Генрик Сенкевич
Without Dogma
"What did you want to say?"
"I was going to say words unworthy of myself; besides, they have no meaning now."
"Leon! I must know what you meant, else I shall have no peace."
Suddenly a breath of wind blew a lock of her hair into her eyes. I rose, and with the light, tender touch of a mother, put it back into its place.
"Dear Aniela, do not force me to tell what I ought to forget. If it be a question of your peace of mind I pledge you my word that you need not have any fear for the future."
"You promise this?" she asked, still looking intently at me.
"Yes, most solemnly and emphatically; will that satisfy you, and drive out any foolish notions from the little head?"
The postman coming in with a parcel of letters interrupted our conversation. There was the usual budget from the East for Kromitzki; only one letter for Aniela, from Sniatynski (I recognized his handwriting on the envelope), and one for me from Clara. The latter does not say much about herself, but inquires most minutely what I am doing. I told Aniela who it was that had written, and she, to show me that all ill-feeling and constraint had gone, began to tease me. I paid her back in the same coin, and pointing to Sniatynski's letter said there was another poor man who had succumbed to little Aniela's wiles. We laughed and bandied jests for a little time.
The human soul, like the bee, extracts sweetness even from bitter herbs. The most unhappy wretch still tries to squeeze out a little happiness from his woes, and the merest shadow and pretext will serve his turn. Sometimes I think that this intense longing for happiness is one proof more that happiness is awaiting us in another world. I am convinced also that pessimism was invented as a comfort to satisfy a want, sum up all human misery, and put it into a philosophic formula. It satisfies our thirst for truth and knowledge, and happiness itself is nothing but satisfied craving. Perhaps love in itself is such a source of happiness that even a clouded love like ours is interwoven with golden rays. Such a ray fell on our path to-day. I had not expected it, as I had not expected that a man whose desires are without limits could be satisfied with so little.
We had scarcely read our letters when Pani Celina, who is now able to walk without help, came towards us with a footstool for Aniela.
"Oh mamma!" cried out Aniela, in a shocked voice; "You ought not to do that."
"And did you not yourself nurse me night and day when I was ill?"
I took the footstool from Pani Celina's hands, and kneeling down before Aniela, I waited until she had put her little feet upon it; and kneeling thus before her for a second filled me with happiness for the whole day. It is a fact. A very poor man lives upon crumbs, and smiles gratefully – through tears.
6 July.
I have a crippled heart, but it is capable of love. It is only now I fully understand what Sniatynski meant. If I were not a man out of joint, without an even-balanced mind, poisoned by scepticism, criticism of myself, and criticism of criticism, if my love were in harmony with law and principles, I should have found in Aniela the dogma of my life, and other dogmas, other beliefs, would have come to me in course of time. Yet I do not know; perhaps I could not love otherwise than crookedly; and in this lies my incapacity for life. In short, that which ought to have been my health and salvation has become my disease and damnation. Strange to say, there was no lack of warnings. It almost seems as if people had foreseen what would befall me. I remember constantly the words Sniatynski wrote to me when I was with the Davises at Peli: "Something must always be growing within us; beware lest something should grow in you which would cause your unhappiness, and the unhappiness of those near and dear to you." I laughed then at the words, yet how true they were. My father, too, spoke several times as if he had pierced the veil that hides the future. To-day the remembrance is too late. I know it is useless to rake up the ashes of the past, but I cannot help it. I am sorry for myself, but more sorry still for Aniela. She would have been a hundred times happier with me than with Kromitzki. Supposing even I should have subjected her at first to analysis, and discovered various faults, I should have loved her all the same. She would have been mine, and as such she would have become part of me and entered into the sphere of my egoism. Her faults would have been my weaknesses, and we are always ready to make allowance for ourselves, and though we criticise self we do not cease to care for its well-being. Thus she would have been dear to me; and as she is infinitely better than I, in time she would have become my pride, the noblest part of my soul; I should have found out that criticism, as far as she was concerned, was out of place; gradually she would have won me over to her pure faith and wrought my salvation. All that has been wasted, spoiled, and transmuted into a tragedy for her, – into evil and a tragedy for me.
