But when the semidarkness, pierced with burning candles, engulfed us, the semidarkness that was filled with the stuffy air of a chant, plaintive, murmuring and resounding with this body of peasants, unleavened and stooping … then the lurking multiplicity of meanings vanished—as if a hand, more powerful than we were, had reestablished the dominant order of the holy service. Hipolit, until now the lord of the manor with his concealed rage and vehemence, anything but to give in, now soothed and noble, sat down in the patrons’ bench and with a nod of his head greeted the land steward’s family from Ikan sitting across from him. This was the moment before the Mass, people without their priest, the populace left to itself with its mawkish chanting, humble, thin, and awkward, yet holding itself in check—and so it was like a mongrel on a leash, harmless. What restraint, what soothing effect, what blissful relief, here, in this bygone era turned to stone, when a peasant became a peasant again, the lord—a lord, the Mass—a Mass, a stone—a stone, and everything was becoming itself again!
However, Fryderyk, who had seated himself next to Hipolit in the patrons’ bench, slid to his knees … and this spoiled my peace somewhat, because he was perhaps exaggerating it a bit … and it was hard for me not to think that perhaps he slid onto his knees so as not to commit something that would not be sliding onto his knees. … But now the bells, the priest comes out with the chalice and, placing it on the altar, executes a bow. Bells. Suddenly a decisive element struck my being with such a force that I—exhausted, semiconscious—knelt down, this was a close call and—in my wild abandon—I would have prayed … But Fryderyk! I thought, I suspected, that Fryderyk, who after all had also knelt, would also be “praying”—I was even sure that, yes, knowing his terrors, he was not pretending but really “praying”—in the sense that he wanted not only to deceive others but to deceive himself as well. He was “praying” in relation to others and in relation to himself, but his prayer was only a screen covering up the immensity of his non-prayer … so this was an ejecting, an “eccentric” act that was taking him outside the church, into the boundless territory of total nonbelief—a refutation to the very core. So what was going on? What was about to happen? I had never experienced anything like it. I would never have believed that anything like this was possible. But—what happened? In fact—nothing. What actually happened was that a hand had removed all the content, all the meaning from the Mass—and here was the priest moving, genuflecting, walking from one end of the altar to the other, while the altar boys were hitting the bells and the smoke of the incense was rising, but the meaning was escaping from it all like gas from a balloon, and the Mass was collapsing in a terrible impotence … it was flagging … no longer capable of begetting life! And this loss of meaning was a murder committed on the periphery, outside ourselves, outside the Mass, by way of a voiceless yet lethal commentary delivered by someone looking on from the side. And the Mass could not defend itself against it, because it happened owing to some tangential interpretation, in fact no one in this church opposed the Mass, even Fryderyk connected with it most correctly … but if he was killing it, it was, so to speak, from the other side of the medal. His incidental commentary, his killing glossa, was a work of cruelty—the work of a harsh consciousness, cold, utterly penetrating, relentless … and I realized that introducing this man into the church was sheer madness, one should have kept him away from it all, for God’s sake! The church was the most terrible place for him to be!
But what happened, happened. The process that had taken place arrived at reality in crudo … first and foremost it was the ruin of salvation and, as a result, nothing could save these boorish, fusty mugs, now extracted from any sanctifying mode and served up raw, like offal. This was no longer a “populace,” these were no longer “peasants,” these were not even “people,” these were creatures such as … such as they were … and their dirt had been deprived of grace. But the unbridled anarchy of this fair-haired multihead was like the no less insolent shamelessness of our faces that had ceased to be “lordly” or “cultured” or “refined” and had become something glaringly themselves—caricatures that had been deprived of a model, no longer caricatures of “something,” they were just themselves, and bare as an ass! And the mutual explosion of grotesqueness, of both the lordly and the boorish, converged in the gesture of the priest who was celebrating … what? What? Nothing. But that was not all …
The church ceased to be a church. A space had intruded, but a space that was cosmic, black, and this wasn’t even happening on earth, but rather, the earth had transformed itself into a planet suspended in the universe, cosmos was here, this was happening somewhere on its territory, to such a degree that the light of the candles, and even the light of day penetrating the stained-glass windows, became as dark as night. Thus we were no longer in church, in this village, not even on earth, but instead—and in keeping with reality, yes, in keeping with the truth—we were somewhere in the cosmos, suspended with our candles and our glitter, and somewhere in that vastness we were performing these strange things with ourselves and among ourselves, like a monkey making faces in a vacuum. It was our particular teasing, somewhere, in a galaxy, a human provocation in darkness, a performance of bizarre movements in an abyss, grimacing in boundless immensity. And our drowning in space was accompanied by a horrible intensification of the concrete nature of things, we were in the cosmos, yet we were like something terrifyingly known, defined in every detail. The bells rang for the Elevation. Fryderyk kneeled.
