What am I to say
further?
Poland - 1919 - Krasinski - Anonymous Poet of Poland
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handle.
net/2027/wu.
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? The Sacrifice
41
days are missing. Probably both boys burnt communi-
cations that at this time of Krasinski's life were too
painful and too intimate to risk their being seen by
other eyes. But those that remain show us how Kra-
sinski was able to reveal to Reeve's sympathizing ears
the tortures of his soul which, even if he had not been
entirely cut off from them by the Rising, he could not
for his father's sake have confided to Polish friends.
"I am nailed to Rome until the moment when my
father writes to me to come," he tells Reeve in the
midst of his abandonment of anguish at sitting still
while others were dying for Poland, and at the thought
of how those who loved him, "and Henrietta herself,"
would be upbraiding him.
"The minister has refused me my passports; I have no
money: materially it is impossible for me to move. . . I pray,
for it is my only resource. My father will soon write to me to
join him. He is as good a Pole as any in Poland, and braver
than any of them. Yes," protests the son, refusing to look his
forebodings in the face, "he will send me the order to come,
and then I shall start. "
He breaks out again into English after that single
paragraph in French which, referring directly to his
father, is obviously written in a strain quite foreign to
the rest of the letter in case it should be opened in the
post by some other than Reeve.
"But it is impossible for another to suffer what I
do. I never leave my room except to visit Leach "--
the English friend referred to above:
I read, or rather I endeavour to read, in my lonely room. My
eyes, either filled with tears or dry with rage, cannot follow the
black letters upon the white paper. Oh! my dear Henry,
when rowing with you on blue Leman, when talking of love,
of hope, of future happiness, I never thought there would arrive
an hour in which I would see my fame stained and my honour
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? 42
The Anonymous Poet of Poland
gone, without being able to make the least endeavour to re-
cover them. Never, when I was happy in my love, when I
had many presentiments of future glory, did I think that I
would be obliged to dream while others are awake, to write
while others fight, to drink wine while others drink blood, and
to linger in a dungeon while others arise to freedom and light.
Then, clinging to his forlorn hope, he tells Reeve
that even yet a few weeks may see him riding in the
charge, and he speaks enthusiastically of Zamojski, the
friend by whose side he had longed to fight, and whose
exploits in the war he always followed with generous
admiration1.
Reeve wrote his answer, full of sympathy and of
somewhat tranquil advice ; seeking to reassure Zygmunt
with the fact that, from private letters, "I know that an
European war is inevitable," and "if so, Poland is
saved" : urging Krasinski to control his "unbridled en-
thusiasm "; and hinting broadly that against every
obstacle he had better make for Poland2.
In the early months of 1831, Rome was in a state
of panic, revolution having broken out in Italy. Orders
came from the Russian ambassador, bidding all Poles
who were natives of the Kingdom of Poland to quit
the Eternal City. Krasinski therefore went to Florence.
"I do not know what I shall do," he told Reeve,
writing in bad English, as he sat at his window, looking
down on the Arno. "I have no news neither from my
father nor from my friends in Poland. "
It appears from what follows, and from a passage
in the above letter from Reeve which crossed one of
Krasinski's, and in which Reeve begged him not to
heed what he--Reeve--had written, that in some letter
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Rome, Jan. 22, 1831.
2 Op- cit. Reeve to Krasinski. Geneva, Feb. 5, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
43
which Krasinski must have destroyed Reeve had used
expressions that had deeply wounded Krasinski, while
Krasinski in his turn had offended Reeve. Krasinski
declares passionately that Reeve is mistaken, that when
Zygmunt wrote to him whatever he did write he was
in mental delirium, broken-hearted. The strength of
the friendship that demanded perfect frankness was
proof against such misunderstandings on either side,
for which Krasinski's condition of mental overstrain,
apparent in the whole tenor of his reply to Reeve, was
probably responsible.
"Your last letter," says he," proves to me that I have gone
down in the estimation of my friend. Thank you for your
frankness. But you have never been in the position in which
I am, and you cannot allow for the influence on me of the
events, the cares of every day, of the want of hope and the
violence with which my soul is agitated within me. When a
man feels that he has just begun his career of misfortune, he
must resign himself to everything, arm himself with active
courage to hurl himself against obstacles, and with passive
courage to endure every torment, to expect the jeers of men,
the reproaches of his friends, the insults of mankind which so
much delights in insulting. . .
"I still write sometimes; but when I do I nearly always
play on the theme of some old legend concerning the fight of
man with the old enemy of the human race. I have begun to
read the Bible in English. Sublime! Manfred has also become
my favourite. " To a certain extent it influenced his Undivine
Comedy. "When the world casts us off, we must seek some-
thing above, and I have always loved the world of spirits.
Perhaps one day, when you hear it said: 'He is dead,' you
will no longer think what you thought of me when you wrote
your last letter. That letter pierced my heart. . . You let your-
self go in all the bitterness of mocking at a man who is your
best friend. I do not love you less, my dear Henry; but you
know I never hide what I feel1. "
Shortly after Krasinski wrote thus, he returned to
Geneva. For a little while he and Reeve were once
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Florence, Feb. 20, 1831.
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? 44 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
more together: but Reeve was soon on his way to
England.
