stanislaw barszczak—Banner of solidary people—An another anniversary of the eternal uprising of man to the fullness of happiness and truth about himself, no longer off thirtieth Solidarity. The shipyard workers, people, politicians are shining, my Szczecin and a free city of Danzig. Yesterday I found myself again in Szczecin, staring at the sun on Saturday, in the familiar buildings. I pass them Pomeranian Library of Stanislaus Staszic in Szczecin. From the Basilica Cathedral that is constantly renewed I look at “my” five blocks in the northern district of Niebuszewo (height 56 meters), the Castle of Pomeranian Dukes, Shafts Brave, Town Hall, Royal Gate, Gate Harbor. It is here that I passed the exams in the memorable year 1980, the place where Empress Catherine was born. I recall now the central Cemetery, Emerald Lake,, elevator, “Eve”. And Szczecin Venice with the riverside Channel was there. Among other wonders of Szczecin I admire radial arrangement of squares and streets. As some they shown that the location of Szczecin squares and streets radiating lying there it has its reference in the constellation Orion and the complex of the Egyptian pyramids of Giza. Nile and Oder have a similar arrangement of the main rivers and tributaries and the Milky Way is tailored to its current shape to the two rivers. Three main places of Szczecin, place of the Conspiraters, of Restoration, of Grunwald, they reflect the constellation of Orion’s belt on the Earth. Described the discovery, though widely known, can be a tourist attraction, confirming the exceptional strength and unique character of the city. Gdańsk with the history of workers ‘Solidarity’ is great, but it would seem that only Szczecin can crown glory of those days and fill in the depth of the humanitarian symbol of the equality of all people, to describe the fullness of humanity forever. Today the world is still threatened by weak human and cosmic surprises. What are the effects of the global contamination of the land, that “no one can predict …” About our technical civilization Nostradamus said more: “Nobody will recognize the characters in the sand.” Liquid iron core, a powerful generator of gravity planet is in fact an instrument gently magnetic; to change of the poles the great powers are not needed. What happens in the next moment after a changing of the kernel poles, it can be frightening in its dynamism and power. The power of the sun due its gravitational force, the kernel of an our planet it will turn, matching the location of the new poles of the magnetic system to its magnetic state. A climate on the ground will change. In areas where it is now the north pole, the rains will constantly fell. But in an object that Nostradamus described as “samorobryn”, people will be protected. In a large distance, about 400 km from any rights the people are saved. “Body without soul, no longer suffer: The day of death will become a day of rebirth. ” But a group of people will to save. The end of human suffering when the soul leaves the body. The day of destruction, will be the first day of rebirth. Every creature in heaven it will rejoice when the souls of the earth they will see their homeland again – the sky. After his death no one is suffering, disaster had liquidated a life on earth. The souls will return to heaven, where they are happy to be expected. Now, after coming back, they will be able to enjoy the benefits of the sky again. After the destruction of life on the earth, it will be making the reunion of all forms of existence. All the forms of the participation of a human in the universe that are incompatible with the nature of biology and chemistry will be destroyed. A life it will reborn in the form compatible with nature. So, I believe that we will always be happy and united one with another.

—Sztandar solidarnych—-

Kolejna rocznica wiecznego zrywu człowieka do pełni szczęścia i prawdy o sobie, już trzydziesta odchodzącej „Solidarności”. Święcą ją byli stoczniowcy, ludzie, politycy, mój Szczecin i wolne miasto Gdańsk. Wczoraj znalazłem się znów w Szczecinie, wpatruję się w sobotnie słońce, w znane mi gmachy. Przechodzę obok Książnicy Pomorskiej im. Stanisława Staszica w Szczecinie. Z odnawianej nieustannie Bazyliki Archikatedralnej patrzę na „moje” pięć bloków w północnej dzielnicy Niebuszewo (wysokość 56 metrów), na Zamek książąt Pomorskich, Wały Chrobrego, Ratusz, Bramę Królewską, Bramę Portową. Właśnie tutaj zdałem maturę w pamiętnym roku 1980, w miejscu w którym urodziła się caryca Katarzyna . Wspominam teraz Cmentarz centralny, Jezioro Szmaragdowe,, Elewator „Ewa”, A przed nami Szczecińska Wenecja. Wśród innych szczecińskich cudów podziwiam Gwiaździsty układ placów i ulic. Jak pokazują niektórzy lokalizacja szczecińskich placów i promieniście leżących ulic ma swoje odniesienie w konstelacji Oriona i kompleksie egipskich piramid w Gizie. Nil i Odra mają podobne ułożenie koryt rzek oraz głównych dopływów a Droga Mleczna jest dopasowana swoim kształtem do nurtu obu tych rzek. Główne place Szczecina, pl. Sprzymierzonych, Odrodzenia, Grunwaldzki, odzwierciedlają pas gwiazdozbioru Oriona na Ziemi. Opisane odkrycie, choć nieznane szerzej, może stanowić atrakcję turystyczną, atut potwierdzający wyjątkowy i niepowtarzalny charakter miasta. Gdańsk z historią robotniczej „Solidarności” jest wielki, ale wydawałoby się, że tylko Szczecin może uwieńczyć glorię tamtych dni i wypełnić głębię humanitarnego symbolu równości wszystkich ludzi, opisać pełnię człowieczeństwa na wieki. Dzisiaj jeszcze światu zagrażają słabości ludzkie i kosmiczne niespodzianki. Jakie będą skutki takiego globalnego skażenia na ziemi, tego „nikt nie może przewidzieć…” Nostradamus powiedział o naszej cywilizacji technicznej coś więcej: „ Nikt nie rozpozna znaków na piasku.” Żelazne płynne jądro, potężny generator grawitacyjny planety w samej rzeczy to delikatnie wywarzony instrument magnetyczny, do zmiany biegunów wielkie moce nie są potrzebne. To, co wydarzy się w następnej chwili po zmianie biegunów jądra, może być przerażające w swej dynamice i mocy; słońce swoją mocą siły grawitacyjnej, obróci jądro naszej planety, dopasowując położenie nowych biegunów do swojego układu magnetycznego. Klimat na ziemi zmieni się. Na terenach gdzie teraz jest biegun północny, będą nieustannie padały deszcze. Ale w obiekcie, który Nostradamus określił mianem „samorobryn”, ludzie będą chronieni. W dużym oddaleniu, około 400 km od wszelkich praw są oni bezpieczni… ”Ciało bez Duszy, nie będą dłużej cierpieć: Dzień śmierci stanie się dniem odrodzenia.” Jednak jakaś grupa ludzi uratuje się. Koniec cierpienia ludzi, gdy dusza opuści ciało. Ten dzień zagłady, będzie pierwszym dniem odrodzenia. Każda istota w niebie się rozraduje, kiedy dusze z ziemi znów ujrzą swoją ojczyznę – niebo. Po śmierci już nikt nie cierpi, kataklizm zlikwidował życie na ziemi. Dusze powrócą do nieba, gdzie są z radością oczekiwane. Teraz po powrocie, ponownie będą one mogły korzystać z dobrodziejstw nieba. Na ziemi po zagładzie życia, rozpocznie się proces reaktywacji wszystkich form egzystencji. Wszelkie powstałe przy udziale człowieka niezgodne z naturą formy biologii i chemii ulegną zagładzie. Życie odrodzi się w postaci zgodnej z naturą. Wierzę, że wtedy zawsze będziemy już szczęśliwi i jeden z drugim solidarni.

Stanislaw Barszczak—Look back on happiness—
[Back from my travels. What a strange journey it has been. Let me tell you how it came about. It all began some days ago when my godmother invited me to the Rzepin. She made the offer dazzlingly tempting. There is no one and nothing in Rzepin the Aunt Lucy doesn’t know and she and her husband George were legendary hosts always. Three years ago my uncle died. I have intended to write this poem in honor of my mother and him, a memory of their, something which would have all the beauty of a Dutch painting or a Schubert song. Both parts of the poem are structured in the customary story. Now my turn to thank you has come, and I need not tell you how much I have looked forward to it. But alas, at this moment of truth I am afraid that words will fail my feelings, as is so often the case with born non-orators, but only humble Lord’s vineyard workers]
I simply went to the forest, Knut Hamsun said. Not because I am offended about anything, or very unhappy about men’s evil ways; but since the forest will not come to me, I must go to it. That is all. I have not gone this time as a slave and a vagabond. I have money enough and am overfed, stupefied with success and good fortune, if you understand that. Nietzsche no doubt would have spoken thus: The last word I spake unto men achieved their praise, and they nodded. But it was my last word; and I went into the forest. For then did I comprehend the truth, that my speech must needs be dishonest or foolish… But I said nothing of the kind; I simply went to the forest. You must not believe that nothing ever happens here. The snowflakes drift down just as they do that in the city, and the birds and beasts scurry about from morning till night, and from night till morning. I could send solemn stories from this place, but I do not. I have sought the forest for solitude and for the sake of my great irons; for I have great irons which lie within me, i.e. they pierce, lit from beneath a blue cotton shirt and grow red-hut. So I deal with myself accordingly. Suppose I were to meet a buck reindeer one day, then I might say to myself: “Great heavens, this is a buck reindeer, he’s dangerous!”
You say nothing happens here? One day I saw two old men there, the professor and his wife, walking in the beautiful, sunny meadow near the river. The next hour I saw teenagers close to stream. A boy and a girl. At first they behaved as people do. “_ Louis!_” they said to each other and smiled. But immediately after, both fell at full length in the snow and were gone from my sight. Yet after a quarter of an hour had passed, I thought, “You’d better see to them; they may be smothered in the snow.” But then they got up and went their separate ways…In all my ‘weatherbeaten’ days, I have never seen such a greeting as that. When I first came, there was stale straw in the hut, which the mouse by all means was allowed to keep; for my own bed I cut fresh pine twigs, as is fitting. I have an ax and a saw and the necessary crockery. And I have a sleeping bag of sheepskin with the wool inside. I keep a fire burning in the fireplace all night, and my shirt, which hangs by it, smells of fresh resin in the morning. When I want coffee, I go out, fill the kettle with clean snow, and hang it over the fire till the snow turns to water.

