The Polish Review
Library of Polish Classics
Adam Mickiewicz
Forefather’s Eve
Part III
Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski
New York
208/30 Press
2010
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CONTENTS
Introduction by Charles S. Kraszewski
Forefathers’ Eve, Part III translated by Charles S. Kraszewski
Mickiewicz’s Dziady, or How to Save the World
There is a saying in Polish, when one is speaking of the talents of a promising young poet: “He’s on the way to Czarnolas.” The reference is to the country seat of Jan Kochanowski (1530-1584), the greatest Slavic poet of the Renaissance, who holds a position in Polish letters similar to that of William Shakespeare in English. “Going to Czarnolas” means, therefore, “to surpass,” or at least “to become the equal o”’ Kochanowski in the literary pantheon. Now, although through the years many poets have been described as being on their way to Czarnolas, none of them ever seem to have actually got there. Not, at least, until the advent of Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855). For, as odd as it may sound — imagine so great a poet coming along who would cast Shakespeare himself into the shade! — this is exactly the sort of literary coup d’état that Mickiewicz carried through in the early part of the 19th century. The glory of the great humanist poet, creative in both Latin and Polish, educated in Renaissance Italy, friend of Ronsard and secretary to kings — has been dimmed by the verses of an apprentice schoolteacher from an obscure village in the forests of Polish Lithuania. Although of course Mickiewicz’s apotheosis — as deserved as it is, for he is a fine poet — is due mostly to the idolatrous reception his works have met with almost from the very get go, and was certainly not a thing planned by the poet himself, just one glance at this comparative situation, with its inexorable theme of “and you, little Bethlehem…” puts the messianic motifs that recur in Mickiewicz’s poetry in a curious light.
It is a moot point whether or not Mickiewicz would have been so apotheosized (although he always would have been a fine poet) had he been born one hundred years earlier, or later, than he had. For the political murder of the Kingdom of Poland, at the hands of the Russian, Prussian, and Austrian Empires, had the effect of depriving a proud, cultured people with long and fierce traditions of democracy and independence, of a common figurehead such as a monarch, or even an elected head of state. Into this vacuum stepped — or, more precisely, was shoved — the poet Adam Mickiewicz. He, and to a lesser extent, Juliusz Słowacki and Zygmunt Krasiński, became the focal-point of Polishness for people seeking a common expression of their national identity. As I have said elsewhere, in no other case is Shelley’s dictum so true: in partitioned Poland, the poet was the legislator of mankind, and far from unacknowledged. To give just one well-known example of this “legislation,” in 1828 Mickiewicz published Konrad Wallenrod, a longish narrative poem concerning the medieval Lithuanians’ struggles against the German Knights of the Cross. In reality, this is a thinly-disguised commentary on partitioned Poland’s situation in the 19th century, especially that of the Russian zone, and a brash apologia for treason and what we might today call terrorism. Although Mickiewicz himself took no part in the November Uprising of 1830, and, according to Jan Walc, was dead set against revolutionary élan, the young insurrectionists acknowledged Mickiewicz as their spiritual guru: one of the most oft-repeated slogans of those heady days following the successful storming of Prince Konstanty’s Belvedere Palace was Słowo ciałem się stało, i Wallenrod — Belwederem (“The Word became flesh, and Wallenrod — Belvedere”).
In comparison to Shakespeare, or even Słowacki, Mickiewicz’s opus is rather skimpy for a “national bard.” His lyric poetry can be reduced to the exquisite Crimean and Erotic Sonnets (although one can’t overlook his first volume of Ballady i Romanse, which is the Slavic equivalent of Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads). Besides this, we have the two costume works: the narrative poems Konrad Wallenrod and Grażynai and then come Dziady and the Polish national epic Pan Tadeusz. “rather skimpy for a national bard?” coughs the defensor Mickievicii; “what about Homer? and Virgil?’” … And Ossian? we might add, naughtily, for Mickiewicz was himself a notorious myth-maker. And yet Adam’s defender is right, for it is not the number of works created that decides such a question, but their quality. Far be it from me to wilt his bays! And indeed, Mickiewicz’s works are of the highest caliber.
Now, I am about to begin my own apologia for this somewhat rambling essay. If we care to compare Mickiewicz to Shakespeare, we are naturally led to compare Dziady, especially Part III, to Hamlet. This comparison holds true from both sides of the footlights. Just as Hamlet is far and away the most recognizable of all English plays to the average Anglophone, so is Forefathers’ Eve, Part III the dramatic work that most quickly springs to the tongue of the Pole when surprised with the demand “name a play!” Along the same line, just as every actor aspires to the role of Hamlet — and it is a rare and coveted privilege to be awarded that role by a first-class theater — so in the Polish theater the role of Konrad is the most lusted after, and receiving the summons to play the role is the sign that one has at last arrived, scaled the pinnacle of classical histrionics. The most plain — indeed almost shameless — example of this can be found in Tadeusz Konwicki’s recent film adaptation of Mickiewicz’s play. Just at the moment when the young actor portraying Konrad is about to deliver the Grand Improvisation — comparable to the “To be or not to be” soliloquy of Hamlet — Gustaw Holoubek, one of the Oliviers or Gielguds of the Polish stage, steps out of the shadows, puts his hand on the actor’s shoulder, and with a patronizing look as much as if to say “it’s not your turn yet, sonny,” proceeds to deliver the great monologue himself, before retreating off camera again.
The point I am inching my way towards can be found in one more comparison between Mickiewicz and Shakespeare. It was perhaps A.L. Rowse who said that “everyone has the right to his own Shakespeare.” Much of the same can be said about interpreting Dziady. It is such a grand work (the term Polish Monumental Drama was not coined unreasonably), so vast, so universal, that room can be found in it for any number of competing, and often conflicting interpretations. Furthermore, although Mickiewicz wrote relatively few works, the works written about Mickiewicz and Forefathers’ Eve number in the thousands, making it impossible for even the longest-lived and most neurotic of Mickiewicz specialists to keep abreast of what people are saying about this greatest of all Slavic dramas. In the space of so short an essay as this I will not even attempt a brief critical overview of the work. The reader interested in my critical approach to the play is referred to the appropriate chapter in my Great Souls and Grey Men: the Romantic Hero and Contemporary Anti-Hero in Polish and Czech Literature. The chapter on Dziady is the longest in the book, and my views on the play have not been greatly altered by my subsequent reading and work since it was written. On the other hand, as the translator of the play, I owe the Reader at least a brief explanatory glance at my perspective on Dziady, and this I now begin.