Wincenty Krasinski had by now taken the line
which sundered him from his countrymen, and covered
his name with ignominy. He had no sympathy with the
Rising. He had no belief in its efficacy, in which opinion,
it is only fair to add, he was not entirely alone. But his
conduct in 1828 had never been forgiven or forgotten
by his fellow-Poles: and on the night that the Rising
broke out the crowds in the Warsaw streets pursued
him with threats and execrations. His life was only
saved by two of the Polish leaders standing in front of
him to protect him from the populace. He resigned
his command, and informed the national government
that so long as the war lasted he would live in retire-
ment on his country estate. Then Nicholas I summoned
him to Petersburg. Convinced as the General was of the
ultimate failure of the Rising, his wounded vanity and
thirst after success seized the chance of advancement
in the good graces of the Tsar1. He betook himself,
while his country ran red with the blood her sons were
shedding for her, to the capital of Russia, and accepted
favours from the sworn enemy of Poland. Bitter regrets,
fruitless grief for the country that he never ceased to
love, henceforth ravaged his life.
And, while his father was already in Petersburg,
Zygmunt was still waiting in Geneva. The news rang
in his ears of victories on the Polish battle-fields. Tears
of rage filled his eyes when, instead of the Polish trum-
pets, he was reduced to hearing the Swiss soldiers
exercising on the Geneva squares2. At last, on the
1 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, April 4, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
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fourteenth of May, after six months of harrowing sus-
pense, his father's answer came. He was forbidden to
fight for Poland. He was to remain where he was.
Then began the terrible, protracted struggle of the
son with the father whom he passionately loved, and
whose conduct he could only despise and condemn.
"Dearest father," he wrote on the same day that
he received the General's letter and, with it, the death-
blow to his hopes. Through what conflict with himself
he passed as he framed that most difficult of answers
only his own heart knew. We must bear in mind as we
follow him here that he was still only a boy, under age,
entirely dependent on his father, living, moreover, in
days when parental claims were much more insistent
and far more respected than they are in ours.
"On the fourteenth of May I received my dear father's letter,
and I watered it with my tears. Up to now I have been waiting
every day in suspense for news of you and, my hopes dis-
appointed, every day I grew more sad.
"Thank God, I am out of that state of suspense. You ask
me, dearest father, what I have been doing since the sixteenth
of December. I have spent the time in a ceaseless fever, in
ceaseless waiting, in ceaseless sufferings of every kind. . . I was
thinking always," he tells the General, after mentioning the
Italian cities he saw with his heart far away from them, "of
dear Poland and my dear father. "
Then, describing how he waited on and on at
Geneva for the letter that still delayed:
"Nowwhen that letter has come,when I have read there your
explicit will, I beg you for a hearing, for attention, for forbear-
ance with your son, for your mercy, love and blessing.
"You cannot doubt, dearest father, that I love you more
than any other, that I am ready to sacrifice all ties for you. . .
but certainly my father also cannot doubt that I am his son,
the descendant of Bishop Adam"--Adam Krasinski, one of the
leaders of the Confederation of Bar that rose in the defence of
Polish nationality in 1768--"and a Pole. I wrote in my letter
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? 46 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
to you. . . that I hate the people who rose against you in War-
saw, but I wrote at the same time that I love Poland and
that when her national affair came on nothing could keep me
back.
"The same thing I repeat to-day.
"Our age is the age of consecration and penance.
"It is a sacred duty, commanded by God, to make the sacri-
fice of oneself. All the delusions of youth have fallen from my
eyes--the hopes of bright days of earthly happiness. I have
never felt happy from the time I was conscious of life. I was
not happy in love. . . I know equally well that fame, besought
for by men, terminates in a few acclamations, and afterwards
in nothing. I used to dream about it, now I promise it to my-
self no more; but it is borne to the depths of my soul that I
am bound to fulfil a sacred duty from which no one on earth
can free me. There are certain duties in the world, which only
lie between the creature and the Creator, which allow of no
third person between them. The serving of one's country is
one of those duties.
"You write to me, dear father, to travel, to study, to cultivate
my mind, and to go out into society. It would be difficult for
me to do so in the state in which I am. Suffering has eaten
deep into my heart; I am in an unbroken fever; I sometimes
feel as if my brain would turn ; I would wish no one such days
and nights as are mine. I can neither read nor write; I can
hardly finish the conversation that I begin.
"And then to travel, to stroll among foreigners, when at the
other end of Europe my father is overwhelmed with misfor-
tunes, my grandmother dragging out her last years in sadness,
and my countrymen fighting to die or conquer, is a thing not
only impossible for me to do, but which would bring a blush
of shame every moment to my cheek.
"And who would even wish to speak to me? to press my
hand? to know me? when they find out that I am a Pole,
travelling for amusement and education at a time when Poles
are dying every day for Poland? I cannot endure such a state.
I am dying bit by bit. By God! It would be better to die at
once, and not suffer like this.
"But these are more or less egotistic reasons--for it is possi-
ble to make an oblation of oneself and to bear disgrace as a
sacrifice. I am ready to undertake such an oblation, though I
know what would be its result after a few months: death or
madness. But that is not the point. I now go back to what I
said above, to the sacred duty which stands above all others,
and which calls me to Poland, to join the ranks of my brothers.
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47
"I have now reached the solemn moment. I am forced to
tell the father whom I love and have always loved above all
things, that I shall go against his will, that I shall try to re-
turn to Poland, that from to-day this has become the only aim
of my thoughts and actions.
"Dear father! May God judge me, and do not you refuse
me your blessing.
"Mr Jakubowski, to whom I have said this, has told me that
he will try by every means to keep me here. I respect him the
more because he is doing his duty. So I must be at war with
the man who for two years has given me daily proofs of his
affection. My lot is full of bitterness, but I trust in God.
"Within the next days I will try to get to Paris, and from
there as quickly as I can to Warsaw. I will write to you from
every place I can.
"It is done! I still feel on my face your tears when you
said good-bye to me at Bionie. My heart is torn on all sides.
Wherever I look I see the future dark.
"How am I to finish this letter ?
What am I to say further?