This time his kneeling had a crushing effect, like killing a hen, and the Mass rolled on, though struck mortally and babbling like a madman. Ite missa est. And … oh, what triumph! What victory over the Mass! What pride! As if its abolition was, for me, a longed-for ending of sorts: finally I was alone, by myself, without anyone or anything but me, alone in absolute darkness … so I have reached my limit and attained darkness! The bitter end, the bitter taste of arriving and the bitter finish line! Yet it was all lofty, giddy, marked by the relentless maturity of the spirit, finally autonomous. But it was also terrible and, devoid of any resistance, I felt within that I was in the hands of a monster, and that I was capable of doing anything with myself, anything, anything! The insensitivity of pride. The chill of the outer limits. Severity and emptiness. What then? The holy service was coming to an end, I looked around sleepily, I was tired, oh, we’ll have to leave, ride home, to Poworna, on the sandy road … but all of a sudden my gaze … my eyes … my eyes, panicky and heavy. Yes, something was pulling at me … eyes … and eyes. Captivatingly, temptingly—yes. But what? What was attracting and luring me? A marvel, as in a dream, shrouded places that we desire yet are unable to discern, and we circle around them with a mute cry, with an all-consuming longing that is heartbreaking, exultant, enchanted.
I circled around like this, still flustered, hesitant … yet already deliciously permeated by a lithe subjugation that was captivating me—enchanting—charming—tempting and conquering me—it sparkled—and the contrast between that night’s cosmic chill and the gushing spring of bliss was so immeasurable that I thought dimly—it’s God, and a miracle! God and a miracle!
What was it, though?
It was … part of a cheek and the nape of a neck … it belonged to someone standing in front of us, in the crowd, a few steps away …
Oh, I almost choked! It was …
(a boy)
(a boy)
And realizing that it was just (a boy), I began to rapidly retreat from my ecstasy. Because in fact I barely saw him, just a little ordinary skin—on the back of the neck and on the cheek. Then he moved abruptly, and this movement, imperceptible, pierced me through and through, like an extraordinary attraction!
And indeed (a boy).
And nothing but (a boy).
How embarrassing! An ordinary sixteen-year-old nape of a neck, with cropped hair, and the ordinary skin (of a boy), somewhat chapped, and (a youthful) position of the head—most ordinary—so what was the origin of my inner trembling? Oh …
and now I saw the contour of the nose, the mouth, for he turned his face slightly to the left—there was nothing special, I saw in this slant the slanting face (of a boy)—an ordinary face! He was not a peasant. A student? An apprentice? An ordinary (young) face, untroubled, somewhat willful, friendly, meant for chewing pencils with his teeth, or for playing football, playing billiards, and the collar of the jacket was over the shirt collar, his nape was suntanned. Yet my heart was beating fast. And he exuded godliness, wonderfully enchanting and engaging as he was in the boundless emptiness of this night, he was a source of a breathing warmth and light. Grace. Unfathomable miracle: why did this insignificance become significant?
Fryderyk? Did Fryderyk know about it, or see it, did his eye catch it too? … But all at once people began moving, the Mass came to an end, a slow crowding toward the door ensued. And I with the others. Henia walked ahead of me, her back and her little nape still a schoolgirl’s, and this is what came to mind, and when it did, it took hold of me so strongly—it linked up with the other neck so efficiently … that I suddenly understood, easily and without effort: this neck and the other neck. These two necks. The two necks were …
How so? What’s this? It was as if the nape of her neck (the girl’s) was taking a run for and uniting itself with (the boy’s) neck, this neck as if taken by the scruff was taking the other neck by the scruff of the neck! Please forgive the awkwardness of these metaphors. I feel a little awkward talking about this—and also at some point I’ll have to explain why I’m putting the words (boy) and (girl) in parentheses, yes, this too needs explaining. Her movement, as they walked ahead of me in the crowd, in the heated crush of people, was also somehow “relating” to him, and it was an ardent enhancement, a whisper added to his movement so close by, so close in this crowd. Really? Wasn’t it an illusion? But suddenly I saw her hand hanging by her body, pressed into her body by the push of the crowd, and this pressed hand of hers was surrendering itself to his hands in intimacy and in the thicket of all those bodies glued together. Indeed, everything within her was “for him”! While he, farther on, calmly walking along with other people, was yet straining toward her, tensed by her. Oh, such a disinterested falling into love and desire, unheeding, blind, and moving on so calmly with the others! So! That’s why!—I now knew the secret within him that, from the first moment, had carried me away.
