The Polish Review
Library of Polish Classics
Zygmunt Krasiński
The Undivine Comedy
Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski
New York
208/30 Press
2010
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CONTENTS:
Introduction by Charles S. Kraszewski
The Undivine Comedy, translation: Charles S. Kraszewski
Zygmunt Krasiński, the Clear-Eyed Romantic
Charles S. Kraszewski
Among the great poets of the Romantic period in Poland, Zygmunt Krasiński (1812-1859) is without a doubt the “best born,” coming of an old family with strong ties of blood to the magnate clans which made up the higher reaches of the Polish nobility. This fact sets him apart from his literary peers such as Adam Mickiewicz, Juliusz Słowacki, J.I. Kraszewski and Cyprian Kamil Norwid in a fundamental way that sheds an interesting light on his most famous work, the Nie-boska komedia [Undivine Comedy, 1833].
At the time in which Krasiński was writing his play, Poland, once the largest (territorially speaking) political entity in Europe, was on the threshold of its fourth decade of non-existence. In 1795, it had been completely engulfed by the neighboring empires of Prussia, Austria, and Russia. This period of national dismemberment was to last until the end of the First World War in 1918. Deprived of actual political leadership at home and oppressed to a greater or lesser degree by the occupying powers, the Poles looked to their artists both for advocacy abroad and for the sustaining of the Polish cultural spirit. Obviously, nationalistic activity of any sort, even as far as poetry is concerned, was frowned upon by governments intent on Russifying or Germanizing a restive populace that rose in armed rebellion against the foreign régimes several times during the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, almost all of the poets listed above suffered exile or prison for their quasi-political activity. The sole exception to the rule was Norwid, and this only because his works were scarcely known during his lifetime. Alone among his fellows, the blueblood Krasiński stayed out of trouble with the partitioning authorities.
This has not so much to do with his nobility per se. After all, Prince Adam Czartoryski was deeply involved in the movement for national reestablishment, leading a conservative nationalist party from his headquarters in Paris. Krasiński’s problem was more deeply-rooted than simple political conservatism or class consciousness. On the one hand, as a young man in the full enthusiastic flowering of the Romantic generation, acted upon so strongly by the mesmerizing national bard Mickiewicz, Krasiński was fully conscious of the suffering of his people and the justice of their patriotic cries for independence. It would be wrong to say that he was not stirred by the revolutionary élan of his contemporaries. Yet he was held back from openly joining their ranks out of respect for his father, Count Wincenty Krasiński, a military man who, although serving first with Napoléon, had switched his political orientation after the fall of the French emperor and become a loyal courtier and supporter of the Tsar. Young Krasiński’s patriotic nature suffered the indignity of his being officially presented at the Imperial Court in St Petersburg by his father; his duty as a son made him stand up to his fellow students at the University of Warsaw — perhaps against his will — in defense of Count Wincenty’s ideals, for which he was publicly shamed with a slap in the face.
It is against such a backdrop of divided loyalties and the keen sense of no possible escape from his personal paradox that the political sections of the Undivine Comedy must be read. The hopeless state of Krasiński’s soul can be best described by considering his attitude toward Adam Mickiewicz. The younger poet could not help admiring the elder’s work, and certainly sympathized with his patriotic urgings, yet at the same time he was forced to endure the literary pillorying of his father as a “traitor” in Mickiewicz’s greatest work, Forefathers’ Eve.
And yet, paradoxically perhaps, this sense of having no exit from his difficulties may have significantly contributed to one of the most striking characteristics of the drama in hand: its sobriety — the clear-sighted ability to dissipate all illusions, however charming, and to speak of matters as they are, without any naive or emotional coloration, if not without bitter sarcasm.
The first, and perhaps most striking, occasion of this clear-sightedness to be found in the Undivine Comedy is his rejection, or rather destruction, of the romantic ideal of man and its basically God-less morality. In this, Krasiński comes out strongly against the tradition of the superhuman “great man” of European literature, which stretches from Marlowe to Goethe to Byron and his imitators.
Since the Renaissance at least, European poets have been fascinated by the figure of the larger-than-life intellectual hero. This Faustian overreacher, possessed of both an overwhelming intellectual capacity and curiosity, as well as an insatiable desire to master the secrets of the universe, will bow before nothing — neither the laws of God nor common sense — in his bold flight towards absolute knowledge and (he thinks) power. The ur-text of Faustian literature is Christopher Marlowe’s Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (1604/1616), one of the most popular and enduring products of the Elizabethan stage. Now, Marlowe’s Faustus is a clown. He is blind to the bald fact of his absurd situation — so obvious to the spectator from the very earliest conjuring scene — to wit: he is clearly a slave of the very devils he thinks that he rules. He is also a coward, losing his last chance of salvation at the very end of the play, scared away from repentance by Lucifer in a feverish final scene in which Marlowe emphasizes the omnipotence of God.
