Martha’s disappointment is plain to perceive.
“So then you believe in God?”
“I do not know, and do not trouble about it. It is not likely the ideas of creation out of nothing, of sovereignty as opposed to subjection, of volition as opposed to passiveness, have any counterpart out of our minds. … Notice, Martha, that in my view the expression, ‘Transcendental Being,’ implies a contradiction. Our very idea of Being is a mere outcome of experience: and I go so far beyond Nature, I leap so completely out of my human skin, that I can force myself to the contemplation of an unimaginable world, in which there is no contradiction between Being and Non-Being. …
“Therefore, I do not trouble whether I shall in that world be myself or not myself: nor even whether I shall be or not be. …”
She gazes at me, her eyes wide open, and says under her breath:
“Yes, I see.”
“And, do you know, the capacity of thus abstracting one’s thought itself from its outward form, of looking upon the universe and one’s very thought from such a standpoint, sets one on heights incomprehensibly sublime, and gives the purest, the most unearthly delight.”
… There is a black cat here, with eyes like emeralds; it ranges noiselessly amongst the rows of gravestones. A singularly sociable creature; it follows us everywhere in our walks, like a dog. … When I look at it, I cannot help believing in Metempsychosis: there must dwell within this cat some very refined aristocratic soul, one that looks upon everything with supreme scepticism.
“What is the matter, Martha?”
“Nothing. I have only dropped a hairpin.”
A tortoiseshell pin has fallen out of her thick black tresses, and dropped on to the earth with a faint sound.
Martha is just now in a very lofty mood. This real world of ours strikes her as a contrast, ridiculous in its littleness, to the world we are speaking of. So she does not wish me to pick up that pin, though it has dropped quite close to me on the heather. To my mind this is too high-flown, too girlish. After all, the realities of life are paramount, and we ought to have so much intellectual culture as never to forget it.
Wherefore I give her the pin, smiling very sarcastically.
“After all,” I conclude, rising from the hollow ridge and preparing to walk home, “I quite understand that what I have said amounts to the same as belief in nothing. It is all the same to me whether I shall cease to be after death, or be transferred to a world wherein there is no idea of being, or of any Ego, conditioning my self-consciousness. I understand, too, that a world in which Being does not contradict Non-Being, is to our minds equivalent to no world at all. So that my faith is similar to your unfaith, but inferred and formulated otherwise.”
Janusz is very humble and wretched now. Sometimes, when we sit long together of an evening, he will fall asleep with his head in my lap, worn out with nervous exhaustion. And then I am face to face with something very strange.
I feel a mysterious dread of the torment of an everlasting vigil, together with a sense of responsibility beyond my strength. Yet I do not wake him, although I am shuddering with dread; I will not let him know that I am afraid! … There are certain things one should not speak about to children. … That I love solitude when alone, but that the feeling of solitude when someone is by me, fills me with unspeakable dread, for then I hear my soul uttering her triumphant laugh: this I would never confess to him.
Vigorous I am, and able to struggle for a long time. But even for warriors there come moments when they trustfully lay their tired heads on someone’s lap; when they feel secure in the knowledge of someone above them, watching over them, standing between them and their foes, between them and the Infinite, the Unknown.
Is there any man in the world who could thus lull my watchfulness to sleep? There is one, only one. But the price I should pay would be all that makes life charming.
When Janusz is sleeping on my lap, I then invariably think of—Roslawski.
As a rule, it is from a novelist’s or an artist’s standpoint—from without and objectively—that I view whatever happens in my life; consciously throwing all my impressions into the form of sentences, rounded and complete, often affected and unnatural; and in everything I say, think, or do, seeking for dramatic, literary, or picturesque effects. This peculiarity I hold for one of the tragic sides of my life, since it almost entirely robs my impressions of their directness.
People sometimes blame me for being mannered, for attitudinizing, for performing everything with artifice, whether I make a bow or do my hair. And I fully admit they are right. But then, artificiality comes naturally to me. Every motion, every smile of mine is present to me before it is elicited: it is scrutinized and judged by me, as though I were someone else. For me, there is no present; I look at all things from out of the Future: there are no involuntary bursts of thought, no inarticulate words or mechanical gestures for me. And should I try to behave with apparent artlessness, I should then be artificial twice over.
This afternoon a carriage, covered with mud, and drawn by a couple of splendid sorrel horses, pulls up in front of our terrace. Imszanski jumps out, throwing the reins to the groom, who sits behind. Janusz welcomes him, and he slowly comes up the steps. He has driven thirty-five miles, but his impassive features bear not the slightest trace of fatigue.
He improves upon acquaintance. Beyond all doubt, he is the handsomest man I know: a great point in his favour. His movements,