Is this a life worth living? There you have betrayed yourself. This is a life you do not understand. Yes, your home is in the city, and you have furnished it with vanities, with pictures and books; but you have a wife and a servant and a hundred expenses. Asleep or awake you must keep pace with the world and are never at peace. I have peace. You are welcome to your intellectual pastimes and books and art and newspapers; welcome, too, to your bars and your whisky
that only makes me ill. Here am I in the forest, quite content. I had sustained here with reindeer of my recent dreams, in the impenetrable wilderness finally caughting up only eternity, that as I supposed was merely unborn time, nothing but unborn time. My friend, come here to me and I will take a mirror from my pocket and reflect the sun on your face, my friend…
You lie in bed till ten or eleven in the morning, yet you are weary,
exhausted, when you get up. I see you in my mind’s eye as you go out into the street; the morning has dawned too early on your blinking eyes. I rise at five quite refreshed. I add the visible signs to the audible ones, and learn still more. But if fresh snow has fallen, the trees and copses and the great rocks
take on giant, unearthly shapes, as though they had come from another
world in the night. Have I said that I was too near men? Heaven help me, for some days in
succession I have been taking strolls in the forest, saying good morning and pretending I was in human company. If it was for example a man I imagined beside me, we carried on a long, intelligent conversation, but if it was a woman, I was polite: “Let me carry your parcel, miss.” Once it must have been the uncle’s wife, my aunt I seemed to meet, for I flattered her most lavishly and offered to carry her fur cloak if she would take it off and walk in her skin…Heaven help me, I am no longer too near men. And probably I will not build that peat hut still further away from them. Of course I have shouted in the marketplace; perhaps that is why my voice is hoarse now, cracked at times. There are worse things. A worse thing
would have been if it had not obeyed me. Is there any danger of that? No, my friend, not for you; you will live till you die, be assured…
Why have I written to you, of all people? Why do you think? You refused to be convinced of the truth and integrity of my conclusions; but I shall yet force you to recognize that I am close to the truth. Not until then shall I make allowance for the fool in you…Now I myself am what I am, but I have been swept off my feet once more today by the tribute that has been paid to my country. I no longer have my feet planted on the ground, I am walking on air, my head is spinning. It is not easy to be myself right. It is as well perhaps that this is not the first time I have been swept off my feet. In the days of my blessed youth there were such occasions; in what young person’s life do they not occur? No, the only young people to whom this feeling is strange are those young conservatives who were born old, who do not know the meaning of being carried away. No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and a negation. Heaven knows that there are plenty of opportunities in later life, too, for being carried away. What of it? We remain what we are and, no doubt, it is all very good for us! We have, we should be able to oppose in the face of human destiny, to go unto God’s wisdom. I know not what I should do – I know not what is the right thing to do, but I raise my glass to the youth of Poland, to young people everywhere, to all that is young in life. The gift of youth. None of us is too old to remember it. It is proper that we who have grown old should take a step back and do so with dignity and grace. I am no longer young enough for this; I have not the strength. We should be able to oppose everything and go even against the current once again toward the sun of our eternal youth.
( In 1995, an author lived near a forest, in the mother’s house in Ząbkowice, by the more than nine years do not going out there. Though the author did not live for himself, but as if in the fairy house, Hansel and Gretel cottage yet. Events narrated here they seem to occur as a real fortress of the author’s life.

stanislaw barszczak—the betrayed times—
My aunt, her face flushed, re-enacted the pain of the woman with the stew; the story was fresh as if she had never told it before. My mother chimed in, intoning, on a dying fall, the words that ended the tale: “And so she ruined it for the poor soul who had made it, and for any poor soul who might want to eat it after.”
Amen. At this coda, I slid away. Mary, as if turned on by the flick of a switch, stood on the pavement, scanning the sky, waiting for me.
“Have you had your breakfast?” she asked.
“No.”
No point asking after Mary’s. “I’ve got money for toffees,” I said.
If it weren’t for the persistence of this story about Stella Kowalski and the stew, I would have thought, in later life, that I had dreamed Mary. But they still tell it in the village and laugh about it; it’s become unfastened from the original disgust. What a good thing, that time does that for us. Sprinkles us with mercies like fairy dust.
I had turned, before scooting out that morning, framed in the kitchen door. “Mary’s got fly-strike,” I’d said. “She’s got maggots”…
My aunt screamed with laughter.
August came and I remember the grates standing empty, the tar boiling on the road, and fly strips, a glazed yellow studded plump with prey, hanging limp in the window of the corner shop. Each afternoon thunder in the distance, and my mother saying, “It’ll break tomorrow,” as if the summer were a cracked bowl and we were under it. But it never did break. Heat-struck pigeons scuffled down the street. My mother and my aunt claimed, “Tea cools you down,” which was obviously not true, but they swigged it by the gallon in their hopeless belief. “It’s my only pleasure,” my mother said. They sprawled in deck chairs, their white legs stuck out. They held their cigarettes tucked back in their fists like men, and smoke leaked between their fingers. People didn’t notice when you came or went. You didn’t need food; you got an iced-lolly from the shop: the freezer’s motor whined.
I don’t remember my treks with Mary, but by five o’clock we always ended, whatever loop we traced, nearby the Kowalskis house. I do remember the feel of my forehead resting against the cool stone of the wall, before we vaulted it. I remember the fine grit in my sandals, how I emptied it out but then there it was again, ground into the soles of my feet. I remember the leather feel of the leaves in the shrubbery where we dug in, how their gauntleted fingers gently explored my face. Mary’s conversation droned in my ear: so me dad says, so me mam says… It was at dusk, she promised, it was at twilight, that the comma, which she swore was human, would show itself. Whenever I tried to read a book, this summer, the print blurred. My mind shot off across the fields; my mind caressed the shape of Mary, her grinning mouth, her dirty face, her blouse shooting up over her chest and showing her dappled ribs. She seemed to me full of shadows, exposed where she should not be, but then suddenly tugging down her sleeve, shying from a touch, sulking if you jogged her with your elbow: flinching. Her conversation dwelt, dully, on fates that could befall you; beatings, twistings, flayings. I could only think of the thing she was going to show me. And I had prepared my defence in advance, my defence in case I was seen flitting across the fields. I was out punctuating, I would say. I was out punctuating, looking for a comma. Just by myself and not at all with Mary.
So I must have stayed late enough, buried in the bushes, for I was drowsy and nodding. Mary jolted me with her elbow; I sprang awake, my mouth dry, and I would have cried out except she slapped her paw across my mouth. “Look.” The sun was lower, the air mild. In the house, a lamp had been switched on beyond the long windows. One of them opened, and we watched: first one half of the window; a pause; and then the other. Something nudged out into our sight: it was a long chair on wheels, a lady pushing it. It ran easily, lightly, over the stone flags, and it was the lady who drew my attention; what lay on the chair seemed just a dark, shrouded shape, and it was her crisp flowered frock that took my eye, the tight permed shape of her head; we were not near enough to smell her, but I imagined that she wore scent, eau de cologne. The light from the house seemed to dance with her, buoyant, out on to the terrace. Her mouth moved; she was speaking, smiling, to the inert bundle that she pushed. She set the chair down, positioning it carefully, as if on some mark she knew. She glanced about her, turning up her cheek to the mellow, sinking light, then bent to coax over the bundle’s head another layer, some coverlet or shawl: in this weather?
“See how she wraps it,” Mary mouthed at me.
I saw; saw also the expression on Mary’s face, which was greedy and lost, both at once. With a final pat to the blankets, the lady turned, and we heard the click of her heels on the paving as she crossed to the french window, and melted into the lamp-light.
“Try and see in. Jump up,” I urged Mary. She was taller than I was. She jumped, once, twice, three times, thudding down each time with a little grunt; we wanted to know what was inside the house. Mary wobbled to rest; she crumpled back to her knees; we would settle for what we could get; we studied the bundle, laid out for our inspection. Its shape, beneath the blankets, seemed to ripple; its head, shawled, was vast, pendent. It is like a hamster, she is right: its squiggle of a body, its lolling head.
So it was I who, from the safety of the bushes, yapped like a dog. I saw the pendent head turn, but I could not see a face; and at the next moment, the shadows on the terrace wavered, and from between the ferns in their great china pots stepped the lady in the flowered dress, and shaded her eyes, and looked straight at us, but did not see. She bent low over the bundle, the long cocoon, and spoke: she glanced up as if assessing the angle of the dying sun: she stepped back, setting her hands on the handles of the chaise, and with a delicate rocking motion she manoeuvred it, swayed back and angled it, setting it to rest so that the comma’s face was raised to the last warmth; at the same time, bending again and whispering, she drew back the shawl.
And we saw – nothing; we saw something not yet become; we saw something, not a face but perhaps, I thought, when I thought about it later, perhaps a negotiating position for a face, perhaps a loosely imagined notion of a face, like God’s when he was trying to form us; we saw a blank, we saw a sphere, it was without feature, it was without meaning, and its flesh seemed to run from the bone. I put my hand over my mouth and cowered, shrinking, to my knees. “Quiet, you.” Mary’s fist lashed out at me. She caught me painfully. Mechanical tears, jerked out by the blow, sprang into my eyes.
But when I had rubbed them away I rose up, curiosity like a fish-hook through my gut, and saw the comma was alone on the terrace. The lady had stepped back into the house. I whispered to Mary, “Can it talk?” I understood, I fully understood now, what my mother had meant when she said at the house of the rich it was bad enough. To harbour a creature like that! To be kind to the comma, to wrap it in blankets… Mary said, “I’m going to throw a stone at it, then we’ll see can it talk.”
She slid her hand into her pocket, and what she slid out again was a large, smooth pebble, as if fresh from the seashore, the strand. She didn’t find that here, so she must have come prepared. I like to think I put a hand on her wrist, that I said, “Mary…” But perhaps not. She rose from her hiding place, gave a single whoop, and loosed the pebble. Her aim was good, almost good. We heard the pebble ping from the frame of the chair, and at once a low cry, not like a human voice, like something else.
“I bloody got it,” Mary said. For a moment she stood tall and glowing. Then she ducked, she plummeted, rustling, beside me. The evening shapes of the terrace, serene, then fractured and split. With a rapid step the lady came, snapping through the tall arched shadows thrown back by the garden against the house, the shadow of gates and trellises, the rose arbours with their ruined roses. Now the dark flowers on her frock had blown their petals and bled out into the night. She ran the few steps towards the wheeled chair, paused for a split second, her hand fluttering over the comma’s head; then she flicked her head back to the house and bawled, her voice harsh, “Fetch a torch!” That harshness shocked me, from a throat I had thought would coo like a dove, like a pigeon; but then she turned again, and the last thing I saw before we ran was how she bent over the comma, and wrapped the shawl, so tender, about the lamenting skull.
In September Mary was not at school. I expected to be in her class now, because I had gone up and although she was 10 it was known that Mary never went up, just stuck where she was. I didn’t ask about her at home, because now that the sun was in for the winter and I was securely sealed in my skin I knew it would hurt to have it pulled off, and my mother, as she had said, was a woman of her word. If your skin is off, I thought, at least they look after you. They lull you in blankets on a terrace and speak softly to you and turn you to the light. I remembered the greed on Mary’s face, and I partly understood it, but only partly. If you spent your time trying to understand what happened when you were eight and Mary was 10, you’d waste your productive years in plaiting barbed wire.
A big girl told me, that autumn, “She went to another school.”
It must have been 25 years. It could have been 30. I don’t go back much: would you? I saw her in the street, and she was pushing a buggy, no baby in it, but a big bag with a spill of dirty clothes coming out; a baby T-shirt with a whiff of sick, something creeping like a tracksuit cuff, the corner of a soiled sheet. At once I thought, well, there’s a sight to gladden the eye, one of that lot off to the launderette! I must tell my mum, I thought. So she can say, wonders will never cease…
But I couldn’t help myself. I followed close behind her and I said, “my Mary”. She pulled the buggy back against her, as if protecting it, before she turned: just her head, her gaze inching over her shoulder, wary. Her face, in early middle age, had become indefinite, like wax: waiting for a pinch and a twist to make its shape. It passed through my mind, you’d need to have known her well to know her now, you’d need to have put in the hours with her, watching her sideways. Her skin seemed swagged, loose, and there was nothing much to read in Mary’s eyes. I expected, perhaps, a pause, a hyphen, a space, a space where a question might follow… Is that you, Kitty? She stooped over her buggy, and settled her laundry with a pat, as if to reassure it. Then she turned back to me, and gave me a bare acknowledgment: a single nod…When I pulled back, I saw the astonished look in his face, a look that turned into a smile and then laughter. After searching for something to say for what seemed to me like hours, she took my hand and said, “Well, I guess we’re lucky tonight. Both our wishes came true.
[relied on scenarios for two movies: ‘Arsenic and old lace’ and ‘Stagecoach’ as well as contemporary literature devoted to summer reading (Hilary Mantel)]fin

