will be his till he
abandons
the city and retires to
^uild up another in the east.
^uild up another in the east.
Poland - 1915 - Poland, a Study in National Idealism - Monica Gardner
The fortress is captured.
Henryk stands
poised for a moment in the sight of his foes on
the ramparts above the precipice. "Poetry, be
. thou cursed by me, as I shall be cursed for all
eternity," is his last cry; and, with hands out-
stretched as a swimmer about to plunge, he leaps
down into the darkness. .
The victory, then, is with Pancracy. One by
one, he sweeps off the miserable survivors of the-
t>ld order to the death, which they face with the
same want of fortitude that characterized their
lives. He stands, as Henryk stood, on the ramparts.
Wherever his gaze rests he beholds the new world
he has created. Then, on a sudden, he cries aloud
* St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI
to his companion. For, above the cloud on fire
with the light of the setting sun, appears to him,
and him alone, a sign of terror. He sees One Who
rises:
"As a pillar of snow-white brilliance above
the precipices. Both hands lean on the cross as the
avenger's on his sword. Of wreathed thunderbolts
is the crown of thorns. From the lightning of
that glance he must die who lives. Put thy hands
on my eyes. Smother my eyeballs with your fists'
Part me from that look that shatters me to dust.
Thy hands are transparent as water, transparent
as glass, transparent as air. I see still! Give me if
only a crumb of darkness! Darkness--darkness!
Galihee, vicisti! "
He falls dead, and the Undivine Comedy ends.
? What remains? Nothing except a ruined world,
where every living thing has gone down in^lhe
pwaters of destruction and desolation. Klaczko has
said that the Undivine Comedy is "a^fareweH'
|rather than a greeting addressed by the poetTto
I humanitarian inspirations, a strong protest against
the ^ataT Illusion of the age which believes it can
regenerate humanity without having first regen-
erated the man, and establish universal right
without having first strengthened the individual
Tin his duties. "* It is this moral, deep down, be-
'neath the surface, and the dramatic conclusion,
told in a few scathing sentences, that redeem the
Undivine Comedy from being an expression' of
unrelieved pessimism, and that give the link without
~ which Krasinski's subsequent work might seem
a far cry from the play of his ,yduth. He saw
* J. Klaczko, op. cit. s'
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? 126
POLAND
a world where two opposing forces disputed for
its mastery. He saw, albeit he does not speak in
the Undivine Comedy with that certainty of his
maturer years which suffering taught him, still
he saw that final triumph lay with neither, but
beyond. *
The Undivine Comedy resembles nothing that
Krasinski ever wrote again. Not only does its
curious terseness give it a place apart in the pro-
duction of a poet, whose literary sin is a tendency
to over ornamentation and elaboration; but its''
unbroken dreariness, its pessimism, are not charac-
teristic of Krasinski as a writer. Devoured by
sadness all his life, never expecting and never
finding personal happiness, he yet looked with
confidence to the resurrection of his nation; and,
deep as are the accents of sorrow that breathe
through his poetry, the keynote of that poetry is
hope. f
II
The idea of Irydion came to Krasinski before
that of the Undivine Comedy; but the latter was
finished first. During the years that the poet was
writing Irydion his life was racked with passion,
and he could not complete it till 1836.
In 1830, in the days preceding the Rising, he
wandered about the Coliseum, then the most
* Adam Mickiewicz, Les Slaves.
t Lord Lytton's Orval is a sort of paraphrase of Krasinski's
Undivine Comedy. Taken from a French rendering1, it is in no
sense a translation, but rather a version of Krasinski's story with
scarcely any resemblance to the. Polish original.
I may add that I am preparing a translation of the Undivint
Comedy direct from the Polish.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 127
poetical of ruins, dreaming by moonlight. His
dreams slowly took shape in the form of the Greek
who plotted in Rome for the overthrow of the
empire that had enslaved his country, and who
was given his sentence at the foot of the cross in
the Flavian amphitheatre. The first time that
Krasinski returned to Poland, after he had left it
as a boy, was in 1832. He stayed a few weeks in
his home; and was then obliged by his father to
spend the winter with him in Petersburg. That
winter was one of Krasinski's dreariest remem-
brances. He was overcome with grief at the fate
of Poland, lonely and desolate of soul in the
capital of Russia, parted from all his friends with
whom--Polish exiles as they were--he might not
correspond. To Reeve alone could he write, albeit
with strict reserve, because the letters were read
by the censor, and also because the condition of
his eyes frequently compelled him to dictate his
correspondence. More or less blind, he could do
nothing but remain all the winter shut up in one
room, with no occupation or distraction except
his father's visits and his own meditations, and
that one painful and perilous audience with
Nicholas I. , which he has told under an allegorical
form in his Temptation. Under these circumstances,
he evolved the conception of Irydion, his Thought,
as he always called it. The Pole in Petersburg put
his feelings into the son of Hellas who trod the
streets of Rome with rage in his heart. Yet the
teaching of Irydion is that hatred for the oppressor
will compass the destruction of the nation that
employs it, and that iove, and only love, is the
constructive force of a downtrodden people.
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? 128
i
POLAND
Unable for his father's sake to speak openly,'
unable for his own sake to do so in days when
frank language was liable to send writer, as well
as reader, to Siberia, Krasinski couched his mean-
1 ing under a symbolism where he who ran might
read.
