No More Learning

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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ 63
and blood, Mickiewicz's beloved and lost friends,
here under their own names. jSo strong was the
truth with which Mickiewicz portrayed them
that one of their band, reading the Ancestors in
after days, said that he was transported back
through the intervening years to the prison as
though he had never left it. To the modern reader
they seem living companions in a room, not those
who have long since gone from this world.
The prisoners meet, greet the new-comers,
and exchange conjectures as to their future fate.
One of them, Zegota--Mickiewicz's life-long
friend, Domeyko--has that day been arrested in
the farm in which he takes a youthful landowner's
pride, little guessing that he will never see it
again. Another has been torn from a young wife.
A third cannot tell how long he has languished
in a cell where no ray of light ever enters. Zan
himself has been half-poisoned by foul food and
rank air in a subterranean dungeon. But:
"I would rather be underground there," cries
Zan, who, from the beginning, had offered to bear
the whole penalty if only his followers might go
free. "I would rather be there in hunger and
sickness, rather endure flogging and, what is
worse than flogging, going before the Commis-
sion, than be in a better cell to find you all here. "
With what grief and affection, as Mickiewicz
wrote these words, must his heart have gone out
to Zan, the guide of his youth who, while the poet
thus recorded his devotion, was working out its
price in Siberia.
In spite of all the efforts after mirth made by
Frejend, here, as in reality, the jester and the
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? 64 POLAND
I
musician of the imprisoned Philomathians, the
talk turns to the doom that has already fallen
upon numbers of their comrades and will fall
upon them. One of the prisoners tells how, as he
returned from his examination before the Com-
mission, he saw a procession of the young men and
boys they know starting on their journey to
Siberia.
"The drum gave the signal. The prison was
opened. I saw them. Behind each one walked
guards with a bayonet. Young boys, wasted and
worn, with shaved heads and chains on their legs.
The youngest, a child of ten years, complained
he could not lift up his chain, and showed his bare,
bleeding leg. They brought out Janczewski. He
was disfigured, he had grown haggard, he had
grown thin, but somehow strangely ennobled.
He who, a year ago, had been a mischievous, pretty
little boy, to-day gazed out from his prison cart,
as that emperor gazed from his desert rock,* with
proud, dry and calm eyes. Now he seemed to be
comforting the sharers of his bondage. Now he
bade farewell to the people with a bitter but
gentle smile, as though he would tell them: 'I
do not mind much. ' The cart started, they lashed
up the horse. He took his hat from his head, he
stood up, and shouted three times: 'Poland hath
not perished yet. 't They disappeared in the
crowd; but that hand raised to heaven, that
shaved head, proud, unashamed, that proclaimed
to all its innocence and its disgrace, remained
before my eyes and will remain in my mind, and
* Napoleon.
t The first line of the song- of the Polish legions.
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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ 65
IS) ti on the road of my life they shall be as my compass
falk pointing and leading me to virtue. If I forget them,
ill1 oh, God in heaven, forget Thou me. "
as In To which his hearers reply by a general Amen.
Con He resumes:
n>> "The other carts had driven up in one long
:j tf row. They were drawn up one after the other. I
cast a glance at the closely pressed throngs of the
W people. Each face had grown pallid as death. And
ill- in that great crowd such was the heavy silence
it- that I heard each step, each clank of the chains.
tp- They brought out the last of the prisoners. It
neJ looked as if he were resisting, but it was because
irf. the poor boy could not walk. He tottered each
ft moment, he staggered slowly down the steps, and
ml hardly had he reached the second step when he
& fell his whole length. It was Wasilewski. He had
17 been here in the prison near us. The day before
t yesterday they flogged him so much that not one
1 drop of blood remained in his face. "
< The soldier, furtively wiping his tears, lifted
e him into the cart.
t "And, as if he had been taken down from the
1 cross, his hands were stretched out on the soldier's
I shoulders, his eyes terrible, white, wide-opened.
