Finally I got rid of him. An event occurred that seemed, once and for all, to liberate me from his clutches. He died a sudden, violent death, and I was the indirect cause.
One day, at the end of my tether, I struck him in the face. Brzechwa instantly bridled. He turned white as a sheet, and then I caught sight of a steely flash in his eyes that I had never seen before. He quickly hid his anger, however, and laid a shaking hand on my shoulder.
‘You got unnecessarily carried away,’ he said with a tremulous voice. ‘It’s to no avail. Neither you nor I are capable of offending the other. You see, my dear sir, it is exactly as if someone wanted to slap his own face. Both of us are really one.’
‘Bastard!’ I muttered through my teeth.
‘As you please. This will not change a thing.’
And his eyes began to criss-cross like crazy.
The row had, nevertheless, a serious, tragic consequence for him. Since everything had occurred in the presence of several witnesses, people found out about the incident and from then on no one granted him the freedom to do as he pleased. Brzechwa flew into rages, arranged scandalous ‘practical jokes,’ and eventually forced one of his greatest enemies to an encounter with revolvers. Even though my argument with him had set up the basis for such an event, Brzechwa asked me to be his second. I refused, and though I didn’t care for Brzechwa’s opponent, I offered my services to him. I did this intentionally, pleased that, at least obliquely, I could do away with my persecutor. My offer was accepted, and the duel, under very strict conditions, took place in a grove on the outskirts of the city. Brzechwa fell, shot in the forehead.
I remember his last glance: it was directed at me, a piercing look that paralyzed the will. Immediately afterwards he ceased breathing. I left, not daring to look any longer at that demonic, twisted face. But that face will never disappear from my memory; it is deeply etched there in indelible lines, and that terrible strabismus will eternally gash my soul with its cross-eyed stare.
Brzechwa’s death, particularly the last painful moments of his life, upset me so strongly that shortly afterwards I came down with a severe brain fever. The illness dragged on for months, and when – thanks to the untiring help of doctors and amid constant anxiety about a relapse – I finally got well, I was unrecognizable. My character was completely altered; it seemed alien, and even antagonistic, to the person I had been before. My former tastes, my noble fervour for everything beautiful and profound, my refined faculty for perceiving a flicker of originality were now gone. There only remained – an enigmatic detail – the memory that I had once possessed these virtues.
I became a practical person, ‘healthy,’ normal to the point of nausea, an enemy of any type of eccentricity – and the most painful thing for me – I started to sneer at my former ideals. My every word and gesture was clothed in sarcasm or malicious laughter; everything I did seemed false.
Aware of these new changes within me, I attempted to somehow resist. So began a fierce struggle between two different selves, of whose coexistence I was deeply convinced. But the new self always prevailed, and despite my inner loathing I always listened to his promptings.
It was like the difference between theory and practice. In my principles I remained the same as always and with indignation watched the actions of the other me, who had like a thief slipped into my innermost core and was getting rid of what had been my essence, replacing it with his vileness.
And I wouldn’t describe my condition as the commonly-known ‘split personality,’ for what had occurred was a completely different matter that could not be psychologically explained by the first half of my life. I felt that one couldn’t speak of a splitting of oneself, rather of a doubling up. It was as if some diabolic intruder had moved in. I carried him within, continually wounding myself with this horrid coexistence, powerless, despairing over the awareness of a change I couldn’t dismiss. Each one of my deeds aroused an inner opposition and represented itself as a will imposed on me from outside; each word was a lie unsupported by conviction, devoid of the strength of feelings. Worse still, the intruder encroached into the domain of my thoughts and beliefs, trying to reshape me completely in his own image.
Whenever I wanted to behave in a manner consistent with my former attitude toward the world, some strong force from within me would compel me to the new, unbearable path, and I would hear a snigger inside me and see in my mind’s eye a devilish strabismus … .
I detested myself both physically and morally. I couldn’t stand my own being because it seemed disgusting, grotesque.
So as to reduce the antics of the new ‘I’ to a tolerable minimum, I shut myself up at home for days on end and avoided people, in whose eyes I saw both amazement and aversion.
Here in my quiet abode, in a secluded quarter of the city, I passed long hours of torment, struggling with my hidden enemy. Here within four silent walls I spent long moments thinking about my internal agony.
In due course in my struggle with the intruder, I achieved a certain skill in excluding him, at least for a brief time, from the process of my thinking. Total isolation, freedom from the hustle and bustle allowed me, even if only for a couple of minutes, to focus my attention on my real, former self and liberate it from the brutal iron hand of the usurper.
These were truly great efforts. I had the impression of a person who, with titanic strength, separates two heavy half-globes and succeeds in keeping them apart for a few moments.
Then, taking advantage of such occasions, I threw myself into my writing and filled up page after page with the thoughts that had been seething inside me but which couldn’t find an outlet, for they had been suppressed by my other self. With bated breath, I wrote like a madman, driving my hand across the paper to express what I thought and felt, to state before the world that I am not the person I will appear to be in an hour or a few minutes’ time.