"On my knees I beseech you, remembering the picture of
my mother, the anniversary of whose death I kept for the
tenth time a month ago in Geneva, I beseech my father for
his forgiveness and blessing. The sufferings which I shall still
cause you are imaged in my soul--I already bear their load
upon my conscience. . . When I think of you I shudder all over
and recoil before my resolution.
"But when Poland rises to my mind strength returns to me
again, I remind myself again that when a Child I often vowed
before my dear father that I would always, always love her.
"I will keep that vow. I entreat you for your forgiveness
and your blessing. God in His infinite mercy will permit me
some day to receive that blessing at your feet.
"Dear father! Do not turn your face away from your son.
I firmly believe that I am doing what I ought to do. Forgive
me. He Who died on the cross forgave His murderers in the
hour of death. I beg you for your forgiveness and your
blessing1. "
But there was little to hope from the father who
understood his son so imperfectly that he could expect
him to travel and seek amusement while Poland was
battling for her right to exist. Something of the indig-
1 Given by Dr Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 48 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
nation, lurking behind the unhappy boy's enforced out-
ward respect for an unworthy father, flashes out when in
answer to the trite question, "What had he been doing
with himself since December? " he hints at the misery
that had been his history during those long months.
To thisletter Krasinski added a postscript a few days
later to the effect that the tutor, Jakubowski, had closed
all the doors of escape for him1.
Krasinski was now face to face with the dilemma
from which there was no way out, that was the tragedy
of his life--the choice between his love for his father
and his love for his nation, his duty to his father and
his duty to his nation. He had now to make his choice
whether he would be at open war with the father who
had nothing left except his son, or whether he would
turn his back upon the country that was dearer to him
than life, in the hour when she called upon all her
children to save her.
The months that followed this appeal to his father
hurried a boy of nineteen by sheer agony of mind into
a premature, darkened manhood. The tears he shed,
as he wept in despair and grief, injured his eyes for life
and brought him again and again as the years went on
to the verge of blindness. Dr Kallenbach does not
hesitate to declare that it was Krasinski's mental suffer-
ing during that spring and summer that sent him, worn
out in body and soul, to his grave before his time2.
Devotion to his country had been instilled into
Zygmunt Krasinski's soul from his earliest childhood.
It was the tradition of his h&use, his strong inheritance
through generations of ancestors. With the Pole, pa-
1 Given by Dr Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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triotism is no vague abstraction that, till some great call
stirs it to active being, scarcely enters under normal cir-
cumstances into the working day of a man or woman.
In Krasinski's time, as in our own, the Pole's exis-
tence was a hand to hand and unceasing conflict to pre-
serve faith, language, nationality against an oppression
endeavouring to crush out every vestige of Polish race
possession. The ideals of nationalism are those that most
deeply affect the Pole's life: the love of Poland was
Krasinski's master-passion. With the exception of his
love poems, and even these are constantly interwoven
with the thought of Poland, Krasinski has written
scarcely one line that does not palpitate with his
passion for his country, that is not given to her sorrows,
that is not sung for her sake. In those heart to heart
outpourings, which make up his letters to his friends, it
is the sufferings of Poland, it is his hopes for Poland,
that tear words of fire from his lips. And that this de-
votion was not merely the ripe growth of his manhood,
although naturally it deepened and mellowed with the
course of events, but was the inmost fibre of his soul
when yet a boy, we see clearly enough from his youthful
letters to Reeve, even before that desolation had over-
taken Poland which caused her sons to mourn for her
as for a bereaved mother.
And on the other side, Krasinski's father stood for
all that was home. His mother was dead. He had
neither brother nor sister. His father was mother,
brother, sister to him: and the waters of many afflic-
tions could never drown that son's affection. He could
not prove his fidelity to his country without sinning
against his father. If he remained faithful to his father,
he was faithless, so it would seem, to his nation.
g. 4
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? 50 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
Then, too, that pride of race, that profound sense of
noble obligation, which was rooted in Krasinski's char-
acter, and of which we see proof after proof in his
letters, asserted itself in the support of patriotism, and
called him to the battle-field at any cost. A youth's
generous instincts, the inherited impulse of a soldier's
son that beat strongly in Krasinski's small and weakly
frame, his passionate recoil before disgrace and dis-
honour---all were there, spurring him to act in direct
defiance to his father.
Krasinski, as we have seen, wrote his intentions to
the General. Then a wall of obstacles rose around him.
Jakubowski watched over him like a jailor ; cut short
the money supplies without which he could not move;
and warned the Geneva authorities to be on the look out
if he attempted to leave the city1. Unable to endure
the prospect of resorting to a step that would not only
break his father's heart, but dishonour him yet further
in the eyes of his nation by the public spectacle of his
only son openly taking sides against him, Zygmunt ad-
dressed passionate appeals to the General, imploring for
his consent. While, as the weeks went by, he waited
for the answers in an agony of uncertainty how to act,
Reeve kept writing from Paris, proposing plans, each
wilder than the last. He begged Krasinski to escape
from Geneva, no matter how ; regretted that he had not
carried him off somehow with himself and his mother;
suggested that Zygmunt should start without a pass-
port on purpose to get himself arrested, and then slip
off on foot over the frontier for Paris, which was
crowded with Poles on their way to the front. Con-
vinced that for everybody's sake Krasinski must join
1 J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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? The Sacrifice
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the Rising, full of sympathy both for his friend and for
the Polish cause, Reeve carefully passes on to Zygmunt
all the opinions on the latter's duty that he could
gather from the lips of Poles.
