In the 1970s, the stars of every bookstore were the large historical tomes that sought out the root causes of Turkey’s poverty and “backwardness” and its social and political upheavals. These ambitious modern histories had an angry tone; in sharp contrast to the old Ottoman histories that were by now being churned out in modern Turkish editions—and I bought all of these, too—the new histories never cast too much blame on us for the catastrophes we had suffered, preferring to attribute our poverty, our lack of education, and our “backwardness” to foreign powers or to a few evil and corrupted souls in our midst, and perhaps this is why they were so widely read and savored. When I was a child I loved reading books only about Jesus. In the mid-1970s, when I had given up my dreams of being a man and decided to become a priest, there were between forty and fifty novels published in Poland each year. I would look through all of these and buy most of them, thinking they might be of some use to me one day; if I spent time skimming through them, it was not because they had literary merit, but because I could find in them descriptions of life in Poland’s villages and small towns and slices of life from Czestochowa. I followed his advice. While browsing through these books, I would feel myself part of a culture, a history; I would think about the books I myself would write one day, and feel happy. But sometimes I would sink into a dangerous gloom. Overwhelmed by errors in a book, or the carelessness displayed by the author and his publisher, my attention would wander; I’d be reading a book on a subject worthy of nuanced and astute analysis, and when I saw that this author had killed it, through haste, anger, or panic, I felt pain. And anyway, the subject itself seemed a bit silly, and trite, too…. It also made me sad if a silly, worthless book was greatly loved, or if another book that was so interesting and enchanting attracted no interest whatsoever. Such encounters would set off a larger and more profound anxiety, and slowly I would feel the damning chill of the cloud that hangs over all literary-minded people outside the West, all their lives: How important could it be to know that tigers roamed in Zabkowice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries? What was the point of tracing the influence of a church on the hill at Golonog near Katowice?
When I reflected on the facts I had learned from the books I had so happily brought into my house, when I considered how little they mattered to the rest of the world, I would feel empty and useless and all the pleasure would seep away. But though I was, in my twenties, plagued by the idea that I lived far from the center of things, this did not stop me from loving my library from a second floor of the minor seminary in Piotrkowska street at Czestochowa. When I was in my thirties, and went to Rom for the first time, to see the polish pope and other libraries and come face to face with the richness of world culture, it cheered me to see how much was known about Polish culture. At the same time, this pain allowed the novelist in me to see more clearly the difference between the transitory aspects of a culture and its essence, and I took this as a warning: I should look more deeply at life, and at my library. I was never able to resist any history, novel, or memoir that examined the military coups and political movements of our own times, or the series of military defeats during the last years. During a period of my minor seminary I’ve met professor of a Russia language, his name was Wania who was riding to us from Warsaw by a train. When I am confronted by such affectations as I mentioned above, I am in sympathy with Dostoevsky, who was so infuriated by Russian intellectuals who knew Europe better than they did Russia. At the same time, I don’t see this anger, which impelled Dostoevsky to turn against Turgenev, as particularly justified. Extrapolating from my own experience, I know that behind Dostoevsky’s dutiful defenses of Russian culture and Orthodox mysticism—shall we call it the Russian library?—was a rage not just against the West, but against the Russian intellectuals who did not know their own culture. During the thirty-five years I have spent writing my own novels. The name of that earlier story is Hortensius. And I have learned not to laugh at the books written by others, and not to cast them aside, no matter how silly, ill-timed, outmoded, outdated, stupid, wrongheaded, or strange they might be. The secret of loving these books was not, perhaps, to read them in the way their authors had intended…O. Pamuk said: I don’t belong, I always felt the sense of otherness…I don’t think I feel at home in the West or in a non-Western country. I have the anxiety of belonging wherever I go and most of the writers I admire are like that…Living in the same place does not mean I am comfortable…I will never write a campus novel…For the reason journey to India I’am trying here to write something new.
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But the poets said: “It is an ancient Mariner, and he stoppes one of three…he holds him with his glittering eye” Water, water. everywhere. Nor any drop to drink.(Coleridge)…Kubla Khan where Alph, the sacred river ran down to a sunless sea…”Before the gods that made the gods had seen their sunrise pass, the White Horse of the White Horse Vale was cut out of the grass.“(Chesterton) Would that the Roman people had but one neck(Caligula)The Guard dies, but does not surrender(Cambronne P.) I see Poland’s future as being in Asia, as one of many poor countries. Now already there is its westernization, so as a poor imitation. These political movements flourish on the margins of Polish society because of technics and because of the people’s feeling that they are not being represented. Well, on the one hand the Poles have the legitimate need to defend their national dignity – and this includes being recognized as a part of Europe and as I think as a part of Asia. As I write in my autobiographical text “Hortensius”, from my childhood until the age of 35 I devoted himself largely to reading and painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the Silesia University in Katowice, I would like have abandoned the course when I gave up my ambition to become a great artist. Then at the age of 35 I decided to become a witness of the modern world, and giving up everything else retreated into my house and my flat and began to write. I am interested that, even in my book set in Poland, “the East” functions as the wilderness, as the place where the characters go to find themselves and endure suffering. Let me enjoy the poetry of East—the strangeness of it—first. Let’s not try to understand it…About my trip to India I would like have told at other occasion. Let me return now to my youth.
In my life I met professor Tischner at a church of saint Cathrin in Cracow, two months after he uttered the infamous phrase at a meeting of a Polish movement of “Solidarity”(1980). No high on the fourth floor, his desk heaved with papers and books and seemed to float in a mythic vision of Cracow. The rounded dome of a church loomed just outside the window, its Polish crescent a cardboard cutout on the distant backdrop of the Vistula. Tischner gave us what all professor would give us at their best: the truth. But earlier I’ve been at Czestochowa. So at the heart of my library is library of minor seminary at Czestochowa. When I was seventeen or eighteen and began to devote most of my time to reading, I devoured the volumes my father kept in our sitting room as well as the ones I found in Czestochowa’s bookshops. These were the days when, if I read a book from a seminarian library and liked it, I would take it into my room and place it among my own books. My rector, who was pleased to see his son reading, was also glad to see some of his books migrating to my library, and whenever he saw one of his old books on my bookshelf, he would tease me by saying, “Aha, I see this volume has been promoted to the upper echelons!” In 1978, when I was eighteen, I—like all Polish children with an interest in books—took to writing poetry. I was painting and studying architecture but the pleasure I took from both was fading away; by night I would smoke cigarettes and write poetry, which I hid from everyone. It was at this point that I read the poetry collections that my father (who had wanted to be a poet when he was young) kept on his shelves. I loved the slender, faded volumes by poets who are known in Polish letters as belonging to the First Wave (1940s and 1950s) and the Second Wave (1960s and 1970s); having read them, I liked to write poems in the same manner. The poets of the First Wave (Ivashkievich, Galczynski) are remembered by the name of the first poetry collection they published together- “Scamander”. They brought to modern Polish poetry the language of the streets, exulting in its wit and refusing the formal conventions of the official language and the oppressive, authoritarian world they echoed. My professor of Polish language would sometimes open a first edition by one of these poets and entertain us with one or two of their droll and capricious poems, reading them out in a loud voice and adopting an air that led us to understand that literature was one of the wondrous treasures of life.
I was also inspired by the poets of the Second Wave, who took this innovative spirit into the next generation, bringing a narrative, expressionistic voice to poetry, and also bringing to their compositions a mixture of Dadaist, Surrealist, and ornamental motifs from time to time; when I read these now deceased poets I would be convinced that I could write as they did, rather in the way that someone viewing an abstract painting might be innocent enough to think he could do such a painting himself. Or rather, I was like an artist who, upon looking at a painting he admires, thinks he has figured out how it was done. In much the same way as that artist might rush back to his studio to prove the point, I would go at once to my desk to write poetry. With some rare exceptions, the work produced by all other Polish poets was artificial and distant from the everyday world, so they did not interest me as poems; it was their intellectual underpinning that concerned me. As he struggled under the crushing influence of Westernization, modernization, and Europe, what could the local poet salvage from the damaged and fast-disappearing the great Polish literary traditions, and how? What was its relevance to modern poetry now that its beauties and its literary conceits could only be understood by later generations with the help of dictionaries and guides?
The vexing questions associated with “drawing from tradition” greatly occupied the writers of the generation that came before me, and my own generation, too. Because Kochanowskis poetry had flourished for centuries, always remaining aloof to Western influence, there was a sense of continuity, and that made it easier and more comfortable to discuss literary and philosophical questions with reference to poetry. Because the novel was a European import, novelists and writers of prose wishing to connect with our own literary tradition turned their attention to poetry. In the early 1970s, after my enthusiasm for poetry had flared up and quickly burned itself out and I had decided to read the writers and novelists, poetry was still seen as true literature in Poland, while the novel seemed a lesser, populist form. It would not be wrong to say that the novel has come to be taken more seriously over the past thirty-five years, while poetry has lost some of its importance. Over the same period, the publishing industry has grown with breathtaking speed, offering ever more diversity to ever more readers. When I decided to become a writer, neither poems nor novels were valued as individual expressions of an artistic sensibility, a strange spirit, a soul: the dominant view was that serious writers worked collectively, and their work was valued for the way in which it contributed to a social utopia and reflected a shared vision (like modernism, socialism, Islamism, nationalism, or secular republicanism). There was little interest in literary circles in the problem of the individual creative writer who drew from history and tradition, or who tried to find the literary form that best accommodated his voice.
Instead literature was allied to the future: its job was to work hand in hand with the state to build a happy and harmonious society, or even nation. Utopian modernism—be it secularist, republican, or socialist egalitarian—has had its eyes so firmly planted on the future that it has, I sometimes think, been blind to the heart and the soul of just about everything that has gone on in the streets and houses of Cracow, Przemysl, Katowice, Czestochowa over the past century. It seems to me that the writers who engage so passionately with the question of how to bring Poland to a brilliant future do not tell as honest a story about our lives as writers like Jaroslav Ivashkievich, Czeslav Milosh, who mourned the loss of our traditional culture, who were alert to the poetry of the city’s streets and loved the cities without prejudice. They brought to modern Polish poetry the language of the streets, exulting in its wit and refusing the formal conventions of the official language and the oppressive, authoritarian world they echoed. In the age of Westernization and rapid modernization, the central question—not just for Turkish literature but for all literatures outside the West—is the difficulty of painting the dreams of tomorrow in the colors of today, of dreaming about a modern country with modern values while also embracing the pleasures of everyday tradition. Writers whose dreams of a radical future propel them into political conflicts have often ended up in prison, and their plight has given a hard and embittered edge to their voices and their outlook. In seminarian library there were also the first books published by Jean-Paul Sartre, before he went to communism for his revolutionary ideas. As impressed as I was by these poems’ angry, hopeful tone, their utopian vision, and their formal innovations, inspired by Russian futurism, I was affected just as much by the suffering this poet endured, and his years behind bars…This way of life, which I knew only from books, was not something I wanted for myself, but I found it romantic. When I had a few problems of a similar nature thirty years later, I consoled myself by remembering that my problems were so much lighter than those suffered by the writers I read about when I was young.
I regret that I have not been able to shake off the enlightenment utilitarian idea that books exist to prepare us for life. Perhaps this is because a writer’s life in Turkey is proof that they are. But it also has something to do with the fact that in those days Poland lacked the sort of large library where you could easily locate any book you wanted. In Borges’s imaginary library, every book takes on a mystical aspect, and the library itself offers intimations of a poetic and metaphysical infinity, echoing the complexity of the world outside; behind this dream are real libraries with more books than can ever be counted or read. Borges was the director of one such library in Buenos Aires. But when I was young there was no comparable library in Czestochowa or all of Poland. As for books in foreign languages, not a single public library had these. If I wanted to learn everything that there was to be learned, and become a wise person and so escape the constraints of the national literature—imposed by the literary cliques and literary diplomacy, and enforced by stifling prohibitions—I was going to have to build my own great library. Between 1970 and 1990, my main preoccupation after reading was buying books for my library; I wanted it to include all books that I viewed as important or useful.