7 July.
I have been reading what I wrote yesterday, and am struck by what I said at the end, namely: that the love which might have been my salvation has become a source of evil. I cannot quite agree with the thought. How can love for a pure woman like Aniela bring forth evil? One word explains it, – it is a crooked love. I must own the truth. If two years ago somebody had told me that I, a civilized man, a man with aesthetic nerves, and living in peace with the penal code, should meditate for nights and days how to put out of the world, even by murder, a man who would be in my way, I should have taken that somebody for an escaped lunatic. Yet it is true; I have come to that. Kromitzki shuts out from me the world; he takes from me the earth, water, and air. I cannot live because he lives; and for that reason I incessantly think of his death. What a simple and complete solution of all the difficulties and entanglements his death would be. I thought more than once that since the hypnotizer can send his medium to sleep, a more concentrated power would be able to put him to sleep forever. I have sent for all the newest books about hypnotism. In the mean while with every glance I say to Kromitzki, "Die!" and if such a suggestion were sufficient, he would have been dead some time ago. But the whole result of it is that he is as well as ever, is Aniela's husband, and I remain with the consciousness that my intention is equally criminal and foolish, ridiculous, and unworthy of an active man; and it makes me lose my self-respect more and more. Yet it does not prevent my trying to hypnotize Kromitzki.
It is the old story again of the intelligent man who, given up by the doctors, goes for advice to quacks and wise women. I want to kill my enemy by hypnotism; and as it only shows my own worthlessness, it is I who suffer by it. I must also confess that as often as I am alone, I begin to think of all possible means in human power to put the hateful man out of the way. For some time I nursed the thought of killing him in a duel; but this would not lead to anything. Aniela would never marry the man who had killed her husband; then, like a common criminal, I began to think of other ways. And what is the strangest thing of all, I discovered ways which human justice would not be able to detect. Foolishness! vain thoughts! pure theory!
Kromitzki need have no fear for his life; thoughts like these will never be acted upon. I should not kill him if I could do it without more responsibility than is incurred in crushing a spider; should not kill him if we two were alone together on a desert island. If one could divide the human brain as one cuts in two an apple, and lay bare its thoughts, it would be found that mine is honeycombed with murderous thoughts. What is more, I am well aware that if I refrain from killing Kromitzki it is not by reason of any moral principle contained in the law "Thou shalt do no murder." This law I have already violated morally. I refrain from killing him because some remnants of chivalric tradition bar my way; because my refined nerves would not permit me to commit a brutal deed; in short, I am too far removed from primitive man to be physically competent to the task, though morally I slay him every day. And now I ask myself whether, in presence of a higher judgment, I should be held responsible, as if I had committed the deed.
It may be that if one could lay open the human brain, as I said before, in the most virtuous individual thoughts would be found to make our hair stand on end. I remember that, when a little boy, there came upon me a period of such religious fervor that I prayed from morning until night; and at the same time, in the midst of my pious transports, there came into my mind blasphemous thoughts, as if an evil wind had blown them thither, or a demon whispered them into my ear. In the same way I had irreverent thoughts about persons whom I loved with all my heart and for whom I would have given my life without a moment's hesitation. I remember that this, which I might call a tragedy of childhood, cost me a great deal of anguish. But I will not dwell upon that now. Going back to blasphemous or criminal thoughts, I do not think we are responsible for them, as they come from the knowledge of evil, not from an evil growing within the organism itself; and for the very reason that it is outward to ourselves we fancy an evil spirit suggesting the thoughts. Man listens to it, and being averse to evil, spurns it; and there may be some merit in this. But with me it is different. The thought of getting rid of Kromitzki does not come from the outside, but springs from me and exists within me. I have come down to that morally, and if I do not commit the deed it is a mere matter of nerves. The part of my inward Mephistopheles is confined to mocking and whispering into my ear that the deed would only prove my energy, and not be much of a crime.