Paramount among all questions concerning Forefathers’ Eve looms the elementary “Who, then, is this Konrad anyway?” The possible answers here, too, are many. Before the eyes of the audience, Mickiewicz’s protagonist undergoes a symbolic, yet very real, transformation: from Gustaw, into Konrad. Gustaw is the name given by the poet to the earlier incarnation of his hero in the related, yet thematically different Forefathers’ Eve known as “Parts II and IV,” or the “Wilno-Kowno text.” In those scenes, Gustaw is a Werther-like figure who — although this is never made clear — seems to have shot himself dead in the wake of an unhappy love affair. He then shows up, as a specter, conjured before his now-married former lover in a dark chapel on Forefathers’ Eve. This is the mute spirit the guślarz refers to in the final scene of our text. Then, he proceeds to haunt, after a manner, his old teacher — a priest. Here, if Jan Walc is correct, Mickiewicz has Gustaw take the Priest to task for filling the breasts of his classmates and himself with a romantic, idealistic ardor that can only be stifled by reality, or lead them to ruin. But because the Priest is himself a widower, mourning the loss of the beloved wife of his pre-ordination days,ii the main topic of conversation here too is unrequited love, love’s cruel delusions, and the madness, romantic or real, that it often leads to. It should be mentioned before we go on that, when he shows up at the Priest’s door, Gustaw is clad in rags and leaves. He describes himself as a “hermit,” but looks more the part of a cross between a bum and drowned Ophelia. Thus, those who wish to see in the Dresden Dziady (Part III) a patriotic manifesto — and they, like the demon who possesses Konrad in the Great Improvisation, are legion! — see the transformation of Gustaw into Konrad as Mickiewicz rolling up his sleeves. “Enough of this sniveling!” they would have him say — “now, to more important matters!”
They are not wrong in so thinking. This can even be seen in the somewhat gothic theme of vampirism found in these works. Part II (actually, it is Part I!)iii begins with a lyric entitled “Upiór” (“The Walking Dead”), supposedly spoken by Gustaw. Whereas this poem is almost entirely taken up with the “just” torments the narrator is made to suffer for the unhallowed, yet romantic, act, of shooting himself from erotic despair, its companion piece, the “satanic song” babbled out by Konrad just before the Improvisation, returns to the walking dead/vampire theme, but in a non-erotic fashion. Here, the vampire-song will suck the blood of its poet’s countrymen so as, in the best Transylvanian fashion, to raise up a “legion” to that horrid death-in-life dedicated to the sadistic torture of their sadistic torturers, the oppression of their oppressors.
Yet no part of Forefathers’ Eve is entirely subjective, whether in the eroto-individualistic sense or that of national particularism. The eternal is never far from the temporal in Mickiewicz’s drama; indeed, it is positively emphasized. Far more than Werther or Heloise, the books mentioned by mad Gustaw at the Priest’s home, the literary template for even the more sentimental portions of Dziady is Dante’s Divina commedia. Here, as there, the emphasis is on responsibility for one’s actions, and the eternal consequences they entail. Just as Dante travels through the three regions of the afterworld and meets there with the souls of the departed who tell him their stories and often give him warnings and advice, so here, in a masterful, romantic-folkish style, Mickiewicz uses the semi-pagan custom of invoking the spirits of the dead on Forefathers’ Eve for the same purpose. In Parts II and IV (both composed earlier, again, than Part III), we meet three souls from Purgatory: two little children and a beautiful young girl, as well as one damned spirit (that of a sadistic, heartless landowner) who each tell us their tales quite after the fashion of Dante’s racconti and, in so doing, warn us against making similar mistakes. In Part III, the final scene of which complements these earlier scenes, we meet with the souls of the Doctor and Baikov, the Woman and the Guślarz looking on at their symbolic torments exactly as Dante and Virgil gaze aghast at the horrid transformations of the suicides and thieves in Hell. Gustaw himself finally gives his “warning” to the Priest in Part IV, and, as we shall see, so does Konrad, at the conclusion of the Dresden text.
Those who like to see in the Dresden Dziady the gospel of the Polish independence movement, the be-all and end-all perfect expression of Poland’s yearnings for freedom, often point to the Great Improvisation as its quintessence. High-school students reading the work for the first time in Communist-ruled “people’s Poland” were taught, by the official literature handbook required in schools at the time, that in Dziady “Mickiewicz created a work in which he expressed both the state of his own private feelings, as well as the drama of his oppressed nation.” The Great Improvisation is called “the greatest expression of romantic individualism and at the same time one of the most moving examples of patriotic poetry.” In defense of their thesis, the editors of Literatura polska okresu romantyzmu ( Polish Romantic Literature, WSP, 1974), cite Mickiewicz’s correspondence, in which he states “God did not allow me to be the least participant in so great and fertile a work [as the November Uprising]. I daily live in the hope that I will not fold my hands in the grave without first having used them somehow.” And, in a letter to Lelewel, he calls the Dresden Dziady “a continuation of the war.” Now, there can be no doubt that the patriotic themes are important in any discussion of Dziady. Even Stanisław Count Tarnowski, the noble-born Polonist and rector of Jagiellonian University, writes in Volume V of his Historja literatury polskiej (1905) that “it’s not to say that every Pole felt and thought as Konrad, but rather that everything that Konrad feels and thinks was to be found in Polish souls, in various degrees and proportions.” He goes on to call the Improvisation “a summa of the feelings of millions in one heart,” and, although he is clear-minded enough to note the faults in Konrad’s arguments (something that the socialist-age editors were not too concerned about, as the “eternal” had less significance for them), such as his blasphemies, Tarnowski excuses Konrad with the words: “Whoever is scandalized by Konrad’s blasphemies, let him be scandalized by those of Job as well.” However, although as Tarnowski says, “everyone has his own Improvisation,” it is important to try and understand just what Mickiewicz’s Improvisation was — what he meant by it.