However, this aspect of Marlowe’s Faustus, which makes the play read like an engaging theological tract, did not dissuade the later poets of the Romantic period from returning to Faust and clothing him in heroic garb.
The first to do so was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe’s Faust is the German poet’s masterwork. Begun circa 1775 and not completed until shortly before his death in 1832, Goethe’s great poem contains both youthful fervor and the wisdom of maturity. What most sets this nineteenth-century incarnation of Faust apart from his Marlovian predecessor is the fact that Goethe’s hero is not dragged off to hell after a life just as full of sin as honest effort. Rather, he is saved from the clutches of Satan — ironically, for such a liberal Protestant author — in a very Catholic way: through the intercession of a saint, Gretchen, the pious girl he ruined, abandoned and drove to a criminal’s death.
What predominates, however, in Goethe’s Faust, is not repentance leading to Christian wisdom, but a fervid, if naive, faith in the grandeur of man: in other words, a glorification of that spark (be it divine or not) which pushes the demigod scientist ever onward, to the acquisition of new knowledge, new powers, new hope for mankind. Here too we see Goethe creating a more sympathetic character than Marlowe’s. The earlier Faustus uses whatever “powers” he seems to acquire through his pact with the devil in pursuit of self-centered pleasure. The protagonist of the great Weimarian, on the other hand, seeks to employ his for the betterment of mankind. The penultimate scene of Goethe’s work, the death of Faustus, shows the old man, decrepit, blind, yet indefatigable in his purpose, directing his eerie slaves in an unstinting battle to wrest land from the sea for the creation of a “new homeland” for “free people.”
This scene, of course, calls to mind that conversation between Pankracy and Leonard after the taking of Holy Trinity Castle. When the leader of the revolutionary forces is being gently wooed to rest by his understudy, Pankracy brushes aside the suggestion with these words:
No time to sleep just yet, child, for we shall have finished only half of our task with their last breath. — Look around you — at these huge barriers that stand between me and my thoughts. These wildernesses must be peopled — these cliffs tunneled through — these lakes connected, these lands parceled out, so that twice as much life should spring forth on these plains where death now rules. — Otherwise, the work of destruction will not be redeemed. —
Both Goethe’s Faust and Krasiński’s Pankracy go to their grave still aglow, for the most part, with the Ideal which drove them on for so many years and through so many obstacles. However, these two scenes, so similar in many respects, are at bottom fundamentally different products of opposite and conflicting world views. The matter of both scenes is identical: the acknowledgement, on the part of the poets, that the Ideal, the Absolute, is unattainable by finite man. Yet Goethe’s hero dies unrepentant (despite having mixed the blood of two old people with the cement for the foundations of his earthly paradise) — indeed, unconscious of the fact that he will not be able to effect his plans. For Goethe, the heroic human striving is its own reward. In removing from the question any notion of sin and responsibility, yet at the same time apotheosizing his hero, Goethe is setting up man — the “super” man — as a rival of, or companion to, the Father in heaven Who sanctified the heroic efforts of his favorite at the outset of the play.
For Pankracy, now, there is a recognition scene. The apocalyptic vision of Christ with which the play comes to a close sets the matter in its clearest light. With his cry “Galilaee, vicisti!” [“Galilean, Thou hast conquered!”] Pankracy acknowledges the larger picture: not only is the construction of his new Tower of Babel an impossibility, but it is the blood mixed into the cement, that blood which Pankracy slips upon just before the vision, that causes the edifice to crumble. No human success, social or personal, however grand, can justify the spilling of innocent blood.
This is the simple truth that Krasiński forces upon both Pankracy and his nemesis-brother, Count Henryk. Unlike Byron’s Manfred, who affirms his human individuality even at the lip of the grave by holding both devil and God at bay and proclaiming himself free of all moral absolutes by his thinly-disguised reveling in a horrible sin that only he might bear, both Henryk and Pankracy have their snouts pushed into the gritty topsoil of Christian morality. Both were happily skipping down the trail blazed before them by Faust; both find that the path leads to a truly dead end.
