I ICE-PLAINS (continued 2)

“Do you object to going there?”

“Most certainly. I am against music, fine costumes, everything that represents satisfaction and amusement. To me all that only suggests extortion, wrong-doing, and injustice: for but a few are able to go there, and that only at the expense of others.”

“But you forget that wrong-doing and injustice are by no means essentials of the Beautiful, of Art, and of artistic delight, though at the present time they happen to exist in connection with these. Your theory seems to me to make far too much of what actually is. Try to deliver yourself from the fetters of the Temporal; look upon the present day, as 84being yourself outside of it and soaring above it: do you see what I mean?—I also resent whatever is unjust, but I can separate the Beautiful therefrom and love it, both in Art and in life.”

“Well, you may be right, but I cannot take up so objective a point of view. In me indignation overbears any gentler artistic sentiment. Yet more: I think it is not now the time to enjoy Art, or to plunge into the deep and subtle analyses of Estheticism. What we want at the present time is Action.”

“But, for myself, I quiet my conscience with the fact, which I know to be true, that I am living now just as I should live in that future when, as Ferri says, all are from the very outset to have equal opportunities for their development.”

Smilowicz is pleased.

“Ah, then you understand.... I was afraid you had been surprised at my friendship for Obojanski, seeing the way I am accustomed to talk. But, you know, if scientific work were properly remunerated, Obojanski’s monographs would bring him in enough money to live as sumptuously as he is doing now. So he arrives at the very same result, 85though by different roads. Yet that, unfortunately, is paltering with principles.”

Oh, I should not object, so far as I am concerned, to any such “paltering!” As things stand, I am working too much: I might work less and do something better.... All my talent is quite thrown away on those everlasting accounts.

My dream is now, how to make more money. And this renders me somewhat uneasy; perhaps it is on account of pecuniary circumstances that I am now considering the possibility of marriage with Janusz, in case Roslawski....

This I should not like. Not because it would show my character in an ignoble light. That’s nonsense. No, but it would mark how little I care for the creature I could take on such terms.

I am of those whose sin is greater than the sin of Eve and Adam: I have eaten of the fruit of the knowledge that there is neither good nor evil.

Yes, for I have gone on—on to the very end. Every one has something he can call his own. Sufferers magnify in their mind the power of 86suffering; those who have abandoned everything make a god of their strength of will to do so. But I have nothing left, nothing absolutely. Of beauty I have not enough to love that beauty in myself. Wisdom is wisdom from one standpoint only: that lost, its very idea ceases to exist. I have too much mind to be artful and mysterious, so I strike no one as being uncommon. I have all the shortcomings of a perfect sage; for I believe in nothing, and am indifferent to all things. But I am not, as sages are, encyclopædic, nor do I love knowledge, nor have I any. At the same time, I do not, like a typical Decadent, hug myself at the thought of my doubts and of my indifference. Quite the contrary—to others, nay, even to myself, I play the part of one that is blithe, well-favoured, happy, and quite satisfied with being what I am. This is not because I deliberately try to keep my secret to myself, but because merriment is to my mind less wearisome than the apathy of doubt. And I have not as my own even what I say here, for I am not sure that it is true....

Roslawski...? Well, say I am attracted by the interest of an experiment.

87Out of which I am making a grave and important affair, simply because of my love for some pathos in life....

Why, Janusz himself can be “distinguished” on certain occasions.

Madame, (he writes),

May I venture to remind you that the period chosen by you, within which to give me a definite answer, will have come to an end on Monday next?

I beg to remain, Madame,

Most respectfully yours,

Janusz.

Yes, the time has come. I shall go to Obojanski’s to-night.

Here I have come, with fevered lips and ice-cold heart, only to find that Roslawski went away but a quarter of an hour ago, having to dine with some friends this evening.

I still can smell in the air the brand of cigars that he smokes.... My eyebrows and lids are twitching as if agitated by some witch’s spell.

Yet I experience not the least disappointment at not finding him here: rather a sense 88of relief, that I can put the affair off a little longer.

Obojanski tells me what a favourite of Roslawski I am, and goes so far as to hint—in jest—that he is in love with me. This very evening he was asking why I have paid no visit to my old Professor for such a length of time. This, for a man of his sort, must mean a great deal.