The one thing that cannot be ignored by any of the interpretators of Dziady, whether they be communist or monarchist, believing Christians or agnostics, is the plain fact that when Konrad speaks idiotic words such as his claims to be God’s equal he is possessed. To what extent are these thoughts his own (or his people’s, as the commentators would have it), and to what extent are they the devil’s? More importantly, how far are we to take them seriously? The answer to that question, once we see Fr Piotr enter and exorcise the demons that were tormenting the “hero,” is — not far at all. The poet has been shown to be a fool, the strong individual a weakling, the powerful “creator” as impotent as Satan himself, bound tight in the ice of Cocytus. Jacek Łukasiewicz, in his Mickiewicz (Wrocław: Wydawnictwo dolnośląskie, 1996, pp. 99-100) is one of the few critics who see this clearly. He writes: “The Improvisation, pronounced by Konrad in solitude, shows how pride mixes with insanity, arises from insanity and leads to insanity. It is insane to wish to compete with God, in whom Christians believe as a merciful and omnipotent Creator. If God is denied omnipotence and mercy, he is not the Christian God, but rather the false demiurge of the gnostics, who created an evil world, fencing it off from eternal light. In pronouncing his Improvisation in a play which is orthodoxically Christian — and such a play is Part III of Forefathers’ Eve — Konrad cannot be right.”
About the same time as the composition of the Dresden Dziady, Mickiewicz was in Rome. While there, he had an audience with the Pope. Infuriated with the Holy Father’s unwillingness to support, even spiritually, the democratic revolutionaries in Poland and Belgium, the poet is said to have cried out “Know, that today the Holy Spirit is to be found beneath the blouses of the French workers!” at which the Pope was to have replied “My son, remember were you are.” To all intents and purposes, Mickiewicz always did remember where he was, and what his range of possibilities was. Yes, his poetry can be said to have incited patriotic and insurrectionary feelings, yes, he organized armed Polish legions in both Italy and Constantinople (where, like Byron, he died), but did he ever believe in the “Prometheanism” of his Konrad, in the real chance of “ruling men’s souls” as God does,iv in the efficacy of one blow, one “samson hour” that will deliver “his nation suffering” at one fell swoop? The answer, again, has to be no. This is an insane, possessed man talking. Mickiewicz is showing us, through Konrad, exactly how not to go about things. As he wrote to a friend of his, Hieronym Kajsiewicz, speaking of the “Improvisation,” Wyrzygnąłem dumę i zepsucie nazbierane przez lat dziesięć (“[In it] I vomited forth all the pride and corruption that I had accumulated over the space of ten years.” Cited by Łukasiewicz, p. 102).
It would be a gross understatement to point out that the “romantic individualism” displayed by Konrad up until his exorcism at the hands of Fr Piotr — and this includes his “Great Improvisation” — is based on a truly insane sort of pride. That this is not the proper attitude that one ought to have is borne out not only by the abject failure of the spiritual epileptic fit with which the Improvisation ends, but also in comparison with the two positive “visions” which follow hard upon its conclusion. Not pride, but humility, not relying on one’s own meager powers, but acceptance of the will of God and reliance on His strength — this wins out, this is victorious — as is the patient, stubborn, heroic suffering of Cichowski, as narrated by Adolf. And the heroes are shown to be — not the great-souled poet, the romantic “creator” who would “divide rule in half” with God (!) but — a humble priest named Peter who risks his life for others, and, most ironically of all, but how true! — the little girl Ewa in her bedroom, who remembers the suffering souls in her prayers. Just as Dante uses Beatrice, St. Lucia and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Divine Comedy to illustrate the beauty of the Communion of the Saints, so does Mickiewicz mirror this idea in the persons of Fr. Piotr and Ewa.
If Konrad’s “Great Improvisation” is similar to any of the other visions in the play, it must be that of Novosiltsov. Just like Novosiltsov’s dream, Konrad’s ravings show him to be ultimately and exaggeratedly a self-centered person, and just as in the case of Novosiltsov, the demons raise Konrad up to the heights of pride before dashing him down, to near destruction. Yet, unlike Novosiltsov, it seems as if the time was ripe for Konrad to pack it in, he would have done so, had not the prayers of others on his behalf hindered the devils in their attempt.
This fact, that Konrad is nearly a mirror image of the tyrant he opposes, is also made clear through a comparison of their diction. Novosiltsov, questioning Fr. Piotr in the Christ-before-Pilate scenes, prods his victim in the same way that Conradus furians tempts God: “You’re silent? Silent?!”
It is remarkable that, after the exorcism scene, Konrad disappears entirely from the text until its very final moments. And here we have the warning that the story of Konrad presents to his contemporary Poles, and to ourselves — for Dziady, like the Divine Comedy and Don Giovanni, is a work of universal significance. Poland may resemble Christ, as in Fr. Piotr’s vision, but neither she, nor Konrad, nor any of us is nearly as powerful or important as we sometimes think. Konrad is — of course! — unable to perform any of the masterful deeds he boasts of effecting with his “eye” alone. The only act he, or any of us, is capable of, is the simple, significant act of charity which he accomplishes in all humility upon meeting Fr Piotr toward the end of the play. Is that scene an anti-climax? Konrad is shown to be incapable of saving the world — his world, Poland. Is Mickiewicz sneering at him when he has him give his ring over to be sold, the money gained to be divided in equal halves, for the poor, and for the souls in Purgatory? Hardly. The Corporal, earlier on, tells us of the importance of the little things in his parable of the shilling kept safe from the gaming tables by the gambler. And here Konrad dispenses that shilling. Perhaps it will buy the mouthful of bread that will get the starving child the extra mile needed to the doctor’s office and the road back to health. Perhaps the Mass it supports will release a tormented soul from Purgatory into bliss — just as Fr. Piotr saved Konrad’s soul a few scenes earlier. We are reminded of the Jewish saying that states, “the saving of one human life is the salvation of an entire world.” Is this not what Ewa and Fr. Piotr effect in the case of Konrad? At the conclusion of Dziady, Poland is not saved. But one soul, Konrad’s, is. And through Konrad’s humble, pious gift, are we not correct in assuming that another, or several more, might well be? This is the meaning that Konrad’s story, and that of Ewa and Fr Piotr, have for us. This is how we save the world. One world at a time.
*
Mickiewicz worked on Forefathers’ Eve throughout much of his poetic career. More precisely, we should say that Dziady are a theme which — no pun intended — haunted his imagination, and to which he returned more than once. He began serious work on the saga with the two-part text centering on the Wertherian hero Gustaw while still in Lithuania. These are Parts II and IV, the so-called “Wilno-Kowno text”, written before 1823. As we have mentioned earlier, Dziady Part III, written in Dresden after Mickiewicz’s voluntary exile from the Russian Empire, is the final portion of the epic-like drama, although the cryptic “End of Act I” found at the conclusion of the Dresden text suggests to some that the poet intended to continue the work later. If that is the case, he certainly tarried with his plans, for two whole decades of silence spread between the composition of “Part III” and his death in 1855.