And the people opened their lips, and simul-
taneously one deep, hollow sigh, torn from a
thousand breasts, groaned all around as if all the
graves groaned under the church. The carts flew
down the street like a flash of lightning. One was
empty, the prisoner was there, but could not be
seen. Only a hand was stretched out to the people
from the straw, a hand, livid, wide-open, dead,
>- that quiyerecj 35 if in farewell,"
1
I
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? 66
POLAND
The story ends, and none of the listeners can
speak. Presently they pull themselves together,
and sing and make merry. One of them sings a
blasphemous song, at which Konrad, for all he
declares that he has little faith left, angrily inter-
poses, intimating that he will not allow the name
of Mary to be treated with anything but rever-
ence. He sits apart, as he has sat all the evening,
brooding and gloomy, till his friends lay hold of
him and, with a burst of chaff, insist that he shall
improvize to Frej end's flute. This is one of the
intimate touches that illustrate how close is the
connection of Konrad with his author. Mickiewicz
possessed the gift of improvization and, while he
was waiting in Wilna for his final sentence, im-
provized, always accompanied by the flute of
that same Frej end.
Konrad flings out a wild song breathing revenge
on Russia, for which he is sternly reproved by a
priest among the prisoners and by the corporal.
He sings on in a poetic frenzy that degenerates
into delirium, and ends in a swoon. The corporal
gives the alarm that the guard is returning. The
{>risoners all rush to their cells, leaving Konrad
ying unconscious.
Now enters the great moment of the drama.
Konrad, alone in his cell, sings the Improvization,
the most splendid piece of inspiration that Mickie-
wicz ever reached. On one side, it is the unveiling
of the poet's mind at the actual moment of his
ecstasy: an Adam waking to life, as in Michel-
angelo's fresco, at the finger of his creator. On
the other, the wounds of the Polish soul that sees
his nation suffering, unavenged by either man or
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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ 6y
God, are here laid open, bare and bleeding, to the
vision.
Konrad is in a dungeon; but what bonds of
man's devising can enchain his spirit?
"My songs, ye do not need men's eyes, men's
ears! Oh, God, oh, nature, hearken unto me!
Worthy of you my music and my song. I am the
master! I, the master, stretch forth my hands, I
stretch them even to the skies, and lay my hands
upon the stars, as on the crystal wheels of an
harmonica. Now fast, now slow, as my soul wills, I
turn the stars. Millions of sounds flow forth.
'Twixt million sounds each sound I caught, each
sound I know. I weave them into rainbows,
harmonies, and verse. I pour them forth in music
and in lightning streamers.
"I have taken away my hands. I have raised
them above the borders of the world, and the
harmonica's wheels are held in their flight. Alone
I sing. I hear my songs. Long, wailing, as the
breathing of the tempest's blast, they moan with
grief, they roar with storm, and the ages answer
with deep echoings. And each sound together
plays and flames. I see each one, I hear each one,
as I hear the flight of the wind when, whistling,
it rocks the waves, as I see it in its robe of cloud.
"Worthy of God and nature such a song!
That song is great, that song is creation, that song
is strength, is power, that song is immortality. I
feel immortality, I create immortality. What
greater couldst Thou do, oh, God? "
Has any other poet, any other wise man, cries
he in the rapture of his inspiration, ever felt:
"As I feel to-night, in this lonely night, when
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? 68
POLAND
alone I sing within myself, alone I sing unto myself.
Yea, I feel, and I am mighty, and I understand.
To-night is my zenith, to-night is the crisis of
my power. I will cast off my body, and as a spirit
I will take pinions only. I will fly forth from the
turning-wheel of stars and planets, I will reach to
the boundary of the Creator and of nature.
"And I have them, I have them, I have these
two wings. They will suffice. I will strike the past
with the left, the future with the right, and on
the flames of feeling I will come to Thee. And I
will gaze into Thy feeling, oh, Thou, of Whom
they say that Thou feelest in the heavens. I am
here, I have come here, Thou seest what is my
power, my wings reach even here. But I am man,
and my body is there on earth. There did I love,
and in my country hath remained my heart.