These are the crossways on which I never dreamed of finding myself. I look into the depths of my own self with amazement. I do not know whether my exceptional troubles will partly atone for my errors, but one thing I know, namely: that he whose life cannot find room in the simple code Aniela and others like her cling to, if his soul is brimming over and breaks its bounds it must mix with dust and be polluted in the mud.
9 July.
To-day in the reading-room Kromitzki pointed out to me an Englishman accompanied by a very beautiful woman, and told me their story. The beauty is a Roumanian by birth and married a Wallachian bankrupt Boyar, from whom the Englishman simply bought her at Ostend. I have heard of similar transactions at least a dozen times. Kromitzki even mentioned the sum the Englishman had given for her. The story made a strange impression upon me. I thought to myself, "This is one way, however disgraceful for the seller and buyer; it is a simple method of obtaining a desired result. The woman concerned in it need not know anything about the transaction, and the agreement could be concealed under decent appearances." Involuntarily I began to apply the idea to our own situation. Suppose it answered. The whole thing presented itself to me under two aspects: in regard to Aniela as a horrible profanation; in regard to Kromitzki, not only as feasible, but at the same time gratifying my scorn and hatred for him. If he agreed to it, he would prove himself a villain, and show what kind of man he is, and what a monstrous thing has been done in giving Aniela to him. I should then be quite justified in all my endeavors to take her from him. But would he agree? I said to myself: "You hate him, and consequently believe him capable of any evil." But thinking of him objectively, I remembered that the man had sold his wife's property, had deceived her and Pani Celina, and also that the ruling passion of his life was greed for gain. It was not I alone who considered him as one wholly possessed by the gold fever. Sniatynski thought the same, and so do my aunt and Pani Celina. This kind of moral disease always leads into pitfalls. I understand that much will depend upon the state of his affairs. How they stand nobody seems to know, unless it be his agent Chwastowski. It suddenly struck me that I might get some information from this same Chwastowski, but that would take some time. Perhaps I will run over to Vienna and see his brother the doctor, who is working in the Vienna hospitals; the brothers are sure to correspond with each other. My aunt thinks that he is not doing as well as he wants us to believe, and I imagine that he has sunk all his money in some speculation from which he expects a great profit. Will he succeed? – that is the question. He himself does not know; hence his restlessness, and the multitude of letters he sends to young Chwastowski. In the mean while I will sound him cautiously, lest I should rouse his suspicions, as to what he thinks of the Boyar who sold his wife to the Englishman. I do not suppose for a moment that he will be quite sincere, but I will help him and guess the rest. The whole sum and substance of this is, that it has put a little more life into me. There is nothing more horrible than to suffer passively; and anything that rouses me from my apathy is acceptable. I repeat to myself, "At least to-morrow and the day after, you will have something to do to further your plans;" and that promises a transition from utter passiveness to a feverish activity. I must be doing something; it is a question of not losing control over my senses. I pledged my word to Aniela not to attempt my life, and I cannot go on living as I do. If the road I am taking be ignominious, the ignominy will be for Kromitzki more than for me. I must and will separate them, not only for my own sake but also for Aniela's sake. I am really feverish. Everybody seems to derive some benefit from the bathing except me.
10 July.
There are some hot days even in Gastein. What heat! Aniela is dressed in white soft flannel, such as English girls wear for lawn-tennis. We have our breakfast in the open air. She comes from her bath as bright and fresh as the snow at sunrise. The supple figure shows to great advantage in the graceful dress. The morning light falls upon her and shows distinctly every hair on the eyebrows, lashes, and the delicate down on either side of her face. The hair is glistening with moisture and looks fairer in this light, and the eyelids are almost transparent. How young she is, and how intoxicating her appearance! In her, then, is my life, in her everything I want. I will not go away, I cannot. Looking at her I seem to lose my senses from intoxication, and at the same time from pain; for close by her side sits he who is her husband. It cannot continue thus; let her belong to no one provided she be not his. She understands to a certain extent what I suffer, but not altogether. She does not love her husband, but considers it her duty to live with him. I gnash my teeth at the very thought, for in admitting his rights she degrades herself; and that is not allowed, even to her. Far better she were dead. Then she will be mine; because the lawful husband will remain behind, but not I. By this token I am more lawfully hers than he is.