stanislaw barszczak—the betrayed times—
II
[This kind of study comes from another time. But those stories are linked here for an author. As we remember most about our youth, so we had wanted to engage again in a discussion of the moments of eternal love]
I can see Mary Kowalski now, in the bushes crouching with her knees apart, her cotton frock stretched across her thighs. In the hottest summer (and this was it) Mary had a sniffle, and she would rub the tip of her upturned nose, meditatively, with the back of her hand, and inspect the glistening snail-trail that was left. We squatted, both of us, up to our ears in tickly grass: grass which, as midsummer passed, turned from tickly to scratchy and etched white lines, like the art of a primitive tribe, across our bare legs. Sometimes we would rise together, as if pulled up by invisible strings. Parting the rough grass in swaths, we would push a little closer to where we knew we were going, and where we knew we should not go. Then, as if by some predetermined signal, we would flounce down again, so we would be half-invisible if God looked over the fields…Buried in the grass we talked: myself monosyllabic, guarded, eight years old, wearing too-small shorts of black-and-white check, that had fitted me last year: Mary with her scrawny arms, her kneecaps like saucers of bone, her bruised legs, her snigger and her cackle and her snort. Some unknown hand, her own perhaps, had placed on her rat-tails a twisted white ribbon; by afternoon it had skewed itself around to the side, so that her head looked like a badly tied parcel. Mary put questions to me: “Are you rich?”
I was startled. “I don’t think so. We’re about middle. Are you rich?”
She pondered. She smiled at me as if we were comrades now. “We’re about middle too.”
Poverty meant upturned blue eyes and a begging bowl. A charity child. You’d have coloured patches sewn on your clothes. In a fairytale picture book you live in the forest under the dripping gables, your roof is thatch. You have a basket with a patchwork cover with which you venture out to your grandma. Your house is made of cake…When my wrists drooped and my attention faltered it was because I was thinking of Mary. I knew not to mention her name and the pressure of not mentioning her made her, in my imagination, beaten thin and flat, attenuated, starved away, a shadow of herself, so I was no longer sure whether she existed when I was not with her. But then next day in the morning’s first dazzle, when I stood on our doorstep, I would see Mary leaning against the house opposite, smirking, scratching herself under her frock, and she would stick her tongue out at me until it was stretched to the root.
If my mother looked out she would see her too; or maybe not.
On those afternoons, buzzing, sleepy, our wandering had a veiled purpose and we drew closer and closer to the Kowalskis house. I did not call it that then, and until that summer I hadn’t known it existed; it seemed it had materialised during my middle childhood, as our boundaries pushed out, as we strayed further from the village’s core. Mary had found it before I did. It stood on its own, no other house built on to it, and we knew without debate that it was the house of the rich; stone-built, with one lofty round tower, it stood in its gardens bounded by a wall, but not too high a wall for us to climb: to drop softly, between the bushes on the other side. From there we saw that in the beds of this garden the roses were already scorched into heavy brown blebs on the stalk. The lawns were parched. Long windows glinted, and around the house, on the side from which we approached, there ran a veranda or loggia or terrace; I did not have a word for it, and no use asking Mary.
As the afternoon wore on, Mary made herself a hollow or nest. She settled comfortably under a bush. “If I’d known it was this boring,” I said, “I’d have brought my library book.”
Mary twiddled grass stalks, sometimes hummed. “My dad says, buck yourself up, Mary, or you’ll have to go to reform school.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s where they smack you every day.”
“What’ve you done?”
“Nothing, they just do it.”
I shrugged. It sounded only too likely. “Do they smack you on weekend or only school days?”
I felt sleepy. I hardly cared about the answer. “You stand in a queue,” Mary said. “When it’s your turn…” Mary had a little stick which she was digging into the ground, grinding it round and round into the soil. “When it’s your turn, Kitty, they have a big club and they beat the holy living daylights out of you. They knock you on the head till your brains squirt out.”
Our conversation dried up: lack of interest on my part. In time my legs, folded under me, began to ache and cramp. I shifted irritably, nodded towards the house. “How long do we have to wait?”
Mary hummed. Dug with her stick.
“Put your legs together, Mary,” I said. “It’s rude to sit like that.”
“Listen,” she said, “I’ve been up here when a kid like you is in bed. I’ve seen what they’ve got in that house.”
I was awake now. “What have they?”
“Something you couldn’t put a name to,” Mary said.
“What sort of a thing?”
“Wrapped in a blanket.”
“Is it an animal?”
Mary jeered. “An animal,” she says. “An animal, what’s wrapped in a blanket?”
“You could wrap a dog in a blanket. If it were poorly.”
I felt the truth of this; I wanted to insist; my face grew hot. “It’s not a dog, no, no, no.” Mary’s voice dawdled, keeping her secret from me. “For it’s got arms.”
“Then it’s human.”
“But it’s not a human shape.”
I felt desperate. “What shape is it?”
Mary thought. “A hamster” she said slowly. “A hamster, you know, what you see in a book?”
It was a summer that, by the end of July, had bleached adults of their purpose. When my mother saw me her eyes glazed over, as if I represented extra effort. You spilled blackcurrant juice on yourself and you kept the sticky patches. Feet grimy and face stained you lived in underbrush and long grass, and each day a sun like a child’s painted sun burned in a sky made white with heat. Laundry hung like flags of surrender from washing lines. The light stretched far into the evening, ending in a fall of dew and a bare dusk. When you were called in at last you sat under the electric light and pulled off your sunburnt skin in frills and strips. There was a dull roasting sensation deep inside your limbs, but no sensation as you peeled yourself like a vegetable. You were sent to bed when you were sleepy, but as the heat of bed-clothes fretted your skin you woke again. You lay awake, wheeling fingernails over your insect bites. There was something that bit in the long grass as you crouched, waiting for the right moment to go over the wall; there was something else that stung, perhaps as you waited, spying, in the bushes. Your heart beat with excitement all the short night. Only at first light was there a chill, the air clear like water.
And in this clear morning light you sauntered into the kitchen, you said, casual, “You know there’s a house, it’s up past the cemetery, where there’s rich people live? It’s got greenhouses.”
My aunt was in the kitchen just then. She was pouring cornflakes into a dish and as she looked up some flakes spilled. She glanced at my mother, and some secret passed between them, in the flick of an eyelid, a twist at the corner of the mouth. “She means the Kowalskis,” my mother said. “Don’t talk about that.” She sounded almost coaxing. “It’s bad enough without little girls talking.”
“What’s bad…” I was asking, when my mother flared up like a gas-jet: “Is that where you’ve been? I hope you’ve not been up there with Mary. Because if I see you playing with Mary, I’ll skin you alive. I’m telling you now, and my word is my bond.”
My aunt snorted with laughter…
They were rehearsing a famous incident before I was born. A woman out of pity took Mrs Kowalski a pan of stew and Mrs Kowalski, instead of a civil no-thank-you, spat in it.

