Most respectfully yours,
Janusz.
Yes, the time has come. I shall go to Obojanski’s to-night.
Here I have come, with fevered lips and ice-cold heart, only to find
that Roslawski went away but a quarter of an hour ago, having to dine
with some friends this evening.
I still can smell in the air the brand of cigars that he smokes.... My
eyebrows and lids are twitching as if agitated by some witch’s spell.
Yet I experience not the least disappointment at not finding him here:
rather a sense of relief, that I can put the affair off a little longer.
Obojanski tells me what a favourite of Roslawski I am, and goes so far
as to hint—in jest—that he is in love with me. This very evening he was
asking why I have paid no visit to my old Professor for such a length of
time. This, for a man of his sort, must mean a great deal.
In the main, however, Obojanski is this evening in a pessimistic and
quarrelsome mood. He blames me for too readily taking up with new trends
of thought: which does me great harm. There is no contemporary poet
equal to Homer: I ought therefore to be somewhat more deeply read in the
works of the old classics, which reflect such a healthy feeling of
harmony between body and mind.
“You are,” he says, “daily less mindful of the admirable maxim, ‘Mens
sana in corpore sano.’”
“Why, no; I decidedly uphold proper care of the body, to make it hardy
and healthy, and able to resist the wear and tear of our now over-subtle
and over-sensitive minds.”
“Yes, but nowadays our very minds are diseased.”
“Well, then, let my motto be: ‘In a sound body, a diseased mind!’”
Or what people may choose to call diseased.
Scholars and thinkers, though they surely must have made some studies in
logic, yet reason thus by analogy: Disease of the body is any departure
from its normal state: _consequently_, any but an average mind is
diseased. But if they start from the premise that mind and body are
identical, then why reason at all on the matter?
Now I would burst into song, to run about in the open country, flooded
with the white low sunbeams, and to utter cries of joy.
Why? Because the old Professor has said: “He is in love with you!” And
because I believe he has spoken the truth.
Yes, and I shall continue to believe it till sundown, and I still am
dreaming of a joyful triumph. I had one before, but it was far from
joyful.
To-morrow evening I shall go to see Obojanski once more; and I shall
tremble with great fear.
I am sure my answer to Janusz will be delayed. To-night Smilowicz and
Roslawski accompanied me home together. I cannot say whether I shall get
any opportunity for a private talk with him. Perhaps it is better so:
but, then, Janusz is waiting for his answer down in Klosow.
Roslawski is the one man in the world before whose gaze my eyes must
droop. That alone can throw me off my balance, rob me of my customary
untroubled assurance; for it is the only force able to master mine.
Towards the end, our talk turns to love and marriage.
The latter Smilowicz looks upon from an economic standpoint, and thinks
it is, in our present conditions of life, a necessary evil. All the
same, he informs Obojanski that a certain mutual acquaintance of theirs,
who married not long ago, is perfectly happy with his wife.
“Ah, yes,” Obojanski guardedly observes, “in the first months, even such
a thing is not impossible.”
Roslawski’s face puts on a cold smile. Indeed, he is in favour of
marriage, as is quite natural with a man who has sown his wild oats, and
is desirous of love that is lawful. The fastest men I ever knew were
theoretically in favour of monogamy. Imszanski, too, always told Martha
that, were it not for the fickleness of women and various other untoward
conditions, he would be happiest with one woman and one alone.
On this point, Obojanski is a sceptic; this is the only subject on which
he can speak wittily.
“And you,—do you intend to marry for love?” Roslawski asks me suddenly,
with a subtle tinge of flippancy in his tone, such as men of his kind
always use in speaking to women: an attitude with him quite instinctive
and unreasoned, since he is very far from sharing Obojanski’s prejudice
concerning the inferiority of our sex.
A sudden qualm of terror seizes me, but I master it, and say with a
tranquil smile: “Your question makes me feel as if under examination.
Confess now that you are at present wanting to know what my reply will
be, not what I really intend to do.”
There is an ironical gleam in his eyes.
“You may take my word for it that I am not,” he answers emphatically.
“In that case, I’ll tell you as much as I myself know. If I marry for
love, it will not last very long; if, on the contrary, I do so with
judgment and out of a conscious conviction that the man is destined for
me, then I shall be faithful to my husband all my life.”
“And which of these alternatives do you prefer?”
“The second,” I reply; and add truthfully, “for there are certain
classes of feeling in which I object to changes.”
“Really? But you would have the same result, even if you married for
love.”
“I am afraid I cannot bring myself to believe in the eternal duration of
mere feeling. Love in marriage, as a rule, becomes in time a sort of
mutuality of habit, a sense of solidarity, as it were, and now and then
even a brotherhood of minds. It is just in such cases that divorce would
be advisable.”