The morals that Krasinski urges upon his
countrymen are invariably forgiveness ajjd love;
but his confidences to his intimate friends lay
bare the nature of the battle that he fought against
himself. His heart, as a young man, was swept by
a storm of hatred for those who had brought
misery upon his nation. He wrote--in 1831--to
Henry Reeve:
"You, a free man, a man born free, you cannot
understand the feelings of a man whose ancestors
were as free as you, but who is himself an oppressed
slave. You have never seen a young and beautiful
woman weeping hot tears for the loss of her
honour, torn from her by the brutality of a con-
queror. You have never heard the chains quiver-
ing around the arms of your compatriots. In the
night, the sounds of lamentations have not made
you start from your sleep, you have not risen on
your pillow, you have not listened half asleep to
the wheels jolting on the pavement, the wheels
of the cart that carried your relation, your friend,
to the snows of Siberia. You have not been forced
to hear a hard, rough language thrust on a people
who did not understand it. You have not caught
a glimpse of the haggard faces of your brothers
through the grating of a prison. Round the winter
hearth, you have never been told how such a one
disappeared, how another was condemned, how
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 129
this village was burnt, that town sacked, and all
Praga drowned in the blood of its inhabitants,
children flung palpitating on the frozen, stiff
breasts of their mothers. . . You have not followed
on the map the desolation of your country, till
it was at last overwhelmed under the weight of
the oppressors. To you everything has spoken of
peace, happiness, forgetfulness. That is why
hatred appears so hideous to you. -Hatred was the
companion of my childhood. I hateawith all the
strength of my little heart before I loved either'
a woman or friend. It is an element which has
mingled with my nature and which has become
a part of my being. "'*V I
To a Polish friend, better able than the pros-
perous young Englishman to understand the
strength of the temptation, Krasinski confided
that his sympathies were with Irydion, the hater
and the avenger, and that only logic and necessity
led him to the conclusion of love triumphant
that makes the moral grandeur of the play.
"What is, is," he added. " It is not our caprices
'that rule the world, but the mind of God. "t
Irydion represents the victory of Krasinski's
higher self, a life-giving truth spoken from the
anguish of one Pole to the anguish of thousands
. of Poles.
The length of the drama, the elaboration of.
the style, the wealth of detail that, indeed, at times
somewhat overlays the main purpose, are in
? Correspondance de Sigismond Krasinski et de Henry Steve,
Paris, 1902. Letter of Krasinski to Reeve, Nov. 18, 1831.
t Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski. Vol, I. fo Constantine Ga>>z-
ynski, June 6, 1837,
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? 130 POLAND
'strong contrast with the Undivine Comedy. Irydion
glows with the colour and pageantry of Imperial
Rome. It was Krasinski's mental refuge to picture
the blue skies of the south, as he thought out
Irydion during the long winter in a snow-bound
city, where all that his half-blind eyes could see
from his window were white roofs and a gray pall
of clouds. *
Irydion is the son of Amphilochus the Greek
and of a Scandinavian priestess. The touch of
northern blood is required in order to give Kras-
inski's " Thought 'f its mystic link with the north,
and also as foretelling the direction from which
Rome's fall was to come upon her. The scene is
laid in the reign of Heliogabalus. Both of Irydion's
parents are dead when the drama, which is written
in prose, begins. He and his sister, Elsinoe, are
alone, under the tutelage of a majestic and mys-
terious old man; called Masinissa, in reality,
Mephistopheles. Nursed in hatred of Rome,
Irydion has been brought up with the one idea of
compassing, not his nation's resurrection, but the
ruin of her conqueror. To that end he is stealthily
proceeding. Every weapon, however ignoble,
suits his purpose if only it can bring about the
desired result. On all sides he sows treachery,
destruction, disgrace--for the sake of finally
destroying Rome.
His master move is to sacrifice his sister's honour
to Heliogabalus, and, through her, to play on the
fears and caprices of the half-childish emperor,
till the latter becomes a tool in the Greek's hands.
The farewell of Irydion and Elsinoe on the evening
* J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 131
when the imperial slaves are coming to fetch her
away is the first scene of the drama. Here, as in ^ >>.
the madhouse episode in the Undivine Comedy] *
Krasinski handles a terrible sifuation with artistic
'power and restraint. The beautiful child, for she
is little more, throws herself weeping \>n the
mercy of her brother.
"Thou knowest," is his reply, "that thou art
no more my sister, thou art not the golden-
haired Elsinoe, the hope of thy father's house,
the darling of my heart. Thou art the victim
appointed for the suffering of many and for the
shame of thy fathers,"
Elsinoe: "Yea. You all have taught me this
from childhood, and I am ready. But still not to-
day, not to-morrow--a little later, when I have
gathered strength, when I have heard more of
Masinissa's teaching and thy commands, when I
have drunk to the bottom of the chalice of your
poison. "
Irydion: "Thou art chosen. We needs must
hasten on the road we tread. "
Elsinoe: "Remember when we played on the
grass-plots of Chiara, I loved thee so. Oh, have
-mercy on me! "
Irydion: "Woman, thou temptest me to pity
in vain, in vain. "
Elsinoe: "Why so many prayers and tears?
