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Without Dogma by Henryk Sienkiewicz

H >> Henryk Sienkiewicz >> Without Dogma




"I don't know, I will write to you," I replied.

The panting of the locomotive grew quick, then came the last shrill
whistle, and the train began to move. We gave Clara a loud cheer, she
waved her hands to us, and then disappeared in the distance and the
dusk.

"You will feel very lonely," said suddenly close to me Pani
Sniatynska's voice.

"Yes, very," I said, and lifting my hat to her, I went home. And truly
I had the feeling as if somebody had left, who in case of need would
have given me a helping hand. I felt very despondent. Possibly the
gloomy evening, the mist and drizzling rain, in the midst of which the
street lamps looked like miniature rainbow arches, had something to
do with it. The last spark of hope seemed to have died out. There was
darkness not only within me, but it seemed to encompass the whole
world, and weigh upon it as the atmosphere weighs upon us and
permeates all nature.

I carried home with me a heaviness of feeling and great restlessness
and a fear as if something unknown was threatening me. There woke
up within me a sudden longing for the sun and brighter skies, for
countries where there is no mist, no rain, and no darkness. It seemed
to me that if I went where there was sun and brightness, it would
shield me from some unknown danger.

Oh, to go away! The entire capacity of my thoughts was filled with
that eager desire. Then suddenly another fear clutched at my heart: if
I went away, Aniela would be exposed to that same impalpable danger
from which I wanted to fly. I knew it was only a delusion of my brain,
and that really my departure would be the best thing for her. Yet
I could not get rid of the sensation that to desert her would be
cowardice and meanness. All my reasoning cannot get over this.
Besides, the going away is only an empty word; I may say it to myself
a hundred times, but if I were to try to change it into fact I should
find it altogether beyond my power. I have put so much of my life in
that one feeling that it would be easier to cut me into pieces than to
part me from it.

I possess so much control over my thoughts, such a consciousness of
self that it seems to me impossible that I could ever lose my reason.
I cannot even imagine it; but at moments I feel as if my nerves could
not bear the strain any longer.

I am sorry Clara is gone. I have seen but little of her lately; but
I liked to know that she was not far off; now Aniela will absorb me
altogether, because I give to her that power which rules our likings,
and makes us conscious of friendship.

When I returned home, I found there young Chwastowski, who had come to
town in order to consult with his brother, the bookseller. They have
some scheme in hand about selling elementary books. They are always
scheming something, always busy, and that fills their life. I have
come to such a pass that I rejoiced to see him as a child that is
afraid of ghosts is glad to see somebody coming into the room. His
spiritual healthiness seems to brace me. He said that Pani Celina
was so much better that within a week she would be able to bear the
journey to Gastein. Oh yes! yes! Anything for a change! I shall push
that plan with all my powers. I will persuade my aunt to go too. She
will do it for my sake, and in that case nobody will be astonished at
my going. There is at least something I desire, and desire very much.
I shall have so many chances of taking care of Aniela, and shall be
nearer to her than at Ploszow. I feel somewhat relieved; but it has
been a terrible day, and nothing oppresses me so much as dark, rainy
weather. I still hear the drops falling from the waterspouts; but
there is a rift in the clouds, and a few stars are visible.


12 June.

Kromitzki arrived to-day.


Gastein, 23 June.

We arrived at Gastein a week ago,--the whole family: Aniela, my aunt,
Pani Celina, Kromitzki, and myself. I interrupted my diary for some
time, not because I had lost the zest for it, nor because I did not
feel the necessity for writing, but simply because I was in a state of
mind which words cannot express. As long as a man tries to resist his
fate, and wages war against the forces that crush him, he has neither
brains nor time for anything else. I was like the prisoner in
Sansson's memoirs, who when they tore his flesh and poured molten lead
into the wounds shouted in nervous ecstasy, "Encore! encore!" until
he fainted. I have fainted too, which means that I am exhausted and
resigned.

A great hand seems to weigh upon me, as immense as the mountains that
loom up before me. What can I do against it? Nothing but submit and
remain passive while it crushes me. I did not know that one
could find, if not comfort, at least some kind of peace in this
consciousness of impotence and the looking straight at one's misery.

If only I could keep from struggling against it, and not disturb this
state of quiescence. I could write then about things that happen to me
as if they had happened to somebody else. But I know from experience
that one day does not resemble another, and I am afraid of what the
morrow will bring forth.