“And when it is a marriage of reason?”
“Why, then the question is correctly stated from the first; at the
outset, suitability of characters and of individualities are taken into
consideration, so as to prevent any possibility of future disagreement.”
“And yet it is possible to obtain the continuance of love by incessantly
watching over it, by not unfrequently putting on a mask, and by keeping
private certain emotions and states of mind which might prejudice one
party in the eyes of the other.”
How the remembrance of Janusz comes back to me as I listen! Of all this,
_he_ knew nothing at all.
“I doubt whether so much trouble is very profitable,” I return. “The
game is hardly worth the candle.”
“And yet some there are,” he goes on to say, “for whom present bliss has
no value, if they know beforehand that the morrow will take it away. And
they often prefer to renounce it entirely.”
The words are spoken calmly, without any apparent significance; yet
there is in their tone, I fancy, an under-current of ominous import.
“Well,” I say, repressing my irrational dread, “then let all such take
care to marry with judgment.”
“Nevertheless, to give love and get in its place only intellectuality is
not a good bargain, I fear.”
Now—_now I understand_—and I almost feel hatred for the man. Yes, I may
throw myself under the wheels of a locomotive, but never will I say I do
that out of love for it!
“Reasonable people should remember that ‘the heart is no servant,’ and
that, beyond intellectual and conscious resolve, we can find nothing on
which we can safely count.” This I say, as light-heartedly and as
smilingly as I can, feeling meanwhile the dismay of a horrible
misgiving—almost a certitude—clutching at my heart.
And now at last I am alone with Roslawski and Obojanski. I remain in my
corner all the evening, saying little, overwhelmed with dread of the
coming decisive moment. That tall, red-haired gentleman in glasses,—I
simply detest him!
Roslawski sets to playing Wagner,—stiffly, correctly, like an automaton.
His playing grates strongly upon my nerves: each of the notes taps on my
heart-strings.
Obojanski is enchanted. He goes about the room on tiptoe, making the
floor creak as he walks; he fetches music from the book-shelves for
Roslawski, and lays them in heaps on the piano. Now and again he glances
at me, and whispers, almost aloud: “How very beautiful!” He finally
brings me a volume of some German encyclopædia, and opens it at the
article “Wagner,” which he expects me to read.
I am so upset that I nearly break down. Resting my head on the back of
the sofa, I look up at the ceiling to swallow down my tears as they well
up. And I begin to weave fancies.
A wonderful immemorial forest, through which, clad in armour, knights
are riding on white steeds. Most lofty oaks, strong-limbed and gnarled,
with black trunks and dark-blue foliage, strike their roots deep into
the ground. Amid mosses in hue like malachite, ferns put forth their
sprays of sea-green lace. Fairies dance merrily among the trees, and
scatter round them pearls of ringing laughter. And far away, lost in
reverie, upon a dark, enchanted lake there floats a swan. A strange,
clear, chilly splendour illuminates the twilight.
All at once a thunderbolt, a red thunderbolt falls: and the oak forest
and the lake vanish into the depths of the earth.... Yet thunderstorms
only take place on sultry summer days.
No, no, all this was but a dream.
Now there comes before me the infinite wilderness of my own ice-plains,
hard-frozen beneath the cold and glassy skies. I am afraid, I am
horribly afraid, I cannot breathe, seeing those endless plains of ice,
under that canopy of green and frosty light: it is the kingdom of my
soul!
But far away, at the sky-line, where without warmth the Aurora Borealis
beams, there stands a huge statue, a basalt-hewn statue. This recks not
of the unbounded wilderness, nor of the chilly gleams of the Northern
Lights, nor of the stars, those silver eyes of Time. Tranquil and
undismayed it stands. That is Roslawski.
On I march towards him, plodding through the deep and drifting snow; at
his feet, I fall upon my knees.
And I beseech him to hide the boundless wilderness from my sight; to
protect me from the icy air of death, so that I may dwell in this land
of my soul, and yet not die. “For behold, this day I am weak
exceedingly, this day I stand in fear of the plains of ice.”
But he says: “Here in the snows around me, you must first lay out a
garden as of the tropics; and yourself must blossom into a flame-red and
purple rose.”
And I make answer: “My lord, without the light of the sun, how is any
rose to blow?”
Once more a thunderclap resounds. He is gone. I am all alone amid my
ice-plains: and I live yet.
Bound I am, with fetters made of ice. The silvery wings of my soul are
glittering under the canopy of heaven, and in the greenish splendour of
the Northern Lights. She would not share with me my years of burning
heat, and now she will not have me share this realm of hers. A snake is
lying on my bosom, and, coiled about my neck, sucks the warm blood
thence....