It was possible in times of old to save oneself by
death from men and gods. See, thy dagger flashes
there, Irydion. Let us hasten annihilation for
ourselves, Irydion. "
Irydion: "Thou blasphemest against thy
father's thought. Of old the life of one man
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POLAND
sufficed for the salvation of nations. To-day the
times are otherwise. To-day the sacrifice must be
of honour. " He clasps her in his arms. "To-day
thou shalt be wreathed with roses, decked with
smiles^Oh, unhappy child, lay here thy doomed
head. For the last time in thy father's house thy
brother presses thee to his bosom. Take thy fare-
well of me in all the beauty of thy maiden fresh-
ness. Neyer again shall I behold thee young--
never, never again. " 1
Then he, too, fails at the thought of what he is
doing. He cries to Masinissa for support. His
hesitation, Elsinoe's prayers'and tears, all alike die
at the entrance of the old man. Adorned as a
bride, weeping and swooning, the girl h carried
off by the slaves of Heliogabalus; but irydion's
end is gained. He, and Elsinoe acting under his
-orders, assume entire dominion over the young
'emperor, the mad, childish degenerate whose
personality stands out in vivid colours in Krasin-
. ski's drama. Irydion soon convinces him that he,
the" Greek, is his only friend, and that no safety
.
will be his till he abandons the city and retires to
^uild up another in the east. In the meanwhile,
the traitor tampers with the Praetorians, and
lures the barbarians and gladiators to his side.
They only wait Irydion's signal to fall upon Rome;
but Irydion is not ready yet. He believes that
Rome cannot be destroyed unless he wins the
adhesion of the Christians, and they, he knows,
will not consent to fight against their persecutors
whom their Founder bade them forgive. Masinissa
persuades him to go down into the catacombs, to
feign the profession of Christianity and receive.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSK1 133
baptism and then, seemingly as a fervent neophyte,
By all the craft in his power to sow dissension among
'the Christians, and convince the more restless and
impetuous that it is their duty to' take up
arms. Irydion is baptized by the name of Hieron-
imus. /He attempts to work his will with the
Christians. But the task is a difficult one. Masi-
nissa counsels him to dupe some Christian virgin,
and to play upon her religious exaltation till it
turns into love for him. Then, when she is his,
victory will follow. . For once, Jrydiqn shrinks.
He has in his mind ^Cornelia, the pure ind
beautiful maiden, Vowed to Christ, who has
talked to him of his soul,
"Must all that is holy and dear to others be
ever a sacrilege for me? Who made me miserable
and vile? She, who is the murderess of all my
moments, whose name is Rome. "
"There is another Rome," answers Masinissa,
"that cannot perish. Not on seven hills, but on
millions of stars have her feet rested. " Against
that Rome Irydion must swear eternal enmity. t
And Irydion,' calling on "unhappy Hellas," con-1
sents for love of her to destroy another's joy, "to
tear hope away from one who hoped. "
Masinissa is Satan. Krasinski's conception of a'
Mephistopheles is unusual. He is grand, majestic,
and, save in certain moments when he speaks or acts
openly as the minister of hatred, passionless. His
attitude with Irydion is less that of a tempter
than of a conspirator on equal terms. He incites or
encourages Irydion to vile deeds, such as the
sacrifice of the two women in the play; but it is
in the name of a sacred cause that he does so, for
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? *34
POLAND
the love of Hellas. He will ruin souls by his appeal,
not to their baser, but to their higher, desires. *
Krasinski's idea in the presentment of this Mephis-
topheles is that he is the satan of the world's
policy; the evil spirit of humanity that thrusts
governments and peoples back from the road of
spiritual progress, that would warp a nation's
love to destroy her by that love itself. f
Irydion has already brought disunion and con-
fusion where before all was brotherly charity and
steadfast purpose. He has set the young men
among the Christians on fire for battle in the
name of God. The old men, headed by the Pope,
Victor, seek to hold them back, appalled at the
thought of taking the blood of their persecutors.
If only Cornelia, who is venerated as a saint by
her fellow-believers, will persuade them to listen
to Irydion, his cause is won. He, therefore, sets
himself to deceive her by every wile of diabolical
craft that his cunning can suggest, into which <
against his will the touch of human passion on his
side now and again steals. They stand together
alone in the bowels of the earth, among the cor-
ridors of the dead stretching as far as eye can
reach. The maiden, in whose portrayal there is
the tenderness of touch, the strange, elusive charm
peculiar to Krasinski's women, trembles for
lrydion's soul. The Greek, dark and gloomy,
watches her as with the eyes of a snake on the bird
he is ensnaring. She entreats him to desist from his
thirst for bloodshed that she can only look upon
as sin.
* J. Kleiner, History of the Thought of Zygmunt Krasinski.
t St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 135
"Alas! Art thou the same with whom I knelt
in the cemetery of Eufemia, to whom I taught
my prayer? Hieronimus, is this thou? I have
prayed so much, I have done such hard penance
for so many days and nights. "
Irydion: "And thou shalt reach heaven. Who
could doubt it? "
Cornelia: "Oh, it was not for myself, not for
myself. "
Irydion: "Then for whom? "
Cornelia: "One of my brothers. "
Terrified at the frenzy, whether real or feigned,
of a jealous lover which she in her innocence
takes for a delirium she does not understand, she
confesses that this brother was he. Little by
little, Irydion lets sink into her ear the idea that
she is dishonouring her God, Who is his God too,
by not desiring the warfare for His glory that
Irydion desires.
"Oh, Lord, for mercy, mercy on him do I call,"
pleads Cornelia. " Thou wilt not suffer him to be
lost before my eyes. Ah! what am I saying?
Where am I? Surely, oh, Lord, I have vowed my
whole heart to Thee. How dark and gloomy is it
here! For the first time terror of the dead falls
on me. "
Irydion; "Lean on me. "
Gradually the hints of the tempter do their
work. Trouble and doubt enter the soul of the
innocent girl. Irydion weaves the story of the vow
to revenge himself on Rome, to which his father
trained him, with the vision of Christ's kingdom
triumphing, till she can no longer distinguish
issues. She only knows that a mortal face has
4
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? 136
POLAND
fastened itself into her thoughts where Christ
alone reigned before; "and as a prophet, a saint,
an archangel, he stands before me and speaks, and
I listen to him, oh, Lord, and I would fain die. Have
mercy on me! " .
