Whirlpools: A Novel of Modern Poland Part 28

"Why?"

"Because I am wearied by the folly of men who pa.s.s for reasonable beings and by the malice of men who pose as good. Finally, I now roam all over the streets from morning until night. Ah! There exist 'Attic Nights,' 'Florentine Nights,' and I have a desire to write about 'Warsaw Days.' Delightful days! t.i.tles of the separate chapters 'Hands up! The Rabble on Top.' 'Away with the Geese.' Do you know that at this moment there are so many troops patrolling the streets that any one else in my place would have been arrested ten times."

"I know, but how do you manage to avoid it?"

"I walk everywhere as peacefully as if in my own rooms. The way I do it is simple. As often as I am not drunk, I pretend to be drunk. You would not believe what sympathy and respect an intoxicated person commands.

And in my opinion this is but just, for whoever is 'under the influence' from morning till night is innocent and well thinking; upon him the so-called social order can rely with confidence."

"Surely. But the social order which depended upon such people would not stand upon steady legs."

"Who, to-day, does stand on steady legs? Doctrines intoxicate more than alcohol--therefore at this moment all are drunk. The empire is staggering, the revolution is reeling, the parties are floundering, and a third person stands on the side and looks on. Soon all will tumble to the ground. Then there will be order, and may it come as soon as possible."

"You ought to be that third person."

"The third person is the German and we are fools. We begin by falling to loggerheads, and have reached such a state that the only salvation for our social soul would be a decent civil war."

Here he became silent and after a while turned to Ladislaus.

"I see that your eyes are wide open, but nevertheless it is so. A civil war is a superb thing. Nothing like it to clarify the situation and purify the atmosphere. But to be led to such a situation and not to be able to create it is the acme of misfortune or folly."

"I confess that I do not understand," said Ladislaus.

Gronski motioned with his hand and remarked:

"Do not attempt to, for after every fifteen minutes of conversation you will not know what is black and what is white and your head will swim, or you will get a fever, which as a wounded man you should try to avoid."

"True," said Swidwicki, "I had heard and even read in some newspaper of the occurrence and paid close attention to it because in your home Pan Gronski and Pani Otocka with her sister were being entertained. I am a relative of the late aged Otocka. Those women must have been scared.

But if they think that they are safer here in the city they are mistaken."

"Judging from what can be seen, it is really no safer here. Have you seen those ladies yet?"

"No, I do not like to go there."

At this, Ladislaus, who by nature was impetuous and bold, frowned, and looking Swidwicki in the eyes, replied:

"I do not ask the reason, for that does not interest me, but I give you warning that they are my relatives."

"Whose cause a young knight would have to champion," answered Swidwicki, gazing at Ladislaus. "Ah, no! If I had any intention of saying anything against the ladies I would not say it, as Gronski would throw me down the stairs and I have a favor to ask of him. What I said is the highest praise for them and simply gall and wormwood for me."

"Beg pardon, again; I do not understand."

"For you see that for the average Pole to have respect for any one and not to be able to sharpen his teeth upon him is always annoying. I cannot speak of the ladies as I would wish, that is, disparagingly. I cannot endure ideal women; besides that, whenever it happens that I pa.s.s an evening with them, I become a more decent man and that is a luxury which in these times we cannot afford."

Ladislaus began to laugh and Gronski said:

"I told you that surely your head would swim."

After which to Swidwicki:

"If he should get any worse, I will induce him to send the doctor's and apothecary's bill to you."

"If that is the case, I will go," answered Swidwicki, "but you had better come with me into another room for I have some business with you which I prefer to discuss without witnesses."

And, taking leave of Ladislaus, he stepped out. Gronski accompanied him to the ante-room and after a while returned, shrugging his shoulders:

"What a strange gentleman," said Ladislaus. "I hope I am not indiscreet, but did he want to borrow any money from you?"

"Worse," answered Gronski. "This time it was a few Falk engravings. I positively refused as he most frequently returns money or rather he lets you take it out of his annuity, but books, engravings, and such things he never gives back."

"Is he making a collection?"

"On the contrary he throws or gives them away; loans or destroys them.

Do I know? You will now have an opportunity of meeting him oftener, for though I refused to loan them, I permitted him to come here to look over and study them. He undoubtedly is writing a book about Falk."

"Ah, so he is a literary man."

"He might have been one. As you will meet him, I must warn you a little against him. I will describe him briefly. He is a man to whom the Lord gave a good name, a large estate, good looks, great ability, and a good heart, and he has succeeded in wasting them all."

"Even a good heart?"