Stanislaw Barszczak—The betrayed times—
I
[In that story the are almost no heroes or dramatic conflicts, as appearing in it the people are either sick, or are passive plaything in the hands of some powerful forces. After all, one of the biggest effects of our times is precisely that it deprives personality. Coach of the Polish pilgrimage to France and back. There were Mr. Christopher, Mr. Slawek, Mr. Paul, Mrs. Ewa-guide, Mr. Barbara, Fr. Wieslaw, brother Genaro, Mrs. Danuta, Mrs. Agnieszka, Mme Gabriela, Mrs Beata; including myself were still ten other passengers, pilgrims. After a night in Tachow (Czech Republic) we rode in the bus. We were already behind the Czech Prague Tour. First there had been continued nocturnal sleep. Then after a prayer there was a time to relax. And suddenly someone from the center of the coach he had spoken like that.]
Mr. Alexander: Well, there are some things a man just can’t run away from.
Fr Wieslaw: You can find another wife.
Mr. Slawek: Sure I can find another wife. But she take my rifle and my horse. Oh, I’ll never sell her. I love her so much. I beat her with a whip and she never get tired.
Mr. Alexander: Your wife?
Mr. Slawek: No, my horse. I can find another wife easy, yes, but not a horse like that!..
Then Father Wieslaw picked up the phone, but this conversation is not flagged. The telephone breaks off in mid-message. Mr. Alexander had said: Well? What’s wrong? Mrs. Eva said: The line went dead, sir.
Mr. Slawek did not give up, he continued the begun discussion as the bus headed to change with Mr. Christopher: This stage is going to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sevre. If you think it ain’t safe to ride along with us, I figure we can get there without you… This statement was addressed to the laggards after a night in Tachow.
Mr. Christopher: I’d like to go on, brother. I want to reach the bosom of my dear family in my return to Poland, Warsaw as quickly as possible; but, I may never reach that bosom if we go on… so, under the circumstances – you understand, brother – I think it best we go back with the bosoms… I mean the drivers.
Ms. Beata was sitting close to the bus drivers and preparing for translations from French.
Then Mrs. Eva finally decreed: break for the nearest car park will be half an hour. Who is late it will remain here until our return.
Wieslaw priest spoke, who was sitting right behind the lady guide: So you’re the notorious criminal, Father Stanislaw. I answered calmly: My friends just call me Mietek – nickname I had as a kid. Right name’s Stanisław, a lucky beggar. I’m not only a philosopher , but always smiling which the fate of lucky.
Mr. Alexander: Having that philosophy too, sir, I’ve always courted danger. During the late war – when I had the honor to serve the Poles, during the Polish uprising in August 1980, the emergence of movement ‘Solidarność’, under our great workers’ leader, Lech Walesa… I was with you in Gdansk.

Argument was interrupted by a priest Wieslaw: History is great, is a teacher of life. Do you wanna go back or not?
Mr. Alexander: No! I want another drink. I’m not only a philosopher, sir, I’m a fatalist.
Father Wieslaw: I’ll take that coffee, Mister Christopher.
Mr. Alexander: You’ll take it in the belly if you don’t get out of my way.

Brother Genaro: (to Mrs. Barbara) Don’t ever let me do that again. I haven’t been of much value to you. But do you suppose you could put one on credit?
Mrs. Barbara: If talk was money, reverend Mister, you’d be the best customer I got.
Mr. Alexander: If I was you, I’d let them buy all in the stores close to parking on the motorway. If there’s anything I don’t like, it’s driving a coach so long through. Look at that country. You may need me and this estate, Barbara. The hills covered with vines growing, the whole slope, acres of fields, occupied by shrubs grapes.
Mrs. Barbara: I also saw a house burnin’ last night.
Mr. Alexander: It’s me? [drunkenly to his hideous landlady upon eviction] Is this the face that wrecked 1000 ships and burned the towerless tops of Illium? Farewell, fair Helen.
Mrs. Barbara: You did a good job, Mister, even if you was drunk. Besides gentleman doesn’t smoke in the presence of a lady. Moreover now, wait a minute! Listen! You can’t marry me one minute and throw me out of the house the next…
Again put in to this interesting conversation Mrs. Ewa: Perhaps we’d better introduce ourselves. May I present Mr. Paul.
Mr. Paul: A surgeon of great distinction… and something of a magician…
Mrs. Ewa: You’d better get to bed yet.
Mr. Slawek: It might be against the law.
For exemple speaking of the Christian sisters, who were sitting in front of the driver’s side, Mrs. Danuta and Mrs. Agnieszka, Mr. Alexander has said: They’re two of the dearest, sweetest, kindest, old ladies that ever walked the earth. They’re out of this world. They’re like, they’re like pressed rose leaves.
Mr. Christopher has some time after the change, which he gave a colleague of the driver and it can call to mum: [on the telephone] Yes, operator, I’d like the Happy Seating, Warsaw. Come on, operator, what’s taking so long? They’re just across the river. I could swim it faster! No, I don’t want the Laundry. I want the Happy Seating, Seating, Seating, nook. Yes, yes, like a broken record. Hello – what? They’re busy? Busy? Look, they’re busy and you’re dizzy. No, I am not drunk, madam, but you’ve given me an idea. [throws down the phone in disgust]
Mrs. Eva: Alright, we go to France. Ladies and Gentlemen, what news have you brought me?
Mr. Alexander: Oh, no! Absolutely nothing to report!
Mrs. Eva: Splendid. Thank you, gentlemen. At ease.
Mr. Alexander: I read an ad here about a room to rent…Look, Miss Barbara. You got no folks… neither have I. You looked… well, well I still got an estate across the border. There’s a nice place – a real nice place… trees… grass… water. There’s a cabin half built. A man could live there… and a woman. Will you go?
Mrs. Barbara: But you don’t know me – you don’t know who I am.
Mr. Alexander: I know all I wanna know. Will you go?
Mrs. Barbara: Oh, don’t talk like that!
Mme Gabriela was plucked to reply finally: [clutching valise with her books] I can’t get over the impertinence of that young lieutenant. I’ll make it warm for that shake-tail! I’ll report him to Warsaw- we pay taxes to the government and what do we get? Not even protection from the army! I don’t know what the government is coming to. Instead of protecting businessmen, it pokes its nose into business! Why, they’re even talking now about having *bank* examiners. As if we bankers don’t know how to run our own banks! Why, at home I have a letter from a popinjay official saying they were going to inspect my books. I have a slogan that should be blazoned on every newspaper in this country: Europe for the Europeans! The government must not interfere with business! Reduce taxes! Our national debt is something shocking. Over one billion dollars a year! What this country needs is a businessman for president!
Mrs. Eva: We’re out of time, but our driver already goes down to an another car park. Take sandwiches.
[It had been presented to the readers a few moments of a trip to Saint-Laurent-sur-Sèvre. Although we’ve been following in the footsteps of St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort, then it would have been to see everyday human life also more and more in the spirit of humility…]