We emerged from the church onto the sunlit square and people dispersed, while they—he and she—appeared before me in the fullness of their nature. She—in a light-colored blouse with a little white collar, in a navy blue skirt, standing to one side, waiting for her parents, closing her prayer book with a clasp. He … he went up to a wall and, standing on his toes, looked over to the other side—I didn’t know why. Did they know each other? Yet, even though they each were separate, once again and now even more so, their passionate congruence hit the eye: they were here for each other. I narrowed my eyes—the square looked white, green, blue, warm—I narrowed my eyes. He was for her, she for him, even as they thus stood at a distance, not at all interested in each other—and this was so strong that his mouth matched not only her mouth but her whole body—and her body was subject to his legs!
I’m worried that perhaps I have truly gone too far in my last sentence … Shouldn’t one rather say calmly that this was an exceptional casus of a good match … though perhaps not only sexual? It sometimes happens that when we see a couple we say: well, these two are. quite a match—but in this case the match, if I may say so, was even more intense because it was not grown-up. … I really don’t know if this is clear … and yet this juvenile sensuality was radiant with the treasure of a higher nature, namely, they were each other’s happiness, they were precious and most significant to one another! And in this square, under this sun, muddleheaded and stupefied, I couldn’t understand, it was beyond my comprehension, how it could be that they were not paying attention to one another, they were not striving toward each other! She was separate from him and he from her.
Sunday, the village, the heat, sleepy languor, the church, no one in a hurry, little groups formed, Madame Maria touching her face with the tip of her finger as if checking her complexion—Hipolit talking with the land steward about quotas—next to him Fryderyk, courteous, his hands in his jacket pockets, a guest … oh, this scene swept away the recent black abyss in which there had suddenly appeared such a hot little flame … but only one thing troubled me: had Fryderyk noticed it? Did he know?
Fryderyk?
Hipolit asked the land steward:
“And what about the potatoes? What shall we do?”
“We can give them half a meter.”
The (boy) approached us. “And this is my Karol,” said the steward and pushed him toward Fryderyk, who extended his hand. Karol greeted everyone, Henia said to her mother: “Look, Mrs. Gałecka has recovered!”
“Well, how about visiting the parish priest?” Hipolit asked and immediately mumbled: “What for?” Then he bellowed: “On with it, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time to go home!” We say our good-byes to the steward. We mount the carriage and Karol, who has taken his place next to the coachman, is with us (what’s this?), we’re riding on, the rubber tires slipping into the ruts sound a dull groan, here is the sandy road in the trembling and lazy air, a golden fly is hovering—and when we have climbed a hill, rectangles of fields and a railroad track appear in the distance where the forest begins. We’re riding on. Fryderyk, sitting next to Henia, hovers above the bluish-golden reflection of light typical of the local colors, the reflection—he explains—comes from particles of loess in the air. We’re riding on.
III
The carriage moved on. Karol sat on the driver’s seat, next to the coachman. She, in the front—and where her little head ended, there he began above her as if placed on an upper story, his back toward us, a slim contour, visible yet featureless—while his shirt billowed in the wind—and the combination of her face with the absence of his face, the complement of her seeing face with his unseeing back struck me with a dark, hot duality. … They were not unusually good-looking—neither he nor she—only as much as is appropriate for their age—but they were a beauty in their closed circle, in their mutual desire and rapture—something in which practically no one else had any right to take part. They were unto themselves—it was strictly between them. And especially because they were so (young). So I was not allowed to watch, I tried not to see it, but, with Fryderyk in front of me and sitting next to her on the small seat, I was again persistently asking myself: Had he seen this? Did he know anything? And I was lying in wait to see a single glance of his, one of those supposedly indifferent ones yet sliding by surreptitiously, greedily.
And the others? What did they know? It would be hard, however, to believe that something hitting you in the eye like this would have eluded the young girl’s parents—so after lunch when I went with Hipolit to the cows, I brought the conversation around to Karol. However, I found it difficult to ask about (the boy) who, having driven me into such excitement, became my shame, while as far as Hipolit was concerned, he probably didn’t think the subject worthy of his attention. Well, indeed, Karol, yes, not a bad lad, the steward’s son, he served in the Underground, they sent him somewhere near Lublin, he got into some mischief there … eee, it was really stupid, he stole something, took a shot at someone, a colleague, or his commander, whatever, devil only knows, yah, nonsense, he beat it home from there, but since he, the rascal, is at odds with his father, they’re at each other’s throats, I took him into my place—he knows machines, makes for more people in the house, just in case. … “Just in case,” he took delight in repeating it to himself, as he crushed dirt clods with the tip of his boot. And all of a sudden he began to talk about something else. Did the sixteen-year-old biography not carry sufficient weight as far as he was concerned? Or perhaps there was nothing to do but make light of those boyish pranks, so they wouldn’t become too oppressive. Did he merely shoot, or shoot dead? I wondered. If he had shot dead,
one could find him not guilty by reason of his being of an age that erases everything—and I asked whether Karol and Henia had known each other for long. “Since childhood,” he replied slapping a cow’s rump, and noted: “It’s a Holstein! High milk yield! It’s sick, goddamn it!” That was all I found out. And it appeared that both he and his wife had noticed nothing—nothing serious enough to have awakened their parental vigilance. How was it possible? And I thought, if the matter were more grownup—less juvenile—if it were less boy-girl … but the matter was drowned in the insufficiency of their years.