"But that love of mine hath not rested on one
man, not on one family, not on one century. I
love a whole nation. I have gathered in my arms
all her past and future generations. I have pressed
her to my bosom as a friend, a lover, a husband, as
a father. I would fain raise her, give her joy. I
have no power to do it--and I have come here to
find it. I have come armed with the whole strength
of thought, that thought which tore Thy thunder-
bolts from heaven, that tracked Thy planets'
march, and flung open the deep bottom of the
sea. I have more; I have that power men do not
give, for I have feeling.
"I was born a creator. My powers came whence
came Thine to Thee. Thou hast them,Thou fearest
not to lose them--and I fear not. In the moments
of my strength, when I gaze on high a. t- the' trails
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? ADAM MICK1EWICZ 69
of clouds, and hear the wandering birds sailing on
wings scarce seen, I will; and with my eye I
hold them in the snare. Only corrupted man,
weak but immortal, does not serve me, does not
know me--does not know us both, Thee and me.
Here in heaven I seek the means of ruling him.
I would fain wield that power I have on nature
over human souls. Not with weapons, not with
songs, not with learning, not with miracles. I
would fain rule with the feeling that is in me,
rule even as Thou rulest over all. Let men be for
me as thoughts and words from which a house of
song is woven at my will. They say that even thus
Thou rulest. Thou knowest that I have not cor-
rupted thought, that I have not squandered
speech. If Thou wilt give me a like rule over souls,
I will create my nation as a living song, and greater
marvels will I work than Thou; I will entone a
song of joy. Give me the rule of souls ! I would
fain have power like Thou possessest. I would
fain rule souls even as Thou rulest them. "
Here the speaker halts, awaiting God's answer.
Part at least of the extent of Konrad's blas-
phemy will be made clear when we remember
that in Mickiewicz's scheme the brain and under-
standing cannot be the motive power of the
world's salvation. To him the heart, love, feeling,
must be the rulers of the human race. The works
of the intellect without the heart in the eyes of
this man of great mental power stood for brute
force, for militarism with all its consequences.
There is silence. Then Konrad cries:
"Thou art silent! Now I know, I have found
Thee out. He hath lied who called Thee love.
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? 7?
POLAND
Thou art only wisdom. With the mind, not with
the heart, shall Thy ways be found. Thou hast
given the world to thought, and Thou leavest
the heart in eternal penance. "
The situation now develops its peculiar tragedy.
We have seen the poet carried on by lust of power
and intellectual pride to defy his Creator. But now
that poet merges into the Pole; the Pole who
represents the mental anguish of a nation; the
Pole who has lived among the deep and bitter
things of life, who has from his childhood known
misery and injustice. Konrad's temptation, said
in 1890 the son of Adam Mickiewicz, is the temp-
tation of the whole Polish nation. * Konrad
blasphemes, and it is his country's suffering that
drives him to his blasphemy.
He entreats for
power, but for the power that will govern by love
in a world ground down by brute strength, the
power that will at last entone the hymn of joy
for Poland. It is the sorrow of his nation that
maddens him, not his own. Mickiewicz's heart
nearly broke within him as he uttered this cry of
despair. He wrote it in one night. The next
morning, he was found lying like Konrad uncon-
scious on the floor of his room.
"Once more I challenge Thee," goes on Kon-
rad, while around him angels and devils battle
for his soul. " Thou art silent? I challenge Thee.
Despise me not. I am not alone, although I am
raised to these heights alone. On earth my heart
is brothered with a great nation. I will wage with
Thee a bloodier war than Satan. He fought for
the intellect, I challenge for the heart. I have
* L. Mickiewicz, Life of Adam MiekiemicM. Posen, 1890 (Polish).