Idealism, after all, is another form of idolatry. Henryk, in Part I, is so sick to the core of his being with poetic idealism and exalted ideas about the life of a romantic poet that he rejects God in favor of a chimaeric “Poesie:”
husband. (in his sleep) From whence comest thou, O unseen, unheard for such a long time — As water flows, thus thy feet, two ripples of white — a peace of holiness shineth forth from thy brows, — everything of which I have dreamed, everything which I have loved, has come together in thee. (He wakes) Where am I! — ha, next to my wife. This is my wife. (Stares at his wife) I thought that thou wert my dream. And now, after a long absence, it hath returned and it differs from thee. — Thou art good and kind, but she… My God! — what’s that? — for real!
maiden. Thou hast betrayed me.
She disappears.
husband. Curséd be the moment, in which I took a wife unto myself, in which I abandoned the lover of my youthful years, thought of my thought, soul of my soul...
Whence cometh she? From a whore’s grave. The devils, anxious to claim this man’s soul for hell, find a push-over in Henryk who’s done half the work for them. So enamored is Henryk of the poetic, the idealistic, the imaginary, that he accepts this soul-killing illusion with a surprising gullibility underscored by his wife’s frantic description of the “vision” when the maiden arrives finally to take her husband away, and by our own eyes, which also see her for what she really is. Yet, for the sake of this illusory deity, Henryk abandons wife and son, forsakes reality itself, and allows himself to be led to the edge of an abyss, like a very child, taking the “rotten canvas” of an artificial nature with which the devils surround him, for the higher reality toward which he, as poet and “great soul,” is called. And it is only there, at the edge of the abyss, that he finally sees through the illusion to the reality:
What’s happening to you? — The flowers are tearing away from your brow, falling to the earth — and when you touch them, they squirm away like reptiles — crawl away like snakes!
Poignantly, in a scene so reminiscent of the final hour of Marlowe’s hero’s life, the idealist poet is forced to recognize the choice which lies before him: between God and Satan, heaven and hell, reality and damning illusion. In short, he sees that the absolute, and in no way theoretical or relative, hierarchy of right and wrong is man’s real element, and at this he cries out, in mortal anguish: “Vain to struggle — the delight of the abyss is ripping me away — My soul is fainting — God — your enemy is winning!” His plea is heard. The Guardian Angel (his? his son’s?) brings him news of his reprieve:
Peace, billows, quiet yourselves. At this very moment, holy water falls upon your child’s brow. Return home and sin no more. Return home and love your child.
A happy end? Far from it. Not all wrongs are righted, in this world. In the real life of moral standards, choices carry with them consequences. Upon returning home, Henryk is confronted with the desolation wrought by his own selfish whims. Maria, his wife, has gone mad, and sits in an asylum raving:
wife. I prayed for three nights straight, and God hath heard my prayer.
husband. I don’t understand you.
wife. From the moment I’d lost thee, there came upon me a great change. “Lord my God,” I cried, and beat my heart, and placed a candle ’gainst my breast and did penance, “send down the spirit of poetry upon me.” And on the third day I did become a poet.
husband. Maria!
wife. Henryk, now thou wilt contemn me no longer — I am filled with inspiration — now thou wilt not abandon me of an evening.
henryk. Never, never! —
wife. Look thou upon me. Am I not thine equal? — I grasp all, understand, give out, win out, sing out. — Seas, stars, storms, sieges! Yes, stars, storms, seas — ach! what is it I’ve forgot — sieges. Take me to war! I shall embrace war and sing war! corpse, shroud, blood, wave, dew, coffin —
Eternity around me swirls,
And, like a bird, unto eternity,
Azure wings do I unfurl
And, flying, faint into the press
Of the black waves of nothingness.
husband. Curses! Curses!
How bitter Maria’s confession of faith in Henryk’s old maniacal poetic creed must sound in her husband’s ears!
Whether or not it is just that Maria, and Orcio, are made to suffer for Henryk’s sins is not a proper question. We must remember that it is not God who wishes to teach Henryk a lesson via the unmerited misfortunes of others, but rather — and this is the lesson that Henryk has learned — that the sufferings of his family have been directly caused by his actions. That they are irreparable is Krasiński’s masterstroke against the Byronism of Manfred. No real man can bear up under even the slightest sin — only Christ was able to do that, on the Cross. Likewise, no man can repair the damage caused by his sins — only Christ was able to do that, on the Cross. Henryk, whose ironic title mąż means both “husband” and “manly fellow” is shown to be no superman, but a puny, run of the mill sinner, like us all.
Henryk’s story is an illustration of the doctrine of original sin. Even though he has been taught a rough lesson about illusion, and strives to wean his child from the curse of poetry that his mad mother laid upon him at his christening, how many times does he forget himself and launch into a poetic effusion, only to be cut down to size by a “voice” out of somewhere, with the sarcastic comment, “Ooh, what a part you’re scripting. You the leading man?”