She strives to defend him against his temptation
to vengeance, herself against the unknown forces
that are carrying her away. Overcome with detesta-
tion of the deed he is about to do, Irydion bids
her leave him. No, she will not leave him to his
sin. She implores him to kneel and pray by her <<
side.
"You are my witness, bones of the dead,"
murmurs he, "and thou, mother earth, I would
fain have spared her, and her only. "
He hears the voice of Simeon, the leader of the
Christian youths whom he has gained over,
calling him to the battle. Then he tears the
veil from Cornelia's head, and implants his kisses
on her forehead. With the cry that she is damned
with him for ever, she swoons. She wakes, mad, to
find Irydion standing by her. He tells her he is
Christ, come to claim His victory with arms. His
end is secured. Cornelia runs frenzied through
the catacombs, crying out: "To arms! "
All is now clamour and discord. Victor tries in
vain to restrain Simeon's band. Irydion, surrounded
by his barbarians, urges them forward by all that
is sacred to them, and which he pretends is equally
sacred to himself. Cornelia's wild cries " To arms! "
ring above the tumult, and, coming from the lips
of the saint of the catacombs, seem a summons
from heaven. Masinissa, at this moment appearing
openly as the demon, rises in the midst of columns
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? ZTGMUNT KRAS1NSKI
of fire, exulting in the ravages that have been, and
will be, wrought in the souls of the followers of
Christ.
"Faith, hope and love! Trinity, which wast
to last for ever, I have torn Thee to shreds in the
hearts of the most beloved children of Thy bene-
diction! In Thy name they shall slay and burn.
In Thy name they shall oppress. Thou shalt be
crucified alike in their wisdom and their ignorance,
alike in the sleepy humility of their prayers and in
the blasphemies of their pride. "
And now the moment for which Irydion has
schemed so long is close at hand. Irydion wrings
from the terror-stricken emperor his command
over the Praetorians. Alexander Severus is march-
ing on Rome; and the avenger has sworn his death
no less than that of Heliogabalus, with an equal
certainty that neither of them must live to prolong
the life of Rome. Elsinoe, throwing herself into
her brother's arms, entreats him:
"Let those eyes die beneath which I withered.
Let the arms which crawled about my neck fall
as two worn-out vipers. Let the lips which first
touched mine perish in ashes. "
Irydion: "On the same heap and at the same
moment, both he and Severus. "
Elsinoe: "Not so, not so. Let me finish my
last desire. Spare Alexander on the field of battle.
He with one look calmed my despair. He alone
guessed. Ah, why hast thou turned thy face away
from me? "
Irydion: "He is the only one who is now
tearing Rome from the clasp of my hatred. "
Elsinoe: "Then once more press thy sister to
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? POLAND
thy bosom. Feelest thou how this heart throbs?
Ere thou returnest, it will have broken, son of
Amphilochus! But remember Elsinoe desired no
blood of thee. Let live all, all--even he, the
Syrian, the abominated--let him live. "
Voices outside the palace: "Forward, in the
name of the Fortune of Irydion the Greek. "
Irydion: "Away with untimely mourning,
when Nemesis already holds the crown of ven-
geance for us in each hand. Victory descends into
my soul. In those clashings of arms, in those shouts,
leaps my life, and must thou die? Rather be
happy and proud. What thy father invoked, what
long ages have asked of the gods with tears,
approaches as the thunderbolt. "
Voices: "Irydion, Irydion! "
Irydion: "Farewell. " /
Elsinoe: "Go. Be thou happy and mighty;
and if ever thou shalt sail on the Aegean waters
cast a handful of my ashes on Chiara's banks. "
They part for ever. When Alexander Severus'
troops rush into the palace, Heliogabalus is hold-
ing to his lips the cup of poison he dares not
drink, and is despatched by the soldiers. Elsinoe,
garbed in imperial robes, sits calmly waiting. As
the curtains of her apartment are torn aside, she
pierces her heart with a dagger, preferring death
rather than the love that might be hers of the
saviour of Rome, Alexander Severus.
But we anticipate. Alexander is not victorious
yet. The night that Irydion hails as the last night
of Rome is here. His armies are awaiting his
signal. Masinissa is at his side. With wild fury
Irydion exults in the thought that, before the
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 139
morning is upon them, Rome shall be in flames--
if, and upon this condition all depends, the
Christian auxiliaries join him. They delay. They
are singing their hymns, says Masinissa sardon-
ically. A messenger from Simeon summons Irydion.
He hastens to the catacombs. He finds Victor and
the priests on the altar steps, Simeon and his
youths in arms, panting for the fray, Cornelia
still uttering her frenzied war-cry. Irydion bursts
upon this assembly. He calls to Cornelia as to his
beloved; but pitted against him is Victor who
stands forth and, in the presence of all, exorcises
Cornelia. She returns to herself. She bears witness
that she and her fellow Christians have been
duped by an evil spirit that has possessed her and
spoken through her lips. In vain Irydion, with
one despairing effort, calls to her in the language
of love for the last time. She turns to him without
fear and with forgiveness. "Hieronimus, I
pardon thee. Hieronimus, pray to Christ "; and
so she dies, breathing the fragrance of the flowers
of Paradise.