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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ 71
suffered, I have loved, I have grown in torments
and in love. When Thou didst tear from me my
personal joy, I did not raise my hand against
heaven.
"Now is my soul incarnate in my country.
I and my country are one. My name is Million,
because I love millions and for millions suffer
torment. I look on my unhappy land as a son upon
. his father broken on the wheel. I feel the sufferings
of the whole nation as the mother feels within
I her bosom the sufferings of her child. I suffer, I
madden--and Thou, wise and happy, ever rulest,
ever judgest, and they say Thou dost not err.
"Hearken! If that be true which I heard with
a son's faith when I came into this world, that
Thou lovest; if Thou, creating it, didst love
the world; if Thou hast a father's heart for what
Thou didst create; if beneath Thy rule love is
not a mere anomaly; if on the millions of men
crying ' Help ! ' Thou dost not look solely as on
the solution of a complicated sum; if love is
necessary for aught in Thy world and is not only
Thy mistaken figure--"
The cries of the angels and demons interrupt
him. Then his last entreaty breaks forth:
"Thou art silent! I have opened the depths
of my heart unto Thee. I implore Thee give me
power, one small part of power, a part of that
which on the earth pride has won. With that
small part what joy I would create! Thou art
silent! Thou wilt not give it to the heart, oh,
give it to the brain! Thou seest that I am the
first of men and of the crowd of angels. Worthy
I am that Thou shouldst share half of Thy power
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? 72
POLAND
with me. If I have not divined Thee right, reply.
Thou art silent, and Thou trustest that Thou
hast a mighty hand. Know that feeling will burn
what the mind will not break. Thou seest that
feeling is my burning-glass.
"Answer me, for I will shoot against Thy
nature! If I do not overthrow it into ruins, then
I will shake the whole space of Thy dominions.
For I will shoot forth my voice through all the
boundaries of creation, that voice which shall
descend from generations to generations; I will
cry out that Thou art not the father of the world,
but . "
The voice of the demon puts his thought . into
words as he hesitates:
"The Tsar. "
We realize the point when we remember that
the Tsar of Mickiewicz's day, Nicholas I, was the
man whose vengeance on Poland was sending
thousands of Polish men and women to hopeless
and lifelong misery.
Hearing the culmination of his blasphemy,
Konrad staggers, then falls in a dead faint. With
wild cries, the demons rush upon him, to claim
their prey.
The key is turned. The corporal enters, accom-
panied by a friar whom he has fetched, being
disquieted by the sounds he has heard issuing from
Konrad's cell. There before them lies Konrad,
insensible, moaning out broken words.
"The pit . . . a thousand years . . . empty
. . . still more. I shall last out ten thousands of
thousand years. . . . Pray. . . . Here prayer
availeth nought. . . . And was there such a
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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ
bottomless and boundless pit ? I knew not . . . and
there was. "
"Thou hearest how he sobs," says the corporal.
"Son," says the priest, who has raised Konrad
in his arms, " thou art on a heart that loves thee. "
But there is something unusual here, and the
priest bids the corporal leave him alone with the
prisoner. Then, still unconscious, Konrad, out
of his broken heart, sobs out his fathomless despair.
"I see hence, yea, even hence, though it is
dark . . . deep. I see thee, Rollison ! * Brother!
thou, too, art in the prison, scourged, all stream-
ing with blood. And God has not listened to thee,
and thou art in despair. Thou seekest a knife,
thou tryest to dash thy head against the walls:
'Help! ' God does not give it, I cannot give it
thee. But I will show thee the way to death. Thou
hast a window. Dash it open, leap, leap down,
and break thy neck. f And fly with me to the deep,
to the dark. Let us fly to the pit, the abyss. That
abyss is better than the vale of earth. There,
there are no brothers, mothers, nations, tyrants. "
The priest perceives that Konrad is in the
possession of the demon. He begins the rites of
exorcism. The evil spirit, speaking in Konrad's
tones, answers in a meaningless and foolish poly-
glot, till the friar drives him forth. Konrad wakes.