Only by keeping in mind the propensity to sin which remains with man even after baptism — Augustine’s concupiscentia — can we understand how Henryk can be so foolish as to replace God yet again with another illusion — that of force, represented by the eagle, in Part II:
eagle. With the saber of thy fathers, fight for their glory and sway.
husband. He spreads himself above me — and with the gaze of a rattlesnake sucks at my pupils — Ha! I understand thee!
eagle. Never give way — never give way — and thy enemies — thy base enemies — will be ground into dust.
husband. I bid thee farewell among the cliffs where thou vanishest — come what may — be thou a lie or the truth — victory or my undoing, I shall believe in thee, harbinger of glory — O ages past, be my support! And if your spirit hath returned to the bosom of God, let it tear away from thence, and enter into my body, that it become my thought, and strength, and deed.
It is noteworthy that, for all that he has been through, all the lessons he has been subjected to and all the wisdom he has to impose upon others, such as his insightful comment to Pankracy after his night spent in the revolutionary camp:
I know you too, you and your world. Amidst the shades of night I watched the dancing of the mob, upon whose necks you climb upward — and saw all the old crimes of the world dressed up in new clothes, swaying to the rhythm of a new dance — the end of which, however, hasn’t changed in one thousand years — dissipation, gold, and blood
or his biting advice to the Convert, after their interview with Bianchetti: “Kill him. That’s my advice — because that’s the way all aristocracy gets its start,” Henryk takes that despairing, suicidal plunge into the abyss from the ramparts of Holy Trinity that he had avoided earlier on, with the help of heaven.
For there is no happy end for either Pankracy or Henryk. Nemeses and brothers, they arrive at the same sad end, although by different routes. Both have rejected God and His absolute moral order, replacing it with a much degraded deity. For Henryk, it is the elitist, maiden/whore of idealistic art, and later the snobbish, class-based and misguided aristocratic ethos; for Pankracy, it is an ideal just as unrealistic: the socialist heaven on earth.
Without that absolute moral scheme, both are doomed to abject failure and the repetitive cycle of sin. Pankracy justly condemns Henryk’s ancestors for their cruelty:
That one there, the Subprefect, liked to shoot at women among the trees, and burned Jews alive. — That one, with the seal in his hand and the signature, the “Chancellor,” falsified records, burned whole archives, bribed judges, hurried on his petty inheritances with poison — to him you owe your villages, your income, your power. — That one, the darkish one with the fiery eye, slept with his friends’ wives —
Yet upon taking the castle, he will emulate the crimes of the people he so detests, indiscriminately sentencing men, women, and children to their death on the gallows. Henryk is sober enough to see that the coming revolution will not result in justice, but simply a changing of places: the oppressed now oppressing their former oppressors. Yet is he any different? Can we at all sanction his stereotypical anti-Semitism,i no less indiscriminate than Pankracy’s class hatred? Can we applaud his championing of the old, feudal-Catholic order when his battle cry is so at odds with anything remotely resembling Catholicism and the ideal of the Christian soldier?
O eagle, keep thou thy promise, and on their prostrate necks will I raise a new Church of Christ!
[. . . ]
On, on to the battle, to the sword! I’ll give Him back to you — On thousands of crosses will I crucify His enemies. —
In the end, the judgment passed against Henryk’s ghostly double in the sentencing scene in the castle dungeons — “Because thou hast loved no one at all, honored no one but thy self and thy thoughts, damned thou art — damned for all time” — can be applied to Pankracy, and to nearly every human actor that crosses the stage of Krasiński’s drama. Since the sin of Adam, to the very last day of recorded time, man has been, is, and always will be the same: weak, inclined to sin, a cruel failure on his own, greatly in need of the merciful interference of God willing to intercept his solitary, headlong rush to Hell.
Thus the relieving, Deus-ex-machina ending of the Undivine Comedy, with the Son of Man, coming over the clouds of heaven, to ring down the curtain on the bloody farce of those “ants, scurrying about and playing with their blades of grass.” The Galilean is victorious. Christ’s apocalyptic advent brings — at long last — justice to suffering mankind; a justice such as neither the Communist Pankracy nor the Aristocrat Henryk nor the compromising nor-fish-nor-fowl Godfather is able to bring.