As a final word of introduction to the play, we cite, again after Łukasiewicz (104) fragments of Mickiewicz’s letter to his former History professor Joachim Lelewel. Written on March 23, 1832, they accurately reflect the philosophy that animated the poet during the period in which he was working on Forefathers’ Eve, Part III:
Ja pokładam wielkie nadzieje w naszym narodzie i w biegu wypadków, nie przewidzianych żadną dyplomatyką. […] Myślałbym tylko, że naszemu dążeniu należałoby nadawać charakter religijno-moralny, różny od finansowego liberalizmu Francuzów, i że na katolicyzmie trzeba grunt położyć. […] Może nasz naród jest powołany opowiadać ludom ewangelią narodowości, moralności i religii, wzgardy dla budżetów, jedynej zasady teraźniejszej polityki, prawdziwie celniczej.
I set a great deal of hope in our nation, and in the course of history, which cannot be foreseen by any sort of diplomacy. […] I would only suggest that our efforts be endowed with a religious-moral character, so different from the financial liberalism of the French, and that the foundations must be laid in Catholicism. […] Perhaps our nation is called to announce to the peoples the gospel of nationalism, morality and religion, a disdain for budgets, which constitute the only principles of today’s politics, a veritable customs-house politics.
(Dziady)
This Poem
to
Jan Sobolewski
Cyprian Daszkiewicz
Feliks Kółakowski
of blessed memory
fellow students • prisoners • and exiles
persecuted • for their love • to their fatherland
who died • longing • for their homeland
in archangelsk • in moscow • in sankt petersburg
martyrs
of the national cause
is dedicated by its
author
For half a century now, Poland has displayed to the world such constant, unflagging, inexorable cruelty of the tyrants who oppress Her, and such illimitable devotion and endurance on the part of Her peoples suffering at their hands, as the world has not seen since the days of the Christian persecutions. It seems as if these kings had a Herodian presentiment of the manifestation of a new light upon the earth, and of their own imminent downfall, while the people believe ever more strongly in their renewal and resurrection.
The history of martyred Poland embraces many generations and a countless number of sacrifices; bloody scenes unfold daily in all corners of our homeland, as well as on foreign soil. The Poem with which we present the Reader today contains a few small sketches from this huge canvas, a few events from the persecutions instigated by Caesar Aleksandr.
Round about the year 1822, the politics of Caesar Aleksandr, the enemy of all liberty, began to show themselves more clearly, ground themselves more firmly, and take a more determined direction. In those days a universal persecution was visited upon all the tribes of Poland, which became ever more violent and bloody. At that time Senator Novosiltsov, of infamous note, stepped onto the stage. He was the first to understand the instinctive and beastly hatred of the Russian government towards Poles as something salvific and as eminently good politics. Thus he took it as the basis of all his actions, and set as his goal the destruction of Polish nationhood. In those days the whole area between the Prosna and the Dniepr, and from Galicja to the Baltic Sea, was locked up and governed like one huge prison. The entire administration of those lands was wound up like a huge machine for the torture of Poles, the wheels of which were set in motion by Tsarevich Konstanty and Senator Novosiltsov.
The systematic Novosiltsov first took upon himself the torture of children and adolescents, so that the hopes of all future generations should be exterminated in their very cradle. He set up his central hangman’s headquarters in Wilno, the academic capital of the Lithuanian-Bielorussian provinces. At that time there existed certain literary organizations among the university students, which aimed at the maintenance of the Polish tongue and of Polish nationhood, rights such as were guaranteed to the Poles both by the Congress of Vienna and by Imperial privilege. Now, these organizations, aware of the ever more intense suspicion they aroused among those in the government, dissolved themselves before any edict should enjoin them to do so. But Novosiltsov, even though he arrived in Wilno a full year after the voluntary dissolution of the organizations, hastened into the Imperial presence and pretended that he found them still in existence; presenting their literary endeavors as a distinct rebellion against the government. On this pretext he imprisoned several hundred youths and set up military tribunals, under his influence, with which to try the students. In the arcane “legal” proceedings of Russia, the defendant has no way of defending himself, for he often has no idea of the charge set against him. For the commission, as it sees fit, publishes only some of the accusations, keeping others secret. Novosiltsov, empowered with unlimited authority by Tsarevich Konstanty, acted as prosecutor, judge, and hangman.
He closed several schools in Lithuania, and published a writ according to which the youths who had attended them should be considered “civilly dead,” so that they should be deprived of their civil rights, be employed in no office, and be disallowed the completion of their studies in any institution, whether public or private. Such an edict, forbidding people to learn, has no historical precedent and is a purely Russian invention. Besides the closure of the schools, he condemned several tens of students to the mines in Siberia, to hard labor, and to conscription in Asian garrisons. Among their number were young children belonging to the noblest Lithuanian households. Some twenty of them, teachers and university graduates suspected of Polish nationalism, were banished to eternal, inner exile in the depths of Russia. Among so many exiles, only one has, to date, managed to extricate himself from Russia.
All of the writers who make reference to this persecution of Lithuania agree that, in the affair of the students of Wilno there was something mystical and mysterious.1 The mystical, gentle, yet unshaken character of Tomasz Zan, the leader of the youths; the religious resignation, brotherly concord and love among the young prisoners; the divine wrath, which fell upon the persecutors for all to see, all left deep impressions upon those who were either witnesses to or participants in these events; described, they seem to transport the Reader into ancient times, the ages of faith and miracle.
He who is well aware of the happenings of those days will bear witness with the author, that the historical scenes and the characterizations of the people taking part in them have been drawn conscientiously, with nothing added and with no exaggeration. And why, after all, should the author wish to add or exaggerate — so as to rekindle in the breasts of his countrymen hatred to their enemies? Or to arouse pity among the peoples of Europe? For what are all of the cruelties of those times compared to what the Polish nation is now suffering, and upon which Europe looks with indifferent eye! The author’s only wish is to store up for his nation a faithful memoir from recent Lithuanian history: he does not need to terrify his countrymen with hideous sketches of their enemies, whom they have known for centuries; and as for the merciful nations of Europe, which shed their tears over Poland like the wretched women of Jerusalem over Christ, our nation shall speak only with the words of the Savior: ‘Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but for yourselves.’
part iii
lithuania
prologue
In Wilno, near Ostrobramska street, in the Basilian monastery /transformed into a state prison/—a prisoner’s cell
But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
Matthew, X: 17
And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles.