There is something very strange going on within me at times. For instance, when I am very tired or when my mind is concentrated upon one point I seem to look into the future, into far-away space which remains invisible to me in a normal state. Then there comes to me such a conviction that Aniela belongs to me – that in some way she is or will be mine – that when I wake up I have to remind myself that there exists such a man as Kromitzki. Maybe in moments like those I cross the boundary which separates the living from the dead, and have a vision of things more perfect, such as the ideals we dream about, as they might shape themselves in outward form. Why is it these two worlds are not more in touch with each other? As often as I try to solve this problem I lose myself; I cannot understand this want of harmony, but feel dimly that therein lie our imperfection and our misery. The thought comforts me, for in the ideal world Aniela could not belong to a man like Kromitzki.
11 July.
Another disappointment, another plan shattered, but I have still hope that all is not lost. I spoke to-day with Kromitzki about the Boyar who sold his wife, and invented a whole story in order to discover his real feelings. We met the Englishman with his purchased wife near the Cascades. I began by praising her beauty, and then remarked: —
"The doctor here told me something about the transaction, and I think you are a little hard upon the Boyar."
"Hard upon him? not a bit; he amuses me intensely," he replied.
"There are extenuating circumstances in the case. He is not only a Boyar, but the owner of extensive tannery works. Suddenly, because of the infection, the importation of skins from Roumania was forbidden. The man recognized that unless he could tide over the time until the law was repealed he would be ruined, and with him hundreds of families to whom he gave employment. My dear fellow, he looked at it from a business point of view; perhaps business morality is a little different from general morality, and as he had once entered into that – "
"He had a right to sell his wife? To fulfil one part of his duties he had no right to trample upon another and perhaps more binding duty."
Kromitzki could not have disappointed me more thoroughly than by thus showing some decent feeling. But I did not give up my hope at once. I know that even the meanest person has still at his disposition high-sounding words wherewith to mask his real character. Therefore I went on: —
"You do not take into account one thing, namely, that the man would have dragged his wife with him into poverty. Confess it is a singular idea of duty that it should lead us to deprive those dependent on us of their daily bread."
"Do you know, I had no idea you were so deucedly sober-minded."
"You fool!" I thought to myself; "don't you understand that these are not my views, but views I want you to adopt?" Aloud I said: —
"I only try to put myself into the place of this business man. Besides, you do not consider that the woman probably did not love her husband, and that the other man was aware of it."
"In such a case they were worthy of each other."
"That is another question altogether. Looking a little deeper into the affair, and supposing that being in love with the Englishman, she nevertheless remained faithful to her husband, she may be worthier than you think. As to the Boyar, he may be a villain for anything I know, but what can he do, I ask you, in case somebody comes to him and says: 'You are a bankrupt twice over; you have debts you cannot pay, and a wife that does not love you. Divorce that woman, and I will take care of her future, and will also take upon me all your liabilities.' It is a way of speaking, to say the man 'sold' his wife; but can a transaction like this be called a sale? Consider that the merchant who agreed to this proposition by one stroke saved his wife from poverty, – and possibly this is the right way to look upon duty, – and saved all those who depended upon him!"
Kromitzki thought a little, then dropped his eyeglass and said: —
"My dear fellow, as to business I flatter myself that I know a great deal more about it than you; but as to arguments, I confess that you would soon drive me into a corner. If you had not inherited millions from your father, you would be able to amass a fortune as a barrister. You have put the whole thing in such a light that I do not know what to think of that Roumanian chap. All I know about it is that some kind of transaction about his wife had occurred, and that, put it in whatever light you will, is always a disreputable thing. Besides, as I am somewhat of a merchant myself, I will tell you another thing: a bankrupt can always find a way out of his difficulties: he either makes another fortune and then pays his debts, or he blows out his brains and pays with his life; and at the same time, if he is married, he sets his wife free and gives her another chance."