Zygmunt Krasiński
for Maria
To the errors, accumulated by their forefathers, they added something unknown to their ancestors — hesitation and fear — and so it happened that they were wiped clean from the face of the earth and a great silence is all that remains after them. — Author unknown
To be, or not to be, that is the question. — Hamlet
Stars about thy head — beneath thy feet the waves of the sea — before thee on the waves a rainbow rushes, cleaving the mist — whatever thou beholdest is thine — coasts, cities and peoples are thy property — heaven is thine — ’tis as if nothing can thy glory equal.
*
Thou playest to the ears of others inconceivable delights. — Twining hearts together and rending asunder, as if they were but wreaths, trifles in thy hands — thou wringest tears from eyes — to dry them with a smile, but only to hurl the smile from thy lips again for a moment — for a few moments — sometimes for ages. — But what dost thou feel thyself? — What art thou creating? — Of what art thou thinking? — And through thee flows the stream of the beautiful, but thou art not the beautiful. — Woe to thee — Woe! — The child, which weepeth on the bosom of his mother — the flower of the field, which knoweth not of its own fragrance, have far greater merit before the Lord than thou hast.
*
Whence thy genesis, cheap shadow, which givest to know of the light, yet knoweth not the light thyself? Which seest not! Which shalt not see the light! — Who created thee in ire or in irony? — Who hath given thee thy scoundrel life, that thou art able to put on the Angel, a moment before thou art hurled to the mire to creep along like a toad and choke thyself on slime? — For thee and the woman the origin is one.
*
But now thou sufferest as well, although thy torture produces nought; it is good for nothing. — The groan of the basest wretch is told among the strains of heaven’s harps. — Thy despairings and sighs sink downward, and Satan collects them, adding them gaily to his own lies and deceits — And the Lord will some day deny them, as they have denied the Lord.
*
Yet I do not cry thee down, O Poetry, mother of the Beautiful and the Salvific. — He alone unhappy among men, who conceived on worlds destined to perish, must recall, or have a presentiment, of thee — For them alone dost thou lead astray, who have dedicated themselves unto thee, who have become the living voices of thy glory.
*
Blessed is he, in whom thou dost take up residence, as God did take up residence on earth: unseen, unheard, in each of his parts magnificent, great, the Lord, before Whom all of creation humbles itself and declares: “He is here.” — Such a one will bear thee as a star upon his forehead, and not separate himself from thy love with an abyss of words. — He will love people and appear as a Man among his brethren. — Yet he who will not preserve thee, who betrayeth thee too early and casteth thee about to people for empty delight, on his head thou strewest a few blossoms and then turnst away. And he will play with the withered petals throughout his life, weaving for himself a charnel wreath. — For him and the woman the origin is one.
guardian angel. Peace to men of good will — blessed is he amongst creation, who hath a heart — he may yet be redeemed. — Good and humble wife, appear unto him — and may a child be born unto your house.
Flies away.
*
chorus of evil spirits. To the air, take wing, phantoms, fly to him! — Thou first, take the lead, shadow of a whore dead but yesterday, freshened with mist and wrapped in blossoms — maiden, poet’s lover, take the lead. And thou as well, take wing, O Fame, old eagle of hell’s taxidermy, stolen from the stake upon which the hunter hung thee last Fall — fly forth and spread wide thy wings, grand, sun-blanched, over the poet’s head. Come out of our cellars, rotten likeness of Eden, thou work of Beelzebub’s brush — we shall patch up thy holes and smear varnish over thy surface — and then, magic canvas, curl a cloud about thyself and fly to the poet — spread thyself about him, girdle him with cliffs and waters, night and day by turns. — Mother, Nature, surround the poet!
*
A village church. Above the church hovers the Guardian Angel.
guardian angel. If thou perseverest in thy vows to the end, thou wilt bask in the presence of the Heavenly Father, for all time, as my own brother.
He disappears.
The inside of the church — witnesses — a large, consecrated wax candle on the altar. The priest is performing a wedding ceremony.
priest. Remember this well.
The bride and bridegroom rise. The husband squeezes his wife’s hand and relinquishes her to her relatives’ care — everyone exits — the husband remains in the church alone.
groom. I have deigned to enter into the bonds of earthly wedlock, for I have found the one of whom I have always dreamt — May a curse fall on my head, should I ever cease to love her.
*
A large room full of people — a ball — music — candles — flowers. The bride waltzes — after a few turns she pulls up, happens upon her husband in the crowd, and lets her head rest upon his shoulder.
groom. How beautiful thou art in thy weariness — in a disorder of flowers, and pearls in thy hair — thou art flaming from shyness and fatigue — eternally, O eternally wilt thou be my song.
bride. I’ll be faithful to you, as mother told me to, and as my own heart dictates. — But there’s so many people here — It’s so hot and loud.
groom. Go and dance once more, and I shall stand here and gaze upon thee, as I’ve more than once looked upon the sweeping angels with my mind’s eye.
bride. If that’s what you want, but I hardly have any strength left.
groom. I beg thee, my love.