Fryderyk? What had Fryderyk noticed? After church, after that butchering, strangling of the Mass, I had to know whether he knew anything about them—I could hardly bear his ignorance! It was terrible, that I could in no way unite the two states of spirit into one entity—the black one that had originated from him, from Fryderyk, and the fresh, passionate one that came from them—and these two states were separate, nonconfronted! Yet, if there was nothing between the two teenagers, what could Fryderyk have noticed? … And I thought it astounding, absurd, that they behaved as if there were no seduction between them! I waited in vain for them to finally give themselves away. Unbelievable indifference! I watched Karol during lunch. A child and a cad. An amiable murderer. A smiling slave. A young soldier. Hard softness. Cruel and even bloody fun and games. This child, still laughing, or rather still smiling, had already had his “shoulder put to the wheel” by grown men—he had the sternness and tranquillity of a youngster whom men had taken in at an early age, who had been thrown into war, brought up by the army—and, when he was buttering his bread, when he was eating, there was a noticeably peculiar restraint that hunger had taught him. His voice darkened at times, became flat. It had something in common with iron. With a leather strap and with a tree freshly felled. At first glance totally ordinary, calm and friendly, obedient, and eager as well. Torn between child and man (which made him at the same time innocently naive and relentlessly experienced), he was, nevertheless, neither one nor the other, he was a third possibility, namely, he was youth, inwardly violent, harsh youth that was handing him over to cruelty, to brute force and obedience, condemning him to slavery and humiliation. He was second-rate because young. Inferior because young. Sensuous because young. Carnal because young. Destructive because young. And in this youth of his—contemptible. But the most interesting thing was his smile, his most refined attribute, that actually connected him with degradation, because this child could not defend himself, disarmed by his, own readiness to laugh. So then all this threw him onto Henia, as if onto a bitch, he was hot for her, and, indeed, this was not “love” at all but merely something brutally humiliating that was happening at his level—it was a “boyish” love in its total degradation. At the same time it was not love at all—and he really treated her like a young miss one knows “from childhood,” their conversation was carefree and intimate. “What happened to your hand?” “I cut it opening a can.” “Do you know that Mr. Roblecki is in Warsaw?” And nothing more, not even a gaze, nothing, just that—who, on this basis, could have accused them of even the most light-hearted love affair? As far as she was concerned, under his pressure (if I may express it this way), she was raped a priori (if this expression means anything at all) and, losing none of her virginity, indeed strengthening it even in the arms of his immaturity, she was actually mated with him in the darkness of his not quite yet masculine brute force. And one couldn’t say about her that she “knows men” (the way one talks about dissolute young women), but only that she “knows the boy”—which was both more innocent and more licentious. That’s what it looked like to me when they were eating their noodles. They ate those noodles like a couple who have known each other from childhood, who are used to each other, perhaps even bored with each other. Well then? How could I expect Fryderyk to see anything in this, wasn’t it just an embarrassing illusion of mine? Thus the day passed. Dusk. Supper was served. We assembled again at the table bathed in the meager light of a single oil lamp, shutters closed, doors barricaded, we ate curdled milk and potatoes, Madame Maria touched the napkin rings with the tips of her fingers, Hipolit stuck his edematous face into the lamp. It was quiet—although beyond the walls that protected us the garden began, full of unfamiliar rustles and breezes, while farther on there were fields gone to weed because of the war—the conversation fell silent, and we were looking at the lamp, a moth was beating at it. Karol, in a corner where it was rather dark, was taking apart and cleaning a stable lamp. Suddenly Henia bent down to cut a thread with her teeth, she was sewing a blouse—and this sudden bending and clenching of her teeth was enough for Karol, sitting in the corner, to blossom and turn hot, though he didn’t even budge. While she, putting the blouse aside, placed her hand on the table, and now this hand lay in the open, above reproach, decent in all respects, a schoolgirl’s hand actually, still mommy’s and daddy’s property—and yet, at the same time, it was a hand laid bare and totally naked, naked with the nakedness not of a hand but of a knee emerging from under a dress … and actually barefoot … and with this licentiously schoolgirl hand she was teasing him, teasing him in a manner “stupidly young” (it’s hard to call it anything else) yet brutal as well. And this brutality was accompanied by a low, wonderful chant that glowed somewhere within them or around them. Karol was cleaning the lamp. She was sitting. Fryderyk was arranging pellets of bread.
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