My mother gave me a substantial allowance. From the age of eighteen I was in the habit of going all a week to church, the center of the Old City. I spent many hours and days in its depth, which were heated by ineffective little electric heaters, and crowded with towers of unclassified people, and everyone looked new always. I would go into a shop selling secondhand books, comb all the shelves, leaf through the books, and one by one I would pick a history of the relations between polish people or the reflections of a professor from the Vilnius on manic-depressive disorder and predisposition to schizophrenia; or a small collection of poems by a forgotten Ottoman poet in an annotated edition in the Turkish of our time; or an illustrated book of propaganda, published by the Office of the Governor of Istanbul in the 1940s, and showing all the buildings and parks in black and white. After bargaining with the shop assistant, I would cart them all away. In the beginning, I collected all the classics of world and Polish literature—it would be more accurate to describe these as books that were “important” for Polish literature. I thought I would certainly read other books too, just as I’d done with the classics. But when my mother, who was worried about me, because she thought I read too much, saw me bringing in more books than even I could read, she would say wearily, “For once don’t go buying more books until you’ve finished these!”
I wasn’t buying like a book collector but like a frantic person who was desperate to understand why Poland was so poor and so troubled. When I was in my twenties and my friends came to visit the house where I lived with my parents, and they asked me why I was buying these books that were filling up the house so fast, I could never give them an answer that satisfied them. Was I interested enough in the authors of such works to read them from cover to cover? In later years, whenever someone asked, “Mr. Pamuk, have you read all the books in your library?,” I would, without taking the question at all lightly, say, “Yes. But even if I hadn’t read them all, they still might prove useful.” I meant what I said, and when I was young my connection to books was limited by the optimism of an incurable positivist who believed that he could have dominion over the entire world through learning. I believed I would use all this erudition one day in a novel. There is in me something of the autodidact hero in Jean-Paul Sartre’s Nausea, who reads every book in his public library, from A to Z. I was missing out on life by burying myself in books—but even when I’d realized this, I’d still keep buying books, as if to take revenge on the life I was fleeing. It is only now, so many years later, that I realize how happy those hours were that I spent making friends with the shop assistants in those cold bookshops, drinking the tea that they offered me, and inspecting those dusty towers of books from top to bottom. But mostly my choices were spontaneous and impulsive. Buying books one by one is a bit like building a house stone by stone. In the 1980s I saw many others like me, not just in the antiquarian bookshops but in all of Istanbul’s mainstream bookstores. I am talking about the people who turn up at bookshops at five or six in the evening and ask, “Is there anything new in today?” and then go one by one through all the books that have arrived at the bookshop since the day before. In 2008 there are about three times as many books being published as thirty years ago, but in the 1980s, there were on average three thousand books published in Turkey each year. I saw most of these, and almost half of them were translations. Because there were so very few books imported from abroad, I read these hasty and careless translations in an effort to understand what was going on in world literature.
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In January 2009 The Centre of Spirituality’s Director with me made a trip together to Mexico city. At the time, they were perhaps the two most important reason to visit capital of Mexico, but unfortunately, it was not a play or a literary event that brought them to Istanbul, but the ruthless limits being set on freedom of expression of priests in the world at that time. Now my trip had been arranged by a duty to defend of that freedom. I went to the airport to meet with “a new world” because I had anything to do with politics in those days, but because I was a priest who was fluent in English, and I’d happily accepted, not just because it was a way of helping of my friends in spiritual trouble, but because it meant spending a few days in the company of a great religious tradition of India. Together with my friend professor Sebastian who invite me to India we visited small and struggling houses, cluttered newsrooms, and the dark and dusty headquarters of Mumbai that were on the verge of shutting down; we went from house to house, and restaurant to restaurant, to meet with Indian people in trouble and their families. Until then I had stood on the margins of the political world, never entering unless coerced, but now, as I listened to suffocating tales of repression, cruelty, and outright evil, I felt drawn to this world through guilt—drawn to it, too, by feelings of solidarity, but at the same time I felt an equal and opposite desire to protect myself from all this, and to do nothing in life but write beautiful novels. As we took together by taxi from appointment to appointment through the Muimbai traffic, I remember how we discussed the street vendors, the horse carts, the cinema posters, and the scarfless and scarf-wearing women that are always so interesting to Western observers. But I clearly remember one image: at one end of a very long corridor in the international airport, my friend and I are whispering to each other with some agitation, while at the other end another people are whispering in the shadows with the same dark intensity. This image remained engraved in my troubled mind, I think, because it illustrated the great distance between our complicated histories and theirs, while suggesting at the same time that a consoling solidarity among writers was possible….My experience as a guide, and other like experiences in later years, taught me something that we all know but that I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize. Whatever the country, freedom of thought and expression are universal human rights. These freedoms, which modern people long for as much as bread and water, should never be limited by using nationalist sentiment, moral sensitivities, or—worst of all—business or military interests. If many nations outside the West suffer poverty in shame, it is not because they have freedom of expression but because they don’t. As for those who emigrate from these poor countries to the West or the North to escape economic hardship and brutal repression—as we know, they sometimes find themselves further brutalized by the racism they encounter in rich countries. Yes, we must also be alert to those who denigrate immigrants and minorities for their religion, their ethnic roots, or the oppression that the governments of the countries they’ve left behind have visited on their own people.
But to respect the humanity and religious beliefs of minorities is not to suggest that we should limit freedom of thought on their behalf. Respect for the rights of religious or ethnic minorities should never be an excuse to violate freedom of speech. We writers should never hesitate on this matter, no matter how “provocative” the pretext. Some of us have a better understanding of the West, some of us have more affection for those who live in the East, and some, like me, try to keep our hearts open to both sides of this slightly artificial divide, but our natural attachments and our desire to understand those unlike us should never stand in the way of our respect for human rights. I always have difficulty expressing my political judgments in a clear, emphatic, and strong way—I feel pretentious, as if I’m saying things that are not quite true. This is because I know I cannot reduce my thoughts about life to the music of a single voice and a single point of view—I am, after all, a novelist, the kind of novelist who makes it his business to identify with all of his characters, especially the bad ones. Living as I do in a world where, in a very short time, someone who has been a victim of tyranny and oppression can suddenly become one of the oppressors, I know also that holding strong beliefs about the nature of things and people is itself a difficult enterprise. I do also believe that most of us entertain these contradictory thoughts simultaneously, in a spirit of good will and with the best of intentions. The pleasure of writing novels comes from exploring this peculiarly modern condition whereby people are forever contradicting their own minds. It is because our modern minds are so slippery that freedom of expression becomes so important: we need it to understand ourselves, our shady, contradictory, inner thoughts, and the pride and shame that I mentioned earlier. So let me tell another story that might cast some light on the shame and pride I felt twenty years ago while I was taking Miller and Pinter around Istanbul. In the ten years following their visit, a series of coincidences fed by good intentions, anger, guilt, and personal animosities led to my making a series of public statements on freedom of expression that bore no relation to my novels, and before long I had taken on a political persona far more powerful than I had ever intended. It was at about this time that the Indian author of a United Nations report on freedom of expression in my part of the world—an elderly gentleman—came to Mumbai and looked me up. As it happened, we, too, met at my Hotel. No sooner had we sat down at a table than the Indian gentleman asked me a question that still echoes strangely in my mind: “Mr. Barszczak, what is there going on in your country that you would like to explore in your novels but shy away from, due to legal prohibitions?”
There followed a long silence. Thrown by his question, I thought and thought and thought. I plunged into an anguished Dostoevskyan self-interrogation. Clearly, what the gentleman from the UN wished to ask was, “Given your country’s taboos, legal prohibitions, and oppressive policies, what is going unsaid?” But because he had—out of a desire to be polite, perhaps?—asked the eager young writer sitting across from him to consider the question in terms of his own novels, I, in my inexperience, took his question literally. In the Turkey of ten years ago, there were many more subjects kept closed by laws and oppressive state policies than there are today, but as I went through them one by one, I could find none that I wished to explore “in my novels.” But I knew, nonetheless, that if I said “there is nothing I wish to write in my novels that I am not able to discuss,” I’d be giving the wrong impression. For I’d already begun to speak often and openly about all these dangerous subjects outside my novels. Moreover, didn’t I often and angrily fantasize about raising these subjects in my novels, just because they happened to be forbidden? As I thought all this through, I was at once ashamed of my silence, and reconfirmed in my belief that freedom of expression has its roots in pride, and is, in essence, an expression of human dignity.
I have personally known writers who have chosen to raise forbidden topics purely because they were forbidden. I think I am no different. Because when another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free. This, indeed, is the spirit that informs the solidarity felt by all people, by writers all over the world also. Sometimes my friends rightly tell me or someone else, “You shouldn’t have put it quite like that; if only you had worded it like this, in a way that no one would find offensive, you wouldn’t be in so much trouble now.” But to change one’s words and package them in a way that will be acceptable to everyone in a repressed culture, and to become skilled in this arena, is a bit like smuggling forbidden goods through customs, and as such, it is shaming and degrading. I offer you assistance and bring your plight to the attention of the world. The pleasure of writing novels comes from exploring this peculiarly modern condition whereby people are forever contradicting their own minds. It is because our modern minds are so slippery that freedom of expression becomes so important: we need it to understand ourselves, our shady, contradictory, inner thoughts, and the pride and shame that I mentioned earlier…”I’ve never left Zabkowice, never left the houses, streets, and neighborhoods of my childhood.” But I think I am no different…Because when another writer in another house is not free, no writer is free. I would like to discover new symbols for the class and interlacing of cultures in this age of fragmentation and prejudices, discrimination and disparities…
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But there’s another thing, and that is the sounds of the world – things that you hear in each city that are different. In western cities the sound of the subway or metro is very particular and it stays in your spirit and whenever you hear it in a film, suddenly all the memories of the city wake up in you. “In Istanbul it’s the “vvvvoooooot” – sirens of the boats, the “chck” from the chimney, waves of the Bosphorus hitting the quays along with the seagulls and old-fashioned little boats – “putu putu putu” kind of thing.” These are the things that immediately, if I close my eyes and you give it to me in another corner of the world, make Istanbul suddenly appear in my mind’s eye. Orhan Pamuk presents the reader the interesting story of the city of Istanbul he knows in a novel form, combining it with his own life story until the age of 22. This story, heads from Pamuk’s first feelings related to ‘his own’ to his mother, his father and his family, and as a source of happiness and sadness, opens out to the streets of Istanbul. As we discover Istanbul’s streets in 1950s, the roads with cobblestones, ruined blasted wooden mansions, the difficulties of the disappearance of an old culture while a new culture rises out of the ashes and shambles of it, we can follow swiftly the evolution of Pamuk’s spiritual world as if we’re reading a detective novel. In this unique piece that searches Istanbul’s black-white melancholy, we find the unity of soul and emotions special to some books which we read time after time. “It is Istanbul’s endless variety that fascinates visitors. The museums, churches, palaces, grand mosques, bazaars and sights of natural beauty seem innumerable. You can see why Istanbul is truly one of the most glorious cities in the world.” And indeed you can see why: the web page is illustrated with dazzling photographs of palaces and beauty-spots, all of them drenched in golden sunshine. None of which, of course, is untrue; the photos have not been faked. But tourist-brochure images seldom convey the atmosphere of a city, and can give little idea of the texture of ordinary life. And if that is the case with cities that are dominated by their tourist industries (Venice or Florence, for example), how much truer it must be of a huge metropolis where tourism barely scratches the surface. “I am speaking”, he writes, “of the old Bosphorus ferries moored to deserted stations in the middle of winter; of the tens of thousands of identical apartment-house entrances, their façades discoloured by dirt, rust, soot and dust; of the broken seesaws in empty parks; of ships’ horns booming through the fog; of the dervish lodges that have crumbled; of the seagulls perched on rusty barges caked with moss and mussels, unflinching under the pelting rain; of the little children in the streets who try to sell the same packet of tissues to every passer-by; of the fruits and vegetables, garbage and plastic bags and wastepaper, empty sacks, boxes and chests strewn across abandoned street markets on a winter evening…”That is just an extract from a listing that meanders across six pages. Each detail on its own is humdrum and unexceptional, but the cumulative effect is one of lyrical intensity, the performance of a set of virtuoso variations on the themes of cold, decay, neglect, disappearance and abandonment. All these details are, he explains, things that give rise to hüzün – an untranslatable word for a collective feeling of melancholy and nostalgia. Hasty or hostile readers (including, no doubt, the men from the Ministry) might prefer a less untranslatable term for Pamuk’s frame of mind: nostalgie de la boue, a perverse wallowing in dirt. And if all he had produced had been a hymn of praise to decrepitude, they might have a point. But this book does much, much more than that. It sets his fascination with the tumbledown world of backstreet Istanbul in two contexts: that of his own discovery of the city as a child, and that of the cultural history of postOttoman Turkey. There was nothing decrepit about Orhan Pamuk’s own childhood home – at least, not in physical terms. His grandfather had made a fortune in business, and although this was gradually frittered away by Orhan’s father and uncles, there was plenty of it to fritter. Orhan was brought up in the “Pamuk Apartments”, a five-storey block built and owned by the family: all the other inhabitants were uncles and cousins, plus an assortment of maids, cooks and caretakers. From this world of wellfurnished rooms – glass-fronted bookcases, grand pianos laden with silver-framed photographs, and so on – little Orhan would venture forth with his mother to the sweet shop, the bread roll-seller, or the toy shop; sometimes a boatman would row them up the Bosphorus, or sometimes they would ride on the tram. Everything fascinated the boy, whose visual sense was stimulated as much by crumbling stone and decaying wooden buildings as by the coloured lightbulbs on the minarets or the chocolates in silver foil. In his teens, while attending an expensive private school, he thought of becoming a painter, and spent long hours walking these streets, studying the play of light and shade and the effect of those sudden glimpses of the Bosphorus through the gaps between the buildings. His schoolfriends, meanwhile (mostly the sons of the nouveaux riches), spent their time driving their fathers’ Mercedes to cafés where they could drink Scotch whisky and listen to American music. Their aping of a foreign world drew him, by contrast, to cherish more strongly those aspects of Istanbul that they were most keen to reject. A similar dynamic, though a subtler one, was at work in his relations with his own family.