Her testimony turns the Christians, loathing
and horror-stricken, from him whom they now
see in his true colours. The maddened Irydion
tears the cross he wears from his armour and,
dashing it to the ground, departs, doomed, as he
well knows, to failure. In the catacombs the
avenger has been brought up against the only
life-giving element in Rome. With that force
behind him, he can conquer.
poised for a moment in the sight of his foes on
the ramparts above the precipice. "Poetry, be
. thou cursed by me, as I shall be cursed for all
eternity," is his last cry; and, with hands out-
stretched as a swimmer about to plunge, he leaps
down into the darkness. .
The victory, then, is with Pancracy. One by
one, he sweeps off the miserable survivors of the-
t>ld order to the death, which they face with the
same want of fortitude that characterized their
lives. He stands, as Henryk stood, on the ramparts.
Wherever his gaze rests he beholds the new world
he has created. Then, on a sudden, he cries aloud
* St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI
to his companion. For, above the cloud on fire
with the light of the setting sun, appears to him,
and him alone, a sign of terror. He sees One Who
rises:
"As a pillar of snow-white brilliance above
the precipices. Both hands lean on the cross as the
avenger's on his sword. Of wreathed thunderbolts
is the crown of thorns. From the lightning of
that glance he must die who lives. Put thy hands
on my eyes. Smother my eyeballs with your fists'
Part me from that look that shatters me to dust.
Thy hands are transparent as water, transparent
as glass, transparent as air. I see still! Give me if
only a crumb of darkness! Darkness--darkness!
Galihee, vicisti! "
He falls dead, and the Undivine Comedy ends.
? What remains? Nothing except a ruined world,
where every living thing has gone down in^lhe
pwaters of destruction and desolation. Klaczko has
said that the Undivine Comedy is "a^fareweH'
|rather than a greeting addressed by the poetTto
I humanitarian inspirations, a strong protest against
the ^ataT Illusion of the age which believes it can
regenerate humanity without having first regen-
erated the man, and establish universal right
without having first strengthened the individual
Tin his duties. "* It is this moral, deep down, be-
'neath the surface, and the dramatic conclusion,
told in a few scathing sentences, that redeem the
Undivine Comedy from being an expression' of
unrelieved pessimism, and that give the link without
~ which Krasinski's subsequent work might seem
a far cry from the play of his ,yduth. He saw
* J. Klaczko, op. cit. s'
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POLAND
a world where two opposing forces disputed for
its mastery. He saw, albeit he does not speak in
the Undivine Comedy with that certainty of his
maturer years which suffering taught him, still
he saw that final triumph lay with neither, but
beyond. *
The Undivine Comedy resembles nothing that
Krasinski ever wrote again. Not only does its
curious terseness give it a place apart in the pro-
duction of a poet, whose literary sin is a tendency
to over ornamentation and elaboration; but its''
unbroken dreariness, its pessimism, are not charac-
teristic of Krasinski as a writer. Devoured by
sadness all his life, never expecting and never
finding personal happiness, he yet looked with
confidence to the resurrection of his nation; and,
deep as are the accents of sorrow that breathe
through his poetry, the keynote of that poetry is
hope. f
II
The idea of Irydion came to Krasinski before
that of the Undivine Comedy; but the latter was
finished first. During the years that the poet was
writing Irydion his life was racked with passion,
and he could not complete it till 1836.
In 1830, in the days preceding the Rising, he
wandered about the Coliseum, then the most
* Adam Mickiewicz, Les Slaves.
t Lord Lytton's Orval is a sort of paraphrase of Krasinski's
Undivine Comedy. Taken from a French rendering1, it is in no
sense a translation, but rather a version of Krasinski's story with
scarcely any resemblance to the. Polish original.
I may add that I am preparing a translation of the Undivint
Comedy direct from the Polish.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 127
poetical of ruins, dreaming by moonlight. His
dreams slowly took shape in the form of the Greek
who plotted in Rome for the overthrow of the
empire that had enslaved his country, and who
was given his sentence at the foot of the cross in
the Flavian amphitheatre. The first time that
Krasinski returned to Poland, after he had left it
as a boy, was in 1832. He stayed a few weeks in
his home; and was then obliged by his father to
spend the winter with him in Petersburg. That
winter was one of Krasinski's dreariest remem-
brances. He was overcome with grief at the fate
of Poland, lonely and desolate of soul in the
capital of Russia, parted from all his friends with
whom--Polish exiles as they were--he might not
correspond. To Reeve alone could he write, albeit
with strict reserve, because the letters were read
by the censor, and also because the condition of
his eyes frequently compelled him to dictate his
correspondence. More or less blind, he could do
nothing but remain all the winter shut up in one
room, with no occupation or distraction except
his father's visits and his own meditations, and
that one painful and perilous audience with
Nicholas I. , which he has told under an allegorical
form in his Temptation. Under these circumstances,
he evolved the conception of Irydion, his Thought,
as he always called it. The Pole in Petersburg put
his feelings into the son of Hellas who trod the
streets of Rome with rage in his heart. Yet the
teaching of Irydion is that hatred for the oppressor
will compass the destruction of the nation that
employs it, and that iove, and only love, is the
constructive force of a downtrodden people.
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i
POLAND
Unable for his father's sake to speak openly,'
unable for his own sake to do so in days when
frank language was liable to send writer, as well
as reader, to Siberia, Krasinski couched his mean-
1 ing under a symbolism where he who ran might
read.