Stanisław Barszczak —Plus de la joie—

Pas cinquante, non pas cent ans, mais aujourd’hui, un homme d’honneur défenseur polonais est a l’apogée de sa taille et sa renommée. On dit meme: le but de l’homme

qu’il est. L’homme n’est pas laissé seul, il co-existe avec les autres. La fameuse devise d’un homme, l’homme est un dieu, est devenu l’interprétation de l’humanisme

moderne. Ce systeme est devenu une source d’inspiration pour les humanistes modernes. Depuis que l’homme est une combinaison de l’âme et le corps, mais celui qui est

vivant, vu a partir de deux perceptions différentes. Soul = Corps, qui est, ces deux choses sont identiques, et l’homme un tout indissociable. Par conséquent, il est

juste d’utiliser ces choses que l’unité inséparable de l’impensable et de la vie. Malheureusement, c’est l’enfer sur terre, est en chaque personne et chaque un de nous

ne peut se tenir devant la cour intérieure de dernier recours. Je l’ai ressuscité pour d’autres, un homme nouveau. Quelqu’un a dit: plus nous avons la joie que nous

sommes rendue opposables. Mais la ssatisfaction avec soi-meme est probablement le plus difficile a atteindre. L’homme, a l’instar de la nature, est animé par le

Conatus : il s’efforce d’augmenter sa puissance d’etre et de pensée. Ainsi quelqu’un décrit la capacité de l’etre a “persévérer dans son etre. Le bonheur n’est pas

une récompense pour la vertu, mais la vertu meme, et nous attendons avec impatience, non pas parce qu’il inhibe le désir, mais a l’inverse, en raison de son bonheur,

on peut inhiber le désir. Vous avez a découvrir le monde de l’esprit, l’esprit seulement. Je viens de l’amour est la joie qui accompagne l’idée d’une cause extérieure.

Meme si a partir d’aujourd’hui, nous allons suivre que de l’amour au bonheur (beatude). Moralité, ils disent certains, c’est l’amour intellectuel de Dieu. Quoi qu’il

en soit, est en Dieu et rien sans Dieu ne peut etre, elle ne donne pas a saisir. Dieu est composé d’un nombre infini de qualités, dont chacun exprime et infini contenu

éternel, existe nécessairement. Mondiale est entraîné par le droit permanent. Chaque phénomene est clairement et inévitablement déterminée par les conditions

générales. Ainsi, le hasard n’existe pas objectivement, c’est un produit de l’homme. Ainsi, l’homme doit etre libre de toute l’homme, il doit etre libre de toute

autorité. Ne laissez pas, ne permettent pas pour rien, cependant. Nous nous référons ici au Dieu qui agit instituée par les lois, et n’est pas contraint par une

personne ou a autorisation restreinte. C’est grâce a la connaissance de Dieu, nous pouvons nous connaître et un autre etre humain. Quelqu’un a dit quelque chose de

plus: vois le Christ, regards en lui, et atteindre le bonheur sans fin, que la béatification, que nous avons un avant-gout de la parole: Si je savais que, demain, le

monde cesserait d’exister, même aujourd’hui, je voudrais un pommier planter. Ici, je renvoie le lecteur au texte chere excommunié Baruch Spinoza, qui semblent etre tres intéressant d’aujourd’hui dans lequel nous essayons de trouver la pensée moderne contemporaine…

—-De L’Ethique:

Proposition 7
Un affect ne peur etre réprimé ni supprimé si ce n’est par un affect contraire et plus fort que l’affect a réprimer.
Démonstration
Un affect, en qu’il se rapporte a l’Esprit, est une idée par laquelle l’Esprit affirme une force d’exister de son corps plus grande ou moindre qu’antérieurement (par

la déf.génér. des affects, qui se trouve a la fin de la part.III). Quand donc l’esprit est sous le coup de quelque affect, le corps est simultanément affecté d’une

affection par laquelle sa puissance d’agir est accrue ou réduite. En outre (par la prop.5) cette affection du Corps reçoit de sa cause la force de persévérer dans son
etre ; elle ne peut donc etre supprimée que par une cause corporelle (par la prop. 6, Part.II) qui affecte le corps d’une affection contraire (par la prop. 5 Part.

III) et plus forte (Par l’Axiome) ; l’Esprit est alors (par la prop. 12, Part. II) affecté de l’idée d’une affection plus forte et contraire a la premiere, c’est-a-

dire que (par la Déf. génér. Des Affects) l’Esprit est affecté d’un affect plus fort et contraire au premier affect, le second excluant ou supprimant donc l’existence

de ce premier affect ; ainsi un affect ne peut etre ni réprimé ni supprimé si ce n’est par un affect contraire et plus fort.
(C.Q.F.D. Source : Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005)
Baruch Spinoza. CB.
L’Ethique
La répression des affects. Cette proposition du livre IV démontre l’impossibilité de réprimer un affect par la seule connaissance de celui-ci.
En ce sens le spinozisme n’est pas un idéalisme : seul un affect peut en réprimer un autre.

—-Livre V
Proposition 31
Le troisieme genre de connaissance dépend de l’Esprit comme de sa cause formelle en tant que
l’Esprit lui-meme est éternel.
Scolie
Ainsi, plus on est capable de ce genre de connaissance, mieux on a conscience de soi meme et
de Dieu, c’est-a-dire plus on est parfait et heureux (on le verra plus clairement par la suite).
Mais il convient de noter que malgré le fait que nous soyons certains, désormais que l’Esprit est
éternel, en tant qu’il conçoit les choses sous l’espece de l’éternité, et pour mieux faire comprendre
et plus facilement expliquer ce que nous voulons dire, nous considererons l’Esprit comme s’il
venait maintenant a etre, et comme s’il commençait maintenant a comprendre les choses sous
l’espece de l’éternité ; c’est ce que nous avons fait jusqu’ici, et c’est ce que nous pouvions faire
sans risque d’erreur pourvu que nous prenions la précaution de ne rien conclure que de prémisses
fort claires.
—-Note
Tout se passe donc comme si l’esprit commençait seulement maintenant a etre, et cela par le
mouvement meme ou il commence a connaître les choses dans leur éternité. Certes l’esprit est
éternel depuis toujours ; cependant, dit Spinoza, pour mieux comprendre le sens et la portée de
cette éternité, il faut considérer que l’esprit fait l’expérience d’un nouveau commencement: quam
jam inciperet esse, comme s’il commençait seulement a etre.
L’entrée dans le troisieme genre de connaissance, ou nous avons déja constaté que l’esprit est
sa propre cause, en tant qu’il est cause de cette connaissance adéquate (cf. Prop.31), cette
entrée a donc véritablement la signification d’une seconde naissance, c’est-a-dire d’un second
commencement de l’esprit ou l’esprit serait (par la philosophie) son propre fondement, sa propre
cause.
(Source : Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005,
Robert Misrahi, 100 mots sur L’Ethique de Spinoza, Les empecheurs de penser en rond, 2005)
—-Baruch Spinoza. CB. L’Ethique
L’éternité de l’Esprit
La place de l’éternité est considérable dans le systeme
spinoziste, il est indispensable de bien saisir sa signification.
Cette éternité n’est pas une immortalité : l’esprit disparaît avec
le corps, puisqu’il en est l’idée, la conscience. La partie V de
l’Ethique ne décrit ni l’acces a une quelconque immortalité ni
les contenus d’un tel régime existentiel. L’éternité est au
contraire une maniere actuelle et existentielle de se rapporter
au monde et a soi meme.

—-Livre III
Définition 6
L’Amour est une Joie qu’accompagne l’idée d’une cause extérieure.
Explication
Cette définition explique d’une maniere assez claire l’essence de l’Amour; quand certains auteurs
le définissent comme la volonté qu’a l’amant de s’unir a l’objet aimé, ils n’expriment pas par la
l’essence de l’Amour, mais sa propriété ; mais comme ils n’ont pas saisi avec assez de précision
cette essence de l’Amour, ils n’ont pas été capables non plus de poser un concept clair de sa
propriété et c’est pourquoi cette définition fut jugée par tous comme extremement obscure.
Il convient de noter toutefois qu’en disant que cette propriété consiste, chez l’amant, dans l’union
volontaire a l’objet aimé, je n’entends pas par volonté un consentement, ou une délibération de
l’âme, c’est-a-dire un libre décret (nous avons démontré a la Prop. 48 de la Part.II que c’était la
une fiction), non pas meme un Désir de s’unir a l’objet aimé quand il est absent ou de persévérer
dans sa présence lorsqu’il est présent, puisque l’amour peut se concevoir sans l’un ou l’autre de
ces Désirs; par volonté j’entends au contraire la Satisfaction que l’amant trouve a la présence de
l’objet aimé, satisfaction par laquelle la Joie de l’amant est renforcée ou au moins favorisée.
(Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005,
Robert Misrahi, 100 mots sur L’Ethique de Spinoza, Les empecheurs de penser en rond, 2005)