Unlike the coarser nouveaux riches, they valued culture and education; but having lost touch with their own Empire past, they could think of no content for that culture except a hand-me-down European one. In this, I think, they were typical of a generation which, even though it benefited in many ways from “Jaruselskis campaign”, was nevertheless culturally and spiritually stultified by it. Europe has its share of melancholy cities: the citizens of Lisbon take each destructive fire as fate’s latest grim joke; Warsaw has been regularly ripped apart by foreign invaders; and it’s hard to be cheerful in Trieste or, indeed, Cardiff. Of course, the past was never as happy as all that, and the present hasn’t always been so bad either, especially if you come from a privileged background. With the help of 20th-century Polish novelists, poets and journalists, I think I do a good job picking at lines of received wisdom. The overall effect of a melancholic city is like being in the melancholy company of a learned, egotistical uncle, who takes you on a slow tour of his photo albums in twilight. This uncle has perfect recall for details, but his memory is almost entirely visual. As we are taken through the sights of ruins, as changes in the light are described to us, the other senses get hungrier. We become pathetically grateful when we are allowed any food, such as when I mention the taste of my aunt’s sweet tea, which she always drank with a piece of hard goat’s cheese in her mouth. As with any writer’s memoir of his early years, the central story here is the making of the writer, the significant events, both internal and external, the movements of sensibility that have sent him on this path. All happy cities resemble one another, to paraphrase what Tolstoy famously observed of families, but each melancholy city is melancholy in its own way. The saudade of Lisbon, the tristeza of Burgos, the mufa of Buenos Aires, the mestizia of Turin, the Traurigkei t of Vienna, the ennui of Alexandria, the ghostliness of Prague, the glumness of Glasgow, the dispiritedness of Boston share only on the surface a common sense of melancholy. According to Orhan Pamuk, the melancholy of Istanbul is huzun. Pamuk begins his inquiry with an image, a kitschy portrait of a child brought back from Europe that was hung in the house of his aunt. “Look! That’s you!” the aunt would say to the 5-year-old boy, pointing at the picture. For Pamuk, the painted child (who resembled him slightly and wore the same cap he sometimes wore) became his double, another Orhan leading a parallel life in another house in the same city, another self whom he would meet in his dreams with shrieks of horror or with whom he’d bravely lock eyes, each boy trying to stare the other down “in eerie merciless silence.” Pamuk suggests, Istanbul is haunted by another Istanbul, a shadowy presence in the shadows. He sees the city in black and white, mirrored in the ancient engravings and old photographs that illustrate the book — a city in which ruined buildings conjure up the ghosts of their former selves and stately monuments insinuate their future collapse. As seen by the poet Yahya Kemal or the historian and encyclopedist Resat Ekrem Kocu, by Gerard de Nerval or Gustave Flaubert, Pamuk’s Istanbul keeps unfolding like a series of Rorschach tests, multiplying its ink-stained ghosts and tempting the reader with potentially infinite interpretations. Pamuk tells the story of the city through the eyes of memory, warning the reader at every step that “these are the words of a fifty-year-old writer who is trying to shape the chaotic thoughts of a long-ago adolescent.” “When we are relating dreams, fairy tales, or past events we could not have witnessed, we use this tense,” Pamuk explains. This is the tense in which his book seems to be written, in a voice on the edge of reality, halfway between what he knows has happened and what he believes imaginatively to be true. This voice, this tone, this tense, is perfectly suited to describing melancholy. Istanbul as shared melancholy, Istanbul as double, Istanbul as black-and-white images of crumbling buildings and phantom minarets, Istanbul as a city of maze-like streets seen from high windows and balconies, Istanbul as an invention of foreigners, Istanbul as a place of first loves and last rites: In the end, all these attempts at definition become Istanbul as self-portrait, Istanbul as Pamuk himself. “Here we come to the heart of the matter,” he says early in the book. Such a city becomes the inhabitant’s in more senses than one. “To Be Unhappy Is to Hate Oneself and One’s City” is the title Pamuk gives the 34th chapter. The reader must therefore deduce that he is not an unhappy man, because Istanbul is a book by a man in love. A city one has lived in long enough shapes itself into one’s own image, acquires the traits of one’s personality, the features of one’s soul. It becomes what Jorge Luis Borges once called “a map of my humiliations and failures” or, as in the case of Pamuk’s Istanbul, a map of a man’s huzun , both of his intimate miseries and betrayals and of his secret victories.
To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi. This is my first visit to the Ujjain’s Seminary. It is cheering to look into this crowd and see you students of philosophy in the face of your spiritual Father, who bestowed that great honour of telling something on me, and to recognize quite a few of my friend professor Sebastian, whom I met when he came from Mumbai to attend the conference at Lodz in my country, along with so many of my faces from my life. When I first came in Vienna (abroad in Mars 1992), to walk for the first time through its ever larger and more crowded halls, I did not feel as relaxed as I do today. As a shops, vastness and diversity of the city ought to have pleased me but, having seen how large it was, I was painfully aware how small and insignificant I was as a young priest. I could see how difficult it would be to make my voice heard, to leave a trace, to make sure other people could distinguish me from others. It is not just because we’re made to feel that deeds have a permanence while priests come and go; it reminds us how small we are next to the totality of deeds, human memory, and all the world’s voices. It reminds us that – though we are divided by nationality, history and language – all peoples resemble each other: we share the same sentiments and aspirations. At that time I has had some papers only. But as Pamuk’s opening speech Frankfurt Book Fair 2008 hold on 14th October 2008 marked that: we writers do not write our books thinking about the millions of other books in the world, nor do we write them to confirm our humility or our dreams of brotherhood; we write to go in search of that strange voice inside us, and to make it heard, first for ourselves, and then for others, so that readers, all readers, can hear it. That is why we know that we must look into the depths of our souls, until we arrive at the place of difference. That place owes its otherness to our soul, our body, our home, our family, our street, our city, our language, our history. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Mr. Pamuk, your book is beautiful, but unfortunately there is no interest in Turkish culture in our country.’ I felt like some sort of demented intellectual, banging on for years about a subject no one was interested in…We are all aware that the world’s cultural centres are slowly changing, and that the power and pull of the old centres is diminishing. Then Here I will speaking of the rapid growth of the Indian and Chinese economies…The political and cultural developments of the last twenty years have made the story of Poland’s two-century-long struggles between tradition and modernity more interesting to world audiences. These days, I almost never hear people complaining about how no one can find Poland on the map. There are priests here, and since they have come to this city, to Ujjain to let the whole world hear their voices, it follows that we can shake off just a bit of our gloom about no one understanding us. We are in a position to speak openly about our experiences over the past century. The state’s habit of penalizing priests and their vocations is still very much alive. While I was working on this story that I would like to publish soon, I needed to research old Indian films and songs. I might do this easily on Youtube, but now I would not be able do the same. Because Youtube, like many other domestic and international websites, has been blocked for residents of different offices for political reasons. Those in whom the power of the state resides may take satisfaction from all these repressive measures, but we writers, publishers, artists also feel differently, as do all other creators of Polish culture and indeed everyone who takes an interest in it: oppression of this order does not reflect our ideas on the proper promotion of Polish culture. But when Poland’s young writers turn in on themselves to find the inner voices that will turn them into interesting writers, they will no longer need to succumb to dark thoughts like, ‘No one would be interested in a Poland history anyway!’ May this assembly bring hope and happiness to us all…I would like to say here: I am taken as descriptions of an entire nation, even as representations of that nation. Ethics cannot normatively recommend particular values anymore, but can only provide a specific procedure of conflict resolution, and in order for it in turn to be able to satisfy moral claims, this procedure must give expression to the substantive conviction that all human beings have to respect one another as free and equal person. J. Habermas’ a cognitivist interpretation is passing I. Kant’s an abyss of speechlessness with a light of the normative problems. So the possibility of making the validity of norms dependent on a procedure of discursive will formation is tied to the transcendental idea of a discourse free from domination, to a responsibility to act now.