The morals that Krasinski urges upon his
countrymen are invariably forgiveness ajjd love;
but his confidences to his intimate friends lay
bare the nature of the battle that he fought against
himself. His heart, as a young man, was swept by
a storm of hatred for those who had brought
misery upon his nation. He wrote--in 1831--to
Henry Reeve:
"You, a free man, a man born free, you cannot
understand the feelings of a man whose ancestors
were as free as you, but who is himself an oppressed
slave. You have never seen a young and beautiful
woman weeping hot tears for the loss of her
honour, torn from her by the brutality of a con-
queror. You have never heard the chains quiver-
ing around the arms of your compatriots. In the
night, the sounds of lamentations have not made
you start from your sleep, you have not risen on
your pillow, you have not listened half asleep to
the wheels jolting on the pavement, the wheels
of the cart that carried your relation, your friend,
to the snows of Siberia. You have not been forced
to hear a hard, rough language thrust on a people
who did not understand it. You have not caught
a glimpse of the haggard faces of your brothers
through the grating of a prison. Round the winter
hearth, you have never been told how such a one
disappeared, how another was condemned, how
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 129
this village was burnt, that town sacked, and all
Praga drowned in the blood of its inhabitants,
children flung palpitating on the frozen, stiff
breasts of their mothers. . . You have not followed
on the map the desolation of your country, till
it was at last overwhelmed under the weight of
the oppressors. To you everything has spoken of
peace, happiness, forgetfulness. That is why
hatred appears so hideous to you. -Hatred was the
companion of my childhood. I hateawith all the
strength of my little heart before I loved either'
a woman or friend. It is an element which has
mingled with my nature and which has become
a part of my being. "'*V I
To a Polish friend, better able than the pros-
perous young Englishman to understand the
strength of the temptation, Krasinski confided
that his sympathies were with Irydion, the hater
and the avenger, and that only logic and necessity
led him to the conclusion of love triumphant
that makes the moral grandeur of the play.
"What is, is," he added. " It is not our caprices
'that rule the world, but the mind of God. "t
Irydion represents the victory of Krasinski's
higher self, a life-giving truth spoken from the
anguish of one Pole to the anguish of thousands
. of Poles.
The length of the drama, the elaboration of.
the style, the wealth of detail that, indeed, at times
somewhat overlays the main purpose, are in
? Correspondance de Sigismond Krasinski et de Henry Steve,
Paris, 1902. Letter of Krasinski to Reeve, Nov. 18, 1831.
t Letters of Zygmunt Krasinski. Vol, I. fo Constantine Ga>>z-
ynski, June 6, 1837,
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? 130 POLAND
'strong contrast with the Undivine Comedy. Irydion
glows with the colour and pageantry of Imperial
Rome. It was Krasinski's mental refuge to picture
the blue skies of the south, as he thought out
Irydion during the long winter in a snow-bound
city, where all that his half-blind eyes could see
from his window were white roofs and a gray pall
of clouds. *
Irydion is the son of Amphilochus the Greek
and of a Scandinavian priestess. The touch of
northern blood is required in order to give Kras-
inski's " Thought 'f its mystic link with the north,
and also as foretelling the direction from which
Rome's fall was to come upon her. The scene is
laid in the reign of Heliogabalus. Both of Irydion's
parents are dead when the drama, which is written
in prose, begins. He and his sister, Elsinoe, are
alone, under the tutelage of a majestic and mys-
terious old man; called Masinissa, in reality,
Mephistopheles. Nursed in hatred of Rome,
Irydion has been brought up with the one idea of
compassing, not his nation's resurrection, but the
ruin of her conqueror. To that end he is stealthily
proceeding. Every weapon, however ignoble,
suits his purpose if only it can bring about the
desired result. On all sides he sows treachery,
destruction, disgrace--for the sake of finally
destroying Rome.
His master move is to sacrifice his sister's honour
to Heliogabalus, and, through her, to play on the
fears and caprices of the half-childish emperor,
till the latter becomes a tool in the Greek's hands.
The farewell of Irydion and Elsinoe on the evening
* J. Kallenbach, op. cit.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 131
when the imperial slaves are coming to fetch her
away is the first scene of the drama. Here, as in ^ >>.
the madhouse episode in the Undivine Comedy] *
Krasinski handles a terrible sifuation with artistic
'power and restraint. The beautiful child, for she
is little more, throws herself weeping \>n the
mercy of her brother.
"Thou knowest," is his reply, "that thou art
no more my sister, thou art not the golden-
haired Elsinoe, the hope of thy father's house,
the darling of my heart. Thou art the victim
appointed for the suffering of many and for the
shame of thy fathers,"
Elsinoe: "Yea. You all have taught me this
from childhood, and I am ready. But still not to-
day, not to-morrow--a little later, when I have
gathered strength, when I have heard more of
Masinissa's teaching and thy commands, when I
have drunk to the bottom of the chalice of your
poison. "
Irydion: "Thou art chosen. We needs must
hasten on the road we tread. "
Elsinoe: "Remember when we played on the
grass-plots of Chiara, I loved thee so. Oh, have
-mercy on me! "
Irydion: "Woman, thou temptest me to pity
in vain, in vain. "
Elsinoe: "Why so many prayers and tears?
It was possible in times of old to save oneself by
death from men and gods. See, thy dagger flashes
there, Irydion. Let us hasten annihilation for
ourselves, Irydion. "
Irydion: "Thou blasphemest against thy
father's thought. Of old the life of one man
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POLAND
sufficed for the salvation of nations. To-day the
times are otherwise. To-day the sacrifice must be
of honour. " He clasps her in his arms. "To-day
thou shalt be wreathed with roses, decked with
smiles^Oh, unhappy child, lay here thy doomed
head. For the last time in thy father's house thy
brother presses thee to his bosom. Take thy fare-
well of me in all the beauty of thy maiden fresh-
ness. Neyer again shall I behold thee young--
never, never again. " 1
Then he, too, fails at the thought of what he is
doing. He cries to Masinissa for support. His
hesitation, Elsinoe's prayers'and tears, all alike die
at the entrance of the old man. Adorned as a
bride, weeping and swooning, the girl h carried
off by the slaves of Heliogabalus; but irydion's
end is gained. He, and Elsinoe acting under his
-orders, assume entire dominion over the young
'emperor, the mad, childish degenerate whose
personality stands out in vivid colours in Krasin-
. ski's drama. Irydion soon convinces him that he,
the" Greek, is his only friend, and that no safety
.
will be his till he abandons the city and retires to
^uild up another in the east. In the meanwhile,
the traitor tampers with the Praetorians, and
lures the barbarians and gladiators to his side.