Matthew, X: 18
And you shall be hated by all men for my name’s sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved.
Matthew, X: 22.
/A prisoner, leaning against a window, sleeping/
guardian angel.
Alas, thou no good, heartless child!
Such force has the incessant care
Of thy sweet earthly mother mild,
Her works on earth, in heaven her prayer
That thou hast lived a youth secure
From tempting itch and deed impure:
Just like that angel of the lawn
That daily blooms, and all the night
Bedecks her children with a crown
Of scent to beat back worm and blight.
I, now and then, at her request
And with permission divine
Have urged my wings, my footsteps pressed
Unto that frail cottage of thine
To take my post beside thy bed
And gaze upon thy sleeping head.
While thou rocked on the lap of night,
Above thy fierce, impassioned dreams
I stood there, like a lily white
Bends over a muddy, moiling stream.
Thy soul would fill me with disgust
At times, seething with thought and sense,
Yet still I sought the good out, just
Like, in ant-hills, grains of incense.
As soon as I should glimpse a thought
Of goodness, I’d take up thy soul,
And hand in hand, I, soaring, brought
Thee to eternity, where whole
And bright shines God’s good universe,
And I would sing to thee such verse
As earthly children seldom hear
When sleep o’ercomes them, to forget
On rising. I played chaunticleer
To future greatness, goodness, yet
Thou heard’st the music of the spheres
As if ‘twere bawdy tavern cheers.
Then I, a spirit pure, who dwell
Among angelic ranks in heaven
Took on the forms of beasts in hell
To scare, and strengthen thee: harsh leaven,
Didactics strict of a gentle Lord—
Which like a hangman’s swinge thou bore!
Then in thy soul awoke unease.
With angry pride thy breast did swell
As if thou’d drunk deep of the well
Of ignorance — yea, to the lees!
And memories of the higher spheres
Were sucked into thy depths, as glades
Of leaves and blossoms disappear
In caverns, borne on dark cascades.
At this I wept such bitter tears!
Covering my face with trembling hands—
Although I wished, I didn’t dare
Turn back toward the starry strands,
So that I shouldn’t meet her there,
Thy mother, and need to reply
When asked what sort of news I bear,
”How goes it with that son of mine?”
prisoner /awakes after troubled sleep and looks through the window: early morning/.
Still moon, when you arise, who asks of you
Whence you come; when you toss before you stars,
Which of them might your future ways construe!
“The sun’s gone down,” call the astronomers
From their high towers, but why’s the sun gone down?
No one replies. Dark shades enwrap the globe,
The people sleep. But why? The wisemen frown
And shrug. They sleep, and wake, like blindmen grope
Through shadows thicker than the fumes of night —
They trudge on, dead eyes fixed upon the ground,
While just like guardsmen, Darkness shifts with Light,
But where’s the officer that appoints their rounds?
And dream — that silent world, mysterious!
The soul’s life — ah! now, there’s a riddler’s theme!
Who’ll take its measure? Who will time its pulse?
Asleep, man’s gripped in terror; he wakes — laughs off the dream.
The wisemen say “dream is but life recalled.”
Cursed wisemen, all!
Can I not tell ‘twixt dream and memory?
Maybe they’ll tell me next that this prison
Is but a dream vision.
They label tortures dreamt and passion
Imagination; —
Fools, who scrounge imagination’s shards
From poets, and proceed to preach to bards!
I’ve plumbed her depth, gauged both height and expanse,
And know that beyond her lies — vatic trance.
Day sooner will be night, and torture passion
Than dreams memories — or imagination.
/he lies down, then starts up again and goes to the window/
Can’t sleep. Such dreams deceive me and distress:
And never let me rest!
/drowses/
night spirits.
Black down, soft down, lay here — his head to press.
Let’s sing — but soft! — cause him yet no distress.
spirit from the left.
A sad night here in jail, but the festive town is gay:
Music resounds from hall and table;
Minstrels warble near the board where cup near cup is laid;
Bright comets flash through byways sable —
Comets with blue eyes gleaming, each trails a golden braid.
/the prisoner falls asleep/
And he who struggles with frantic oar
Over these swelling billows, will fall asleep on the wave
And wake to find himself on our shore.
angel.
We’ve asked the Lord to press
Thee in thy foeman’s hands:
Solitude feeds the soul.
Here, in thy loneliness,
As if in desert sands,
Think on thy destined role.
chorus of night spirits.
God torments us by day, but in the night we play:
Late at night, when the fat get fatter
The empty still more vain, and lusty songs more gay:
When Satan tunes the string and piles the platter.
The pew’s still warm where this one sat at Mass,
A wreath of noble thought her brow adorns:
Her crown the Snake will wither like dry grass —
His Grace the Leech will drain before the morn.
Let’s sing over the sleeper, sons of night!
We’ll serve him until he our slave become.
Bore through his heart, seep through his inner sight:
He’ll be ours yet — ah! may his sleep be long!
angel.
On earth, in heaven, prayers are raised for thee —
Soon from these tyrants thou shalt be set free.
prisoner /stirs and considers/.
Ah, you who dare torment your fellow men,
Smiling by day and gorging through the night,
Can you recall one dream, however slight?
And if you can, can you it comprehend?
/nods off again/
angel.
We’ve come to tell thee, that thou shalt go free.
prisoner /roused/.
I shall go free? Where did I hear those words?
Someone said — no, — a dream… are they the Lord’s?
/slumbers anew/
angels.
Let us take care to guard his thought.
‘Tis there the battle will be fought.
spirits from the left.
Double the legions for attack!
spirits from the right.
Double the guard to beat them back!
Or ill thought win, or good thought vanquish,
Tomorrow speech and deed will show.
One moment of this battle’s anguish
Spells this man’s fate, for ever more.
prisoner.
I shall be free — yes! But whence is this news?
For what a Russian pardon means, I know.
They’ll free me from these fetters and rank mews,
And then, by exile, wrap chains round my soul!