Lectures pour l’été, 3—-
Voici quelques textes confirmants les idées modernes du néerlandais philosophe Baruch Spinoza:
—-PROPOSITION VII
L’effort par lequel toute chose tend a persévérer dans son etre n’est rien de plus que l’essence
actuelle de cette chose.
Démonstration : L’essence d’un etre quelconque étant donnée, il en résulte nécessairement
certaines choses (par la Propos. 36, partie 1) ; et tout etre ne peut rien de plus que ce qui suit
nécessairement de sa nature déterminée (par la Propos. 29, partie 1). Par conséquent, la
puissance d’une chose quelconque, ou l’effort par lequel elle agit ou tend a agir, seule ou avec
d’autres choses, en d’autres termes (par la Propos. 6, partie 3), la puissance d’une chose, ou
l’effort par lequel elle tend a persévérer dans son etre, n’est rien de plus que l’essence donnée ou
actuelle de cette chose. C. Q. F. D.
—-PROPOSITION VIII
L’effort par lequel toute chose tend a persévérer dans son etre n’enveloppe aucun temps fini, mais
un temps indéfini.
Démonstration : Si, en effet, il enveloppait un temps limité, qui déterminât la durée de la chose, il
s’ensuivrait de cette puissance meme par laquelle la chose existe, qu’apres un certain temps elle
ne pourrait plus exister et devrait etre détruite. Or, cela est absurde (par la Propos. 4, partie 3) ;
donc l’effort par lequel une chose existe n’enveloppe aucun temps déterminé ; mais, au contraire,
puisque cette chose (en vertu de cette meme Propos.), si elle n’est détruite par aucune cause
extérieure, devra, par cette meme puissance qui la fait etre, toujours continuer d’etre, il s’ensuit
que l’effort dont nous parlons enveloppe un temps indéfini. C. Q. F. D.
Source: Traduction d’Emile Saisset, éditions Charpentier, Paris, 1872.

—-Le Conatus…Terme latin, le Conatus est un concept central de la pensée de Spinoza : il décrit la capacité de l’etre a “persévérer dans son etre”. Il est ici traduit par “effort”. L’homme, a l’instar de la nature, est animé par le Conatus : il s’efforce d’augmenter sa puissance d’etre et de pensée. (Baruch Spinoza, Éthique
Partie III: De l’Origine et de la Nature des passions. Proposition VI, VII, et VIII.Traduction de E. Saisset, 1842.)

—-Seconde partie, Chapitre XVIII:
(1) Nous voyons maintenant que l’homme, en tant qu’il fait partie de la nature, dont il dépend
et par laquelle il est régi, ne peut rien par lui-meme pour son salut et pour son bonheur. Il
nous reste a apprendre de quelle utilité peuvent etre pour nous les affirmations précédentes,
et cela est d’autant plus nécessaire que nous savons bien qu’elles déplairont a un grand
nombre de personnes.
(2) 1° Il suit de la que nous sommes en vérité les serviteurs et les esclaves de Dieu, et que
c’est le plus grand bien pour nous qu’il en soit nécessairement ainsi. Car, si nous n’étions
dépendants que de nous-memes et non le Dieu, il y aurait bien peu de chose, ou meme rien,
que nous serions capables de bien faire, et nous nous tromperions sans cesse nous-memes,
a l’inverse de ce que nous voyons maintenant : en effet dépendant de l’etre le plus parfait, et
étant partie du Tout, c’est-a-dire de lui-meme, nous contribuons pour notre part a
l’accomplissement de tant d’oeuvres admirablement ordonnées et parfaites qui dépendent de
lui.
(3) 2° En second lieu, cette doctrine fera qu’apres l’accomplissement d’une bonne action,
nous n’en tirerons pas avantage avec présomption (laquelle présomption est cause que,
nous croyant quelque chose de grand comme si nous n’avions plus besoin de faire de
progres, nous restons au point ou nous sommes : ce qui est entierement contraire a l’idée de
notre perfection, qui consiste en ce que nous devons sans cesse nous efforcer de faire de
nouveaux progres) ; mais au contraire nous attribuons a Dieu toutes nos actions, comme a la
premiere et seule cause de tout ce que nous faisons et de tout ce que nous produisons.
(4) 3° Cette connaissance, en produisant en nous le véritable amour du prochain, fait que
nous n’avons jamais pour lui ni haine ni colere, et que nous désirons au contraire le secourir
et améliorer sa condition: ce qui est le propre des hommes qui ont atteint une haute
perfection ou essence. ( Baruch Spinoza Court Traité sur Dieu, l’homme et la béatitude.
(1660) Traduction de Paul Janet, 1878)

—-Chapitre III, Du Droit des Pouvoirs Souverains:
On peut en effet nous dire: est-ce que l’état social et l’obéissance que [l’État] requiert
de la part des sujets ne détruisent pas la religion qui nous oblige par rapport a Dieu ? A quoi
je réponds que si nous pesons bien la chose, tout scrupule disparaîtra. En effet, l’âme, en
tant qu’elle use de la raison, n’appartient pas aux pouvoirs souverains, mais elle s’appartient
a elle-meme (par l’article 11 du chapitre précédent). Par conséquent, la vraie connaissance
et l’amour de Dieu ne peuvent etre sous l’empire de qui que ce soit, pas plus que la charité
envers le prochain (par l’article 8 du meme chapitre); et si nous considérons, en outre, que le
véritable ouvrage de la charité, c’est de procurer le maintien de la paix et l’établissement de
la concorde, nous ne douterons pas que celui-la n’accomplisse véritablement son devoir qui
porte secours a chacun dans la mesure compatible avec les droits de l’État, c’est-a-dire avec
la concorde et la tranquillité. ( Baruch Spinoza Traité Politique. Traduction de E. Saisset, 1842.)

—-Partie II, De la Nature et de l’origine de l’Âme, Proposition XLIX, Scholie:

Notre systeme enseigne aussi comment il faut se comporter a l’égard des choses de
la fortune, je veux dire de celles qui ne sont pas en notre pouvoir, en d’autres termes, qui ne
résultent pas de notre nature ; il nous apprend a attendre et a supporter d’une âme égale
l’une et l’autre fortune ; toutes choses en effet résultent de l’éternel décret de Dieu avec une
absolue nécessité, comme il résulte de l’essence d’un triangle que ses trois angles soient
égaux en somme a deux droits. Un autre point de vue sous lequel notre systeme est encore
utile a la vie sociale, c’est qu’il apprend a etre exempt de haine et de mépris, a n’avoir pour
personne ni moquerie, ni envie, ni colere. Il apprend aussi a chacun a se contenter de ce
qu’il a et a venir au secours des autres, non par une vaine pitié de femme par préférence,
par superstition, mais par l’ordre seul de la raison, et en gardant l’exacte mesure que le
temps et la chose meme prescrivent. Voici enfin un dernier avantage de notre systeme, et
qui se rapporte a la société politique ; nous faisons profession de croire que l’objet du
gouvernement n’est pas de rendre les citoyens esclaves, mais de leur faire accomplir
librement les actions qui sont les meilleures. (Page de l’Éthique annotée par Jean-Paul Sartre, BNF.
Baruch Spinoza Ethique Traduction de E. Saisset, 1842.)

Plus de la joie, 2
Voici quelques textes confirmants les idées modernes du néerlandais philosophe Baruch Spinoza:

—-Baruch Spinoza. CB. L’Ethique
L’Amour
La critique de l’amour, effectuée par Spinoza dans le cadre de
sa théorie générale des affects, ne constitue pas le moins du
monde a condamner l’amour en le faisant découler de
l’imagination et de la passivité.
Elle consiste, bien au contraire, a distinguer un amour purement
imaginaire et passionnel, source de toutes les servitudes, et un
amour véritable.

—-Livre II
Proposition 40, Scolie 2
De tout ce qu’on vient de dire, il ressort clairement que nous percevons de nombreuses choses et
que nous formons des notions universelles de plusieurs façons :
1) A partir des choses singulieres qui nous sont représentées par les sens d’une maniere mutilée,
confuse, et sans ordre valable pour l’entendement (voir le Corol. de la Prop.29). C’est pourquoi j’ai
l’habitude d’appeler ces perceptions: connaissance par expérience vague.
A partir des signes, quand, par exemple, apres avoir lu ou entendu certains mots, nous nous
souvenons des choses et nous en formons certaines idées semblables a celles par lesquelles
nous imaginons les objets (voir le Scol. de la Prop.18). Ces deux façons de saisir les choses, je les
appellerai désormais connaissance du premier genre, opinion ou Imagination.
2) Et enfin, du fait que nous avons des notions communes, et des idées adéquates des propriétés
des choses (voir le Corol. de la Prop. 38, la Prop.39 et son corol, et la Prop. 40). J’appellerai
Raison et connaissance du second genre cette façon de saisir les choses.
Outre ces deux genres de connaissances, il en existe un troisieme, comme je le montrerai plus
loin, et que nous appellerons la Science intuitive. Ce genre de connaissance procede de l’idée
adéquate de l’essence formelle de certains attributs de Dieu a la connaissance adéquate de
l’essence des choses.
J’expliquerai tout cela par un seul exemple : trois nombres étant donnés, il s’agit d’en déterminer
un quatrieme qui soit au troisieme comme le second au premier. Les commerçants n’hésiteront
pas a multiplier le second par le troisieme et a diviser le produit par le premier; c’est qu’ils n’ont pas
oublié ce qu’ils ont entendu de leurs maîtres sans démonstration, ou qu’ils ont souvent
expérimenté cette vérité sur des nombres simples, ou enfin qu’ils appliquent la démonstration de la
Proposition 19 du livre VII d’Euclide, c’est-a- dire la propriété commune des nombres
proportionnels. Mais pour des nombres tres simples, rien de tout cela n’est nécessaire. Soit, par
exemple, les nombres 1, 2, 3 : il n’est personne qui ne voie que le quatrieme nombre proportionnel
est 6, et cela d’une maniere beaucoup plus claire, puisque, c’est de la relation meme entre le
premier nombre et le second, en tant que nous la saisissons en une seule intuition, que nous
concluons le quatrieme.
(Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005,
Robert Misrahi, 100 mots sur L’Ethique de Spinoza, Les empecheurs de penser en rond, 2005)

—-Baruch Spinoza. CB.
L’Ethique
Les 3 genres de connaissance
Spinoza distingue trois genres de connaissance. Celle du
premier genre est empiriste et sensualiste, c’est une apparence
a la source de toutes les illusions.
Celle du deuxieme genre est rationnelle, elle procede par
enchaînement déductif.
Mais la connaissance supreme est celle du troisieme genre: la
Science intuitive, elle n’a rien de mystique, c’est une
appréhension intellectuelle immédiate du lien entre les réalités
singulieres et la Nature infinie qui les fonde.