But this frantic effort never lasted long. All that was needed was a shout from the street, the entrance of a servant into the room, or the sight of a passerby’s face, and my tense nerves would split like cords, my taut muscles would snap with a dull crack, and the obstinate half-globes would press together to form a hermetically sealed, uniform sphere. A horrible, cynical laugh would issue from my lips, and sobbing with anguish, I would thoroughly destroy whatever I had written.
And once again I’d return to the outside world, disgracefully changed to a base, sneering individual without any values and beliefs. And once again long exertions of thought would be necessary, withdrawal from the world and absolute solitude, so that I could, even if only for a couple of minutes, isolate myself from the incursions of that hateful being and exclude him from my soul.
Yet in repeating these experiences I achieved increasingly encouraging results. For longer periods I was able to hold myself apart from the alien intruder and to cleanse myself of his filth.
Afterwards, of course, everything reverted to the previous state, but the memory of these short liberations stimulated further attempts. Eventually I became myself for a couple of hours, and I took advantage of this in the best possible manner, hurrying before my enemy would return.
But constant observation and guarding of oneself at every step, a necessity for this mental electrolysis of the doubled ‘I,’ wearied me extremely, making me nervous and leaving me with violent headaches.
Nevertheless, having acquired a dim hope of reclaiming my true being, I didn’t spare myself and already dreamt of the moment I could freely appear as my own person in company … .
One day, after a longer stay in the world, I shut myself in for a specific aim and undertook the arduous work of separation. As a result of practice this task was easier, and I soon inhabited my own being again. I turned my attention to my immediate physical surroundings so that, under this new condition, I could get accustomed to maintaining a measure of control over my individuality, eventually doing so in the face of the hundredfold stronger distractions of the world.
As I was slowly moving
away from self-concentration and absentmindedly glancing about the room, I thought I heard some noise beyond the left wall. Curious, I began to listen, but this directed me too strongly to the outside, bringing about the fatal merging of barely separated elements, and again I stopped being myself.
Brokenhearted, I cursed the suspicious noise, which, anyway, might only have been an illusion of wandering thoughts caused by nervous tension. Thus my first attempt at reclaiming myself while being attentive to my surroundings proved abortive. Nevertheless, I didn’t lose hope, and a couple of days later I conducted a test … .
As long as I was preoccupied with myself, I didn’t hear anything suspicious beyond the wall – but as soon as I started to pay more attention to my surroundings, I heard that same mysterious noise coming from the left side. Even though I knew perfectly well that as a consequence I would lose myself and return to that loathsome double existence, I immediately thrust my head out of the window and glanced to the left with the hope of discovering the cause of this noise.
The house I lived in had one storey and consisted of three sections. I occupied the end wing, so that beyond me on the left side were no more rooms, and the outer wall faced a small, enclosed garden. As usual at that time no one was in it; generally, no one came up on my side, respecting my privacy and discreetly avoiding the line of my windows.
Uneasy, I drew my head back inside.
It occurred to me that perhaps the puzzling noise had been accompanying the cleansing process of the self for some time. Very likely, taken up with intense internal work and projecting it onto paper, I hadn’t noticed what had been happening around me. Only when I had pulled back a certain distance from my newly crystallized individuality and turned my attention to my surroundings had I been able to detect these mysterious sounds. Though I wasn’t sure why this was happening during my attempts at spiritual emancipation, I eventually had to admit to a connection, because the noise made itself heard only when I succeeded in casting off my hateful fetters.
Frequently, when I was in my usual double state, I would listen for something to reach me from that side – but to no avail: the wall at those times didn’t let through the slightest tremor.
Sometimes I thought I was succumbing to an acoustic illusion and that the noise was in reality coming from the right wall, behind which lived a quiet bachelor. But this speculation was rejected after scrupulous evaluation of the sounds … .
Therefore the noise was coming only from beyond the left wall, beyond a wall that bordered on empty space. Most strange!
After a while, when the sounds persisted, I began to carefully examine the left wall. Soon I came to the opinion that there was a cavity inside, because when I banged it, the wall emitted a hollow reverberation.
This assumption was subsequently strengthened by a detail observed on the outside of the house. Scrutinizing attentively the left wing, I noticed for the first time, with no little surprise, that the distance between the boundary of the wall and the last window amounted to four metres. Since the wall on the inside was separated from the window by at most a metre, then its thickness was three metres, an unusual dimension for a house of this sort. Beyond me, then, was a walled-up room. And that particular noise originated from it. This was obvious.
Amazed at this discovery, for a long time I practically never left my home, spending hours on end in trying to reach my true self. Now, however, this proved to be more difficult because, catching sounds from the void, I diverted my attention too quickly from my own being. Realizing that by this road I wouldn’t attain my goal, I concentrated my entire energy on thinking of myself, and only when I felt the strong intensity of my regained individuality did I listen to those sounds which emanated from the hidden room.
After a while I noticed they contained rather audible semi-tones, like gradations. The deeper I would sink into the process of my spiritual liberation and the more I would purge myself of my other self – the more distinctly the noise would make itself heard. Something restless was tramping inside that enclosed space, roaming about the corners, wandering along the length of the walls as if in frantic helplessness.