They only wait Irydion's signal to fall upon Rome;
but Irydion is not ready yet. He believes that
Rome cannot be destroyed unless he wins the
adhesion of the Christians, and they, he knows,
will not consent to fight against their persecutors
whom their Founder bade them forgive. Masinissa
persuades him to go down into the catacombs, to
feign the profession of Christianity and receive.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSK1 133
baptism and then, seemingly as a fervent neophyte,
By all the craft in his power to sow dissension among
'the Christians, and convince the more restless and
impetuous that it is their duty to' take up
arms. Irydion is baptized by the name of Hieron-
imus. /He attempts to work his will with the
Christians. But the task is a difficult one. Masi-
nissa counsels him to dupe some Christian virgin,
and to play upon her religious exaltation till it
turns into love for him. Then, when she is his,
victory will follow. . For once, Jrydiqn shrinks.
He has in his mind ^Cornelia, the pure ind
beautiful maiden, Vowed to Christ, who has
talked to him of his soul,
"Must all that is holy and dear to others be
ever a sacrilege for me? Who made me miserable
and vile? She, who is the murderess of all my
moments, whose name is Rome. "
"There is another Rome," answers Masinissa,
"that cannot perish. Not on seven hills, but on
millions of stars have her feet rested. " Against
that Rome Irydion must swear eternal enmity. t
And Irydion,' calling on "unhappy Hellas," con-1
sents for love of her to destroy another's joy, "to
tear hope away from one who hoped. "
Masinissa is Satan. Krasinski's conception of a'
Mephistopheles is unusual. He is grand, majestic,
and, save in certain moments when he speaks or acts
openly as the minister of hatred, passionless. His
attitude with Irydion is less that of a tempter
than of a conspirator on equal terms. He incites or
encourages Irydion to vile deeds, such as the
sacrifice of the two women in the play; but it is
in the name of a sacred cause that he does so, for
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? *34
POLAND
the love of Hellas. He will ruin souls by his appeal,
not to their baser, but to their higher, desires. *
Krasinski's idea in the presentment of this Mephis-
topheles is that he is the satan of the world's
policy; the evil spirit of humanity that thrusts
governments and peoples back from the road of
spiritual progress, that would warp a nation's
love to destroy her by that love itself. f
Irydion has already brought disunion and con-
fusion where before all was brotherly charity and
steadfast purpose. He has set the young men
among the Christians on fire for battle in the
name of God. The old men, headed by the Pope,
Victor, seek to hold them back, appalled at the
thought of taking the blood of their persecutors.
If only Cornelia, who is venerated as a saint by
her fellow-believers, will persuade them to listen
to Irydion, his cause is won. He, therefore, sets
himself to deceive her by every wile of diabolical
craft that his cunning can suggest, into which <
against his will the touch of human passion on his
side now and again steals. They stand together
alone in the bowels of the earth, among the cor-
ridors of the dead stretching as far as eye can
reach. The maiden, in whose portrayal there is
the tenderness of touch, the strange, elusive charm
peculiar to Krasinski's women, trembles for
lrydion's soul. The Greek, dark and gloomy,
watches her as with the eyes of a snake on the bird
he is ensnaring. She entreats him to desist from his
thirst for bloodshed that she can only look upon
as sin.
* J. Kleiner, History of the Thought of Zygmunt Krasinski.
t St. Tarnowski, Zygmunt Krasinski.
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 135
"Alas! Art thou the same with whom I knelt
in the cemetery of Eufemia, to whom I taught
my prayer? Hieronimus, is this thou? I have
prayed so much, I have done such hard penance
for so many days and nights. "
Irydion: "And thou shalt reach heaven. Who
could doubt it? "
Cornelia: "Oh, it was not for myself, not for
myself. "
Irydion: "Then for whom? "
Cornelia: "One of my brothers. "
Terrified at the frenzy, whether real or feigned,
of a jealous lover which she in her innocence
takes for a delirium she does not understand, she
confesses that this brother was he. Little by
little, Irydion lets sink into her ear the idea that
she is dishonouring her God, Who is his God too,
by not desiring the warfare for His glory that
Irydion desires.
"Oh, Lord, for mercy, mercy on him do I call,"
pleads Cornelia. " Thou wilt not suffer him to be
lost before my eyes. Ah! what am I saying?
Where am I? Surely, oh, Lord, I have vowed my
whole heart to Thee. How dark and gloomy is it
here! For the first time terror of the dead falls
on me. "
Irydion; "Lean on me. "
Gradually the hints of the tempter do their
work. Trouble and doubt enter the soul of the
innocent girl. Irydion weaves the story of the vow
to revenge himself on Rome, to which his father
trained him, with the vision of Christ's kingdom
triumphing, till she can no longer distinguish
issues. She only knows that a mortal face has
4
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POLAND
fastened itself into her thoughts where Christ
alone reigned before; "and as a prophet, a saint,
an archangel, he stands before me and speaks, and
I listen to him, oh, Lord, and I would fain die. Have
mercy on me! " .