"One of them," says he, "told me that he doesn't
know you, but that he believes you to be a good sort
of boy and a good Pole1. "
I ought to have brought you with me at any price. How-
ever, in spite of the fact that, to use Morawski's expression,
each day that goes by is an eternity of loss for you, all is not
lost. It is not too late yet. They have known here for a long
time that your father is at Saint-Petersburg; but the colonel
told me yesterday that he is utterly broken-hearted, that he
will not see anyone, but weeps all day.
Reeve assures Krasinski that the best he can do
for his father is to take his share in the Rising. "I love
you as I have never loved a man before, and as I never
shall love one. That is why I am urging you on. " And
with greater zeal than tact he adds: " I told Morawski
you are ill. 'If he is not dying,' he said to me, 'he can
still go, and if he is dying let him have himself carried
to die on the free soil of Poland2. '"
All this Zygmunt knew only too well.
"Ah! my friend," he answers, "you have plunged the dagger
straight, straight to my heart. . . Yes, I know it, my salvation is
in Paris. If I don't go there I am lost. . . But listen to my
voice yet once more, that voice that you sometimes loved to
hear. I am alone, and everything is an obstacle to me, nothing
is a help. My father is dying, as you say, weeping; the son can
well die, gnashing his teeth. Have you considered what you
write to me, advising me to get myself arrested? Do you be-
lieve me capable of adding one stone to the heap that has
stoned my father? Do you want me to go promenading
through France the disgrace of the man who won such glory
there? Do you want me, a hero with the gendarmes, to read
1 Correspondance. Reeve to Krasinski. Paris, May 24, 1831.
2 Ibid. May 25, 1831.
4--2
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? 52
The Anonymous Poet of Poland
in a newspaper two days later epithets of infamy lavished on
the name of my father, sprinkled with a few praises for my-
self? Yes, I say openly, but only to Henry Reeve, and to
none other in the world, my father has committed a grave,
a terrible fault; it is not my place to call him to account for it.
"I shall wait at Geneva for my father's answer. If it is
satisfactory, I go; if not, I go all the same; because then my
duties, though not cancelled, will be lightened. After all,
think what you will; say that there is a want of energy in my
soul, that I speak, and do not know how to act, that I am weak,
irresolute. Good! Be as unhappy as I am, and then judge me. "
His brain obviously unhinged for the moment under
his mental tortures, among which not the least was the
conviction of his everlasting disgrace, he continued:
Do not attempt to defend me any more, to uphold my
reputation. I do not ask you to answer: "No," when they tell
you I am "a wretched creature"; but think it only, that will be
enough for me. Shut deep in your heart the friendship you
have for me. If your face lets it out it will compromise you.
Carry to the post on the sly the letters you write to me;
disguise your handwriting. Let nobody suspect that Henry
Reeve has any relations with Sigismond Krasinski.
But he has still a flicker of hope that "one hour
can change all, and then they will know who I am ":
and if that hour never comes, then at all events his
best loved friend, Reeve, will know it.
"At least, during the days of uncertainty that are floating be-
tween my past and my agony, do not forget me, write to me
every day. . . Remember that if fate and men are against me, you
at least ought to remain neutral. . . that if, at the end, all is for
ever lost to me, name, glory, father, country, there must still
remain between us something in common--if only the thought
of Chamonix"--where they had been together--"and the
memory of the tears of Saint-Cergues "--where shortly before
they had said good-bye to each other1.
A mutual friend chanced to be in the room as
Zygmunt closed this packet. He added a few words
below Krasinski's signature, describing the violent agi-
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, May 28, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
53
tation into which Reeve's last letters had thrown
Krasinski, and how the latter, at the moment that the
friend sat and wrote, was hurrying with wild steps up
and down the room.
Reeve, now in England, scorned the idea of con-
cealing his friendship; tried at Krasinski's request to
find Henrietta Willan, whose silence her lover ascribed
to contempt for him; and told how his heart failed him at
the thought of going to a dance the evening that his
friend's outburst of misery lay in his pocket.
"Your part is taken," said Reeve. "The choice is terrible,
because that choice had to be made. Now that you have de-
cided to remain a son, pray, suffer, and love what is left to
you1. "
But Krasinski, who bore his burden unflinchingly
all his life long, in these early days doubted his strength
to carry through his sacrifice.
"You know me," he answered Reeve. "I am by no means
a being made for resignation. Fiery impulses, even if they
were to fling me into an abyss, cost me nothing; but per-
severance in good, as in evil, is supremely difficult to me.
"Skrzynecki [the Polish commander-in-chief] has had a
defeat. . . Nothing is lost. " It was the beginning of the end.
"She will be born again, that beautiful Poland2. "
At the same time he wrote the following letter to a
favourite cousin, Stanistaw Krasinski, who had been
wounded in the war.
This letter will find you on the bed where you are
suffering for Poland. With pride that I am related to you I
read in the papers that in an attack on a Russian battalion
you were seriously wounded. If my voice still counts for any-
thing with you, if you have not by now forgotten him who
promised to love you and always to wear your ring, accept
my good wishes. . . You alone are now a Krasinski. The rest
1 Correspondance. Reeve to Krasinski. London, June 6, 1831.
2 Ibid. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, June 12, 1831.
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? 54 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
of our glory has departed--but let our name disappear if only
Poland stays. Although appearances may be strong against
me, although I am now rotting far away from Poland, although
perhaps before long disgrace will fall and hang over my head,
believe that Zygmunt's heart is Polish, and will not cease to be
so till its last moment. Love me if you can still love one who
is remaining in Geneva while his brothers die. Believe, if you
still care to believe me, that the obstacle on my way must be
a weighty one when so far I have not been able either to re-
move it or pass over it. Good-bye, Stas'.