Dance, music.
*
A cloud, night. An evil spirit in the guise of a maiden, flying.
maiden. Not long ago I was running around on the streets at this hour — now demons drive me before them and have me put on the holy virgin. (She flies above a garden) Flowers, tear yourselves from the earth and bedeck my hair. (She flies above a cemetery) Freshness and graces of deceased maidens, spilled about in the air and hovering above the grave mounds, sink into my cheeks. Here some fine black hair is going to waste — Shadow of her curls, come and adorn my brow. — And beneath this headstone, two blue eyes snuffed out — to me, to me, O fire, which once smoldered in them! — Behind these gates a hundred candles burn for a princess buried just today — milk white gown of silk, tear away from those bones! — Here it flutters to me through the bars like a bird. — Now, more, more!
*
A bedroom — a nightlamp stands on a table and palely illuminates the husband sleeping beside his wife.
husband. (in his sleep) From whence comest thou, O unseen, unheard for such a long time — As water flows, thus thy feet, two ripples of white — a peace of holiness shineth forth from thy brows, — everything of which I have dreamed, everything which I have loved, has come together in thee. (He wakes) Where am I! — ha, next to my wife. This is my wife. (Stares at his wife) I thought that thou wert my dream. And now, after a long absence, it hath returned and it differs from thee. — Thou art good and kind, but she… My God! — what’s that? — for real!
maiden. Thou hast betrayed me.
She disappears.
husband. Curséd be the moment, in which I took a wife unto myself, in which I abandoned the lover of my youthful years, thought of my thought, soul of my soul...
wife. (waking) What happened? — is it morning — is the carriage ready? — We’ve got a lot of things to do today.
husband. ’Tis night, deaf night. — Sleep. — Sleep deeply.
wife. Are you ill, my dear? I’ll get up and get you some ether.
husband. Go to sleep.
wife. Tell me what’s wrong, dear — your voice is strange, and it looks like you have a fever.
husband. (starts up violently) I need fresh air. — Stay where thou art. — In God’s name, don’t come after me — I repeat, do not get out of bed.
He exits.
*
A moonlit garden — beyond the fence, the church.
husband. Since the day of my wedding I have slept the sleep of the torpid, the sleep of gluttons, the sleep of a German merchant beside his German wife — The world around me fell asleep after my own image — I have been running to relatives, to doctors, to stores, and now, that a child is born unto me, I have been thinking… of a wet nurse!
The church clock strikes two.
Come to me, my ancient dominions, living, flocking together beneath the aegis of my thought — attentive to my inspirations — once, the echo of a night-time bell was your call to action. (He walks about, wringing his hands). God, can it be that Thou Thyself hast sanctified the union of two bodies? Can it be that Thou Thyself hast declared that nothing may them sunder, e’en though their souls beat each other off, going each his own way, leaving the bodies together as if they were but two corpses lain in the same tomb? Again thou art beside me — O mine — O mine! — Take me with thee. — If thou art but an illusion, if it is that I have but imagined thee — if thou hast created thyself from me, and but showest thyself as nothing but a dream, O let me become a dream as well! I would become of mist and smoke if only to unite myself with thee!
maiden. And wilt thou then follow after me when I come to you, on whatever day I choose to come?
husband. At each and every moment I am thine.
maiden. Remember.
husband. And thou be! Don’t dissolve like a dream — if thou art indeed that beauty above all beauty, thought above all thought, why is it that thou never tarriest longer than the space of one wish, one thought?
A window in the house adjoining opens.
woman’s voice. Come back in, my dear — you’ll catch cold out there. And I’m afraid to be alone in this big, black room.
husband. All right. — In a moment. The spirit hath disappeared, yet promised me that she would return. And then — farewell garden, farewell home! And farewell to thee, who wert created for home and garden, though not for me!
voice. For pity’s sake — it’s getting colder and colder towards the dawn.
husband. And my child — O God! Exits.