We bid good-night to Obojanski, and go out into the street together.
“I have to tell you something; or, rather, I have one question, only
one, to put to you.” These are my first words.
“I am quite at your service.”
From the instant when I begin to speak, the sense of dread passes away
from me, and an immense quietude takes its place.
“I must, however, lay down one condition. I will have from you no other
answer save the word _Yes_ or _No_. I do not wish—and this is of
consequence to me—to hear any comments whatever. Do you agree?”
“Most willingly,” he returns, with a smile; “the condition that you lay
down I certainly shall keep.”
“You must know then,” I go on, “that, since I became acquainted with
you, I have known you for the only man who could make me happy. Some
time ago, another man, one who deserves my sympathy and whom I trust,
asked me to marry him. Being of opinion that, in the last resort, the
knowledge that one is greatly loved may serve as a substitute for
happiness, I have taken a month to think the matter over. My decision
depends upon your answer. I ought perhaps to add that I can foresee what
this is likely to be; but that I am very anxious to get absolute
certainty on this point, lest I should at some future time have to
reproach myself with having let my chance of happiness go by.”
There is a silence.
“May I venture to ask you to put your question in a more definite form?”
“Are you, or are you not, willing to marry me?”
Another silence.
“No: and yet, supposing that....”
“Remember my condition.”
No more is said.
In front of my lodgings we bid each other a calm and friendly farewell.
The next morning, on my way to my office, I put a long scented envelope
into a post-box. It is addressed to Janusz.
Nevertheless, the decision which it contains is—not to marry him.
Yes, I am now the bond-slave of my soul: these my ice-plains, it is no
longer mine to leave them.
I have done with suffering.... During all these long days and nights, I
have not shed one tear. I do not suffer now: the agony-delirium has
passed those limits, beyond which no difference is felt between joy and
misery, beyond which there is no night of woe, that contrasts with day.
In the still autumn twilight, I am shut up in my dark and lonely room.
Lest I should awake my soul, that has fallen asleep, I am pacing the
soft carpet with noiseless steps.
I am in terror of the very movements which I myself make. Trembling with
cold—or is it with my own emptiness of heart?—and leaning against my
doorway in the darkness, wrapped in the folds of my soft shaggy
portière, I open my swooning lips to utter a soundless cry, and look
staring into the mobile fluttering dark with tired and quiet gaze.
I do not suffer; I exist—in a world wherein the night of woe no longer
is a contrast with day, wherein there prevails a tranquil dusk, without
sun and without stars.
There is no Ego of mine. I am beyond existence and beyond nothingness—in
that world wherein dies the immemorial conflict between dream and vigil;
where Wrong, robed in her queenly purple, is no longer shadowed by
Vengeance, in her pallid green attire; where stony Hatred no longer hugs
in her fierce embrace the weeping god of love; where the marble statue
of Pride no longer renders homage to the grim spectre, Fear; wherein
there are no more wretched victories, nor the portentous delights of
worshipping oneself and the Power of Self!
No, there is no more any Ego of mine.... I am in a world to which even
the unlimited fields of Infinity cannot reach, for it was everlastingly
beyond all limits. I am in a world in which Duration neither flows nor
stands still; wherein Solitude is not, though neither are there spirits
to commune with; where there is only no solitude, because there is no
Me.
Do I suffer? No. I am in a world where I have no being.
I could well die, if I chose: but my body, well-favoured as it is, would
fain not part from my bright, though mournful soul. Therefore am I
willing to live.
But there is nought for which I can any longer care; I dwell in a world
which my soul is never to behold: for when Death comes, my soul’s
existence will be over.
Yet not because nothingness is _there_. To believe that _there_ is
nothingness, one must indeed have an intense power of faith. I cannot
bring myself to accept the creed of nothingness. For in the world where
I am now, neither Being is, nor Non-Being; there is neither the Ego nor
the Non-Ego; nor has the soul ever laid her icy hand upon the body: I am
in a world wherein there is no soul of mine.
My soul will end its being at the instant of Death, not because that
world is a world of nothingness, but because therein is no such thing as
indestructibility of substance.
I might, if I chose, die; but death matters nothing to me. To solve the
riddle of life, I do not require death. For now I know all. I know that,
in that other world, knowledge and ignorance are not incompatible, nor
is there in that world any desire to know. And therefore I shall never
solve the riddle of life, because I have solved it now.
I know that which no man knows: that to read the riddle, I need not know
all things. For there is no Me!
And I am indeed in a world which contradicts our world, but with a
contradiction in which negation and assertion are the same.
But in one thing I do believe—the only thing that is.