? The Sacrifice
41
days are missing. Probably both boys burnt communi-
cations that at this time of Krasinski's life were too
painful and too intimate to risk their being seen by
other eyes. But those that remain show us how Kra-
sinski was able to reveal to Reeve's sympathizing ears
the tortures of his soul which, even if he had not been
entirely cut off from them by the Rising, he could not
for his father's sake have confided to Polish friends.
"I am nailed to Rome until the moment when my
father writes to me to come," he tells Reeve in the
midst of his abandonment of anguish at sitting still
while others were dying for Poland, and at the thought
of how those who loved him, "and Henrietta herself,"
would be upbraiding him.
"The minister has refused me my passports; I have no
money: materially it is impossible for me to move. . . I pray,
for it is my only resource. My father will soon write to me to
join him. He is as good a Pole as any in Poland, and braver
than any of them. Yes," protests the son, refusing to look his
forebodings in the face, "he will send me the order to come,
and then I shall start. "
He breaks out again into English after that single
paragraph in French which, referring directly to his
father, is obviously written in a strain quite foreign to
the rest of the letter in case it should be opened in the
post by some other than Reeve.
"But it is impossible for another to suffer what I
do. I never leave my room except to visit Leach "--
the English friend referred to above:
I read, or rather I endeavour to read, in my lonely room. My
eyes, either filled with tears or dry with rage, cannot follow the
black letters upon the white paper. Oh! my dear Henry,
when rowing with you on blue Leman, when talking of love,
of hope, of future happiness, I never thought there would arrive
an hour in which I would see my fame stained and my honour
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? 42
The Anonymous Poet of Poland
gone, without being able to make the least endeavour to re-
cover them. Never, when I was happy in my love, when I
had many presentiments of future glory, did I think that I
would be obliged to dream while others are awake, to write
while others fight, to drink wine while others drink blood, and
to linger in a dungeon while others arise to freedom and light.
Then, clinging to his forlorn hope, he tells Reeve
that even yet a few weeks may see him riding in the
charge, and he speaks enthusiastically of Zamojski, the
friend by whose side he had longed to fight, and whose
exploits in the war he always followed with generous
admiration1.
Reeve wrote his answer, full of sympathy and of
somewhat tranquil advice ; seeking to reassure Zygmunt
with the fact that, from private letters, "I know that an
European war is inevitable," and "if so, Poland is
saved" : urging Krasinski to control his "unbridled en-
thusiasm "; and hinting broadly that against every
obstacle he had better make for Poland2.
In the early months of 1831, Rome was in a state
of panic, revolution having broken out in Italy. Orders
came from the Russian ambassador, bidding all Poles
who were natives of the Kingdom of Poland to quit
the Eternal City. Krasinski therefore went to Florence.
"I do not know what I shall do," he told Reeve,
writing in bad English, as he sat at his window, looking
down on the Arno. "I have no news neither from my
father nor from my friends in Poland. "
It appears from what follows, and from a passage
in the above letter from Reeve which crossed one of
Krasinski's, and in which Reeve begged him not to
heed what he--Reeve--had written, that in some letter
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Rome, Jan. 22, 1831.
2 Op- cit. Reeve to Krasinski. Geneva, Feb. 5, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
43
which Krasinski must have destroyed Reeve had used
expressions that had deeply wounded Krasinski, while
Krasinski in his turn had offended Reeve. Krasinski
declares passionately that Reeve is mistaken, that when
Zygmunt wrote to him whatever he did write he was
in mental delirium, broken-hearted. The strength of
the friendship that demanded perfect frankness was
proof against such misunderstandings on either side,
for which Krasinski's condition of mental overstrain,
apparent in the whole tenor of his reply to Reeve, was
probably responsible.
"Your last letter," says he," proves to me that I have gone
down in the estimation of my friend. Thank you for your
frankness. But you have never been in the position in which
I am, and you cannot allow for the influence on me of the
events, the cares of every day, of the want of hope and the
violence with which my soul is agitated within me. When a
man feels that he has just begun his career of misfortune, he
must resign himself to everything, arm himself with active
courage to hurl himself against obstacles, and with passive
courage to endure every torment, to expect the jeers of men,
the reproaches of his friends, the insults of mankind which so
much delights in insulting. . .
"I still write sometimes; but when I do I nearly always
play on the theme of some old legend concerning the fight of
man with the old enemy of the human race. I have begun to
read the Bible in English. Sublime! Manfred has also become
my favourite. " To a certain extent it influenced his Undivine
Comedy. "When the world casts us off, we must seek some-
thing above, and I have always loved the world of spirits.
Perhaps one day, when you hear it said: 'He is dead,' you
will no longer think what you thought of me when you wrote
your last letter. That letter pierced my heart. . . You let your-
self go in all the bitterness of mocking at a man who is your
best friend. I do not love you less, my dear Henry; but you
know I never hide what I feel1. "
Shortly after Krasinski wrote thus, he returned to
Geneva. For a little while he and Reeve were once
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Florence, Feb. 20, 1831.
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? 44 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
more together: but Reeve was soon on his way to
England.
Wincenty Krasinski had by now taken the line
which sundered him from his countrymen, and covered
his name with ignominy. He had no sympathy with the
Rising. He had no belief in its efficacy, in which opinion,
it is only fair to add, he was not entirely alone. But his
conduct in 1828 had never been forgiven or forgotten
by his fellow-Poles: and on the night that the Rising
broke out the crowds in the Warsaw streets pursued
him with threats and execrations. His life was only
saved by two of the Polish leaders standing in front of
him to protect him from the populace. He resigned
his command, and informed the national government
that so long as the war lasted he would live in retire-
ment on his country estate. Then Nicholas I summoned
him to Petersburg. Convinced as the General was of the
ultimate failure of the Rising, his wounded vanity and
thirst after success seized the chance of advancement
in the good graces of the Tsar1. He betook himself,
while his country ran red with the blood her sons were
shedding for her, to the capital of Russia, and accepted
favours from the sworn enemy of Poland. Bitter regrets,
fruitless grief for the country that he never ceased to
love, henceforth ravaged his life.