Wandering ‘midst foreign mobs and enemies,
A bard — who there will understand my chant?
Harsh rhyming nonsense, tattered by the breeze.
They’ve torn my only weapon from my hands.
No, not quite. But they’ve broken it, beaten it blunt.
Alive, but for my Fatherland, a corpse.
My thought will fester in such shadows dun,
Like diamonds clipt in rockbeds dull and coarse.
/he rises and writes the following on one wall with a piece of coal/:
D. O. M.
gustavus
obiit m. d. ccc. xxiii
calendis novembris
/and on the facing wall/:
hic natus est
conradus
m. d. ccc. xxiii
calendis novembris
/he leans against the wall and falls asleep/
spirit.
Ah, mortal! If thou only knew thy power!
When but a thought, like a spark in the mist
Shines in thy mind unseen, great stormclouds lower
To pour forth gentle rain or savage tempest.
If but thou knew, that as each thought alights
There gather round in silence, and stand by
Like storm-hounds, angels both sooty and bright:
— Wilt dash to hell, or flash out in the sky? —
Yet thou, like a steep cloud, fliest on aloof,
Knowing not where th’art borne, nor what thou do.
Ah, mortals! Each of you might, imprisoned, alone,
By thought and faith o’erturn the surest throne!
Act I
scene i
/A corridor — guardsmen with carbines stand nearby — a few young prisoners, with candles, leave their cells — midnight/
jakub.
Well, what? — May we meet?
adolf.
The guardsmen are drunk:
The corporal’s ours.
jakub.
What’s the time?
adolf.
Just midnight.
jakub.
If the shift should catch us, the corporal’s done.
adolf.
Just snuff your candle so that the light
Won’t flash in the window. These guards are babes!
The shift’ll have to knock both long and hard,
Find their keys, exchange their passwords with the guard,
Then they must march down a long corridor —
They won’t hear anything except our snores.
/other prisoners exit their cells, meet them/
żegota.
Good evening.
konrad.
You’re here!
fr lwowicz.
You’re here!
sobolewski.
I am too.
frejend.
Know what? Żegota, let’s go to your cell.
Our sacred congregation’s got a new
Novice — with a stove — there, we’ll be hot as hell.
Besides, they say travel broadens the mind.
sobolewski.
Żegota! How’ve you been? So you’re here too!
żegota.
Too many to fit in that cell of mine.
frejend.
We’ll go to Konrad’s cell, that’s what we’ll do.
It’s farthest — right next to the church’s wall.
From there you can’t hear anything — song, or cry.
And I’d like to talk loud and sing tonight —
They’ll think it’s coming from the choir stalls.
Tomorrow’s Christmas Day, my friends, and so
I’ve got a couple bottles…
jakub.Does the corporal know?
frejend.
He likes a snort himself, the honest soul.
What’s more important, like us, he’s a Pole.
One of the Grande Armée, a Legionnaire,
A silk purse the tsar refashioned a sow’s ear.
He’s a good Catholic, and won’t berate
His charges if they wish to celebrate
On Christmas Eve.
jakub.
But if the Russians learn…
/they go into Konrad’s cell, start a fire in the stove, and light their candles. Konrad’s cell as it was in the Prologue./
fr lwowicz.
How did you get here, Żegota? And when?
żegota.
Today. They plucked me out of my own barn.
fr lwowicz.
You were a farmer, too?
żegota.
A born one, friend!
Could you but see my oxen and my sheep!
They call me the best yeoman in the land
Who at one time couldn’t tell hay from wheat.
jakub.
They took you by surprise?
żegota.
I understand
That for some time now, an investigation’s
Been going on in Wilno. My house lies
Close to the road — I’ve seen the coaches hasten
And heard at night the bell that terrifies —
The post-chaise — boding evil like the croak
Of raven. Sometimes, sitting down to eat
Somebody’d ring their wineglass as a joke:
The girls would shiver, old folks jump to their feet,
As if they had heard the Feldjäger’s bell.
But who’re they chasing? I don’t know. For what?
As yet I’ve never belonged to any plot.
I think the government just wants to fill
Their pockets. Once they squeeze from us a fine,
They’ll let us go.
tomasz.
That’s what you’re hoping for?
żegota.
What else? We’ve not committed any crime!
They can’t just send us to Siberia?
You’re all so quiet…what’s wrong? What’s the score?
How come you’re being so mysterious?
tomasz.
The reason’s just arrived here from Warsaw:
Novosiltsov. You know the Senator:
Fell out of favor with the Emperor
For drinking through the loot such as they’d fleeced
Before, getting in debt, and pining poor —
And as in Poland he found not the least
Bit of conspiracy (though, no denying,
It wasn’t that he failed for lack of trying),
He’s come to cast his lot in a new land,
In Lithuania, and with him, brought
His whole headquarters of squeals and spies.
Now, so that he might rob with a free hand
And find favor again in the tsar’s eyes,
He has to think up non-existent plots
To ready more lambs for the tsarist knife.
żegota.
We’ll prove our innocence —
tomasz.
Not on your life.
Both the investigation and the trial
Are secret. The defendant never learns
What he’s accused of, and, in the meanwhile,
The judge, who’s supposed to hear our defense,
Responding to each charge in even turns,
Already contemplates the punishment
Of those who’ve no right to be innocent.
One last mean’s left us, sad though it may be:
Some of us must make a self-sacrifice,
Shouldering the burden of the blame alone.
It’s only right the blow should fall on me,
Who was your chief: the role is mine by rights.
Now, pick some others of us to be thrown
To the lions with me — but only such
As might not weigh down dear hearts overmuch:
Orphans and oldsters and unmarried men,
So that those needed more might live again.
żegota.
It’s come to that?
jakub.
The poor chap’s set to cry.
He didn’t know he’d said his last goodbye.
frejend.
Our Jacek had to leave his wife about
To give birth, and he’s not crying!
feliks kółakowski.
That I doubt.
He’s got a lot to weep for. Listen here:
If it’s to be a son, I’ll read his stars.
Give me your hand. You know, I’m quite the seer
Among my other talents. By the scars
Here in your flesh I see: if he matures
Into a good and honest man, he’s sure
To meet with Russian justice, id est chains:
Tossed in this hole, where Daddy yet remains!
Won’t that be touching?
żegota.
How long have you been here?
frejend.
Ask good old Tomasz, sorrow’s Patriarch.