In the main, however, Obojanski is this evening in a pessimistic and quarrelsome mood. He blames me for too readily taking up with new trends of thought: which does me great harm. There is no contemporary poet equal to Homer: I ought therefore to be somewhat more deeply read in the works of the old classics, which reflect such a healthy feeling of harmony between body and mind.

“You are,” he says, “daily less mindful of the admirable maxim, ‘Mens sana in corpore sano.’”

“Why, no; I decidedly uphold proper care of the body, to make it hardy and healthy, and able to resist the wear and tear of our now over-subtle and over-sensitive minds.”

“Yes, but nowadays our very minds are diseased.”

89“Well, then, let my motto be: ‘In a sound body, a diseased mind!’”

Or what people may choose to call diseased.

Scholars and thinkers, though they surely must have made some studies in logic, yet reason thus by analogy: Disease of the body is any departure from its normal state: consequently, any but an average mind is diseased. But if they start from the premise that mind and body are identical, then why reason at all on the matter?

Now I would burst into song, to run about in the open country, flooded with the white low sunbeams, and to utter cries of joy.

Why? Because the old Professor has said: “He is in love with you!” And because I believe he has spoken the truth.

Yes, and I shall continue to believe it till sundown, and I still am dreaming of a joyful triumph. I had one before, but it was far from joyful.

To-morrow evening I shall go to see Obojanski once more; and I shall tremble with great fear.

I am sure my answer to Janusz will be delayed. To-night Smilowicz and Roslawski 90accompanied me home together. I cannot say whether I shall get any opportunity for a private talk with him. Perhaps it is better so: but, then, Janusz is waiting for his answer down in Klosow.

Roslawski is the one man in the world before whose gaze my eyes must droop. That alone can throw me off my balance, rob me of my customary untroubled assurance; for it is the only force able to master mine.

Towards the end, our talk turns to love and marriage.

The latter Smilowicz looks upon from an economic standpoint, and thinks it is, in our present conditions of life, a necessary evil. All the same, he informs Obojanski that a certain mutual acquaintance of theirs, who married not long ago, is perfectly happy with his wife.

“Ah, yes,” Obojanski guardedly observes, “in the first months, even such a thing is not impossible.”

Roslawski’s face puts on a cold smile. Indeed, he is in favour of marriage, as is quite natural with a man who has sown his wild oats, and is desirous of love that is lawful. The fastest men I ever knew were theoretically 91in favour of monogamy. Imszanski, too, always told Martha that, were it not for the fickleness of women and various other untoward conditions, he would be happiest with one woman and one alone.

On this point, Obojanski is a sceptic; this is the only subject on which he can speak wittily.

“And you,—do you intend to marry for love?” Roslawski asks me suddenly, with a subtle tinge of flippancy in his tone, such as men of his kind always use in speaking to women: an attitude with him quite instinctive and unreasoned, since he is very far from sharing Obojanski’s prejudice concerning the inferiority of our sex.

A sudden qualm of terror seizes me, but I master it, and say with a tranquil smile: “Your question makes me feel as if under examination. Confess now that you are at present wanting to know what my reply will be, not what I really intend to do.”

There is an ironical gleam in his eyes.

“You may take my word for it that I am not,” he answers emphatically.

“In that case, I’ll tell you as much as I myself know. If I marry for love, it will not last 92very long; if, on the contrary, I do so with judgment and out of a conscious conviction that the man is destined for me, then I shall be faithful to my husband all my life.”

“And which of these alternatives do you prefer?”

“The second,” I reply; and add truthfully, “for there are certain classes of feeling in which I object to changes.”

“Really? But you would have the same result, even if you married for love.”

“I am afraid I cannot bring myself to believe in the eternal duration of mere feeling. Love in marriage, as a rule, becomes in time a sort of mutuality of habit, a sense of solidarity, as it were, and now and then even a brotherhood of minds. It is just in such cases that divorce would be advisable.”

“And when it is a marriage of reason?”

“Why, then the question is correctly stated from the first; at the outset, suitability of characters and of individualities are taken into consideration, so as to prevent any possibility of future disagreement.”

“And yet it is possible to obtain the continuance of love by incessantly watching over it, by not unfrequently putting on a mask, and 93by keeping private certain emotions and states of mind which might prejudice one party in the eyes of the other.”

How the remembrance of Janusz comes back to me as I listen! Of all this, he knew nothing at all.