And, while his father was already in Petersburg,
Zygmunt was still waiting in Geneva. The news rang
in his ears of victories on the Polish battle-fields. Tears
of rage filled his eyes when, instead of the Polish trum-
pets, he was reduced to hearing the Swiss soldiers
exercising on the Geneva squares2. At last, on the
1 J. Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, April 4, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
45
fourteenth of May, after six months of harrowing sus-
pense, his father's answer came. He was forbidden to
fight for Poland. He was to remain where he was.
Then began the terrible, protracted struggle of the
son with the father whom he passionately loved, and
whose conduct he could only despise and condemn.
"Dearest father," he wrote on the same day that
he received the General's letter and, with it, the death-
blow to his hopes. Through what conflict with himself
he passed as he framed that most difficult of answers
only his own heart knew. We must bear in mind as we
follow him here that he was still only a boy, under age,
entirely dependent on his father, living, moreover, in
days when parental claims were much more insistent
and far more respected than they are in ours.
"On the fourteenth of May I received my dear father's letter,
and I watered it with my tears. Up to now I have been waiting
every day in suspense for news of you and, my hopes dis-
appointed, every day I grew more sad.
"Thank God, I am out of that state of suspense. You ask
me, dearest father, what I have been doing since the sixteenth
of December. I have spent the time in a ceaseless fever, in
ceaseless waiting, in ceaseless sufferings of every kind. . . I was
thinking always," he tells the General, after mentioning the
Italian cities he saw with his heart far away from them, "of
dear Poland and my dear father. "
Then, describing how he waited on and on at
Geneva for the letter that still delayed:
"Nowwhen that letter has come,when I have read there your
explicit will, I beg you for a hearing, for attention, for forbear-
ance with your son, for your mercy, love and blessing.
"You cannot doubt, dearest father, that I love you more
than any other, that I am ready to sacrifice all ties for you. . .
but certainly my father also cannot doubt that I am his son,
the descendant of Bishop Adam"--Adam Krasinski, one of the
leaders of the Confederation of Bar that rose in the defence of
Polish nationality in 1768--"and a Pole. I wrote in my letter
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? 46 The A nonymous Poet of Poland
to you. . . that I hate the people who rose against you in War-
saw, but I wrote at the same time that I love Poland and
that when her national affair came on nothing could keep me
back.
"The same thing I repeat to-day.
"Our age is the age of consecration and penance.
"It is a sacred duty, commanded by God, to make the sacri-
fice of oneself. All the delusions of youth have fallen from my
eyes--the hopes of bright days of earthly happiness. I have
never felt happy from the time I was conscious of life. I was
not happy in love. . . I know equally well that fame, besought
for by men, terminates in a few acclamations, and afterwards
in nothing. I used to dream about it, now I promise it to my-
self no more; but it is borne to the depths of my soul that I
am bound to fulfil a sacred duty from which no one on earth
can free me. There are certain duties in the world, which only
lie between the creature and the Creator, which allow of no
third person between them. The serving of one's country is
one of those duties.
"You write to me, dear father, to travel, to study, to cultivate
my mind, and to go out into society. It would be difficult for
me to do so in the state in which I am. Suffering has eaten
deep into my heart; I am in an unbroken fever; I sometimes
feel as if my brain would turn ; I would wish no one such days
and nights as are mine. I can neither read nor write; I can
hardly finish the conversation that I begin.
"And then to travel, to stroll among foreigners, when at the
other end of Europe my father is overwhelmed with misfor-
tunes, my grandmother dragging out her last years in sadness,
and my countrymen fighting to die or conquer, is a thing not
only impossible for me to do, but which would bring a blush
of shame every moment to my cheek.
"And who would even wish to speak to me? to press my
hand? to know me? when they find out that I am a Pole,
travelling for amusement and education at a time when Poles
are dying every day for Poland? I cannot endure such a state.
I am dying bit by bit. By God! It would be better to die at
once, and not suffer like this.
"But these are more or less egotistic reasons--for it is possi-
ble to make an oblation of oneself and to bear disgrace as a
sacrifice. I am ready to undertake such an oblation, though I
know what would be its result after a few months: death or
madness. But that is not the point. I now go back to what I
said above, to the sacred duty which stands above all others,
and which calls me to Poland, to join the ranks of my brothers.
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? The Sacrifice
47
"I have now reached the solemn moment. I am forced to
tell the father whom I love and have always loved above all
things, that I shall go against his will, that I shall try to re-
turn to Poland, that from to-day this has become the only aim
of my thoughts and actions.
"Dear father! May God judge me, and do not you refuse
me your blessing.
"Mr Jakubowski, to whom I have said this, has told me that
he will try by every means to keep me here. I respect him the
more because he is doing his duty. So I must be at war with
the man who for two years has given me daily proofs of his
affection. My lot is full of bitterness, but I trust in God.
"Within the next days I will try to get to Paris, and from
there as quickly as I can to Warsaw. I will write to you from
every place I can.
"It is done! I still feel on my face your tears when you
said good-bye to me at Bionie. My heart is torn on all sides.
Wherever I look I see the future dark.
"How am I to finish this letter ?
What am I to say further?
"On my knees I beseech you, remembering the picture of
my mother, the anniversary of whose death I kept for the
tenth time a month ago in Geneva, I beseech my father for
his forgiveness and blessing. The sufferings which I shall still
cause you are imaged in my soul--I already bear their load
upon my conscience. . . When I think of you I shudder all over
and recoil before my resolution.