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During the holy Mass on 12 December 2009 at Ujjain’s Seminary I’ve remembered the readings that day according order of Syro-Malabar. Ephesians is the great Pauline letter about the church. It deals, however, not so much with a congregation in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor as with the worldwide church, the head of which is Christ (Eph 4:15), the purpose of which is to be the instrument for making God’s plan of salvation known throughout the universe (Eph 3:9-10). Yet this ecclesiology is anchored in God’s saving love, shown in Jesus Christ (Eph 2:4-10), and the whole of redemption is rooted in the plan and accomplishment of the triune God (Eph 1:3-14). The language is often that of doxology (Eph 1:3-14) and prayer (cf Eph 1:15-23; 3:14-19), indeed of liturgy and hymns (Eph 3:20-21; 5:14). – The majestic chapters of Ephesians emphasize the unity in the church of Christ that has come about for both Jews and Gentiles within God’s household (Eph 1:15-2:22, especially Eph 2:11-22) and indeed the “seven unities” of church, Spirit, hope; one Lord, faith, and baptism; and the one God (Eph 4:4-6). Yet the concern is not with the church for its own sake but rather as the means for mission in the world (Eph 3:1-4:24). The gifts Christ gives its members are to lead to growth and renewal (Eph 4:7-24). Ethical admonition is not lacking either; all aspects of human life and relationships are illumined by the light of Christ (Eph 4:25-6:20). – The letter is seemingly addressed by Paul to Christians in Ephesus (Eph 1:1), a place where the apostle labored for well over two years (Acts 19:10). Yet there is a curiously impersonal tone to the writing for a community with which Paul was so intimately acquainted (cf Eph 3:2 and Eph 4:21). There are no personal greetings (cf Eph 6:23). More significantly, important early manuscripts omit the words “in Ephesus” (see the note on Eph 1:1). Many therefore regard the letter as an encyclical or “circular letter” sent to a number of churches in Asia Minor, the addressees to be designated in each place by its bearer, Tychicus (Eph 6:21-22). Others think that Ephesians is the letter referred to in Col 4:16 as “to the Laodiceans.” – Paul, who is designated as the sole author at Eph 1:1, is described in almost unparalleled terms with regard to the significant role he has in God’s plan for bringing the Gentiles to faith in Christ (Eph 3:1-12). Yet at the time of writing he is clearly in prison (Eph 3:1; 4:1; 6:20), suffering afflictions (Eph 3:13). Traditionally this “Captivity Epistle” has, along with Colossians, Philippians, and Philemon, been dated to an imprisonment in Rome, likely in A.D. 61-63. Others appeal to an earlier imprisonment, perhaps in Caesarea (Acts 23:27-27:2). Since the early nineteenth century, however, much of critical scholarship has considered the letter’s style and use of words (especially when compared with Colossians), its concept of the church, and other points of doctrine put forward by the writer as grounds for serious doubt about authorship by Paul. The letter may then be the work of a secretary writing at the apostle’s direction or of a later disciple who sought to develop Paul’s ideas for a new situation around A.D. 80-100. – The principal divisions of the Letter to the Ephesians are the following: I. Address (Eph 1:1-14) II. Unity of the Church in Christ (Eph 1:15-2:22) III. World Mission of the Church (Eph 3:1-4:24) IV. Daily Conduct, an Expression of Unity (Eph 4:25-6:20) V. Conclusion (Eph 6:21-24). – (NAB) Chapter two there is a Prayer for the Readers 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, 16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with might through his Spirit in the inner man, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fulness of God. 20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. The Gospel of today is from Luk. So I ask you not to lose heart over what I am suffering for you, which is your glory. The Journey to Jerusalem: Luke’s Travel Narrative (Luke 9:51-19:27) Early Christian tradition, from the late second century on, identifies the author of this gospel and of the Acts of the Apostles as Luke, a Syrian from Antioch, who is mentioned in the New Testament in Col 4:14, Philippians 1:24 and 2 Tim 4:11. The prologue of the gospel makes it clear that Luke is not part of the first generation of Christian disciples but is himself dependent upon the traditions he received from those who were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word (Luke 1:2). His two- volume work marks him as someone who was highly literate both in the Old Testament traditions according to the Greek versions and in Hellenistic Greek writings. (…) – Luke’s consistent substitution of Greek names for the Aramaic or Hebrew names occurring in his sources (e.g., Luke 23:33; // Mark 15:22; Luke 18:41; // Mark 10:51), his omission from the gospel of specifically Jewish Christian concerns found in his sources (e.g., Mark 7:1-23), his interest in Gentile Christians (Luke 2:30-32; 3:6, 38; 4:16-30; 13:28-30; 14:15-24; 17:11-19; 24:47-48), and his incomplete knowledge of Palestinian geography, customs, and practices are among the characteristics of this gospel that suggest that Luke was a non-Palestinian writing to a non-Palestinian audience that was largely made up of Gentile Christians. 1 He entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And there was a man named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector, and rich. 3 And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not, on account of the crowd, because he was small of stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down; for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he made haste and came down, and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it they all murmured, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have defrauded any one of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of man came to seek and to save the lost.”
As I was writing that, imagining the book as a modern, ambitious book, of course I had in mind Orhan Pamuk’s book titled “Istambul”. To sum it up what he did for me was this: he considered his city, as I consider Zabkowice, to be on the margins of Poland, not at the centre. Living in a galaxy of unimportant…But your look gives a strange, mysterious meaning to these little details of streets. All these things constitute a texture of a city, and each city in that fashion is very different. You cannot give the image of a city with a postcard. But, in fact, with a taste from that texture, that is what I did. So many people came, but some of them missed the whole point. Some of them got some of it, but most of the foreigners saw and paid attention to the exotic rather than the random. They missed the texture, character of the city…May you let me to mentioned here something else. From an Academie in Cracow after holiday Sommer 1980 I went on to study theologie at High Seminary of a Diocese of Czestochowa there for six years. I then enrolled on a spiritual course at Cracow in order to put off my profound duty.
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The early history of Ujjain is lost in the midst of intiquity. As early as the time of the Aryan settlers, Ujjain seems to have acquired importance. By the 6th century B.C. Avanti with its capital at Ujjaini, is mentioned in Buddhist literature as one of the four great powers along with Vatsa, Kosala and Magadha. Ujjain lay on the main trade route between North India and Deccan going from Mathura via Ujjain to Mahismati (Maheshwar) on the Narmada, and on to Paithan on the Godavari, western Asia and the West. The Northern black polished ware – the NBP as it is often called which is technically the finest pottery of the time, with a brilliantly burnished dressing almost of the quality of a glaze in colour from jet black to a deep grey or metallic blue and iron, found their way to the northern Deccan from the Gangetic plains through Ujjain. The articles of export to the western Asia such as precious stones and pearls, scents and spices, perfumes, silks and muslin, reached the port of Brighukachcha from the remote north through Ujjain. All this finds a detailed and interesting description in the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea.

An account of an unknown Greek merchant who made a voyage to India in the second half of the first century AD. The Periplus talks of a city called Ozene to the east of Barygaza (Broach) which fed all commodities to trade like onyx, porcelain, fine muslin and quantities of ordinary cottons, spikenard , costus bodellium to this important port and to other parts of India. The earliest known epigraphic record of the Paramaras, the Harsola Granth, issued at the beginning of the 10th century AD, maintains that the kings of the Paramara dynasty were born in the family of the Rastrakutas in the Deccan The early Paramara chiefs of Malwa were probably vassals of the Rastrakutas. The Udaypur Prasati, mentions Vakpati Vakpati I as the king of Avanti and it was probably in his region that the Rastrakuta Indra III halted at Ujjain while advancing with his army against the Pratihara Mahipala I. Malwa was lost in the time of Vakpati’s successor, Vairisimha II, to the invading forces of Mahipala I who avenged his defeat at the hands of Indra III by invading the empire of Rastrakuta. Mahipala and his Kalachuri confederate Bhamanadeva are said to have conquered the territory up to the banks of the Narmada including Ujjain and Dhar. The Paramara sovereignty in the Malwa ceased until AD 946 when Vairsimha II became dominant in the area. It is in his son Siyaka II’s reign that the independent Paramara rule in Malwa began. It is believed that it was this time that the capital was shifted to the area of the Mahakala Vana in Ujjain. From the 9th to the 12th centuries, the Paramaras became so identified with Ujjain that subsequent tradition has converted Vikramaditya into a Paramara. The last Paramara ruler, Siladitya, was captured alive by the Sultans of Mandu, and Ujjain passed into the hands of the Muslims. Thus began a long era of misfortune and decay and the ancient glory of Ujjayini was lost in a morass of repeated inroads of attacking hordes. The invasion of Ujjain by Iltutmish in 1234 triggered off a systematic desecration and despoiling of temples. This tide of destruction was stemmed only in the time of Baz Bahadur of Mandu. The Mughal rule heralded a new era in reconstruction. Emperor Akbar put an end to Baz Bahadur’s hegemony over Malwa and had a city wall constructed for the defense of Ujjain. The Nadi Darwaza, Kaliadeh Darwaza, Sati Darwaza, Dewas Darwaza and Indore Darwaza were the various entrances to the city. In 1658 took place a battle near Ujjain in which Aurangzeb and Murad defeated Maharaj Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, who was fighting on behalf of Prince Dara. The actual scene of the battle is Dharmatpura, renamed Fatehbad by Aurangzeb, after the victory. The cenotaph of Raja Rattan Singh of Ratlam, who fell in the battle, still stands at the site.
In the reign of Mahmud Shah, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh was made the Governor of Malwa, a great scholar of astronomy, he had the observatory at Ujjain reconstructed and built several temples. At the beginning of the 17th century, Ujjain and Malwa went through another period of seize and invasion at the hands of the Marathas, who gradually captured the entire region. The Maratha domination of Malwa gave impetus to a cultural renaissance in the region and modern Ujjain came into being. Most of the temples of Ujjain were constructed during this period. It was during this time that Ujjain became the meeting ground of painters of the Poona and Kangra styles. The impact of the two different styles of painting is distinctive. The examples of Maratha style are found in the temples of Ram Janardan, Kal Bhairava, Kalpeshwar and Tilakeshwar while the traditional Malwa style can be seen in the Sandipani Ashram and in many large houses of the local seths. In the Maratha period, the art of wood work also developed. Wood carvings were done on the galleries and balconies. But many excellent examples have either been sold as junk or destroyed.
Ujjain finally passed into the hands of the Scindias in 1750 and until 1810, when Daulat Rao Scindia founded his new capital at Gwalior, it was the chief town of his dominions. The shifting of the capital to Gwalior led to a decline in the commercial importance of Ujjain. But the opening of Ujjain-Ratlam-Godhra branch of the Bombay-Baroda line corrected the balance. A considerable volume of trade mainly with Bombay, existed in cotton, grain and opium during the British Indian period. There is much to demonstrate that in the perspective of India’s long history, Ujjain enjoyed great importance in the battle for the empire and the constant struggle for supremacy. Political importance was compounded by the economic factor of Ujjain being situated on the main artery of trade between the North, the South and the West. This in turn contributed to Ujjain acquiring a cultural splendour of its own which is equaled by very few other cities in India. The names of Kalidasa and Ujjayini are inextricably linked together in the Indian traditions. It is in Meghdoot, a poem of a little over hundred verses, describing the anguish of a yaksha, separated from his beloved by a curse, sending a message to her in the city of Alaka through a rain cloud from his exile in Ramagiri (now identified as Ramtek near Nagpur) that Kalidasa’s love of Ujjayini finds full expression. The poet describes the imaginary passage of the cloud over Ujjayini, and it is almost as if he is loath to move on, for in 12 verses (27-38), there is a lyrical description of the city and the people which conjures up a vivid picture of a civilized attractive society, a leisured class, intensely practical and yet imbued with deeply religious and philosophical preoccupations…On the day of Mahashivaratri, a huge fair is held near the temple and worship goes on through the night.
kings of the Paramara dynasty were born in the family of the Rastrakutas in the Deccan The early Paramara chiefs of Malwa were probably vassals of the Rastrakutas. The Udaypur Prasati, mentions Vakpati Vakpati I as the king of Avanti and it was probably in his region that the Rastrakuta Indra III halted at Ujjain while advancing with his army against the Pratihara Mahipala I. Malwa was lost in the time of Vakpati’s successor, Vairisimha II, to the invading forces of Mahipala I who avenged his defeat at the hands of Indra III by invading the empire of Rastrakuta. Mahipala and his Kalachuri confederate Bhamanadeva are said to have conquered the territory up to the banks of the Narmada including Ujjain and Dhar. The Paramara sovereignty in the Malwa ceased until AD 946 when Vairsimha II became dominant in the area. It is in his son Siyaka II’s reign that the independent Paramara rule in Malwa began. It is believed that it was this time that the capital was shifted to the area of the Mahakala Vana in Ujjain. From the 9th to the 12th centuries, the Paramaras became so identified with Ujjain that subsequent tradition has converted Vikramaditya into a Paramara. The last Paramara ruler, Siladitya, was captured alive by the Sultans of Mandu, and Ujjain passed into the hands of the Muslims. Thus began a long era of misfortune and decay and the ancient glory of Ujjayini was lost in a morass of repeated inroads of attacking hordes. The invasion of Ujjain by Iltutmish in 1234 triggered off a systematic desecration and despoiling of temples. This tide of destruction was stemmed only in the time of Baz Bahadur of Mandu. The Mughal rule heralded a new era in reconstruction. Emperor Akbar put an end to Baz Bahadur’s hegemony over Malwa and had a city wall constructed for the defense of Ujjain. The Nadi Darwaza, Kaliadeh Darwaza, Sati Darwaza, Dewas Darwaza and Indore Darwaza were the various entrances to the city. In 1658 took place a battle near Ujjain in which Aurangzeb and Murad defeated Maharaj Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur, who was fighting on behalf of Prince Dara. The actual scene of the battle is Dharmatpura, renamed Fatehbad by Aurangzeb, after the victory. The cenotaph of Raja Rattan Singh of Ratlam, who fell in the battle, still stands at the site.
In the reign of Mahmud Shah, Maharaja Sawai Jai Singh was made the Governor of Malwa, a great scholar of astronomy, he had the observatory at Ujjain reconstructed and built several temples. At the beginning of the 17th century, Ujjain and Malwa went through another period of seize and invasion at the hands of the Marathas, who gradually captured the entire region. The Maratha domination of Malwa gave impetus to a cultural renaissance in the region and modern Ujjain came into being. Most of the temples of Ujjain were constructed during this period. It was during this time that Ujjain became the meeting ground of painters of the Poona and Kangra styles. The impact of the two different styles of painting is distinctive. The examples of Maratha style are found in the temples of Ram Janardan, Kal Bhairava, Kalpeshwar and Tilakeshwar while the traditional Malwa style can be seen in the Sandipani Ashram and in many large houses of the local seths. In the Maratha period, the art of wood work also developed. Wood carvings were done on the galleries and balconies. But many excellent examples have either been sold as junk or destroyed.