I fumed and raged inwardly, and would have given anything if I could have shouted out to him: "You are a bankrupt already in one thing, for your wife does not love you. You see the Cascades; jump in, set her free, and give her the chance of some happiness." But I remained silent, chewing the bitter cud of my reflections. Kromitzki, however commonplace he might be, though capable of selling Gluchow and taking advantage of his wife's trust in him, was not the villain I took him for. It was a disappointment and destroyed the plan to which for the moment I had clung as to a plank of safety. Again I felt powerless, and saw looming up before me the vast solitude. Nevertheless, I held fast to that purpose because I understood that unless I could do something, I should go mad. "It will at least prepare the ground for anything that may turn up, and accustom Kromitzki to the thought of parting with Aniela," I said to myself. As I said before, nobody knows in what state Kromitzki's affairs are, but I suppose that a man who speculates is liable to losses as well as to gains. I said to him: —
"I do not know whether your principles are, strictly speaking, business principles, but at any rate they are the sentiments of an honorable man, and I respect you for them. You said, if I understood you, that a man has no right to drag his wife with him into poverty."
"No, I did not say that; I only said that to sell one's wife is a villany; the wife ought to share her husband's fate. I think but little of a fair-weather wife, who wants to break her marriage vows because her husband cannot give her the comforts of life."
"Suppose she did not agree, he might set her free against her will. Besides, if she knew that by submitting to a divorce, she could save her husband, duty well understood would bid her to yield."
"It is unpleasant even to talk about such things."
"Why? are you sorry for the Boyar?"
"Not I; I shall always hold him for a blackguard."
"Because you do not look at things from an objective point of view. But that is not astonishing. A man like you, with whom everything is prospering, cannot enter into the psychology of a bankrupt unless he be a philosopher; and philosophy has nothing to do with making millions."
I did not wish to prolong the conversation, so utterly disgusted was I with my own perversity. I had sown the seed, – a very small and pitiable seed to produce anything; and yet I clung to it tenaciously. One thing revived my hope. At the moment when I tried to make him believe that a ruined man ought to set his wife free, there was a certain constraint and trouble in his expression. I also noticed that when I spoke about his millions a slight sigh escaped him. To infer from this that he is on the brink of ruin, would be jumping at conclusions; but I may fairly conjecture that his affairs are in a precarious state. I resolved to get at the truth as quickly as possible.
In the mean while my own self seemed to be divided in two parts. The one said: "If you waver ever so little, I will push you downward if it should cost me my whole fortune. I will work your ruin, and when I come to deal with a broken man, it remains to be seen whether for certain transactions you do not find a gentler word than, 'villany.'" Yet I was conscious at the same time that these were not my thoughts nor my ways of dealing; that they had been suggested to me by somebody else, and that but for my desperate position they would never have found room in me, as they are averse to my nature and repulsive to me. Money never played any part in my life, either as means or as aim. I consider myself incapable of using such a weapon, and I felt what a degradation it would be for me and Aniela to introduce that element into our relations to each other. The thought of it was so repulsive to me that I said to myself: "Will you not spare yourself? Must you even drink from such a bowl? See how you are degenerating step by step. Formerly thoughts like these would never have crossed your mind; and what is more, schemes like these are utterly useless, and will only lower you in your own eyes."
In fact, formerly, when my aunt spoke of Kromitzki's affairs in a doubting spirit, it had always caused me some uneasiness. The prospect that at some time or other he might want me to assist him or take a share in his transactions had made me consider what I should do in such a case; and I always vowed that I would decline and have nothing to do with any of his affairs; so repugnant to me was the thought of mingling money matters with my relations to Aniela. I remember that I saw in this another proof of the nobility and refinement of my feelings. To-day I grasp that weapon as if I were a banker and had lived by money transactions all my life.