"But when Poland rises to my mind strength returns to me
again, I remind myself again that when a Child I often vowed
before my dear father that I would always, always love her.
"I will keep that vow. I entreat you for your forgiveness
and your blessing. God in His infinite mercy will permit me
some day to receive that blessing at your feet.
"Dear father! Do not turn your face away from your son.
I firmly believe that I am doing what I ought to do. Forgive
me. He Who died on the cross forgave His murderers in the
hour of death. I beg you for your forgiveness and your
blessing1. "
But there was little to hope from the father who
understood his son so imperfectly that he could expect
him to travel and seek amusement while Poland was
battling for her right to exist. Something of the indig-
1 Given by Dr Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? 48 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
nation, lurking behind the unhappy boy's enforced out-
ward respect for an unworthy father, flashes out when in
answer to the trite question, "What had he been doing
with himself since December? " he hints at the misery
that had been his history during those long months.
To thisletter Krasinski added a postscript a few days
later to the effect that the tutor, Jakubowski, had closed
all the doors of escape for him1.
Krasinski was now face to face with the dilemma
from which there was no way out, that was the tragedy
of his life--the choice between his love for his father
and his love for his nation, his duty to his father and
his duty to his nation. He had now to make his choice
whether he would be at open war with the father who
had nothing left except his son, or whether he would
turn his back upon the country that was dearer to him
than life, in the hour when she called upon all her
children to save her.
The months that followed this appeal to his father
hurried a boy of nineteen by sheer agony of mind into
a premature, darkened manhood. The tears he shed,
as he wept in despair and grief, injured his eyes for life
and brought him again and again as the years went on
to the verge of blindness. Dr Kallenbach does not
hesitate to declare that it was Krasinski's mental suffer-
ing during that spring and summer that sent him, worn
out in body and soul, to his grave before his time2.
Devotion to his country had been instilled into
Zygmunt Krasinski's soul from his earliest childhood.
It was the tradition of his h&use, his strong inheritance
through generations of ancestors. With the Pole, pa-
1 Given by Dr Kallenbach, Zygmunt Krasinski.
2 J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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? The Sacrifice
49
triotism is no vague abstraction that, till some great call
stirs it to active being, scarcely enters under normal cir-
cumstances into the working day of a man or woman.
In Krasinski's time, as in our own, the Pole's exis-
tence was a hand to hand and unceasing conflict to pre-
serve faith, language, nationality against an oppression
endeavouring to crush out every vestige of Polish race
possession. The ideals of nationalism are those that most
deeply affect the Pole's life: the love of Poland was
Krasinski's master-passion. With the exception of his
love poems, and even these are constantly interwoven
with the thought of Poland, Krasinski has written
scarcely one line that does not palpitate with his
passion for his country, that is not given to her sorrows,
that is not sung for her sake. In those heart to heart
outpourings, which make up his letters to his friends, it
is the sufferings of Poland, it is his hopes for Poland,
that tear words of fire from his lips. And that this de-
votion was not merely the ripe growth of his manhood,
although naturally it deepened and mellowed with the
course of events, but was the inmost fibre of his soul
when yet a boy, we see clearly enough from his youthful
letters to Reeve, even before that desolation had over-
taken Poland which caused her sons to mourn for her
as for a bereaved mother.
And on the other side, Krasinski's father stood for
all that was home. His mother was dead. He had
neither brother nor sister. His father was mother,
brother, sister to him: and the waters of many afflic-
tions could never drown that son's affection. He could
not prove his fidelity to his country without sinning
against his father. If he remained faithful to his father,
he was faithless, so it would seem, to his nation.
g. 4
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? 50 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
Then, too, that pride of race, that profound sense of
noble obligation, which was rooted in Krasinski's char-
acter, and of which we see proof after proof in his
letters, asserted itself in the support of patriotism, and
called him to the battle-field at any cost. A youth's
generous instincts, the inherited impulse of a soldier's
son that beat strongly in Krasinski's small and weakly
frame, his passionate recoil before disgrace and dis-
honour---all were there, spurring him to act in direct
defiance to his father.
Krasinski, as we have seen, wrote his intentions to
the General. Then a wall of obstacles rose around him.
Jakubowski watched over him like a jailor ; cut short
the money supplies without which he could not move;
and warned the Geneva authorities to be on the look out
if he attempted to leave the city1. Unable to endure
the prospect of resorting to a step that would not only
break his father's heart, but dishonour him yet further
in the eyes of his nation by the public spectacle of his
only son openly taking sides against him, Zygmunt ad-
dressed passionate appeals to the General, imploring for
his consent. While, as the weeks went by, he waited
for the answers in an agony of uncertainty how to act,
Reeve kept writing from Paris, proposing plans, each
wilder than the last. He begged Krasinski to escape
from Geneva, no matter how ; regretted that he had not
carried him off somehow with himself and his mother;
suggested that Zygmunt should start without a pass-
port on purpose to get himself arrested, and then slip
off on foot over the frontier for Paris, which was
crowded with Poles on their way to the front. Con-
vinced that for everybody's sake Krasinski must join
1 J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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? The Sacrifice
5i
the Rising, full of sympathy both for his friend and for
the Polish cause, Reeve carefully passes on to Zygmunt
all the opinions on the latter's duty that he could
gather from the lips of Poles.
"One of them," says he, "told me that he doesn't
know you, but that he believes you to be a good sort
of boy and a good Pole1. "
I ought to have brought you with me at any price. How-
ever, in spite of the fact that, to use Morawski's expression,
each day that goes by is an eternity of loss for you, all is not
lost. It is not too late yet. They have known here for a long
time that your father is at Saint-Petersburg; but the colonel
told me yesterday that he is utterly broken-hearted, that he
will not see anyone, but weeps all day.