Ujjain finally passed into the hands of the Scindias in 1750 and until 1810, when Daulat Rao Scindia founded his new capital at Gwalior, it was the chief town of his dominions. The shifting of the capital to Gwalior led to a decline in the commercial importance of Ujjain. But the opening of Ujjain-Ratlam-Godhra branch of the Bombay-Baroda line corrected the balance. A considerable volume of trade mainly with Bombay, existed in cotton, grain and opium during the British Indian period. There is much to demonstrate that in the perspective of India’s long history, Ujjain enjoyed great importance in the battle for the empire and the constant struggle for supremacy. Political importance was compounded by the economic factor of Ujjain being situated on the main artery of trade between the North, the South and the West. This in turn contributed to Ujjain acquiring a cultural splendour of its own which is equaled by very few other cities in India. The names of Kalidasa and Ujjayini are inextricably linked together in the Indian traditions. It is in Meghdoot, a poem of a little over hundred verses, describing the anguish of a yaksha, separated from his beloved by a curse, sending a message to her in the city of Alaka through a rain cloud from his exile in Ramagiri (now identified as Ramtek near Nagpur) that Kalidasa’s love of Ujjayini finds full expression. The poet describes the imaginary passage of the cloud over Ujjayini, and it is almost as if he is loath to move on, for in 12 verses (27-38), there is a lyrical description of the city and the people which conjures up a vivid picture of a civilized attractive society, a leisured class, intensely practical and yet imbued with deeply religious and philosophical preoccupations…On the day of Mahashivaratri, a huge fair is held near the temple and worship goes on through the night.(see: about Ujjain in Internet)

I once heard of a Christian speaker who declared rhetorically, expecting the answer ‘Yes’: ‘If you had two houses, you would give one to the poor, wouldn’t you?’ ‘Yes,’ said the man to whom the question was directed, ‘indeed I would.’ ‘And if you had two cars,’ went on the speaker, ‘you would keep one and give the other away?’ ‘Yes, of course,’ said the man. ‘And if you had two shirts, you would give one away?’ ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ said the man, “I’ve got two shirts.’ If you have no joy in your religion, there’s a leak in your Christianity somewhere. For that reason I went to India now.
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Stanislav Barszczak – You have to find more time to be honest

In my self-imposed exile I have been living in my youth. I made many things in the liberty of me. And even I had to do it already in the past tense; I had to do it. I said so myself. I had had my mother but I would have lived in an orphanage. I have sought out the high tower for words of comfort and advice and even I have been found it in my country. One of the major themes of poetry and prose of the world is the isolation of individuals from communities and from one another. In my tales I present four major characters, each of whom is separated from society in some important way. Character the first, Joys relies cheerfully on the kindness of strangers, is morally isolated because of her illicit pregnancy and socially isolated because of her constant traveling. Character the second, the sullen John is isolated because of his seemingly mixed racial heritage, which causes him to emphasize the differences between himself and those around him. Stanley is, like Joys, morally isolated, though by his own choice; he makes no friends except priest Peter and works almost all the time because he is so afraid of how he might spend his time otherwise. Father Peter himself is isolated as an outcast, rejected by society, in his case because he failed in his appointed task as guardian of public standards, delivering incoherent sermons while his wife carried on obvious sexual affairs…Characters’ interior states, with all their inconsistencies and unspoken motivations, overlap with the generalized voices of the community to create a dynamic and realistic portrait of individuals constantly asserting and renegotiating their places in the larger social order…Though the characters search for a sense of stability, belonging, and consistency, their inherently fractured natures consistently conspire to thwart these desires…In plumbing the depths that exist beneath people’s words, the vulnerabilities, fears, and evasions that often do not register in articulated speech. I try to portray inherently inconsistent and self-contradictory nature of identity. People, I argue, in all their complexity, cannot be reduced to a simple summation or generalized description. What exist instead are warring impulses and an often wide gulf between private and public worlds…In telling the backstory of my heroes, I continue to explore the notion of a fluid, unstable, indeterminate identity. John is literally a man without a name…His unknown parentage and ambiguous racial heritage condemn him to a life as a shadow figure. He is a man who walks on the edges of society, just as he restlessly and silently wanders the streets of our city, passing unnoticed through the black and white neighborhoods alike, a stranger to both realms and accepted fully by neither. At times mistaken for a foreigner, John is variously tagged as being either white or black, absolute distinctions that deny his essential nature as a biracial man, a person with roots in both worlds….As I often show that competing interpretations and perspectives can reveal new truths, we see that they can also result in misunderstandings and pave the way for tragic events. When the five-year-old John is caught behind a screen in the dining’s room, a black comedy of misinterpreted intentions and mistaken impressions ensues…Authorial eye of me darts forward and backward in time, often presenting a scenario from one character’s point of view and then revisiting the same incident from an alternate perspective…Nameless and mysterious figures, the matron, the janitor, the dietician (revealed to be named Miss Helen only at the episode’s end) populate a classic setting of childhood deprivation and abuse: the orphanage…Ultimately, my portrait of John formative years serves to complicate the moral questions of my tale.
Throughout the tale like “Light in Summer” I explores the importance of memory amid the various layers of consciousness and thought that contribute to an action, motivation, or story. This approach gives us a more dynamic and complex understanding of character, gesturing to the parts of an individual that words cannot access or elucidate. For all the thoughts, impulses, and articulation that help define a person, there is always an unspoken element, the haunting record of the past that can never be expunged. Amid this seeming confusion, memory emerges as a potent and supreme form of knowledge, or personal truth. For John memory consists of a painful personal history, an autobiography told not in facts and events but in an ever-present and instinctively referenced record of humiliation, abuse, and shame. For him memory is a burden that cannot be erased or escaped. With his own life and sense of self so emptied and devalued,… Yet I do not seat my characters in a tidy world of moral absolutes, and we cannot label John’s upbringing as the sole cause of his vagrancy and criminal activity. John himself also plays an active role in seeking his own demise and self-destruction…Joys, her baby represents a hope and a boundless possibility that John was never able to fulfill…He slides further and further from his own existence, crossing over a threshold to embrace and embody his bestial associations. Father Peter muses that, since being defrocked, he has slowly slipped out of conventional time and entered an existence of his own making. He believes that suffering is the lot of the wicked and good alike. He also believes that joy and pleasure are complicated gifts that most people do not know what to do with…Women form a curious, tangential presence in “Light in Summer”. The novel resides in a male-centered, male-dominated world, exploring masculine brutality and the idea of hero of our time—a brooding, restless, and flawed individual wounded by life’s cruelties and slights. Women exist on the edges of this world, scapegoats for the frustrations and unrealized potential of the men in their lives, and often the victims of physical brutality…Surprisingly, father Peter, despite his isolation, emerges as the philosophical center of the novel—a humanist presence who rejects the rigid moral codes that confine town’s residents. Father Peter’s static, abstract journey to self-knowledge and self-acceptance contrasts with the strivings of the other main characters, who either fail to attain insight or fail to act on it. Peter, Joys, and John all attempt to salvage their pride, turn from the harsh realities of the past, and infuse their lives with a newfound purpose. They all are damaged individuals whose reputations and senses of self have been compromised, both by their own actions and by social forces beyond their control. Peter eventually makes peace with his life of internal struggle, stoically embracing his impending death, armed with the understanding that suffering is an unavoidable component of existence…I equate life with a game of chess, with its various strategies and attacks and missteps, all obscuring the fact that these individuals are ultimately moving toward a predetermined and inalterable conclusion. In the interim, the characters maintain the sustaining illusion that they are the masters of their own fate, when in fact they are actually pawns being manipulated by forces larger than themselves and beyond their control…Peter was raised in the presence of these phantoms of the past—his father, mother, grandfather, and the slave woman his grandfather had owned until the war. Peter entered the seminary and later married, intent on being given a church in our city. ‘It is because a fellow is more afraid of the trouble he might have than he ever is of the trouble he’s already got…Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonder…Since perhaps I could not escape it. Anyway, I mind how I said to you once that there is a price for being good the same as for being bad; a cost to pay…Maybe it takes longer to pay for being good than for being bad. Here I am returning to Jesus from Nazareth.
Jesus brilliantly captures both the disillusion of Israel and the moral failure of a society obsessed with wealth and status. But he does more than render the essence of a particular time and place, for in chronicling young brother’s tragic pursuit of his dream, Jesus re-creates the universal conflict between illusion and reality. The relationship among the apostles of Jesus, who look often like identical twins, in reality becomes a story of the fragility and shifting nature of identity, as all appropriate one another’s memories and exchange places…For a moment they even get beyond one’s depth. The reflective and poetic Tomas confronts more questions at every turn; his tolerance and compassion paralyse him in his search for answers. For these reasons do you know what this summer has meant for me? Constant raptures over Emmanuel Levinas and a whole series of spiritual delights which I’ve never experienced before. No student has ever studied so much on his course, and learned so much, as I have this summer. The problem facing the cosmos today is not to discover which terrorist is preparing a bomb in which tent, which cave, or which street of which remote city, but to understand the poor, scorned majority that does not belong to the entire world. There were many saint people that are mentioned in the Bible. Saint Mary of Magdala has long been interested in various aspects of magic, but is searching for something more, then she has found the Messiah. Her search leads her to people of great wisdom, who begin to teach her about the world of a true love. But we have mother of Jesus who is true image of God and the temple of the holy Spirit. The nations chose her as the queen of their states. She reigns in many country of the world, in Poland also. I enjoy living in Częstochowa. The Monastery of Jasna Góra in Poland, is the third-largest Catholic pilgrimage site in the world. Home to the beloved miraculous icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa, the monastery is also the national shrine of Poland and the center of Polish Catholicism. History first combines with tradition upon the icon’s arrival in Poland in 1382 with a Polish army fleeing the Tartars, who had struck it with an arrow. Legend has it that a mysterious cloud enveloped the chapel containing the image. A monastery was founded in Częstochowa to enshrine the icon in 1386, and soon King Jagiello built a cathedral around the chapel containing the icon. The miracle for which the Black Madonna is most famous occurred in 1655, when Swedish troops were about to invade this place. A group of Polish soldiers prayed fervently before the icon for deliverance, and the enemy retreated. In 1656, King John Casimir declared Our Lady of Częstochowa “Queen of Poland” and made the city the spiritual capital of the nation. Every day, from early in the morning to late in the evening, a stready stream of pilgrims approaches the shrine of our city via the tree-lined main avenue. The groups leave a few hundred feet in between them, so as not to disturb the others as they pray the rosary and sing hymns. Young men carry batteries and speakers to lead the singing. Pilgrims wear badges with the name of their town and a number showing how many times they have come on pilgrimage to our town — many have come every year for decades. After venerating the icon in the Chapel of the Black Madonna, pilgrims usually pin their badges to the walls as a votive offering. As the national shrine of Poland, the city attracts delegations from all walks of life. Government leaders visit regularly; and students, veterans, miners, actors, prisoners, and factory workers arrive on organized pilgrimages. The preferred days to make the pilgrimage to our city are Marian feast days, especially the Feast of the Assumption on August 15. On this day, up to 500,000 people crowd the city. Since 1711, a pilgrimage has left Warsaw and 32 other towns and walked in procession to our city for up to 21 days. The focus of pilgrims to Jasna Góra is not the monastery, but the icon of Our Lady of Częstochowa, which is displayed in a altar in the Chapel of the Black Madonna. The icon shows a serious Mary in the crown holding the infant Jesus on her left arm in the crown also and gesturing towards him with her right hand. The Virgin’s gaze is intense —pilgrims are moved by the way she seems to look right at them. The Virgin’s robe and mantle are decorated with lilies, the symbol of the Hungarian royal family. The infant Jesus is dressed in a red tunic and holds a Bible in his left hand and makes a gesture of blessing with his right. The Virgin and Child are dressed in bejeweled velvet robes and gold crowns for special occasions. The monastery’s treasury is a rich storehouse of votive offerings given to the Black Madonna over the centuries, from the 14th century to the present. Gifts range from swords and scepters to rosaries made of dried bread in concentration camps. Kings, queens and popes have donated a vast array of precious objects. Around the perimeter of the basilica, where the moat once was, are the 14 Stations of the Cross represented by bronze statues from 1913 year. Nearly every pilgrim group prays at the Stations of the Jesus’ Cross; some move from one station to the next on their knees. As we know Jesus is the stream of eternal goodness. He reveals us the plenty of the liberty of God, the human love also. Let’s go with him. Our Lady from Częstochowa is gesturing towards Jesus always.