The biggest pike was first snared in the net:
He greeted our arrival, and will yet
Be here when we’ve passed on. It’s him that knows
Who’s here, from whence they came, and even when.
suzin.
O, blast my eyes! So you are Tomasz, then?
I didn’t recognize you! Come, your hand!
We met once, but had no chance to draw close:
You were packed round by such a mob of friends
Back then — the friendship of no other man
Was so sought after. You can’t have known me
In such a crowd, but oh, I knew you well:
Knew what you did and suffered to keep us free.
And now my chest has a real reason to swell
When, dying, I recall, I wept with you.
frejend.
O God, again the tears begin to brew!
Look here — even when he walked the streets unfettered
There on old Tomasz’ brow, in shining letters
Was writ: This one is for the clink. Today
He loves the lockup like his very home.
Outside, he lived like cryptogamic mushrooms
That wilt in sunlight. Then when he was thrown
In prison, where we sunflowers grow pale
And choke, he spreads, he positively blooms!
He’s benefited from this modish spa
That keeps you healthy, helps you watch your weight
By putting next to nothing on your plate.
żegota /to Tomasz/.
They starved you?
frejend.
O, they gave him something to gnaw.
If you’d but seen it! My invention quails
At its description. Just set it alight,
And all the cell’s vermin croak in one night.
żegota.
How could you eat it!
tomasz.
I didn’t — for a week.
And then I tried it. Fainted dead away!
Tried it again, and felt such pricks and pains
As poisoned men are said to feel — I lay
Unconscious for a good couple of weeks.
There was no doctor by to list the names
Of all the sicknesses I suffered through.
At last I woke, and, with my strength renewed,
I slurp it up now like my favorite stew!
frejend /with forced gaiety/.
Hey! Outside they don’t know what they are missing!
The slammer’s got the only gourmet kitchen
That seasons horrors by mere repetition.
The devil sits in muck. Go ask him why:
“Because I’m used to it,” he will reply.
jakub.
But to get used to it!
frejend.
Yes, that’s the key.
jakub.
I’ve been here eight months, by these notches scored,
And long for home no less…
frejend.
And yet no more?
Tomasz has got so used, that one fresh breeze
Would knock him dizzy, fainting, to his knees!
He hardly moves ten feet beyond his bunk
And has got so unused to breathing air
That, if they drive him out of jail, he’ll fare
Quite well, saving on alcohol and wine:
One sip of air and he’s already drunk!
tomasz.
I’d sooner starve and molder under ground
Than see you fellows prison-mates of mine.
I’d sooner take their blows, ah, let them pound!
Or, worse — let them question me a second time.
Devils! They’re digging us a common grave!
frejend.
Is it for us you’re shedding bitter tears?
As if you had a reason! Look at me:
So what if I should live a hundred years?
Ha! I’m a soldier, and if there’s a war,
I’m good at making Russian shishkabob,
But set me free in peacetime? Why? What for?
To curse at Russians through my muffled gob?
Drag on a useless life, then die, and rot?
Out there I’d waste away an age’s time
Like cheap gunpowder, or second-rate wine.
Here, corked up tightly, rammed in tight with tow,
The bottle’s full, the powder’s set to burst.
Uncork the bottle out there, and I’d go
Flat like a champagne magnum opened first
And then neglected, or like powder fizzle
In a damp pan out in a dreary drizzle.
But, send me to Siberia in chains
And let my brother Lithuanians
Take one look at my unbent, crackling frame,
They’ll say: “Dear Lord, a noble lad like him!
Just wait, you bloody Tsar!” And thus their thin
Expiring ember-hate will burst to flame!
Tomasz, with happy heart I’d go to hang
If, by my death, you’d live a moment more.
Chaps like me serve the Fatherland in dying,
We’re good for nothing else. I’d die a score
Of times to resurrect you from the dead —
You, or else Konrad, the gloomy bard
Who, like a gypsy reads her tarot cards,
Sings us the future.
/to Konrad/
I believe you’re great
‘Cause Tomasz told me so. And so I love you,
Because you’re like a bottle of wine too:
You pour out song and feeling, make us high
With hope and faith while you spill yourself dry.
/wiping his tears, he takes Konrad’s hand/
/to Tomasz and Konrad/
You know I love you. But one can love and yet
Not cry. So, brothers, let us dry our tears,
‘Cause if I set to sobbing, damn it, I fear
Tea won’t get made, and our crumbs will get wet.
/He makes tea. A moment of silence/
fr lwowicz.
He’s right. This is no way to greet a friend.
Tears at harvest homes bring bad luck. Now, come:
Have we not hours enough to hold our tongue?
jakub.
Is there no news from town?
all.News?
fr lwowicz.
No news, then?
adolf.
Jan went for questioning today. An hour
He was in town — but from his looks
You see he’s in no mood for talking. Sour
And silent.
some of the prisoners.
Come on, Jan, what news?
jan sobolewski.
They took
Full twenty carloads to Siberia
Today. Well, that’s your news. None of it good.
żegota.
Who did they take? Our men?
jan.
Students from Żmudź.
all.
Off to Siberia?
jan.
Like a parade!
“As seen by thousands!”
several.
Carted off for good…
jan.
Saw it myself.
jakub.
With your own eyes, you say?
My brother, too? Did they take everyone?
jan.
Everyone there — yes, every mother’s son.
Saw it myself. While on my way back ”home.”
I asked the corporal for a rest. We’d come
To the church. I stood there in the portico
Behind a column. Mass was being sung
Inside; then, suddenly, the congregation
Rushed outside and took up a station
Near the court house. What was going on?
I looked back in the freshly emptied nave:
The priest and server were yet in the apse,
The sacring bell was rung, and then a rasp
From the other direction turned me around —
The rusty jailyard gates screeched over the ground:
Soldiers, with guns and drums, a double row,
Between them: transport wagons. Then, a knave
Swung up into the saddle. You would know
From his scowl that he was an important man
About to lead a triumph in his van:
A northern triumph for a northern tsar
Who triumphs over children. Then he barked,
A signal sounded on the drum, and all
— I saw them —
The prisoners were led from the council hall.
Little boys! Broken, heads shaved every one,
Just like recruits. And at each back, a gun.
Poor lads! The youngest was no more than ten:
He whimpered that the heavy fetters rankled
His feet, and pointed at his bloody ankle:
The iron had eaten halfway to the bone.