I perceive with absolute certainty that my thoughts and deeds are worse than myself, and I ask myself how that can be. Most probably because I cannot find the way out of the labyrinth. I love a noble woman; my love is very great; and yet, putting the two together, the net result is crookedness, and enchanted circles where my character loses itself and even my nerves grow less sensitive. When, in former times, I erred and strayed from the right path there still remained something, some aesthetic feeling, by the help of which I still distinguished good from evil. At present I have none of that feeling, or if it still exists it is powerless. If I had only at the same time lost the consciousness of what is ugly and offensive! But no; I have it still, only it does not serve me as a curb, and is of no effect except to aggravate my troubles. Beside my love for Aniela there is no room for anything; but consciousness does not require space. I absorb love, hatred, and sorrow as a cancer breeds in a diseased organism.
He who has never been in a position similar to mine cannot understand it. I knew that from love's entanglements spring various sufferings, but I did not appreciate those sufferings. I did not believe they were so real and so difficult to bear. Only now I understand the difference between "knowing" and "believing," and the meaning of the French thinker's words: "We know we must die, but we do not believe it."
12 July.
To-day my pulses are beating wildly, and there is a singing in my ears; for something has occurred the memory of which thrills every nerve as in a fever. The day was very beautiful, the evening more lovely still, and there was a full moon. We resolved to make an excursion to Hofgastein, – all but Pani Celina, who preferred to remain at home. My aunt, Kromitzki, and I went down together to the villa gate, whence Kromitzki sped towards Straubinger's to order a carriage, my aunt and I waiting for Aniela, who lingered behind. As she did not come I went back and saw her descending the winding staircase leading from the second floor into the garden.
As the moon was on the other side, this part of the house was wrapped in darkness, and Aniela came down very slowly. There was a moment when my head was on a level with Aniela's feet. The temptation was too great; I put my hands gently around them and pressed my lips to them. I knew I should have to pay a heavy penalty for this minute of happiness, but I could not forego it. God knows with what reverence I touched her feet, and for how much pain this moment compensated me. But for Aniela's resistance I should have put her foot upon my head in token that I was her servant and her slave. She drew back and went upstairs again but I ran down calling out loudly, so that my aunt could hear me: —
"Aniela is coming, coming."
Nothing remained for her now but to come down again, which she could do safely, as I had remained near the gate. At the same moment Kromitzki arrived with the carriage. Aniela coming up to us said: —
"I came to ask you, aunty, to let me stop at home. I would rather not leave mamma alone. You can go, and I will wait for you with the tea."
"But Celina is quite well," replied my aunt, with a shade of annoyance in her voice, "it was she who proposed the excursion, mainly for your sake."
"Yes, but – " began Aniela.
Kromitzki came up, and hearing what was the matter, said sharply: "Please do not raise any difficulties." And Aniela, without saying a word, took her seat in the carriage.
In spite of my emotion I was struck by Kromitzki's tone of voice and Aniela's silent obedience, – all the more as I had already noticed that his manners towards her during the day had been those of a man who is displeased. There was evidently the same reason, of which I knew nothing, at the bottom of this, and of the estrangement some time ago. But there was no room now for these reflections; the fresh memory of the kiss I had imprinted on her feet still overpowered my senses. I felt a great delight and joy, not unmixed with fear. I could account for the delight because I felt it every time I only touched her hand. But why the joy? Because I saw that the immaculate Aniela could not escape from me altogether, and must needs confess to herself: "I am on the downward path too, and cannot look people in the face; he was at my feet a moment ago, the man who loves me, and I am obliged to be his accomplice and cannot go to my husband and tell him to take me hence." I knew she could not do this without creating a commotion; and if she could, she would not do it, for fear of an encounter between me and Kromitzki, – "And who knows for whom she is most afraid?" something within me whispered.
Aniela's position is indeed a difficult one, and I, knowing this, take advantage of it without more scruples than are admitted by a general in time of war who attacks the enemy at his weakest point. I asked myself whether I would do the same if Kromitzki would make me personally responsible; and as I could conscientiously say "Yes," I thought there was no need for any further consideration. Kromitzki inspires me with fear only in so far as he has power to remove Aniela and put her out of my reach altogether. The very thought makes me desperate. But at this moment, in the carriage, I only feared Aniela. What will happen to-morrow? How will she take it? As a liberty, or as a mere impulse of respect and worship?