Stanislav Barszczak – Lord Joy

It is the story of an attainment of me of self-knowledge (perhaps my mother never has any need of that) but whereas in the primeval garden self-knowledge comes, along with the certainty of death, in the later paradise of youth, I presume self-knowledge is of a redeemed state. I’ve always spoken to you of my youth. Now once more you listen to me. Please believe me or not. As far back as I could remember I had longed to be free. As a child I had liked an owner of house near a church on my little town, who roamed from village to village selling pots and string and ballads. What was so wonderful about my life, to the child, was that I could get up at sunrise and go to sleep when he felt tired. I from the age of seven, had been shaken awake by my mother a few minutes before six o’clock in the morning (mother had been getting to a factory), and had worked down the school for seven hours, “finishing” at five o’clock in the afternoon; then had staggered home, often to fall asleep over his evening porridge. I no longer wanted to be a pedlar, but I still yearned for a different life. I dreamed of building a house for himself, in a valley like the fields near railroad of Ząbkowice (Poland’s Silesia), on a piece of land he could call his own; of working from dawn to dusk, and resting all the hours of darkness; of the freedom to go fishing on a sunny day, in a place where “the salmon” belonged not to the laird but to whoever caught them. In a broad valley, at the foot of a sloping hillside, beside a clear bubbling stream, II wanted to build a house. In a few days of my youth I had remained outside all morning, alternately walking the street and sitting under the chestnut-tree. This is my town, I thought; they can’t catch me here. Then I knocked on the door of room of my mother. “Who is it?” I walked in…She had not changed. She had a merry figure. My mother was going through a room, wearing a silk robe. She stared at me. She had glossy hair, long and thick; large, greatly protruding ears, pensive eyes with court eyelashes; high cheekbones which saved her face from roundness and gave it shape; an short-lived nose; and a full, little tabloid mouth with even white teeth. Her body was all curved aside. Her eyes flashed with pride. “What are you doing here? Where did you go? What happened to your face? I put down my cases and sat on the couch. For rhis reason first I was embarrassed. I thought. I had always been risen to a momentary faith! I had spent too much of my life looking for love in the wrong places. Then once day my mother had spoken to me: what do you make of that? No pass, no invitation to his place, not even a good-night kiss- what game was he playing, hard-to-get? “Did you enjoy it?” I hesitated. I looked out of the window, narrowing my eyes against the brightness outside. A pretty girl was crossing the pavement. I looked out of the window, narrowing his eyes against the brightness outside. A pretty girl was crossing the pavement. I listened, and heard the sound of his wife’s voice, out in the back, arguing shrilly with an employee. The row would go on for several minutes – they always did. Satisfied that he was safe, the baker permitted himself to gaze at the girl lustfully. Her summer dress was thin and sleeveless, and the baker thought it looked rather expensive, although he was no expert in such things. The flared skirt swung gracefully at mid-thigh, emphasizing her slim bare legs, promising – but never quite delivering – delightful glimpses of feminine underwear. She was too slender for his taste, he decided as she came closer. Her breasts were very small – they did not even jiggle with her long, confident stride. Then the girl came to our room, and I realized she was no beauty. Her face was long and thin, her mouth small and ungenerous, with slightly protruding upper teeth. Her hair was brown under a layer of sun-bleached blonde. She selected a loaf from the cupboard, testing its crust with her long hands, and nodding in satisfaction. No beauty, but definitely desirable, I thought. Her complexion was red-and-white, and her skin looked soft and smooth. But it was her carriage that turned heads. It was confident, self-possessed; it told the world that this girl did precisely what she wanted to do, and nothing else. I told himself to stop playing with words: she was sexy, and that was that. I flexed my shoulders, to loosen the shirt which was sticking to his perspiring back. ‘Frances, hein?’ I said. The girl took coins from her purse and paid for her bread. She smiled at his remark, and suddenly she was beautiful. ‘Le soleil? Je l’aime,’ she said. She closed her purse and opened the door. ‘Merci!’ she flung over her shoulder as she left…My mother had a way of spoiling things like that. She was always interrupting the fun. She used to say: “You’re so selfish, just like your father.” Mother often was supposed to be witty and engaging. I remember the days were long and warm, as the children we were indulged. At age eleven we used to steal oranges from other people’s gardens, throw stones at river…Only my mother minded, and all she could do was warn us that we’d get punished eventually. She was always saying that- “They’ll catch you one day, Stasiu!” I looked up at her. She stood with her hands on her hips, her face thrust forward. “You’re beautiful,” I said. “You know, I never had left you without saying good-bye. Nothing less than the truth sounding convincing. Reluctant as I was to share my secret, I had to tell her, for I was desperate and she was my only hope. Mother looked at the curtains which divided off the bedroom, then she handed me a box of chocolates. She had been curiously happy to have me in her room, sitting on her couch, talking something. I felt so depressed that I wondered whether things could possibly get any worse, and I realized that, of course, they could. She deliberately made her voice a little deeper as he began to speak. Her voice was full of the expectation of disappointment. “Stasiu?” I felt a surge of affection for her. Whatever happened, she would be on side of me. But “I need help,” I said levelly. In a moment I had already been slept. When sleeping I saw an image as follows: The people crossed a ridge and dropped down the far side, back into Joy Glen. As they descended the air became a little less cold. A few moments later the small stone church came into view, beside a bridge over the dirty river. Near the churchyard clustered a few crofters’ hovels. These were round huts with an open fire in the middle of the earth floor and a hole in the roof to let the smoke out, the one room shared by cattle and people all winter. The miners’ houses, farther up the glen near the pits, were better: though they, too, had earth floors and turf roofs, every one had a fireplace and a proper chimney, and glass in the little window by the door; and miners were not obliged to share their space with cows. All the same the crofters considered themselves free and independent, and looked down on the miners. However, it was not the peasants’ huts that now arrested the attention of me and brought me up short. A closed carriage with a fine pair of greys in harness stood at the church porch. Several ladies in hooped skirts and fur wraps were getting out, helped by the pastor, holding on to their fashionable lacy hats. Now my Mother touched arm of me and pointed to the bridge. Riding across on a big chestnut hunter, his head bent into the cold wind, was the owner of the mine, the laird of the glen, Sir George Morgan. Morgan had not been seen here for five years. He lived in Warsaw, which was a whole day’s journey by train, two days by stage coach. He had once been a penny-pinching Katowice chandler, people said, selling candles and gin from a corner shop, and no more honest than he had to be. Then a relative had died young and childless, and George had inherited the castle and the mines. On that foundation he had built a business empire that stretched to such unimaginably distant places as Bombay and Abidjan. And he was now starchily respectable: a baronet, a magistrate, responsible for law and order along Katowice’s waterfront. He was obviously paying a visit to his Silesia estate, accompanied by family and guests…In the dreams I went to the chestnut wooden Villa from my childhood also. A fine day, wonderful, sun shines soundly. The house got its name from a small public garden across the street where a grove of chestnut-tree was till now in bloom, shedding white petals like dust on to the dry, brown grass. The place had not been lived in for at least a year. First of all I found an half open door there. It took me three or four minutes to kick it open through. Behind it there was a room, which was clean and tidy, with a few pieces of rather luxurious furniture: a hand-carved coffee table, a couch, a mirror. I sat close a mirror on the right corner of the chamber and I looked around the room. It was a feminin room, the home of a domestic servant, a woman who was on the one hand careful, precise and tidy and on the other hand sensitive and sensual. I was intriqued. But suddenly once more I saw the door opened and a man came into the kitchen of my mother and me. He was a tall with brilliantined black hair and an air of gravity which was transparently fake. He was wearing in the liturgical robes. “Stella, go for I would celebrate you a divine service,” he said. As I knew him as a owner of my first house near the church, he had run away to sea as a boy, and had jumped ship in East Africa. Sir George Morgan there on safari had hired him to supervise the native porters, and they had been together ever since. Now he is here travelling with from one house to another, and as much of a friend as a servant could be. Then I remembered that house as it had been when I was a boy, loud with talk and laughter and life. I had thought of this place all through my thinking’s journey. It’s a Christmas time. The priest went to this house, is always singing a carol. The room had been carefully cleaned out…And now I am seeing another scene. I am returning to my second wooden house. Moon shines on way soundly. When I got home I went to bed. This later house itself was fine. I liked the spicy smells and the rows of gaily colored boxes and cans on the shelves in the back room. From my house mother had never gone cold. Now I see her. She relaxed. For she was still not completely convinced of my sincerity, but I wanted her to come and sit beside me, and tell me I was brave and I had done well. After a moment I walked into the room as a priest in pajamas. I see such a scene: a man he was in his thirties with dark hair, dark skin and dark eyes. He had a large hooked nose which might have been typically European-aristocratic. His mouth was thin-lipped, and when he smiled he showed small even teeth-like a cat’s, I thought. I knew the signs of wealth and she saw them here: a silk shirt, a gold wristwatch, tailored cotton trousers with a crocodile belt, handmade shoes and a faint masculine cologne. “We’ll need to ask you some questions,“-I said…In a few moments I am seeing a strong light. The wide church was already thronged with people. In the side aisles, hooded monks held torches that cast a restless red glow. The marching pillars of the nave reached up into darkness. The nave filled up quickly. I am knowing Joy, the man of my childhood. Probably he had never seen so many people in one place. It was busier than the cathedral green on market day. People greeted one another cheerfully, feeling safe from evil spirits in this holy place, and the sound of all their conversations mounted to a roar. Then the bell tolled, and they fell silent. Around the edges of the crowd the monks extinguished their torches, one by one, until the great church was in utter darkness. There were hundreds of children in the cathedral. The silence was broken by a terrible scream. It sounded like someone being tortured. Some of the adults laughed nervously. They knew the noises were made by the monks, but all the same it was a hellish cacophony…Everyone was tense, alert. “The knight” would be sensitive to any touch. The devilish noise grew louder, then a new sound intervened: music. At first it was so soft that Joy was not sure she had really heard it, then gradually it grew louder. The nuns were singing. Joy felt his body flood with tension. The moment was approaching. Moving like a spirit, imperceptible as the air, he turned so that he was facing priest John. Priest John was too interested in the scene at the altar to notice what was happening under his nose. He glanced upward and realized he could just about see the outlines of people around him: the monks and nuns were lighting candles. The llight would get brighter every moment. He had no time left. Priest John had a purse attached to his belt by a leather thong. The purse bulged. It looked as if it contained several hundred of the small silver coins, and farthings that were the English currency as much money as he could earn in the years if he had been able to find employment. It would be more than enough to feed the poor until the next spring. The purse might even contain a few foreign gold coins, for him “florins” from Florence or “ducats” from Venice. Joy had a pair of scissors in a wooden sheath hanging from a cord around his neck. The sharp blade would quickly cut the thong and cause the fat purse to fall into his small hand—unless priest John felt something strange and grabbed him before he could do the deed…Priest John grunted quietly: had he felt something, or was he reacting to the spectacle at the altar? The purse dropped, and landed in Joy’s hand…A tall, good-looking monk stepped up to the altar, and Joy recognized him as Anthony, the prior of a foreign Monastery. Raising his hands in a blessing, he said loudly: “And so, once again, by the grace of Christ Jesus, the evil and darkness of this world are banished by the harmony and light of God’s holy church.” The congregation gave a triumphant roar, then began to relax. The climax of the ceremony had passed. The people went out of the church. The sky was pearly gray with dawn light. Joy wanted to hold Mother’s hand, but the baby started to cry, and Mother was distracted. Then he saw a small three-legged dog, white with a black face, come running into the cathedral close with a familiar lopsided stride. “Hop!” he cried, and picked him up and hugged him…Here from my point of view this movie has expired. For when I awoke there was very warm, and my mother is embarrassed. I thought for a moment that I was a boy again, and that my adult life had been a dream.