Reeve assures Krasinski that the best he can do
for his father is to take his share in the Rising. "I love
you as I have never loved a man before, and as I never
shall love one. That is why I am urging you on. " And
with greater zeal than tact he adds: " I told Morawski
you are ill. 'If he is not dying,' he said to me, 'he can
still go, and if he is dying let him have himself carried
to die on the free soil of Poland2. '"
All this Zygmunt knew only too well.
"Ah! my friend," he answers, "you have plunged the dagger
straight, straight to my heart. . . Yes, I know it, my salvation is
in Paris. If I don't go there I am lost. . . But listen to my
voice yet once more, that voice that you sometimes loved to
hear. I am alone, and everything is an obstacle to me, nothing
is a help. My father is dying, as you say, weeping; the son can
well die, gnashing his teeth. Have you considered what you
write to me, advising me to get myself arrested? Do you be-
lieve me capable of adding one stone to the heap that has
stoned my father? Do you want me to go promenading
through France the disgrace of the man who won such glory
there? Do you want me, a hero with the gendarmes, to read
1 Correspondance. Reeve to Krasinski. Paris, May 24, 1831.
2 Ibid. May 25, 1831.
4--2
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? 52
The Anonymous Poet of Poland
in a newspaper two days later epithets of infamy lavished on
the name of my father, sprinkled with a few praises for my-
self? Yes, I say openly, but only to Henry Reeve, and to
none other in the world, my father has committed a grave,
a terrible fault; it is not my place to call him to account for it.
"I shall wait at Geneva for my father's answer. If it is
satisfactory, I go; if not, I go all the same; because then my
duties, though not cancelled, will be lightened. After all,
think what you will; say that there is a want of energy in my
soul, that I speak, and do not know how to act, that I am weak,
irresolute. Good! Be as unhappy as I am, and then judge me. "
His brain obviously unhinged for the moment under
his mental tortures, among which not the least was the
conviction of his everlasting disgrace, he continued:
Do not attempt to defend me any more, to uphold my
reputation. I do not ask you to answer: "No," when they tell
you I am "a wretched creature"; but think it only, that will be
enough for me. Shut deep in your heart the friendship you
have for me. If your face lets it out it will compromise you.
Carry to the post on the sly the letters you write to me;
disguise your handwriting. Let nobody suspect that Henry
Reeve has any relations with Sigismond Krasinski.
But he has still a flicker of hope that "one hour
can change all, and then they will know who I am ":
and if that hour never comes, then at all events his
best loved friend, Reeve, will know it.
"At least, during the days of uncertainty that are floating be-
tween my past and my agony, do not forget me, write to me
every day. . . Remember that if fate and men are against me, you
at least ought to remain neutral. . . that if, at the end, all is for
ever lost to me, name, glory, father, country, there must still
remain between us something in common--if only the thought
of Chamonix"--where they had been together--"and the
memory of the tears of Saint-Cergues "--where shortly before
they had said good-bye to each other1.
A mutual friend chanced to be in the room as
Zygmunt closed this packet. He added a few words
below Krasinski's signature, describing the violent agi-
1 Correspondance. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, May 28, 1831.
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? The Sacrifice
53
tation into which Reeve's last letters had thrown
Krasinski, and how the latter, at the moment that the
friend sat and wrote, was hurrying with wild steps up
and down the room.
Reeve, now in England, scorned the idea of con-
cealing his friendship; tried at Krasinski's request to
find Henrietta Willan, whose silence her lover ascribed
to contempt for him; and told how his heart failed him at
the thought of going to a dance the evening that his
friend's outburst of misery lay in his pocket.
"Your part is taken," said Reeve. "The choice is terrible,
because that choice had to be made. Now that you have de-
cided to remain a son, pray, suffer, and love what is left to
you1. "
But Krasinski, who bore his burden unflinchingly
all his life long, in these early days doubted his strength
to carry through his sacrifice.
"You know me," he answered Reeve. "I am by no means
a being made for resignation. Fiery impulses, even if they
were to fling me into an abyss, cost me nothing; but per-
severance in good, as in evil, is supremely difficult to me.
"Skrzynecki [the Polish commander-in-chief] has had a
defeat. . . Nothing is lost. " It was the beginning of the end.
"She will be born again, that beautiful Poland2. "
At the same time he wrote the following letter to a
favourite cousin, Stanistaw Krasinski, who had been
wounded in the war.
This letter will find you on the bed where you are
suffering for Poland. With pride that I am related to you I
read in the papers that in an attack on a Russian battalion
you were seriously wounded. If my voice still counts for any-
thing with you, if you have not by now forgotten him who
promised to love you and always to wear your ring, accept
my good wishes. . . You alone are now a Krasinski. The rest
1 Correspondance. Reeve to Krasinski. London, June 6, 1831.
2 Ibid. Krasinski to Reeve. Geneva, June 12, 1831.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-06-10 17:08 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/wu. 89102083045 Public Domain in the United States, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-us-google
? 54 The Anonymous Poet of Poland
of our glory has departed--but let our name disappear if only
Poland stays. Although appearances may be strong against
me, although I am now rotting far away from Poland, although
perhaps before long disgrace will fall and hang over my head,
believe that Zygmunt's heart is Polish, and will not cease to be
so till its last moment. Love me if you can still love one who
is remaining in Geneva while his brothers die. Believe, if you
still care to believe me, that the obstacle on my way must be
a weighty one when so far I have not been able either to re-
move it or pass over it. Good-bye, Stas'.