24 June.

Towards the end of my sojourn at Warsaw I put down these words: "Love
for another man's wife, if only a pastime, is a great villany, and if
real, is one of the greatest misfortunes that can happen to a man."
Writing this before Kromitzki's arrival, I had not taken into account
all the items which make up the sum of this misfortune. I also thought
it nobler than it really is. Now I begin to see that besides great
suffering, it includes a quantity of small humiliations, the
consciousness of villany, ridicule, the necessity of falsehood, the
doing of mean things, and the need of precautions unworthy of a man.
What a bouquet! Truly the scent of it is enough to overpower any man.

God knows with what delight I would take such a Kromitzki by the
throat, press him to the wall, and tell him straight in his face, "I
love your wife!" Instead of that I must be careful lest the thought
should enter his mind that she pleases me. What a noble part to play
in her presence! What must she think of me? That too is one of the
flowers in the bouquet.

As long as I live I shall not forget the day of Kromitzki's arrival.
He had gone straight to my house. Coming home late at night, I found
somebody's luggage in the anteroom. I do not know why it did not occur
to me that it might be Kromitzki's. Suddenly he himself looked out
from the adjacent room, and dropping his eyeglass rushed up with open
arms to salute his new relative. I saw as in a dream that dry skull,
so like a death's-head, the glittering eyes, and the crop of black
hair. Kromitzki's arrival was the most natural thing in the world, and
yet I felt as if I had looked into the face of death. It seemed to
me like a nightmare, and the words, "How do you do, Leon?" the most
fantastic and most improbable words I could have heard anywhere.
Presently such a rage, such a loathing combined with fear, seized me
that it took all my self-control to prevent me from throwing him down
and dashing out his brains. I have sometimes felt such paroxysms of
rage and loathing, but never combined with fear; it was not so much
fear of a living man as horror of the dead. For some time I could not
find a word to say. Fortunately he might suppose I had not recognized
him at first, or was astonished that a man I scarcely knew should
treat me so familiarly. It still irritates me when I think of it.

I tried to recover myself; he in the mean while readjusted his
eyeglass, and shaking my hand once more, said:--

"Well, and how are you? How are Aniela and her mother? Old lady always
ill, I suppose. And our aunt, how is she?"

I was seized with amazement and anger that this man should mention
those nearest and dearest to me as if they belonged to him. A man of
the world bears most things and hides his emotions, because he is
trained from his earliest years to keep himself under control;
nevertheless I felt that I could not bear it any longer, and in order
to pull myself together and occupy my thoughts with something else, I
called for the servant and told him to get tea ready.

Kromitzki appeared uneasy that I did not reply at once to his
questions; the eyeglass dropped again, and he said, hurriedly:--

"There is nothing wrong, is there? Why don't you speak?"

"They are all well," I replied.

It suddenly struck me that my emotion might give the hateful man an
advantage over me, and the thought restored all my self-possession at
once. I led him into the dining-room, asked him to sit down, and then
said:--

"How is it going with you? Have you come to make a long stay?"

"I do not know," he replied. "I was longing for Aniela; and I fancy
she too must have been anxious to have me back again. We have only
been a few months together, and for a newly married couple that is
not much, is it?" and he burst out into one of his wooden laughs.
"Besides," he added, "I have some business here to look after. Always
business, you see."

Then he began a long-winded harangue about his affairs; of which I
did not hear much, except the often repeated words "combined forces,"
observing meanwhile the motion of the eyeglass. It is a strange thing
how in presence of some great calamity small things will thrust
themselves into evidence. I do not know whether this be so with
everybody, but in the present instance the reiterated words "combined
forces" and the shifting of the eyeglass irritated me beyond
endurance. In the earlier moments of the interview I was almost
unconscious, and yet I could count how often that eyeglass dropped and
was put up again. It always used to be thus with me, and it was so
now.

After tea I conducted Kromitzki to the room he was to occupy for the
night. He did not cease talking, but went on in the same strain while
with the help of the servant he unpacked his portmanteau. Sometimes
he interrupted his flow of words in order to show me some specimens
brought from the East. He undid his travelling straps, unfolded two
small Eastern rugs, and said:--

"I bought these at Batoum. Pretty things, are they not? They will do
to put before our bed."