—-Livre IV
Proposition 45, Corollaire 2, Scolie
Tel est mon principe et telle ma conviction. Aucune divinité, nul autre qu’un envieux ne se réjouit
de mon impuissance et de ma peine, et nul autre ne tient pour vertu nos larmes, nos sanglots,
notre peur, et toutes ces manifestations qui sont le signe d’une impuissance de l’âme; bien au
contraire, plus grande est la Joie dont nous sommes affectés, plus grande est la perfection a
laquelle nous passons, c’est-a-dire plus il est nécessaire que nous participions de la nature divine.
Il appartient a l’homme sage d’user des choses, d’y prendre plaisir autant qu’il est possible (non
certes jusqu’a la nausée, ce qui n’est plus prendre plaisir).
Il appartient a l’homme sage, dis-je, d’utiliser pour la réparation de ses forces et pour sa
recréation des aliments et des boissons agréables en quantité mesurée, mais aussi des parfums,
l’agrément des plantes vives, la parure, la musique, les exercices physiques, le théâtre et tous les
biens de ce genre dont chacun peut user sans aucun dommage pour l’autre.
Proposition 50, Corollaire, Scolie
Qui sait correctement que tout suit de la nature divine et se fait suivant les lois et regles éternelles
de la nature, a coup sur ne trouvera rien qui soit digne de Haine, de Rire, ou de Mésestime, et
n’aura de pitié pour personne ; mais aussi loin que porte la vertu de l’homme, il s’efforcera autant
qu’il le peut de bien agir et d’etre dans la Joie.
( Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005,
Robert Misrahi, 100 mots sur L’Ethique de Spinoza, Les empecheurs de penser en rond, 2005)
Baruch Spinoza. CB.
L’Ethique
Vertu de la jouissance
L’éthique spinoziste découle directement de ce fait
anthropologique: la raison ne commande rien d’autre que de
conserver son etre et accroître sa joie (IV, 18, Scolie).

—-Livre III
Définition 3
J’entends par Affect les affections du Corps par lesquelles sa puissance d’agir est accrue ou
réduite, secondée ou réprimée, et en meme temps que ces affections leurs idées.
(Baruch Spinoza, Éthique, Traduit par Robert Misrahi, Editions de l’Eclat, 2005,
Robert Misrahi, 100 mots sur L’Ethique de Spinoza, Les empecheurs de penser en rond, 2005)
Baruch Spinoza. CB. L’Ethique, Les Affects, L’affect est le contenu conscient et vécu, correspondant a une
modification, a une transformation locale ou globale du corps.
L’affect exprime donc ou incarne exactement la nature de
l’homme : il est l’unité indissociable de ces deux aspects de sa
réalité, le corps et l’esprit.

—-Proposition IV: Il est impossible que l’homme ne soit pas une partie de la nature, et qu’il ne
puisse souffrir d’autres changements que ceux qui se peuvent concevoir par sa seule nature
et dont il est la cause adéquate.
Démonstration: La puissance par laquelle les choses particulieres, et partant l’homme,
conservent leur etre, c’est la puissance meme de Dieu ou de la nature, non pas en tant
qu’infinie, mais en tant qu’elle se peut expliquer par l’essence actuelle de l’homme. Ainsi
donc, la puissance de l’homme, en tant qu’on l’explique par son essence actuelle, est une
partie de la puissance infinie, c’est-a-dire de l’essence de Dieu ou de la nature. Voila le
premier point. En second lieu, si l’homme ne pouvait souffrir d’autres changements que ceux
qui se peuvent concevoir par la nature meme de l’homme, il s’ensuivrait qu’il ne pourrait périr
et qu’il devrait exister toujours ; et cela devrait résulter d’une cause soit finie, soit infinie, c’est
a savoir ou bien de la seule puissance de l’homme qui serait capable d’écarter de soi tous
les changements dont le principe est dans les causes extérieures, ou bien de la puissance
infinie de la nature, qui dirigerait de telle façon toutes les choses particulieres que l’homme
ne pourrait souffrir d’autres changements que ceux qui servent a sa conservation. Or, la
premiere supposition est absurde (par la Proposition précédente dont la démonstration est
universelle et se peut appliquer a toutes les choses particulieres) ; si donc l’homme ne
pouvait souffrir d’autres changements que ceux qui se peuvent concevoir par sa seule
nature, et s’il était conséquemment nécessaire (comme on vient de le faire voir) qu’il existât
toujours, cela devrait résulter de la puissance infinie de Dieu ; et par suite (en vertu de la
Proposition 16, partie 1), de la nécessité de la nature divine, en tant qu’elle est affectée de
l’idée d’un certain homme, devrait se déduire l’ordre de toute la nature, en tant qu’elle est
conçue sous les attributs de l’étendue et de la pensée ; d’ou il s’ensuivrait (par la Proposition
21, partie 2) que l’homme serait infini, ce qui est absurde (par la premiere partie de cette
Démonstration). Il est donc impossible que l’homme n’éprouve d’autres changements que
ceux dont il est la cause adéquate. C. Q. F. D.
Corollaire : Il suit de la que l’homme est nécessairement toujours soumis aux passions, qu’il
suit l’ordre commun de la nature et y obéit et s’y accommode, autant que la nature des
choses l’exige. (Source: Traduction d’Emile Saisset, éditions Charpentier, Paris, 1872.)

—-Premiere édition du Traité Théologico-Politique de Spinoza, annotée par l’auteur.
Baruch Spinoza Éthique
Partie IV : De l’esclavage de l’homme ou de la force des
passions. Traduction de E. Saisset, 1842.
DEUS SIVE NATURA : Dieu ou la nature
Cette célebre expression de Spinoza saisit en trois mots l’un
des points essentiels de la pensée de l’auteur : la conception
d’une divinité immanente et faisant un avec la nature. Il y a pour
Spinoza unité de substance, ayant tous les attributs et non pas
dualité. Cette expression lui a valu des accusations de panthéisme, et
pire, d’athéisme.

—-PROPOSITION VI
Toute chose, autant qu’il est en elle, s’efforce de persévérer dans son etre.
Démonstration : En effet, les choses particulieres sont des modes qui expriment les attributs de
Dieu d’une certaine façon déterminée (par le Corollaire de la Propos. 25, partie 1), c’est-a-dire (par
la Propos. 34, partie 1) des choses qui expriment d’une certaine façon déterminée la puissance
divine par qui Dieu est et agit. De plus, aucune chose n’a en soi rien qui la puisse détruire, rien qui
supprime son existence (par la Propos. 4, partie 3) ; au contraire, elle est opposée a tout ce qui
peut détruire son existence (par la Propos. précéd.), et par conséquent, elle s’efforce, autant qu’il
est en elle, de persévérer dans son etre. C. Q. F. D.