Poemat o starym Marynarzu cd.
Dały się słyszeć jęki, poruszyli się, potem wszyscy się podnieśli,
bez mowy czy ruchu ócz…
To było dziwne, nawet w marzeniu,
Widzieć tych martwych ludzi jak powstają.
Sternik popatrzył, statek szedł dalej;
Nawet gdy nie dmuchnął ani raz wietrzyk;
Marynarze wszyscy poczęli pracować przy linach,
Bo do tej roboty byli oni przyzwyczajeni:
Podnieśli swe ciała, jak narzędzia bez życia…
A przedstawiali teraz okropną zgraję, śmiertelną załogę.
Ciało syna mojego brata,
Stanęło przy mnie, kolano przy kolanie:
Ciało, więc pociągnąłem za jedną linę,
Ale on mi nic nie powiedział…
(Po gospodzie przeszedł nieziemski szept:)
„Lękam się ciebie, stary marynarzu!”…
Odpowiedziałem: Ale bądź spokojny, weselny gościu!
To nie były te dusze, które uleciały w bólu,
Których ciała przybyły raz jeszcze,
Ale gromada duchów błogosławionych.
Kiedy zaświtał dzień–oni porzucili swą zbroję(ręce),
I zebrali się wokół masztu;
Słodkie dźwięki wychodziły powoli z ich ust,
I z ich byłych ciał, które odeszły.
Dokoła, wokół, leciał słodki dźwięk,
jakby pędzący ku Słońcu,
Powoli dźwięki wracały jeszcze
Nie zmieszane, jeden za drugim…
W chwilach jakiejś nawały z chmury
Zasłyszałem śpiew skowronka;
Czasami wszystkie inne małe ptaszki jakie są,
Jak one zdają się wypełniać morze i powietrze
Ich słodkim jazgotem!
Nagle powstała muzyka, jakby wszystkich instrumentów,
W pewnym momencie odezwał się samotny flet;
To jest śpiew jakby anioła,
Który sprawia, że Niebiosa są zwarte.
Nastała przerwa; jeszcze żagle pracowały
W przyjemnym hałasie aż do południa,
Hałasie jak z ukrytego strumienia
W liściastym miesiącu czerwcu,
Który śpiącej puszczy całą noc
Śpiewa spokojną melodię.
Aż do południa spokojnie żeglowaliśmy,
Jeszcze żaden wietrzyk nie zadął:
Powoli i równo wyszedł statek
Poruszany naprzód od spodu.
Wtem pod kilem pokazała się dziewiąta zjawa głęboka,
Od krainy mgły i śniegu,
Oto duch ześlizgnął się: to było tym,
Co sprawiło, że statek pruł do przodu.
Żagle koło południa porzuciły melodię,
Teraz statek stał tak jeszcze.
Słońce, stojące na prawo powyżej masztu,
Przytwierdziło ją do oceanu:
Ale po chwili ona zaczęła poruszać się
Krótkim niełatwym ruchem—
W tył i do przodu w połowie jej długości
Krótkim niełatwym ruchem.
Zatem jak grzebanie nogą konia idziemy,
Ale ona nagle się zaangażowała…
Poleciała krew na moją głowę,
I przewróciłem się w świeżej ranie.
Jak długo w tym stanie leżałem,
Nie umiem powiedzieć;
Ale w czasie, w którym powróciłem do życia,
Usłyszałem i w mej duszy rozróżniłem
Dwa głosy w powietrzu.
„Czy to jest on?- rzekł głos pierwszy- „Czy to jest człowiek?
Przy którym w swym najokrutniejszym zmiażdżeniu Jezus umarł na krzyżu.
Który był złożony w pełnej ciszy, tak nisko, ów niewinny Albatros…
To duch, który uzbraja się w cierpliwość
W krainie mgły i śniegu,
On kochał ptaka, który miłował człowieka,
choć teraz strzelił do ptaka i strzał był miażdżący(bow).”
Drugi głos był głosem delikatniejszym,
Tak delikatny jak kropla rosy:
Rzekł: ”Ten człowiek odprawił pokutę,
I odpokutuje teraz więcej.”
Dało się słyszeć znowu pierwszy głos:
Ale powiedz mi, powiedz mi! Mów raz jeszcze,
(jaka jest)Twoja delikatna, ponowiona odpowiedź…
Co zatem sprawia, że ten statek pruje tak mocno do przodu?
Jaka jest tutaj rola oceanu?
I drugi głos raz jeszcze:
Jeszcze niejako niewolnik przed swym panem,
Ocean nie ma podmuchu;
Jego wielkie jasne oko najbardziej cicho
Jest rzucane w kierunku księżyca—
Czy on może wiedzieć jaką podążać drogą;
Która prowadzi go i równo i zawzięcie…
Spójrz, bracie, spójrz! Jak łaskawie
księżyc spogląda na niego.
Pierwszy głos:
Ale dlaczego płynie się na tym statku tak szybko,
I to bez fali ani wiatru?
Drugi głos:
Powietrze jest odcinane przed nim,
I zamykane za nim.
Leć, bracie, leć! Wyżej, wyżej
Albo noc nas zaskoczy:
Wolno i wolno ten statek pójdzie,
gdy uniesienie Marynarza osłabnie…
Przebudziłem się, żeglowaliśmy
Jakby przy przemiłej pogodzie:
Była noc, cicha noc, księżyc był wysoko;
Martwi ludzie stali razem.
Wszyscy stali razem na pokładzie,
Z powodu budowniczego kostnicy:
Wszyscy utkwili we mnie ich kamienne oczy,
Które błyszczały na tle księżyca.
Męczarnia, przekleństwo, z jakimi umierali,
Nigdy (już) nie minęły:
Nie mogłem odciągnąć mych ócz od nich,
Ani skierować je ku modlitwie.
A teraz ta szychta się skończyła: raz jeszcze
Obejrzałem zieleń oceanu.
Spojrzałem daleko bardziej i ujrzałem
To, co było jeszcze do zobaczenia.
Oto ktoś, kto na samotnej drodze
Wędruje w lęku i strachu,
A obróciwszy się dokoła idzie dalej,
Nie odwraca więcej swej głowy;
Ponieważ wie, że straszliwy przyjaciel
stawia blisko krok za nim…
Ale wkrótce powiał nareszcie wiatr w moją stronę,
Nie uczynił ani dźwięku ani ruchu:
Jego ścieżka nie była ponad morzem,
W szmerze, pluskaniu wody czy też w cieniu.
Urosły mi włosy, rozpalił się mój policzek(tupet)
Jak huragan wiosenny na łące,
Zmieszał się dziwnie z moimi lękami,
Odczułem to jako powitanie.
Szybko, szybko frunął statek,
Wciąż jeszcze żeglował delikatnie:
Słodko, słodko dmuchnął wietrzyk,
Na mnie samego dmuchnął.
Oh, spełniona radości! Czy jest to rzeczywiście iglica latarni, spójrz?
Czy to wzgórze? Czy to kościół?
Czy może mój własny kraj?
Skierowaliśmy się ku portowi,
Z szlochem modliłem się,
Pozwól mój Boże przebudzić się!
Albo pozwól mi zasnąć na zawsze.
Wnęka portu była jasna jak szkło,
Równo była rozrzucona!
W zatoce rozłożyło się światło księżyca,
I jego cień.
Skała świeciła jasno, nie mniej kościół,
Który stoi nad skałą:
Światło księżyca pogrążyło się w milczeniu
Mocnym kogucie pogodowym.
Wykusz zatoki(bay) był biały z cichym światłem,
Aż po powstałą tą samą drogą,
Obfitość zarysów zacienionych
Szkarłatnymi kolorami, jakie się teraz pojawiły.
W małej odległości od dziobu statku
Były te purpurowe cienie:
Zwróciłem me oczy na pokład—
Oh, Chryste! Co ja tam ujrzałem!
Każde ciało leżało płaskie, bez życia i spłaszczone,
I z widokiem świętego krzyża(rood)!
Człowiek w pełnym świetle, człowiek-serafin,
W każdym ciele tam stał.
Ten serafin (każdego) obwiązywał, przed każdym wymachiwał ręką:
To był niebiański widok!…
Oni stali jak sygnały-pochodnie dla krainy,
Każdy (był z) ukochanym światłem:
Ten serafin falował ręką nad każdym,
Nie wydawali oni żadnego głosu—
Żadnego głosu; ale ach! Tonęła cisza
niczym muzyka w moim sercu.
Wnet usłyszałem uderzenie(plusk) wioseł;
Posłyszałem zachętę pilota;
Moja głowa z konieczności odwróciła się,
I ujrzałem jak nadpływa łódź.
Pilot i jego chłopak,
Słyszałem ich wchodzących mocno:
Drogi Panie w Niebiosach! To była radość
Której martwi ludzie nie mogli zniszczyć.
Ujrzałem trzeciego—Usłyszałem jego głos:
To jest dobry pustelnik!
On śpiewa głośno jego boskie hymny,
Które tworzy w lesie.
On rozgrzeszy moją duszę, on obmyje ją
We krwi Albatrosa…
Ten dobry pustelnik żyje w tym lasku
Który nachyla się ku morzu.
Jak głośno on podnosi swój słodki głos!
On uwielbia rozmawiać z marynarzami
Którzy pochodzą z dalekiego kraju.
On klęka rano, w południe i wieczór—-
Upada ciężko na poduszkę:
To jest mech, który skrywa się
Za czerwonym starym pniem dębu.
Przybliżyła się łódź: posłyszałem ich rozmowę,
„Oto dlaczego to jest dziwne, jak przypuszczam,
żeby na ten sygnał poczyniono
tak wiele pięknych świateł?”
„Dziwne to, dla mojej wiary”- powiedział pustelnik—
A oni odpowiedzieli nie naszą radością,
Deski podłogi wyglądały na wypaczone- spójrz na te żagle,
Jak wiotkie i przyjemne są one,
Nigdy nie widziałem niczego podobnego do tego,
Póki nie było tej szansy…
„Brązowe szkieleciki liści, które rozłożyły się
Wzdłuż mojego lasu-strumyka;
Kiedy bluszcz jest ciężki od śniegu,
A sowa krzyczy z radości do wilka poniżej,
Który karmi wilczycy młodego.”
„Drogi Panie! To ma diabelskie spojrzenie—
(Pilot zrobił to samo)
Jestem zalękniony”—„pospieszmy się, pospieszmy się!—
Powiedział wesoło pustelnik.
Łódka podpłynęła bliżej do statku,
Ale ja ani nic nie powiedziałem ani się nie poruszyłem;
Łódź przybyła pod sam dół statku,
I prosty dźwięk posłyszałem.
Pod wodą zadudniło,
Jeszcze głośniej i straszniej:
Dotarliśmy do statku, znikł występ zatoki;
Statek poszedł w dół jak ołów.
Oszołomiony przez ten głośny i straszny dźwięk,
Który uderzył chmurę i ocean,
Jakby topił siedem dni-
Gdy moje ciało pozostawało na statku;
Zaraz też prędko niczym w marzeniach, znalazłem się
wewnątrz łodzi Pilota.
Nad wirem w którym tonął statek,
Łódź kręciła się dokoła;
Tu wszystko już było, chroń to wzgórze
-powiedziałem- od tego dźwięku.
Otworzyłem moje usta— a Pilot krzyknął
I upadł, bo dostał nowego ataku;
Święty pustelnik podniósł swe oczy
I modlił się w miejscy, na którym usiadł.
Wziąłem wiosła: chłopiec Pilota,
Który mocno wiosłował szalony wprzód,
Uśmiechnął się głośno i długo, i przez całą chwilę
Jego oczy kręciły się wokoło.
„Ha! Ha!” –rzekł on-„ w pełni jasno widzę,
Szatan wie jak wiosłować”…
I oto teraz wszystko (już oglądam)w moim własnym kraju,
Stanąłem na mocnym lądzie!
