, he was taking shape as the old Siemian he no longer was, whom he feared more than we did, whom he could no longer match—the old, the “dangerous” Siemian, who was the one to give commands and use people, the one to order one man to put another man to death. “I’d like to ask you for a slice of lemon”—it sounded so good-natured, charmingly East Poland, even somewhat in the old Russian style, but it had claws, somewhere deep down it was marked by disrespect for the existence of others, and he, sensing it, was frightened, and his terror fed on his fear. Fryderyk, I knew, must have been soaking up this simultaneous accumulation of terror and fear rolled into one. Yet Siemian’s game would not have become so unrestrained if Karol had not teamed up with him from the other end of the table, supporting Siemian’s imperiousness with his whole being.
Karol was eating soup, buttering bread—yet Siemian immediately took control of him just as he had done at their first encounter. Again the boy had a lord over him. His hands became soldier-like and dexterous. His whole undeveloped existence instantly and smoothly surrendered to Siemian, surrendered and submitted to him—when Karol ate it was to serve him, he buttered his bread with Siemian’s permission, and his head promptly submitted itself to him with its short-cut hair swirling softly on his forehead. He was not expressing it in some manner—he simply became it, like someone who changes with the lighting. It’s possible that Siemian wasn’t aware of it, nonetheless, a relationship was soon cemented between himself and the boy, and Siemian’s gloom, that unfriendly cloud loaded with imperiousness (now only feigned) began to seek out Karol and pile itself upon him. And Vaclav helped it along, Vaclav the refined, sitting next to Henia … Vaclav the just, demanding love and virtue … watched the chief made dark by the boy, the boy—by the chief.
He must have sensed it—Vaclav—that this was turning against the very respect which he had been defending and which was defending him—because between the chief and the boy there was evolving none other than actual disdain—disdain first and foremost for death. Wasn’t the boy giving himself to the chief, life and death, exactly because the other was afraid neither to die nor to kill—this is what gave him sovereignty over others. And in the wake of such disdain for death and life came other possible debasements, whole oceans of devaluations, and the boy’s ability for disdain bonded with the man’s gloomy, imperious nonchalance—they acknowledged one another, for they were not afraid of death or pain, one because he was a boy, the other because he was the chief. The matter sharpened and grew because phenomena elicited artificially are more unbridled—since, after all, Siemian was making himself a chief simply out of fear, to rescue himself. And this artificial chief, whom the young one was changing into reality, was strangling him, choking him, terrorizing him. Fryderyk must have been soaking up (I knew) the sudden gain in power by the other three, Siemian’s, Karol’s and Vaclav’s, heralding the possibility of an explosion … while she, Henia, was calmly bending over her plate.
Siemian was eating … to show that he was now able to eat like everyone else … and he tried to charm with his charm from the steppes, a charm which was, however, poisoned by his corpse-like chill and which, in Karol, was immediately transforming itself into violence and into blood. Fryderyk was soaking this up. But then it so happened that Karol asked for a glass and Henia handed it to him—and perhaps that moment, when the glass went from one hand to the other hand, was a little, only slightly, prolonged, it seemed that she was late by a fraction of a second in withdrawing her hand. It could be so. Was it? This trifle of evidence reached Vaclav like a bludgeon—he turned gray—while Fryderyk brushed them with his oh so indifferent gaze.
Compote was served. Siemian fell silent. Now he sat, increasingly unpleasant, as if he had run out of politeness, and he seemed to have finally given up on pleasing, as if the gates of horror had opened wide before him. He was frigid. Henia began to play with her fork, and it so happened that Karol was also touching his fork—actually it wasn’t clear whether he was playing with it or just touching it, it could be pure happenstance, indeed the fork was close at hand—nonetheless Vaclav again turned gray—was it indeed happenstance? Oh, of course, it could have been happenstance—so trivial it was almost imperceptible. Yet it was conceivable … what if this trifle was actually giving them permission for a prank, oh so slight, so lightweight, so microscopic that (the girl) could be submitting to it with (the boy) while not violating her virtue with regard to her fiancé—indeed, it was all totally imperceptible. … And wasn’t it this very lightness that was tempting them—since the lightest movement of their hands hit Vaclav like a blow—perhaps they couldn’t restrain themselves from their little amusement that, being almost nothing, was at the same time—for Vaclav—a crushing defeat. Siemian finished eating his compote. Even if Karol really was teasing Vaclav, oh, perhaps imperceptibly even to himself, this in no way violated his fidelity toward Siemian, since he was amusing himself like a soldier, ready for death and therefore behaving recklessly. And this too was marked by the strangely unbridled behavior that artificiality bestows—since the little game with the forks was, after all, merely a sequel to the theater on the island, the flirting between them was “theatrical.” I thus found myself, at this table, between two perplexities, more intense than anything reality could muster. An artificial chief and an artificial love.
Everyone rose. Lunch had come to an end.
Siemian stepped up to Karol.
“Hey you … kid …,” he said.
“What’s up?!” Karol replied, delighted.
Then the officer turned his pale eyes to Hipolit, coldly, unpleasantly. “Shall we talk?” he suggested through his teeth.
I wanted to be present at their conversation but he stopped me with a curt: “You—no. …” What was this? A command? Had he forgotten how we talked last night? But I complied with his wish and stayed on the verandah, while he and Hipolit walked away into the garden. Henia was next to Vaclav and placed her hand on his shoulder as if nothing had taken place between them, faithful again, but Karol, standing at the open door, didn’t fail to place his hand on it (his hand on the door—her hand on Vaclav). And the fiancé said to the young girl: “Let’s go for a walk.” To which she replied like an echo: “Let’s go.” They went away down the lane, while Karol was left behind like an unrestrained joke that nobody could get. … Fryderyk muttered, “This is ridiculous!” as he watched the betrothed couple and Karol. My imperceptible smile answered him … for him alone.
After a quarter of an hour Hipolit returned and summoned us to his study.
“We have to get rid of him,” he said. “The job has to be done tonight. He’s pressuring us!”
And, dropping to the couch, he repeated to himself with pleasure, lowering his eyes: “He’s pressuring us!”
It turned out that Siemian had again demanded horses—but this time it was not a request—no, it was something that made Hipolit unable to regain his balance for quite a while. “Gentlemen, he’s a scoundrel! He’s a murderer! He wanted horses, I said I didn’t have them today, maybe tom
orrow … then he squeezed my hand with his fingers, he took my hand in his fingers and squeezed it, I tell you, like a typical killer … and he said that if by ten tomorrow morning the horses weren’t there, then …
“He pressured me!” he said, terrified. “The job must be done tonight, because tomorrow I will have to give him horses.”
And he added softly:
“I will have to.”
This was a surprise to me. Apparently Siemian couldn’t sustain the role we had planned yesterday, and instead of talking cordially, soothingly, he was threatening. … It was clear he had been invaded, terrorized, by the ex-Siemian, the dangerous one that he had called up during lunch, and this created a threat within him, a command, pressure, cruelty (which he couldn’t resist, since he was more afraid of these than anyone else). … Suffice it to say, he again became a threat. At least it was good that I no longer felt solely responsible for him, as I had felt last night, in my room, since I had passed this matter on to Fryderyk.
Hipolit rose. “Gentlemen, well, how shall we do it? And who?” He pulled out four matches and twisted the little head off one of them. I looked at Fryderyk—I waited for a sign—should I reveal my nocturnal conversation with Siemian? But I saw that he was terribly pale. He swallowed saliva.