"Dost thou raise me? Who art thou? Be-
ware lest thou thyself shalt fall into this pit. He
gives me his hand. Let us fly! Like a bird I fly
to the heights. I breathe sweet scents, I shine
? A fellow-prisoner who has been flogged in another cell,
t Here again Mickiewicz draws on a real incident. One of his
brother prisoners flung himself from his window.
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POLAND
with light. Who gave me his hand? Good men
and angels. Whence your pity that for me descen-
ded to this pit? Men? I despised men, the
angels I have not known. "
"Pray," answers the priest, "for the hand of
the Lord hath terribly touched thee. The lips
with which thou hast outraged the Eternal
Majesty, those lips the evil spirit hath polluted
with hideous words. God giant that the words of
folly, heaviest punishment for the learned lips,
be counted as thy penance, God grant thou shalt
forget them. "
Konrad: "They are there--hammered in. "
The Priest: "God grant, oh, sinner, that
thou thyself shalt never more decipher them, that
God shall never ask thee an account of them. "
He kneels, as Konrad falls asleep. " Thy mercy,
Lord, is without bounds," he cries. Prostrating
himself on the ground, he implores the divine
forgiveness, offering himself as a victim in ex-
piation of Konrad's sin. Even as on the Christmas
Eve which Mickiewicz and his companions spent
in Adam's prison cell, they heard the Polish
Christmas carols ringing out from a church near by,
which, says a fellow-prisoner of the poet, "trans-
ported us to our firesides where our mothers
and sisters were weeping for us " ;* so now into
the dungeon where the priest and prisoner are
alone penetrates the music of these hymns.
Above them resound the voices of alternate choirs
of angels, crying the one for mercy, the other for
justice, on the sinner.
* Ignacy Domeyko, The Philarctians and Philomathians, quoted
by L. Mickiewicz, Life of Adam Mickiemic*.
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? ADAM MICKIEWICZ 75
The -first archangel: "Oh, Lord, he hath
sinned, he hath grievously sinned against Thee. "
The second archangel: "But Thy angels are
weeping for him, Thy angels are praying for
him. "*
The first archangel: "Tread down, oh, Lord,
break to fragments, oh, Lord, those who despise
Thy holy decrees. "
The second archangel: "But forgive those who
have not understood Thy holy decrees. "
An angel: "When, flying with the star of
hope, I shone upon Judea, the angels sang the
hymn of birth. The wise men saw us not. Kings
hearkened not to us. But shepherds saw, and ran
to Bethlehem. Poor, simple, lowly men first
welcomed the Eternal wisdom, and owned the
Eternal rule. "
The first archangel: "When the Lord saw
pride and craft in the hearts of His servant arch-
angels, the Lord did not forgive the eternal spirits,
the pure angels. Bands of angels fell like a rain of
stars from the heavens, and the rain of the minds
of learned men fall with them every day. "
The second archangel: "He did not search into
Thy decrees as one curious to know. Nor was it for
human wisdom that he sought, nor yet for fame. "
The first archangel: "He knew Thee not, he
revered Thee not, oh, our great Lord. He did not
love Thee, he did not call upon Thy name, oh,
our Redeemer. "
* This is said to refer to the prayers of two Polish girls with
whom Mickiewicz had formed a close spiritual intimacy when in
Rome. With the one of these who lives in his poetry as Eva, he
fell in love, but the opposition of the father intervened, and they
never married.
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POLAND
The second archangel: "But he honoured the
name of Thy most holy Mother. He loved a
nation, he loved much, he loved many. "
Both choirs of archangels: "Lift Thou his head.
He shall arise from the dust, he shall reach to the
heavens, and of his own will he will fall and
honour the cross. May the whole world with him
prostrate itself at the foot of the cross; and let it
Eraise Thee for Thy justice and Thy mercy, our
. ord and our God.