She strives to defend him against his temptation
to vengeance, herself against the unknown forces
that are carrying her away. Overcome with detesta-
tion of the deed he is about to do, Irydion bids
her leave him. No, she will not leave him to his
sin. She implores him to kneel and pray by her <<
side.
"You are my witness, bones of the dead,"
murmurs he, "and thou, mother earth, I would
fain have spared her, and her only. "
He hears the voice of Simeon, the leader of the
Christian youths whom he has gained over,
calling him to the battle. Then he tears the
veil from Cornelia's head, and implants his kisses
on her forehead. With the cry that she is damned
with him for ever, she swoons. She wakes, mad, to
find Irydion standing by her. He tells her he is
Christ, come to claim His victory with arms. His
end is secured. Cornelia runs frenzied through
the catacombs, crying out: "To arms! "
All is now clamour and discord. Victor tries in
vain to restrain Simeon's band. Irydion, surrounded
by his barbarians, urges them forward by all that
is sacred to them, and which he pretends is equally
sacred to himself. Cornelia's wild cries " To arms! "
ring above the tumult, and, coming from the lips
of the saint of the catacombs, seem a summons
from heaven. Masinissa, at this moment appearing
openly as the demon, rises in the midst of columns
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? ZTGMUNT KRAS1NSKI
of fire, exulting in the ravages that have been, and
will be, wrought in the souls of the followers of
Christ.
"Faith, hope and love! Trinity, which wast
to last for ever, I have torn Thee to shreds in the
hearts of the most beloved children of Thy bene-
diction! In Thy name they shall slay and burn.
In Thy name they shall oppress. Thou shalt be
crucified alike in their wisdom and their ignorance,
alike in the sleepy humility of their prayers and in
the blasphemies of their pride. "
And now the moment for which Irydion has
schemed so long is close at hand. Irydion wrings
from the terror-stricken emperor his command
over the Praetorians. Alexander Severus is march-
ing on Rome; and the avenger has sworn his death
no less than that of Heliogabalus, with an equal
certainty that neither of them must live to prolong
the life of Rome. Elsinoe, throwing herself into
her brother's arms, entreats him:
"Let those eyes die beneath which I withered.
Let the arms which crawled about my neck fall
as two worn-out vipers. Let the lips which first
touched mine perish in ashes. "
Irydion: "On the same heap and at the same
moment, both he and Severus. "
Elsinoe: "Not so, not so. Let me finish my
last desire. Spare Alexander on the field of battle.
He with one look calmed my despair. He alone
guessed. Ah, why hast thou turned thy face away
from me? "
Irydion: "He is the only one who is now
tearing Rome from the clasp of my hatred. "
Elsinoe: "Then once more press thy sister to
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? POLAND
thy bosom. Feelest thou how this heart throbs?
Ere thou returnest, it will have broken, son of
Amphilochus! But remember Elsinoe desired no
blood of thee. Let live all, all--even he, the
Syrian, the abominated--let him live. "
Voices outside the palace: "Forward, in the
name of the Fortune of Irydion the Greek. "
Irydion: "Away with untimely mourning,
when Nemesis already holds the crown of ven-
geance for us in each hand. Victory descends into
my soul. In those clashings of arms, in those shouts,
leaps my life, and must thou die? Rather be
happy and proud. What thy father invoked, what
long ages have asked of the gods with tears,
approaches as the thunderbolt. "
Voices: "Irydion, Irydion! "
Irydion: "Farewell. " /
Elsinoe: "Go. Be thou happy and mighty;
and if ever thou shalt sail on the Aegean waters
cast a handful of my ashes on Chiara's banks. "
They part for ever. When Alexander Severus'
troops rush into the palace, Heliogabalus is hold-
ing to his lips the cup of poison he dares not
drink, and is despatched by the soldiers. Elsinoe,
garbed in imperial robes, sits calmly waiting. As
the curtains of her apartment are torn aside, she
pierces her heart with a dagger, preferring death
rather than the love that might be hers of the
saviour of Rome, Alexander Severus.
But we anticipate. Alexander is not victorious
yet. The night that Irydion hails as the last night
of Rome is here. His armies are awaiting his
signal. Masinissa is at his side. With wild fury
Irydion exults in the thought that, before the
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? ZTGMUNT KRASINSKI 139
morning is upon them, Rome shall be in flames--
if, and upon this condition all depends, the
Christian auxiliaries join him. They delay. They
are singing their hymns, says Masinissa sardon-
ically. A messenger from Simeon summons Irydion.
He hastens to the catacombs. He finds Victor and
the priests on the altar steps, Simeon and his
youths in arms, panting for the fray, Cornelia
still uttering her frenzied war-cry. Irydion bursts
upon this assembly. He calls to Cornelia as to his
beloved; but pitted against him is Victor who
stands forth and, in the presence of all, exorcises
Cornelia. She returns to herself. She bears witness
that she and her fellow Christians have been
duped by an evil spirit that has possessed her and
spoken through her lips. In vain Irydion, with
one despairing effort, calls to her in the language
of love for the last time. She turns to him without
fear and with forgiveness. "Hieronimus, I
pardon thee. Hieronimus, pray to Christ "; and
so she dies, breathing the fragrance of the flowers
of Paradise.
Her testimony turns the Christians, loathing
and horror-stricken, from him whom they now
see in his true colours. The maddened Irydion
tears the cross he wears from his armour and,
dashing it to the ground, departs, doomed, as he
well knows, to failure. In the catacombs the
avenger has been brought up against the only
life-giving element in Rome. With that force
behind him, he can conquer.