He got tired at last, and after the servant had gone he sat down in
the armchair, and still continued to talk about his affairs, while I
thought of something else. When we are not able to defend ourselves
from a great misfortune, there is one safety-valve,--we may be able
to grapple with some of its details. I was now mainly busy with
the thought whether Kromitzki would go with us to Gastein or not.
Therefore after some time I remarked:--

"I did not know you formerly; but I begin to think that you are the
kind of man to make your fortune. You are not in the least flighty,
and would never sacrifice important affairs for mere sentimentality."

He pressed my hand warmly. "You have no idea," he said, "how much I
wish you to trust me."

At the moment I did not attach any special meaning to his words. I
was too much occupied with my own thoughts, and especially with the
reflection that in regard to Kromitzki I had already been guilty of a
lie and a meanness,--a lie, because I did not believe in his business
capacities at all; a meanness, because I flattered the man I should
have liked to kill with a glance. But I was only anxious to induce
him not to go to Gastein; therefore I went deeper and deeper into the
quagmire.

"I see this journey does not suit you in the least," I said.

Thereupon, egoist that he is, feeling things only in so far as they
concern himself, he began to grumble at his mother-in-law.

"Of course it does not suit me," he said; "and between ourselves I do
not see the necessity of it. There is a limit to everything, even to
a daughter's affection for her mother. Once married, a woman ought
to understand that her first duty is toward her husband. Besides, a
mother-in-law who is always there, either in the same room or in the
next, is a nuisance, and prevents a young married couple from drawing
near to each other, and living exclusively for themselves. I do not
say but that love for one's parents is a good thing, if not carried
too far and made an impediment in one's life."

Once embarked upon that theme he gave expression to very commonplace
and mean sentiments, which irritated me all the more that from his
point of view there was certainly some truth in what he said.

"There is no help for it," he concluded; "I made a bargain, and must
stick to it."

"Then you mean to go with them to Gastein?"

"Yes; I have some personal interest in the journey. I want to enter
into closer relation with my wife's family and gain your confidence.
We will speak of that later on. I am free for a month or six weeks. I
left Lucian Chwastowski in charge of the business, and he is, as the
English say, a 'solid' man. Besides, when one has a wife like Aniela
one wants to stop with her a little while,--you understand, eh?"

Saying this he laughed, showing his yellow, decayed teeth, and clapped
me on the knee. A cold shiver penetrated to my very brain. I felt
myself growing pale. I rose and turned away from the light to hide my
face, then made a powerful effort to collect myself and asked "When do
you intend going to Ploszow?"

"To-morrow, to-morrow."

"Good-night."

"Good-night," he replied, his eyeglass dropping once more. He put out
both hands, adding: "I am tremendously glad to have the opportunity
to get more acquainted with you. I always liked you, and I am sure we
shall understand each other."

We understand each other! How intensely stupid the man is! But the
more stupid he is, the more horrible to me is the thought that Aniela
belongs to him, is simply a thing of his! I did not even try to
undress that night. I never had seen so clearly that there may be
situations where words come to an end, the power of reasoning ceases,
even the power of feeling one's calamity,--to which there seems to
be no limit. A truly magnificent life which is given unto us! It is
enough to say that those former occasions when Aniela trampled upon
my feelings, and when I thought I had reached the height of misery,
appear now to me as times of great happiness. If then, if even now,
the Evil One promised me in exchange for my soul that everything
should remain as it was, Aniela forever to reject my love, but
Kromitzki not to come near her,--I would sign the agreement without
hesitation. Because in the man rejected by a woman there grows
involuntarily a conviction that she is like a Gothic tower far out of
his reach, to which he scarcely dares to lift his eyes. Thus I always
thought of Aniela. And then comes a Pan Kromitzki, with two rugs from
Batoum, and drags her from the height, that inexorable priestess,
down to a level with those rugs. What a terrible thing it is, that
imagination can bring it all so clear before us! And how repulsively
mean he is, and how ridiculous withal!