The one on horseback canters up, looks down,
“What’s this?” he frowns, in righteous consternation.
“It weighs ten pounds. Ten pounds is regulation!”
I recognized Janczewski, though disfigured,
Thinned, wasted, and yet, strangely transfigured.
A year ago he was a carefree child.
Now, gazing through the bars, like from some wild
And lonely cliff — a Caesar! — and his eye,
Proud, calm, contemptuous of the drabs, and dry —
As if he wanted to cheer up his mates,
And with a bitter smile, but sweet, he bade
Farewell to the onlookers, as if to say
“It doesn’t really hurt.” He looked my way,
And, seeing not the corporal holding me
By sleeve-cuff, he assumed that I was free.
He smiled and blew a kiss, nodded his head
To bid farewell and send felicitations.
Eyes turned our way. The corporal lost patience
And tried to jerk me out of the crowd’s sight.
But no, I wouldn’t let him! I just stood tight
There by the column, watching every move
And the deportment of the prisoner.
He noticed that his chains had caused a stir
Of pity in the crowd, and so he smiled
And kicked contemptuously, as if to say
“They’re not so heavy.” Whips cracked, horses pulled,
And they were off. He doffed his cap, and cried
Three times, “Poland hath not perished yet!” While
His wagon vanished in the rout, I stood
There marking his black hat wave from his hand
Like a black flag of mourning, flapping in the van
Of a funeral march. His shaven crown
From which the hair was torn by violence,
That head, proud and unshamed, from a distance
Could still be seen, against the thick background
Of black hats, bruiting forth his innocence,
Vivid and thrilling, as a dolphin leaps
Above the swelling sea. This image keeps
Itself forever in my eye — that head,
That hand — as o’er this thorny road I tread;
For compass-like, to virtue it points the way.
Ah, God in heaven, should I ever forget
Them, forget me as well on that last day!
fr lwowicz.
Amen for you.
each of the prisoners.
And us. Without regret.
jan sobolewski.
Then more wagons drew up, in a long line,
Devouring one by one those left behind
By the first transport. As I looked around
At those standing in the tightly-packed crowd,
And at the soldiers, I saw, to my shock
That their faces as well were white as chalk.
Like corpses! and such a dead silence reigned
That I heard every clink of every chain.
It’s odd — all sense how wrong the judgments are,
Yet all keep quiet, they so fear the tsar.
They had to carry out the last poor soul:
It seemed he fought — but no, he couldn’t go
On his own legs. He tottered on the brink
Of fainting, with each step he seemed to sink;
At last, his legs gave up, and he fell down
The steps and lay there, stretched out on the ground.
‘Twas Wasilewski. He had been confined
With us here till they took him out one time
For questioning, and gave him such a whacking
That color in his cheeks was always lacking
From that day forth. And then a soldier ran
Up to him, picked him up in one big hand
To help him to the wagon (on the sly
He used his other to wipe his own eyes dry).
Now, Wasilewski didn’t faint, or sag,
Or droop, he just fell outright on the flags.
There on the soldier’s breast, his arms around
His neck, he looked like one just taken down
From the cross. His eyes were a horrible sight —
Round and wide-open, and completely white.
The crowd as well opened wide their eyes and mouths
And from a thousand breasts there then rushed out
A common sigh — a deep, underground moan
As if it seeped out from beneath gravestones.
Then it was stifled by an officer
Who shouted, “Arms! Now, forward march!” a whirr
Of drumsticks and then thunder — on the street
The people’s pity trampled beneath the feet
Of horses, and the wagons spurted past
Like lightning. There was no one in the last,
It seemed — until we saw an arm a-flap —
Bruised, torn, and corpse-like, through straw and the gaps
Between the bars. And there it rattled still
As if it were bidding the crowd farewell.
They drove the wagons into the weeping press
Of people, and before they could suppress
Their sorrow with a regulation whip,
The wagon had to halt before the steps
Where I stood — and at that moment, rang a bell.
I turned about and looked, and I could tell
That it was Elevation — the priest rose high
The Body and Blood of Christ, and, with a sigh
I prayed: O Lord, who before Pilate stood
And for man’s saving spilled Thy blameless blood,
Accept this children’s blood by Moscow shent.
Not quite so holy, but just as innocent!
/long pause/
józef.
I’ve read of wars in ancient, savage times —
How less like wars they seemed, and more like crimes:
How enemies would take the harvest whole,
Bind it to trees and burn both to charcoal.
Wiser the tsar, and deeper, Poland bleeds:
He tears the ripe corn and treads flat the seeds.
Satan himself teaches the tsar these ways —
kółakowski.
And wreaths his pupil’s brows with first-prize bays!
/pause/
fr lwowicz.
Brothers, perhaps that prisoner hasn’t died.
God only knows, Who brings secrets to light.
I, as a priest, will pray for him, and you
Should say a prayer for the martyr’s rest, too.
Who knows? Tomorrow, we might share his fate.
adolf.
Remember Ksawery, who blew his pate
Apart rather than fall into their web.
frejend.
Łebski! Who lingered with us ‘round the wine,
But come the gall — he’s gone, with hasty step!
fr lwowicz.
Prayers for him too would not be out of line.
jankowski.
You know, this faith of yours is worthless, priest.
Say what you will — that I’m worse than a beast,
A Turk, a Tatar, a thief, spy, or bandit,
Austrian, Prussian, or a Russian, damn it —
But God’s ire, if such there be, creeps still afar.
They’re dead, we’re here, and smiling lives the tsar!
frejend.
You’ve taken the words out of my mouth, my friend,
And with them all the sin, so thanks again.
Ho! Hold on a second, let me catch my breath
And clean my head of tearful tales of death.
Now, Feliks, come and make your brothers laugh.
You could make Hell seem like a sauna bath!
several prisoners.
That’s right! Come on, old Feliks, make us laugh —
He’s got a voice — Frejend, pour him a draught.
żegota.
Hold, friends. My clan’s sat in the House of Lords,
And though I’m a newcomer, a few words
From me, perhaps, would not be out of place,
Since Józef speaks of seeds, for in that case,
A yeoman such as I who’s farmed the land
Can speak of seeds like one who understands.
Now, if the tsar must filch seed, fruit and stamen,
Prices will soar indeed, but fear no famine:
Though he may stamp it down in Russian muck,
Still, as old Antoni says, for him worse luck.