But when I was trapped again in that unhappy double state, more strongly restrained by the co-presence of the alien element, the sounds beyond the wall calmed down and faded away, as if soothed.
There was something puzzling about this, something that stimulated my utmost curiosity while evoking ice-cold fear. One had the impression that while I was here dealing with my hated enemy, endeavouring to oust him from my unfortunate ego, there, beyond the wall, some entity was being born, something was being formed, was emerging … . Finally I decided to smash down the wall and see what was inside that hidden room.
It was appropriate, however, to proceed systematically and slowly, so as not to scare away the strange being. Whenever I listened at length to the particular details of its movements, everything ceased, and I – a thing for me incomprehensible – would burst out with devilish laughter and return to my double state.
‘This is some cunning beast,’ I muttered, quietening down after these unexpected outbursts. ‘However, we will find even for this a remedy; we will find it, and it will be infallible. One has to catch you off guard.’
I soon proceeded with my plan. I took a piece of chalk and drew on the wall a quadrangle corresponding, more or less, to my size. Then I chipped off the plaster within the marked boundaries, after which I carefully cut out with a sharp tool the inside section of the wall, leaving only a thin layer, which according to my estimate would give way with one blow.
After finishing these preparations during the day, I decided to break into the room that very evening and catch whatever had been unsettling me for many weeks.
Outside the autumn weather was typically foul; a light rain fell continually. An early dusk unreeled grey lines of curled mist along narrow suburban back-streets. From sparsely scattered lanterns spread out golden, flickering trails, dying in the distended watery expanse. Some kind of carts, wet, slippery, dragged along the road in a clattering file … .
I lowered the blind and lit a lamp.
I felt strange and not myself. I dropped my weary head onto my hands and sank into the work of liberation. As usual, I reminded myself of my former character, its development and its tastes; I immersed myself in drawing out my experiences before my illness; I imagined myself in typical situations in which my individuality had manifested itself most clearly. Thus I went further and further, going down ever deeper to reach the most primary layers of my ego … .
I was happy; I was that former self, full of belief and confidence in the future, infused with the love of goodness and beauty, fascinated by life and its secret wonders. I was at the peak of my emancipation, without a particle of alien matter, with the cleanest ego … .
Suddenly I looked around, taking in the room with a quick glance. At that moment a noise to my left pierced my solitude. Something was hurling itself around beyond the wall, as if from the floor to the ceiling, scraping along the walls in despair, rolling around in painful fits, without finding a way out … .
I listened with bated breath, clenching a pick in my hand. After several minutes the noise quietened down; fretful, nervous steps followed. Someone, clearly of this world, was pacing up and down in that hidden room, from corner to corner.
I raised the pick and with all my strength hit the marked wall … .
I rushed inside, and at that moment came a deadly silence.
I was hit with the stifling, putrid odour of a sealed space.
At first, stunned by the blinding darkness, I saw nothing. But a long streak of light from my lamp slipped into the void after me, and it crept along the floor to the corner … .
I looked there and let go of the pick, horror-struck.
At the corner of the little room, squeezed between two walls, crouched some human figure, staring at me with a piercing, greenish look. Drawn by the magnetic power of his gaze, I advanced … . The figure straightened up, grew
… . I cried out. It was Brzechwa … .
He stood silent and still; only his moustache twitched slightly. Suddenly he inclined himself in my direction, leaned against my chest, and – entered me, vanishing inside without a trace … .
Dazed, like an automaton I went and grabbed the lamp from the table and rushed back through the breach. In vain. The room was empty. Under the ceiling swung cobwebs, along the walls trickled cold tears of humidity … .
Suddenly a sound cut the air, hoarse, whizzing, grating … .
‘What’s that?! What’s that?!’
Then I realized: it was my laughter.
VENGEANCE OF THE ELEMENTALS
Antoni Czarnocki, the fire chief of Rakszawa, had just finished his study of fire statistics, and lighting his favourite Cuban cigar, he stretched himself out on the ottoman.
It was three o’clock on a scorching July afternoon. Through the lowered blinds, dark-yellow daylight trickled, invisible waves of humid heat permeated. The distant noise of the street flowed in, languid from the hot weather; lethargic flies buzzed on the windows with a faint, fitful rattle. Czarnocki pondered over the dates he had been looking at, mentally arranging the notes collected through the years, as he came to his conclusions.
No one can imagine what interesting results can be obtained with a skilful and methodical – and, of course, a highly attentive – study of fire statistics. No one would believe how much interesting material can be extracted from these dry, seemingly useless dates, how many strange, sometimes amusingly strange, manifestations one can notice in this chaos of facts apparently so similar, so monotonously repetitive.
But to search it out, to detect something of the sort – for this a special sense is needed, which few acquire; one needs a ‘nose’ for it, maybe even the constitution. Czarnocki certainly belonged to such an exceptional group and was aware of that fact.
He had been occupied with fire for many years, studying the element in Rakszawa and elsewhere, making exceedingly precise notes based on newspaper accounts, reading special works, perusing an immense quantity of pertinent data.
The Dark Domain Page 9