Where are all my theories, my reasonings, that love is far above
matrimonial bonds,--that I have a right to love Aniela? I still have
my theories, while Kromitzki has Aniela. As the wind is tempered to
the shorn lamb I thought the human being capable of carrying only a
certain weight, and that if more were put upon his back he must needs
break down. In my misery without bounds, and in my equally great
foolishness and degradation, I felt that from the time of Kromitzki's
arrival I was beginning to despise Aniela. Why? I could not justify it
upon any common grounds. "One wife, one husband." This law I know by
heart, like any other fool; but in relation to my own feelings it is a
degradation for Aniela. What does it matter that it does not stand to
reason? I know that I despise her, and it is more than I can bear.
I felt that existence under these conditions would become simply
impossible, and that necessarily there must be some change and the
past be buried. What change? If my scorn could throttle my love, as a
wolf throttles a lamb, it would be well. But I had a foreboding that
something else would take place. If I did not love Aniela I could not
despise her now; therefore my scorn is only another link in the
chain, I understand perfectly that beyond Pani Kromitzka, beyond
Pan Kromitzki and their relation to each other, nothing interests
me,--nothing whatever; neither light nor darkness, war nor peace, nor
any other thing. She, Aniela, or rather both she and her husband, and
my part in their life, are my reason for existence. If for this same
reason I cannot bear my existence any longer, what will happen then?
Suddenly it came upon me, as a surprise, that I had not thought of the
most simple solution of the problem,--death.

What a tremendous power there is in human hands,--the power of cutting
the thread. Now I am ready. Evil genius of my life, do thy worst;
pile weight upon weight,--but only up to a certain time, as long as I
consent. If I find it too much I throw off the burden! "E poi eterna
silenza," Nirvana, the "fourth dimension" of Zoellner--what do I know?
The thought that it all depended upon me gave me an immense relief.

I remained thus an hour, stretched out on the couch, thinking how and
when I would do it; and that very abstraction of my thoughts from
Kromitzki seemed to calm me. Such a thing as the taking of one's life
wants some preparation, and this also forced my thoughts into another
groove. I remembered at once that my travelling revolver was of too
small a calibre. I got up to look at it and resolved to buy a new one.
I began to calculate ways and means to make it appear an accident.
All this of course as a mere theory. Nothing was settled into a fixed
purpose. I might call it rather a contemplating the possibility of
suicide than a purpose. On the contrary, I was now certain it would
not come to that soon. Now that I knew the door by which I could
escape I thought I might wait a little to see how far my evils would
extend, and what new tortures fate had in store for me. I was consumed
by a burning and painful curiosity as to what would happen next, how
those two would meet, and how Aniela would face me? I became very
tired, and dressed as I was I fell into a troubled sleep, full
of Kromitzkis, eyeglasses, revolvers, and all sorts of confused
combinations of things and people.

I woke up late. The servant told me that Pan Kromitzki had gone to
Ploszow. My first impulse was to follow and see them together. But
when seated in the carriage I suddenly felt I could not bear it, that
it would be too great a trial, and might hasten my escape through the
open door into the unknown; and I gave orders to drive somewhere else.

The greatest pessimist instinctively avoids pain, and fights against
it with all his might. He clutches at every hope and expects relief
through every change. There awoke within me such a desire to make them
go to Gastein as if my very life depended upon it. To make them leave
Ploszow! The thought did not give me rest, and took such possession of
me that I gave my whole mind to its realization. This did not present
great difficulties. The ladies were almost ready to start. Kromitzki
had come unexpectedly, evidently intending to give his wife a
surprise. A few days later he would not have found us at Ploszow. I
went to the railway office and secured places in a sleeping-car for
Vienna; then sent a messenger with a letter to my aunt telling her I
had bought tickets for the following day, as all the carriages were
engaged for the following week, and we should have to go to-morrow.


26 June.

I still linger over the last moments spent at Warsaw. These memories
impressed themselves so strongly on my mind that I cannot pass them
over in silence. The day following Kromitzki's arrival I had a strange
sensation. It seemed to me that I did not love Aniela any longer, and
yet could not live without her. It was the first time I felt this--I
might call it psychical dualism. Formerly my love went through its
regular course. I said to myself, "I love her, therefore I desire
her,"--with the same logic as Descartes employs in the statement, "I
think, therefore I exist." Now the formula is changed into, "I do not
love her, but desire her still;" and both elements exist in me as if
they were engraved on two separate stones. For some time I did not
realize that the "I do not love her" was merely a delusion. I love her
as before, but in such a sorrowing manner, with so much bitterness and
venom, that the love has nothing in common with happiness.