"Inasmuch as he is a rather pernicious person, it is better that he does not write. For you see that it may happen that somebody's brains decay, just as with people, sick with consumption, their lungs decay.

But no one has the right to feed the nation with the putrefaction of his lungs or his brains. And there are many like him. He does not act for the public weal but merely for his own private affairs. Do you know how he accounts for not accomplishing anything in his life? In this way: that to do so one must believe and to believe it is necessary to have a certain amount of stupidity which he does not possess. I am not speaking now of religious matters. He simply does not believe that anything can be true or false, just or unjust, good or bad. But Balzac wisely says: 'Qui dit doute, dit impuissance.' Swidwicki is irritated and filled with bitterness by the fact that he is not anything; therefore he saves himself by paradoxes and turns intellectual somersaults. I once saw a clown who amused the public by giving his cap various strange and ridiculous shapes. Swidwicki does the same with truth and logic. He is also a clown, but an embittered and spiteful one. For this reason he always holds an opinion opposite to that of the person with whom he is speaking. This happens particularly when he is drunk, and he gets drunk every night. Then to a patriot he will say that fatherland is folly; in the presence of a believer he will scoff at faith; to a conservative he will say that only anarchy and revolution are worth anything; to the socialist that the proletariat have 'snouts.' I have heard how he thus expressed himself, and only for this reason, that he, 'a superman,' might have something to hit at when the notion seizes him. And thus it is always. In discussion he shines with paradoxes, but sometimes it chances that he says something striking because in all criticism there is some justice. If you wish, I will arrange such a spectacle, though for me he has a certain regard, firstly, because he likes me, and again because I have rendered him a few services in life. He promised to repay me with black ingrat.i.tude, but in the meantime he does not molest me with such energy as the others."

"And no one has yet broken his bones," observed Ladislaus.

"He does not, in the least, retreat from that. He himself seeks trouble and there is not a year in which he does not provoke some encounter."

"In the taverns?"

"Not only there. For belonging by name and family connections to the so called higher walks of life, he has many acquaintances there. Two years ago, indeed, the artists gave him a good cudgelling in a tavern; and, for instance, Dolhanski (their dislike is mutual) shot him last spring in a duel."

"Ah, that was when I heard his name; now I remember."

"Perhaps you heard it before, for previously he had a few affairs about women, as, in addition, he is a great ladies' man. Finally he is an unbridled rogue."

"As to women? or up to date?"

"He is not an old man. For some time he has been in the state where he likes not ladies but their maids. Fancy that not long ago he was so smitten with Miss Anney's maid,--the same brunette who nursed you a little in Jastrzeb,--that for a time he was continually d.o.g.g.i.ng her steps. He said that once she reviled him on the stairway but this charmed him all the more."

Krzycki at the mention of the brunette who nursed him in Jastrzeb became so confused that Gronski noticed it, but not knowing what had pa.s.sed between him and Pauline, judged that the enamoured youth was offended at the thought that such an individual as Swidwicki should bustle about Miss Anney. So desiring to remove the impression, he remarked:

"He says that he does not like to call upon those ladies, but Pani Otocka does not welcome him at all with enthusiasm. She receives him merely out of respect for the memory of her husband, who was his cousin and who, at one time, was the conservator of his estate. After all, it is probable that Swidwicki feels out of place among such ladies."

"For microbes do not love a pure atmosphere."

"This much is certain: there is within him 'a moral insanity.' I have become accustomed to him, but there are certain things in him I cannot endure. You have no idea of the contemptuous pity, the dislike, and the downright hatred with which he expresses himself about everything which is Polish. And here I call a halt. Notwithstanding our good relations, it almost came to a personal encounter between us. For when he began to squirt his bilious wit, a certain night, on all Poland, I said to him, 'That lion is not yet dead, and if he dies we know who alone is capable of kicking at a dying lion.' He did not come here for over a month, but was I not right? I understand how some great hero, who was repaid with ingrat.i.tude, might speak with bitterness and venom of his country, but Swidwicki is not a Miltiades or a Themistocles. And such an outpouring of bile is directly pernicious, for he, with his immensely flashing intellect, finds imitators and creates a fashion, in consequence of which various persons who have never done anything for Poland whet their rusty wits upon this whetstone. I understand criticism, though it be inexorable, but when it becomes a horse or rather an a.s.s from which one never dismounts, then it is bad, for it takes away the desire to live from those who, however, must live--and is vile, because it is spitting upon society, is often sinful and, above all, unprecedentedly unfortunate. Pessimism is not reason but a surrogate of reason; therefore, a cheat, such as the merchant who sells chiccory for coffee.

And such a surrogate you now meet at every step in life and in literature."