*
A salon — two candles on the piano — a child in a corner crib — the husband sits sprawled on a chair with his face in his hands, the wife at the piano.
wife. I was to see Father Benjamin. He promised to come day after tomorrow.
husband. Good. Thanks.
wife. And I sent to the confectioner’s so they’d have some cakes ready — it seems you’ve invited quite a few guests to the christening — you know, chocolate cakes, with “JS” — the initials of Jerzy Stanisław.
husband. Good. Thanks.
wife. Thank God that this christening will soon take place — and that our little Orcio will become a Christian in the full sense of the word. Even though he was already baptized with water, I always felt that something was missing. (She goes over to the crib). Sleep my child — can you already be dreaming of something, that you’ve thrown off your blanket? — There now — like that — lie down this way. You’re uneasy today, my little one — sleep, my lovely boy, sleep.
husband (aside). Sultry — humid — it’s getting ready to storm — soon a thunderbolt will take voice, and shall my heart burst?
wife (returns to the piano, plays and stops, begins to play again, stops again). Today, yesterday — ah, my God! All week long, all month long, you haven’t spoken so much as a word to me — and everyone tells me that I look awful.
husband (aside). The hour is upon us. I shall put her off no longer. (aloud). Nay, it seemeth to me that thou lookest well.
wife. It’s all the same to you, ’cause you don’t even look at me anymore. You turn your back on me when I enter a room, and you cover up your eyes when I sit down near you. — Yesterday I went to confession, but in recalling my sins, I couldn’t call to mind anything that would have offended you so.
husband. Thou hast not offended me.
wife. My God — my God!
husband. I feel as though I should love thee.
wife. You’ve finished me off with that one: “should” — Better to speak plainly: “I don’t love you.” Then at least I’d know everything — everything. (She starts up violently and takes the child from the crib). Just don’t abandon him, and I’ll sacrifice myself to your anger. Love the child — my child, Henryk. (She kneels).
husband (rising). Take no notice of what I’ve just said — bad moments often come upon me of a sudden — ennui.
wife. Just one word, — one promise — I beg of you — Promise that you will always love him.
husband. Both thee and him — believe me.
He kisses her forehead — she embraces him — then a peal of thunder is heard — music follows immediately — chord after chord, becoming wilder and wilder.
wife. What’s that?
She pulls the child close to her breast. The music stops. Enter the maiden.
maiden. O my darling, I bring thee blessing and delight — Come with me. Throw away the earthly chains that hold thee bound. — I am from a fresh world, never-ending, nightless — and I am thine.
wife. Blessed Mother, save me! — This phantom is as pale as death itself — snuffed-out eyes and a voice like the creaking of a corpse-laden wagon!
husband. Thy front is light, thy hair is blossom-laced, my darling.
wife. Her shroud hangs from her shoulders in rags.
husband. Light pours about thee — Speak to me once more — then I may die.
maiden. She who stoppeth thee is an illusion — Her life is fleeting — her love, like a leaf that perisheth among desiccated thousands. — But I pass not away.
wife. Henryk, Henryk, screen me from her, don’t give me over — I smell sulphur and decay!
husband. Woman of clay and mud, envy not, slander not — blaspheme not — Thus was it God’s intent to fashion thee, but thou didst follow the serpent’s crooning and didst become what thou art.
wife. No! I will not let you go.
husband. O darling! I shall abandon her and follow thee! Exits.
wife. Henryk! — Henryk!
She faints and falls with the child — a second peal of thunder.
*
The christening — guests — Father Benjamin — Godfather — Godmother — wet nurse — the wife sits on a sofa apart from the others — servants in the background.
first guest (softly). Funny, where’s the Count got to?
second guest. Off dawdling somewhere, or scribbling doggerel.
first guest. The Countess is awfully pale — hasn’t said a word to anyone. Looks as if she hadn’t slept for weeks.
third guest. Today’s christening reminds me of a ball during which the host loses his shirt at cards and greets late arrivals with the politeness of despair.
fourth guest. And to think that I abandoned a perfectly delightful princess to come here. I thought there’d be a nice little breakfast, but instead of that we have, as the Good Book reads, “wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
father benjamin. Jerzy Stanisław, dost thou accept the holy unction?
godfather and godmother. I accept.
one of the guests. Look — she’s got up and is walking as if she were asleep.
second guest. She’s thrown her arms out in front of her — walking over toward her son on drunken legs.
third guest. Come on, let’s give her an arm to lean on. She’ll faint!
father benjamin. Jerzy Stanisław, dost thou reject Satan and all his pride?
godfather and godmother. I do.
one of the guests. Shh! — Listen.
wife (placing her palm on the child’s forehead.) Where is thy father, Orcio?
father benjamin. Please don’t interrupt.
wife. I bless thee, Orcio, I bless thee, my child — Be thou a poet, so may thy father love, and not abandon thee.
godmother. Let us continue, Marysiu.
wife. Thou wilt wrest esteem from thy father and endear thyself to him — and then he will forgive thy mother.
father benjamin. Fear God, Countess!
wife. I curse thee, if thou wilt not prove a poet.