“I doubt whether so much trouble is very profitable,” I return. “The game is hardly worth the candle.”

“And yet some there are,” he goes on to say, “for whom present bliss has no value, if they know beforehand that the morrow will take it away. And they often prefer to renounce it entirely.”

The words are spoken calmly, without any apparent significance; yet there is in their tone, I fancy, an under-current of ominous import.

“Well,” I say, repressing my irrational dread, “then let all such take care to marry with judgment.”

“Nevertheless, to give love and get in its place only intellectuality is not a good bargain, I fear.”

Now—now I understand—and I almost feel hatred for the man. Yes, I may throw 94myself under the wheels of a locomotive, but never will I say I do that out of love for it!

“Reasonable people should remember that ‘the heart is no servant,’ and that, beyond intellectual and conscious resolve, we can find nothing on which we can safely count.” This I say, as light-heartedly and as smilingly as I can, feeling meanwhile the dismay of a horrible misgiving—almost a certitude—clutching at my heart.

And now at last I am alone with Roslawski and Obojanski. I remain in my corner all the evening, saying little, overwhelmed with dread of the coming decisive moment. That tall, red-haired gentleman in glasses,—I simply detest him!

Roslawski sets to playing Wagner,—stiffly, correctly, like an automaton. His playing grates strongly upon my nerves: each of the notes taps on my heart-strings.

Obojanski is enchanted. He goes about the room on tiptoe, making the floor creak as he walks; he fetches music from the book-shelves for Roslawski, and lays them in heaps on the piano. Now and again he glances at me, and whispers, almost aloud: “How very beautiful!” 95He finally brings me a volume of some German encyclopædia, and opens it at the article “Wagner,” which he expects me to read.

I am so upset that I nearly break down. Resting my head on the back of the sofa, I look up at the ceiling to swallow down my tears as they well up. And I begin to weave fancies.

A wonderful immemorial forest, through which, clad in armour, knights are riding on white steeds. Most lofty oaks, strong-limbed and gnarled, with black trunks and dark-blue foliage, strike their roots deep into the ground. Amid mosses in hue like malachite, ferns put forth their sprays of sea-green lace. Fairies dance merrily among the trees, and scatter round them pearls of ringing laughter. And far away, lost in reverie, upon a dark, enchanted lake there floats a swan. A strange, clear, chilly splendour illuminates the twilight.

All at once a thunderbolt, a red thunderbolt falls: and the oak forest and the lake vanish into the depths of the earth.... Yet thunderstorms only take place on sultry summer days.

96No, no, all this was but a dream.

Now there comes before me the infinite wilderness of my own ice-plains, hard-frozen beneath the cold and glassy skies. I am afraid, I am horribly afraid, I cannot breathe, seeing those endless plains of ice, under that canopy of green and frosty light: it is the kingdom of my soul!

But far away, at the sky-line, where without warmth the Aurora Borealis beams, there stands a huge statue, a basalt-hewn statue. This recks not of the unbounded wilderness, nor of the chilly gleams of the Northern Lights, nor of the stars, those silver eyes of Time. Tranquil and undismayed it stands. That is Roslawski.

On I march towards him, plodding through the deep and drifting snow; at his feet, I fall upon my knees.

And I beseech him to hide the boundless wilderness from my sight; to protect me from the icy air of death, so that I may dwell in this land of my soul, and yet not die. “For behold, this day I am weak exceedingly, this day I stand in fear of the plains of ice.”

But he says: “Here in the snows around me, you must first lay out a garden as of the 97tropics; and yourself must blossom into a flame-red and purple rose.”

And I make answer: “My lord, without the light of the sun, how is any rose to blow?”

Once more a thunderclap resounds. He is gone. I am all alone amid my ice-plains: and I live yet.

Bound I am, with fetters made of ice. The silvery wings of my soul are glittering under the canopy of heaven, and in the greenish splendour of the Northern Lights. She would not share with me my years of burning heat, and now she will not have me share this realm of hers. A snake is lying on my bosom, and, coiled about my neck, sucks the warm blood thence....

We bid good-night to Obojanski, and go out into the street together.

“I have to tell you something; or, rather, I have one question, only one, to put to you.” These are my first words.

“I am quite at your service.”

From the instant when I begin to speak, the sense of dread passes away from me, and an immense quietude takes its place.