Sometimes I fancy that even if Aniela were to confess to me her love,
if she were divorced or a widow, I should not be happy any more. I
would buy such an hour at the price of my life, but truly I do not
know whether I should be able to convert it into real happiness. Who
knows whether the nerves that feel happiness be not paralyzed in me?
Such a thing might happen. Really, what is life worth under such
conditions?

The day before our departure, I went to a gunsmith's shop. It was a
quaint old man who sold me the revolver. If he were not a gunsmith
he might become a professor of psychology. I told him I wanted a
revolver, no matter whose make, Colt's or Smith's, provided it were
good and of a large calibre. The old man picked out the weapon, which
I accepted at once.

"You will want cartridges, sir?"

"Yes, I was going to ask you for them."

"And a case, sir?" he said, looking at me keenly.

"Of course, a case."

"That's all right, sir; then I will give you cartridges of the same
number as the revolver."

It was now my turn to look attentively at him. He understood the
inquiring look, and said:--

"I have been in the trade over forty years, sir, and learned something
about my customers. It often happens that people buy revolvers to blow
out their brains. Would you believe it never happens that such a one
buys a case? It is always this way: 'Please give me a revolver.' 'With
the case?' 'No, never mind the case.' It is a strange thing that a man
about to throw away his life should grudge a rouble for the case. But
such is human nature. Everybody says to himself, 'What the devil do
I want with a case?' And that's how I always find out whether a man
means mischief or not."

"That is very curious indeed," I replied; and it seemed to me a very
characteristic sign.

The gunsmith, with a slight twinkle in his eye, went on: "Therefore as
soon as I perceive his drift I make a point of giving him cartridges a
size too large. It is not a small thing, the taking away one's life;
it requires a deal of courage and determination. I fancy many a man
breaks into a cold perspiration as he finally says: 'Now for the
revolver! Ah, the cartridges do not fit; the gunsmith made a mistake;'
and he has to put it off until the following day. And do you think,
sir, it is an easy thing to do it twice over? Many a man who has faced
death once cannot do it again. There were some who came the next day
to buy a case. I laughed in my sleeve and said: 'There's your case,
and may it last you a long time.'"

I note down this conversation because everything relating to suicide
has become of interest to me, and the old gunsmith's words appeared to
contain a bit of philosophy worth preserving.


27 June.

Now and then I remind myself that Aniela loved me, that I could have
married her, that my life might have been made bright and happy, that
it merely depended upon me, and that I wasted all that through my
incapacity for action. Then I put to myself the question: "Is there
any sign of insanity in me, and is it indeed true that I could have
had Aniela forever?" It must be true, for how could I otherwise recall
all the incidents from the time I met her first up to the present
moment? And to think that she might have been mine, and as faithful
and loyal to me as she is to that other one!--a hundred times more
faithful, because she would love me from her whole soul. Innate
incapacity?--yes, that is it. But even if it justifies me in my own
eyes, what matters it to me, since it does not give me any comfort?
The only thought that gives me comfort is that the descendants of
decayed as well as of the most buoyant races have to go the same
way,--to dust and ashes. This makes the difference between the weak
and the strong a great deal less. The whole misfortune of beings like
me is their isolation. What erroneous ideas have our novelists, and
for the matter of that even our physiologists, about the decaying
races. They fancy that inward incapacity must invariably correspond
with physical deterioration, small build, weak muscles, anaemic brain,
and weak intelligence. This may be the case now and then, but
to regard it as a general principle is a mistake and a pedantic
repetition of the same thing over and over again. The descendants of
worn-out races have no lack of vital powers, but they lack harmony
among these powers. I myself am physically a powerful man, and never
was a fool. I knew people of my sphere built like Greek statues,
clever, gifted, and yet they did not know how to fit themselves into
life, and ended badly, exactly through that want of even balance in
their otherwise luxuriant vital powers. They exist among us as in a
badly organized society where nobody knows where the rights of the
one begin and those of another cease. We live in anarchy, and it is a
known fact that in anarchy society cannot exist. Each of the powers
drags its own way, often pulling all the others with it; and this
produces a tragic exclusiveness. I am now suffering from this
exclusiveness, by reason of which nothing interests me beyond Aniela,
nothing matters to me, and there is nothing else to which I can
attach my life. But people do not understand that such a want of even
balance, such anarchy of the vital powers, is a far greater disease
than physical or moral anaemia. This is the solution of the problem.