She faints — servants carry her out.
guests. Something strange is going on in this house — let’s get out of here!
Meanwhile, the ceremony has been completed. The godfather caries the wailing child over to his crib.
godfather (over the crib). Jerzy Stanisław, you’ve just become a Christian and a member of Christian society. Later you’ll become a citizen, and with the help of your parents and the grace of God, a fine civil servant. — Remember that one must love the Fatherland above all things, and that to die for the Fatherland is a beautiful thing…
Exit all.
*
Beautiful surroundings — hillocks and forests — mountains in the distance.
husband. This is what I have desired; for this I have spent long years in prayer! At last I am near my goal — I have left the world of people behind me — let each little ant down there scurry about and play with his blade of grass, and when he drops it, let him foam in anger and perish from sorrow!
maiden’s voice. Come — come.
She walks through and exits.
*
Mountains, a cliff above the sea — thick clouds — storm.
husband. Where has she got to? — Of a sudden, the morning’s perfumes have disappeared, the weather has clouded over — I’m standing on a summit, before an abyss, and how terribly the winds blow!
maiden’s voice (from afar). Come to me, love.
husband. But thou art far from me, and I cannot overstep the abyss.
voice (near at hand). Where are thy wings?
husband. Devil, who mockest me, I do contemn thee!
second voice. Here at the summit of the world, thy great soul, thy immortal soul, which was to race through the heavens — What? ’Tis perishing! And, poor thing, begs thy feet to go no further — Great Soul — Great Heart!
husband. Show thyself! Take some form that I might grapple with and crush! And should I take fright of thee, may I never possess her!
maiden (from the other side of the abyss). Take my hand in thine and take wing!
husband. What’s happening to you? — The flowers are tearing away from your brow, falling to the earth — and when you touch them, they squirm away like reptiles — crawl away like snakes!
maiden. My darling!
husband. Good God, your dress is in rags!
maiden. Why dost thou linger?
husband. Your hair is — all wet … Bones are poking out of your breast!
maiden. Thy promise! Thou hast sworn.
husband. The lightning lights up your face — You have no eyes! Empty eyesockets!
chorus of evil spirits. Get thee back to hell, whore. Thou hast deceived a great soul and a proud heart. Be surprised at people and at thy very self. — Great Heart, hie thee after thy darling.
husband. God, are you damning me for this, that I believed that your beauty exceeds the beauty of this earth by a heaven’s measure? Am I doomed because I chased after it, tortured myself to have it — all to become the sport of hell?
evil spirit. Listen, brothers — listen!
husband. My last hour has tolled. — The storm whips up in black spirals — the sea rushes up the cliffs and reaches out for me — What is this force that pushes me ever further, ever nearer the edge? A whole nation has seated itself upon my shoulders, pressing me toward the abyss!
evil spirit. Rejoice, brothers — rejoice!
husband. Vain to struggle — the delight of the abyss is ripping me away — My soul is fainting — God — your enemy is winning!
guardian angel (above the sea). Peace, billows, quiet yourselves. At this very moment, holy water falls upon your child’s brow. Return home and sin no more. Return home and love your child.
*
Salon with piano — the husband enters — a servant with a candle following.
husband. Where’s your lady?
servant. My lady the Countess is ill.
husband. I was in her room. It’s empty. —
servant. My lord. Because my lady is not here.
husband. So where is she?
servant. They took her away yesterday…
husband. Where?
servant. To the asylum.
He hastens away.
husband. Listen, Maria — maybe you’re pretending. Hiding somewhere, to punish me? Say something, please — Maria — Marysiu. —
No. — No one answers. — Of course. — Katarzyna! — The whole house is deaf and dumb. —
Her, to whom I swore fidelity and happiness, I have myself thrust into the ranks of those damned already, still in this world. Everything I’ve touched, I’ve destroyed, and I shall destroy my own self in the end. — Is it for this that hell has released me from its clutches, so that I might live a little longer as its image and likeness on the earth?
On what sort of pillow does she rest her head this evening? — What sort of sounds surround her at night? — The howling and singing of the crazed. I see her — the brow, upon which quiet thought always reigned, invitingly, pleasantly, transparently — she holds in her hands, bowed low — and that good thought of hers she has sent abroad, into the unknown, perhaps after me, and lost, weeping —
voice from somewhere. What a leading man. —
husband. Ha! My devil speaks up. Runs toward the doors, pushes both open. Saddle up Tatar — my cape, and my pistols! —