“I must, however, lay down one condition. I will have from you no other answer save 98the word Yes or No. I do not wish—and this is of consequence to me—to hear any comments whatever. Do you agree?”

“Most willingly,” he returns, with a smile; “the condition that you lay down I certainly shall keep.”

“You must know then,” I go on, “that, since I became acquainted with you, I have known you for the only man who could make me happy. Some time ago, another man, one who deserves my sympathy and whom I trust, asked me to marry him. Being of opinion that, in the last resort, the knowledge that one is greatly loved may serve as a substitute for happiness, I have taken a month to think the matter over. My decision depends upon your answer. I ought perhaps to add that I can foresee what this is likely to be; but that I am very anxious to get absolute certainty on this point, lest I should at some future time have to reproach myself with having let my chance of happiness go by.”

There is a silence.

“May I venture to ask you to put your question in a more definite form?”

“Are you, or are you not, willing to marry me?”

99Another silence.

“No: and yet, supposing that....”

“Remember my condition.”

No more is said.

In front of my lodgings we bid each other a calm and friendly farewell.

The next morning, on my way to my office, I put a long scented envelope into a post-box. It is addressed to Janusz.

Nevertheless, the decision which it contains is—not to marry him.

Yes, I am now the bond-slave of my soul: these my ice-plains, it is no longer mine to leave them.

I have done with suffering.... During all these long days and nights, I have not shed one tear. I do not suffer now: the agony-delirium has passed those limits, beyond which no difference is felt between joy and misery, beyond which there is no night of woe, that contrasts with day.

In the still autumn twilight, I am shut up in my dark and lonely room. Lest I should awake my soul, that has fallen asleep, I am pacing the soft carpet with noiseless steps.

I am in terror of the very movements which 100I myself make. Trembling with cold—or is it with my own emptiness of heart?—and leaning against my doorway in the darkness, wrapped in the folds of my soft shaggy portière, I open my swooning lips to utter a soundless cry, and look staring into the mobile fluttering dark with tired and quiet gaze.

I do not suffer; I exist—in a world wherein the night of woe no longer is a contrast with day, wherein there prevails a tranquil dusk, without sun and without stars.

There is no Ego of mine. I am beyond existence and beyond nothingness—in that world wherein dies the immemorial conflict between dream and vigil; where Wrong, robed in her queenly purple, is no longer shadowed by Vengeance, in her pallid green attire; where stony Hatred no longer hugs in her fierce embrace the weeping god of love; where the marble statue of Pride no longer renders homage to the grim spectre, Fear; wherein there are no more wretched victories, nor the portentous delights of worshipping oneself and the Power of Self!

No, there is no more any Ego of mine.... I am in a world to which even the unlimited fields of Infinity cannot reach, for it 101was everlastingly beyond all limits. I am in a world in which Duration neither flows nor stands still; wherein Solitude is not, though neither are there spirits to commune with; where there is only no solitude, because there is no Me.

Do I suffer? No. I am in a world where I have no being.

I could well die, if I chose: but my body, well-favoured as it is, would fain not part from my bright, though mournful soul. Therefore am I willing to live.

But there is nought for which I can any longer care; I dwell in a world which my soul is never to behold: for when Death comes, my soul’s existence will be over.

Yet not because nothingness is there. To believe that there is nothingness, one must indeed have an intense power of faith. I cannot bring myself to accept the creed of nothingness. For in the world where I am now, neither Being is, nor Non-Being; there is neither the Ego nor the Non-Ego; nor has the soul ever laid her icy hand upon the body: I am in a world wherein there is no soul of mine.

My soul will end its being at the instant of 102Death, not because that world is a world of nothingness, but because therein is no such thing as indestructibility of substance.

I might, if I chose, die; but death matters nothing to me. To solve the riddle of life, I do not require death. For now I know all. I know that, in that other world, knowledge and ignorance are not incompatible, nor is there in that world any desire to know. And therefore I shall never solve the riddle of life, because I have solved it now.

I know that which no man knows: that to read the riddle, I need not know all things. For there is no Me!

And I am indeed in a world which contradicts our world, but with a contradiction in which negation and assertion are the same.

But in one thing I do believe—the only thing that is.

And that thing is: No!

Such a No as does not contradict Yes, but means what No means, taken together with Yes.

Such a No as Roslawski said to me.

And if I suffer nothing, it is because I belong to a world wherein joy and sorrow are the same.

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