He was always fond of children. Entrusted with a Catechism class in St. Sulpice Parish made up of very unruly elements, he charmed his pupils by his lively methods of

teaching and kept perfect control. Several fellow Seminarians having gone to listen to him one day, in order to make fun of him afterwards, were so moved by his

teaching and especially by his deep earnestness that they soon had to come out with tears in their eyes. All his life, Montfort taught Catechism, both to children and

to adults. He was ordained a Priest on 5th June 1700. He was 27 years old. He said his First Mass at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin in St. Sulpice Parish, an altar

which he had been looking after and decorating for several years. His way of saying Mass made a strong impression. One of the attendants described what he saw in a way

that was repeated many times afterwards. Louis Marie de Montfort looked like an angel at the altar. Now finally, he was a Priest of the Lord, burning with zeal to make

Him known and loved by everyone. He thought of going on the Foreign Missions, especially to Canada which was being evangelized then and where the Sulpicians were

working. He asked his Superiors of St. Sulpice to send him there, but they did not agree. So what was he to do? He made the acquaintance of an old Priest from Nantes

who had founded a Society of Priests to preach Missions in that Diocese. There he stayed four hours on his knees in the Chapel to the great wonder of the paupers
who saw him. We should know that hospitals then housed vagrants as often as they looked after the sick. Seeing that holy young Priest dressed so poorly. the paupers

made a collection among themselves to provide him with better clothes. Then they petitioned the Bishop to give him to them as their Chaplain. They felt that he would

be a true father to them. So he went to make a weeks Retreat in the Jesuit House where he was “filled with great trust in God and in His Holy Mother”.
God has His own ways to answer our prayers. He allowed two of the Chaplain’s main opponents to die at short intervals, Illness also struck many paupers in the

hospital. Now, since there was need of someone to nurse and comfort the sick and the dying, all were happy to see the return of the devoted Chaplain. Still the fire

kept smouldering under the embers and many bided their time to create further trouble for him. Only Gods grace obtained through prayer and a true Christian life seemed

to him to be the cure to that sad situation. So behold the Chaplain dreaming of a Society of pious women in order to oppose the havoc caused by selfishness and

disorder. But where to find them? Among the paupers of the hospital itself, And this is how he chose some poor women, crippled. sickly. wanting in strength and

talents. but rich in virtue. And as their Superior, he selected a blind girl. Soon, he vested her with a religious habit that grey robe of the Daughters of Wisdom,

which for many years, she was alone to wear, under the jeers of everyone. When Montfort left Poitiers, Marie Louise stayed back in the hospital, awaiting God’s hour

for the planned Congregation. Always patient and devoted, without ever giving up, she remained in painful isolation, although not far away from her father’s

comfortable house. And that lasted ten years! So much moral strength, so much holiness, we may say, force our admiration and no doubt, explain the wonderful expansion

of the Daughters of Wisdom who nowadays are over 3.500, scattered all over the world. They carry on, devoting themselves to the poor, to the sick and to children, with

the spirit of her who first received and then steadily wore, alone for ten years, the ash grey robe with which Saint Louis Marie de Montfort has vested her. So he left

Poitiers Hospital once more. Morever, he felt more and more that his vocation was to preach and instruct people here and there, without settling down anywhere. He went

to Paris to seek the advice of his former guides at St. Sulpice. Through several letters which he wrote to Marie Louise Trichet to encourage her to persevere in her

vocation, we learn that he met Claude PoulIartdes Places, an old friend who had just started a “Seminary for poor clerics.” Driven away by those who should have

advised and helped him, Louis Marie turned to God entirely. He realized that those oppositions were a call for closer union with the Lord, with “God Alone”. It was not

by chance that he adopted that motto. All his life long, men and events seemed to combine against him, to force him to live his motto in its fullness. He realized that

and intensified his prayer and his penances. In a small and miserable lodging under a staircase in Pot-de-Fer Street in Paris, where he took refuge, he multiplied his

prayers and penances. He let his fervour overflow in the burning pages of a book that he probably wrote there, “The Love of the Eternal Wisdom’, the first book that

came out from his pen. Although this book is not widely known, it is a good summary of his spiritual teaching. But while most people criticized and despised him, there

were still some who had faith in him. Enthusiasm ran so high in the Hospital when he came back that bonfires were lighted to celebrate the event. In what sad condition

he found his apostolic field! Disorder reigned supreme and the Chaplain who had become Director, had to see to everything. Fortunately nothing rebuked him and when a

poor wretch covered with ulcers, was refused admission for fear of contagion, Louis Marie took charge of him. He had him taken to a separate building. There he nursed,

cleaned and comforted him all alone, till the man died a peaceful and holy death. In order to adorn the bare walls and to be carried in procession, he had fifteen

banners embroidered, representing the fifteen Mysteries of the Rosary. His burning words dealt with the mystery of the Cross and devotion to the Rosary. He captivated

his audience. Besides, he made everyone sing hymns composed by himself on well known popular tunes. Those hymns repeated and explained the teaching he had given in his

sermons. Every day people came in ever greater numbers and the preacher’s fame grew and grew. A cave soon became the refuge of a poor cripple without a home whom

Montfori brought there on his own shoulders. Others also were brought there by “the good Father He found charitable ladies to take care of them. A cave where the Saint

prayed and suffered so much. was the start of a hospital for incurable patients entrusted to the Daughters of Wisdom They are most happy to carry on there their

Fathers mission of love. Those were the very words which Christ used to call His Apostles And The result was the same: Mathurin as the first gave up his oroject at

once and followed the holy Missionary. He helped him in most of his missions, singing hymns, leading the recitation of tne Rosary etc… and chiefly by teaching

Catechism and the 3 R’s. He was to die at St Laurent ri 1760, after ovet 50 years of total faithfulness. He was called ” Brother Mathurin”, the Saint’s first Brother.

In 1706 he went on foot to Rome to meet Pope Clement XI. Our Saint was very happy. He felt sure that God had spoken to him through the Pope’s lips. His soul was at

rest and he thought only of the vast field awaiting him. France. On top his walking stick, he fixed a crucifix which the Pope had blessed. He never parted from it: It

was truly a working tool for him, Like Saint Paul. now more than ever, he wanted to know only Jesus crucified: to know and love Him and to make Him known and

loved.Behold Montfort at St. Brieuc, preaching. confessing, praying. looking after the poor It is reported that he used to feed some 200 paupers, in order to teach

them Catechism and say the Rosary with them. So there was bread both for the body and for the soul. He well knew that it is not enough to relieve material needs

without caring for the soul. He knew just as well that starving people are deaf to the most eloquent sermons. Louis Marie remembered that man is made up of a body and

a soul and that the needs of both must be met.
In their little Chapel, in front of Our Lady’s altar, they placed a large Rosary with beads as large as walnuts, so that

several persons could say it at the same time. However, there were days when they had nothing to eat. One day. the Brothers were rather sad. There was no food at all.

At Noon. they said their prayer before meal, read from a book, said another prayer and left for the afternoon chores. Truly. that was rather too meagre! Louis Marie’s

parents had come back to Monifort and he agreed to have a meal with them, but on one condition: He requested to be allowed to bring in ‘his friends’. So a sumptuous

meal was prepared. A large table was laid and his parents and relatives waited in curious expectations. At last, Louis Marie arrived, accompanied by a number of

paupers, lame or blind and wretches of all sorts. Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Grignion were true Christians and welcomed their sons strange friends to their table. They

were really proud of him.Louis Marie’s parents had come back to Monifort and he agreed to have a meal with them, but on one condition: He requested to be allowed to

bring in ‘his friends’. So a sumptuous meal was prepared. A large table was laid and his parents and relatives waited in curious expectations. At last, Louis Marie

arrived, accompanied by a number of paupers, lame or blind and wretches of all sorts. Fortunately, Mr. and Mrs. Grignion were true Christians and welcomed their sons

strange friends to their table. They were really proud of him. However, he was forced to leave his hermitage. He left for Nantes where he was called, along with his

two Brothers, after entrusting his hermitage to a good woman’s care. On the Royal Square at Nantes, a group of officers were arguing hotly. Now one of them began to

swear and blaspheme. Montfort could not bear that. He reproved the officer firmly and forced him to kneel down and kiss the ground before everyone. How persuasive the

Saint must have been to obtain such submission!
In 1709, he undertook the construction of Calvary with the people in Pontchâteau, people from all around. He mentioned his project to the local priests and to the

people and all were enthusiastic. As their ancestors in the days of the Crusades and the Cathedrals, they offered their labour and their goods. Montfort selected La

Madeleine Heath that overlooked a wide horizon and the earthworks began. They had to raise up a real hill on which three crosses would be planted. A Rosary of live

trees, a way of the Cross and some chapels would be added. Even moats had to be dug to protect the holy hill from cattle. On orders of King Louis XIV and to his bishop

on the day designated in advance to celebrate the completion of our holy Golgotha our saint has been ordered to close the site because Golgotha would be a sign of

solidarity with the enemy in the war led the French against the British… One day, Montfort saw soldiers and workmen swearing and fighting. He joined the fray to stop

it. Soon after, seeing the cause of the quarrel, a gaming board. he broke it with kicks. The soldiers to whom it belonged were furious and asked him to pay for if. His

answer infuriated them so much that they threatened to kill him. Finally, they took him to prison. He was radiant, walked ahead, saying his Rosary aloud. A friend

delivered him to his deep regret. He had wished so much to be imprisoned for Jesus Christ…Yet it was only in 1888 that he was beautified and on 20th July 1947 that

he was declared a Saint solemnly by Pope Pius XH. Probably was it proper that this Canonization should take place in our Modern times which are in such need of this

Saint’s message and to be made by the Pope who consecrated the world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. Thus are we led, in the wake of this great Saint, to beseech the

Blessed Virgin with greater fervour than ever to obtain for us. along with the return of the souls to her Son, Peace all over the world. Pilgrimage was very beautiful,

we drove the bus to Prague, Paris, Poitiers, Strasbourg. Will we ever entrust to someone in our times betrayed Polish “Solidarity 1980” in such a way as this has made St. Louis Marie Grignon de Montfort.

(Greetings and welcome to the Montfort Centre website. We are most happy to have you visit theirs website and hope you find what you needed about the Montfort Centre on this site. This site also carries some information on the Brothers of St. Gabriel.)