B005GEZ23A EBOK Read Free Page B

the village of Brzustowa, the boards glow with whitewash, a dog is barking … mysterious … in front of me the coachman’s back … mysterious … and next to me this man who is silently, affably accompanying me. The invisible ground at times rocked our vehicle, at times shook it, while caverns of darkness, the thickening murkiness among the trees, obstructed our vision. I talked to the coachman just to hear my own voice:
    “Well, how’s it going? Is it peaceful over your way?”
    And I heard him say:
    “It’s peaceful for the moment. There are gangs in the forests. … But nothing special lately. …”
    The face invisible, the voice the same—yet not the same. In front of me only his back—and I was about to lean forward to look into the eyes of his back, but I stopped short … because Fryderyk … was indeed here, next to me. And he was immensely silent. With him next to me, I preferred not to look anyone in the face … because I suddenly realized that this something sitting next to me is radical in its silence, radical to the point of frenzy! Yes, he was an extremist! Reckless inthe extreme! No, this was not an ordinary being but something more rapacious, strained by an extremity about which thus far I had no idea! So I preferred not to look in the face—of anyone, not even the coachman’s, whose back weighed me down like a mountain, while the invisible earth rocked the carriage, shook it, and the surrounding darkness, sparkling with stars, sucked out all vision. The remainder of the journey passed without a word. We finally rolled into an avenue, the horses moved more briskly—then the gate, the caretaker, and the dogs—the locked house and the heavy grating of its unlocking—Hipolit with a lamp …
    “Well, thank God you’re here!”
    Was it he or not? The bloated redness of his cheeks, bursting, struck me and repelled me. … He seemed to be generally bursting with edema, which made everything in him expand enormously and grow in all directions, the awful blubber of his body was like a volcano disgorging flesh … in knee boots, he stretched out his apocalyptic paws, and his eyes peeped from his body as if through a porthole. Yet he wanted to be close to me, he hugged me. He whispered bashfully:
    “I’m all bloated … devil only knows … I’ve grown fat. From what? Probably from everything.”
    And looking at his thick fingers he repeated with boundless anguish, more softly, to himself:
    “I’ve grown fat. From what? Probably from everything.”
    Then he bellowed:
    “And this is my wife!”
    Then he muttered for his own benefit:
    “And this is my wife.”
    Then he screamed:
    “And this is my Henia, Hennie, Hennie-girl!”
    Then he repeated, to himself, barely audibly:
    “And this is Henia, Hennie, Hennie-girl!”
    He turned to us, hospitably, his manner refined: “How good of you to come, but please, Witold, introduce me to your friend …” He stopped, closed his eyes, and kept repeating … his lips moved. Fryderyk, courteous in the extreme, kissed the hand of the hostess, whose melancholy was embellished with a faraway smile, whose litheness fluttered lightly … and the whirl of connecting, introducing us into the house, sitting, conversing, drew us in—after that journey without end—the light of the lamp induced a dreamy mood. Supper, served by a butler. We were overcome with sleep. Vodka. Struggling against sleep, we tried to listen, to grasp, there was talk of aggravation by the Underground Army on the one hand, by the Germans on the other, by gangs, by the administration, by the Polish police, and seizures—talk of rampant fears and rapes … to which the shutters, secured with additional iron bars, bore witness, as did the blockading of side doors … the locking and bunging up with iron. “They burned down Sieniechów, they broke the legs of the overseer of the farm laborers in Rudniki, I had people here who were displaced from the Pozna ń region, what’s worse, we know