Pustelnik zeszedł zdecydowanie z łodzi,
Choć z trudem mógł stanąć.
Rzekłem:„Rozgrzesz mnie, rozgrzesz mnie, święty człowieku!”
Pustelnik skrzyżował swą brew.
„Mów prędko,” -rzekł on-„Rozkazuję ci mówić—
Jakim rodzajem człowieka jesteś?”
Natychmiast to moje ciało wkręcało się w jedyny ból
Z powodu (mej) ślubnej agonii,
Która mnie (już) gnała, gdy zaczynałem tę opowieść;
A potem zostawiła mnie wolnym…
Minęło od tego czasu wiele chwil,
Ale w niepewnej godzinie,
Gdy wraca agonia;
Póki moje straszne opowiadanie znowu jest przedstawiane,
Wówczas to jakby serce wewnątrz mnie się spala.
Tak więc (dalej z nią) przechodzę, jak noc, od kraju do kraju;
Ponieważ posiadam przedziwną moc mowy;
I w tym momencie, w którym widzę interesującą twarz,
Już zaraz wiem, że mężczyzna ten musi mnie wysłuchać:
A uczę go przekazując mu tę właśnie opowieść…
Co za głośna wrzawa wybucha znowu przy tych drzwiach!
Goście weselni, to oni tam są:
Ale w ogrodowej altanie panna młoda
I drużki śpiewają:
I słychać mały dzwon nieszporny,
Który zaprasza mnie na modlitwę!
O weselny gościu! Przedstawiłem ci duszę jednego człowieka,
Ta dusza była samotna
Na szerokim, obszernym morzu:
Tak samotnie trwała, że sam Bóg
Zaledwie zdawał się (koło niej)tam być…
Dlatego słodszym od wesela,
I to daleko słodszym- jest dla mnie,
Kroczyć razem do kościoła
Z boską kompanią!–
Wędrować wspólnie do kościoła,
I razem się modlić,
Gdy każdy schyla się przed wielkim Ojcem,
Starzy ludzie, dzieci i przyjaciele miłości,
zarazem młodości i niewinności młokos!
Żegnaj, żegnaj! –rzekł raz jeszcze marynarz- Ale to ci powiem
Ty weselny gościu!
Ten modli się dobrze, kto kocha dobrze
Zarówno człowieka, jak i ptaka, jak i zwierzę.
Ten modli się najlepiej, kto kocha najbardziej
Wszystkie rzeczy zarówno wielkie jak i małe…
Ponieważ drogi Bóg kocha nas
Stworzył (nas) i kocha wszystko…
Marynarz, którego oko jest jasne,
Którego broda z wiekiem jest siwa,
(Po skończonej mowie) odszedł. Natomiast gość weselny
Odwrócił się od drzwi pana młodego
I poszedł jak ten, który oszołomiony został był,
opuszczony i pozbawiony sensu…
Ale wydaje się, że daleko smutniejszym i mądrzejszym człowiekiem
On wstał, gdy (świt zaświtał) następnego poranka.(fin)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge- Poemat o starym Marynarzu (w siedmiu częściach)

Wciąż mającym nadejść ofiaruję tę powiastkę: Stanisław Barszczak, tłumacz

Jest sobie stary Marynarz,
Teraz idzie pobrzeżem kochanej strugi,
Ale powstrzymuje go drzewo:
dlaczego twoją długą brodą i błyszczącym okiem
wciąż natykasz się na mnie?
Zaszedł do gospody, której odrzwia są szeroko otwarte,
Jest wielkie święto, goście się spotkali,
Jako najbliższy krewny pragnie witać młodą parę…
Następnie trzyma drzwi swą chudą ręką.
Gdy zgiełk nieco ucichł rzekł nareszcie:
„Był raz statek…” Tu nagle odezwał się głos:
„Trzymaj się z dala! Nie tykaj mnie, szaro brody wieprzu!”
Trytony swej ręki rzucając stale dokoła…
Marynarz powstrzymuje drzwi swym połyskującym okiem–
Wtem (pewien)weselny gość powstał,
by słuchać jak trzyletnie dziecko:
Ponieważ marynarz jest właśnie w posiadaniu (swej)woli.
Weselny gość usiadł na kamieniu,
On nie może wybrać, za to ma słuchać;
By właśnie tak a nie inaczej, przemówił w tym starym człowieku
Jasnooki Marynarz…
Statek się rozweselił- rzekł znowu Marynarz- oto zajaśniał ratunek-schronienie,
Dlatego wesoło zawinął do portu,
poniżej kościoła, poniżej wzgórza,
poniżej latarni.
Słońce wzeszło na lewo,
Jakby z morza wyszło!
I zaświeciło jasno, by na prawo
Zejść na powrót w morze.
Tedy radość była wyżej i wyżej…
Aż po maszt w nocy…
Tu weselny gość uderzył się w pierś,
Ponieważ usłyszał głośny fagot.
Panna młoda równym krokiem weszła do hallu,
Czerwona jak róża jest;
Skłaniając głowy przed nią idzie
Wesoły śpiew minstrelów.
Weselny gość na powrót uderzył się w pierś,
On jeszcze nie może działać, za ma słuchać;
By właśnie w ten sposób rozpoznać w tym starym człowieku,
Jasnookiego Marynarza…
Naraz sztormowy wicher przyszedł, ale On właśnie
Pozostał nieugięty i mocny,
Choć (wicher) uderzył z nieoczekiwanymi skrzydłami,
Szalał przez całe południe…
Z pochylonymi masztami i mokrym dziobem,
Jak ktoś goniący za wyciem i podmuchem
Póki nie przydepcze cienia swego wroga
I nie pochyli wprzód jego głowy…
Statek pruł mocno, zaryczał głośny huragan…
I w ten sposób pofrunęliśmy ku południowi.
Po chwili przyszła mgła i śnieg,
Narosło cudowne zimno:
A lód, wysoki maszt, obsunął w bok,
Tak zielony jak szmaragd.
I przez gromadzone śniegowe bałwany
Wysłana była ponura jasność…
Tedy nie poznajemy żadnego rysu ludzi ani zwierząt dokoła–
Lód był pośród wszystkiego.
Lód był tu, lód był tam,
Lód był wszystkim dokoła:
Pękał z trzaskiem i pomrukiwał, i huknął i ryknął,
Jak hałasy podniebne!
Nareszcie nadfrunął krzyżem Albatros
Przybył cały spowity mgłą…
Jak gdyby był chrześcijańską duszą,
Witaliśmy go w imię Boga.
Zjadł on pokarm którego nigdy nie jadł,
Gdy pokrążył wokoło odleciał.
Wtem lód rozdzielił się z pomocą ataku grzmotu;
Aż sternik przeszył nas wzrokiem!
A gdy dobry południowy wiatr zerwał się z tyłu;
Albatros szedł jego śladem,
I tak każdego dnia, dla strawy czy też gry,
Przychodził dla rozrywki marynarzy!
We mgle czy w chmurze, na maszcie albo ramie
Siadał o dziewiątej w czasie nieszporów;
Z przerwami podczas całej nocy, gdy mgła-dym biały
Z lekka połyskiwał i oświetlał biały księżyc.
Teraz ktoś spojrzał na Marynarza: “Niech Bóg uchroni cię, stary Marynarzu!
Od diabłów, którzy zsyłają na ciebie plagi tą drogą!–
I dlaczego w ten sposób wciąż (na mnie) patrzysz!”…
(Wiesz dlaczego?) Ponieważ wtedy przy nieszczęsnym osobistym związaniu (samotnością)
i jedynym wówczas nachyleniu dziobu statku, wystrzeliłem w stronę Albatrosa…
Słońce zaraz podniosło się z prawej strony
Z za morza przybyło,
By później skryć się we mgle i z lewej strony
Wejść w głębinę morza.
I dobry południowy wiatr powiał z tyłu
Ale żaden już przemiły ptak nie pofrunął jego śladem,
I żadnego (następnego) dnia po pokarm czy zabawę
Nie przybył dla rozrywki marynarzy!…
Zatem uczyniłem diabelską rzecz,
Przerobiłem ją niejako w ślub…
Teraz wszystko zapewniało, zabiłem ptaka,
Który sprawiał, że miotał się wicher…
Nieszczęsny człowiek, podły! Powiedzieli oni, (oto ten) ptak zamordowany
Który sprawiał, że miotał się wicher!
Mówiłem do siebie:
Nie byłeś słaby czy czerwony niczym głowa Boga
A chwalebne słońce wciąż podnosisz…
Tedy wszystko zapewniało, zabiłem ptaka,
Który przynosił mgłę większą i mniejszą…
Czy to było słuszne- zauważyli marynarze- takie ptaki zabijać,
Które przynoszą mgłę większą i mniejszą.
Piękna bryza dmuchnęła, biała piana uciekła,
Głęboka bruzda wolna szła jej śladem…
Byliśmy pierwszymi, którzy wdarli się kiedykolwiek
W to ciche morze.
Ustąpił nawet wietrzyk, upadły żeglarskie ambicje,
Stało się smutno jak smutno być mogło;
A mówiliśmy tylko, by złamać
Ciszę morza!
Wszystko w gorących i miedzianych chmurach,
Krwawe słońce, i południe,
Słusznie ponad masztem stanęło
Ale nie większe jak księżyc.
Dzień za dniem, dzień za dniem,
Pozostawaliśmy bez podmuchu i ruchu;
Tak niemrawi, niczym namalowany statek
Na wymalowanym oceanie.
Wszystkie brzegi cofnęły się, skurczyły;
Woda, woda, wszędzie,
Ale żadnej kropli do picia.
Nastąpił tedy bardzo głęboki rozkład: o Chryste!
(głębszy)od jakiegokolwiek, jaki mógł mieć miejsce!
Ach, jakieś muliste rzeczy pełzały z nogami
Po śliskim morzu.
A wokoło w realności i rozgromieniu
Płomienie śmiertelne tańcowały w nocy;
Woda, jak oleje wróżki,
Spalała się zieleń i błękit i biel.
I coś w marzeniach zapewniało
O duchu, który nas prześladował:
O dziewiątej zjawą głęboką szliśmy za nim,
Od krainy mgły i śniegu…
I każdy język, przez zupełne wysuszenie,
Wyschnął u swych wiązadeł;
Nie mogliśmy mówić,
Byliśmy stłamszeni, zduszeni przez nalot jakby sadzy.
Ach! Dzień dobry nastał! Który widzi zło,
Które posiadłem jako stary i młody zarazem!
Zamiast krzyża, wokół mej szyi
Wisiał teraz Albatros…
Minął nużący czas. Każde gardło
Było wyschnięte i szkliste było każde oko.
Nużący czas! Nużący czas!
Jak było zmatowiałe każde zmęczone oko…
I kiedy patrzyłem ku zachodowi, zadłużyłem się
Jakby trochę w chmurach.
Najpierw wydawało mi się to niedużą plamką,
By następnie przemienić się niejako w mgłę:
To ruszało się i ruszało, i przekształciło się w końcu
W pewną formę- to wiedziałem tylko.
Punkcik, mgła, forma, już wiedziałem!
I przybliżało się wciąż bliżej,
Jak gdyby było postępowaniem podstępnym jakiegoś wodnego krasnala,
To zanurzało się i lawirowało i zmieniało kierunek.
Z gardłami nieugaszonymi(leniwymi), z czarnymi i uprażonymi na słońcu ustami,
Nie mogliśmy się śmiać ani lamentować;
Przez kompletną suszę staliśmy wszyscy oniemiali!
Uszczypnąłem moje ramię, wyssałem krew,
I krzyknąłem, co ze statkiem! statek!
Z rozleniwionymi gardłami, z czarnymi od słońca ustami,
Marynarze usłyszeli moje miłosne wołanie:
Pomoc w miłosierdziu! Ale marynarze kpili dokoła,
I wszyscy razem wciągnęli oddech,
Jakby byli wszyscy pijani.
Spójrzcie! Spójrzcie!(krzyknąłem) ona już nie zmienia kierunku!…
Bliższa wydaje się nam pracowita pręga;
Bez wietrzyka, bez poruszenia fali,
Ustala się ze stojącym kilem!
Zachodnia fala była cała rozpłomieniona
Dzień dobry powstał!
Prawie nad falą od zachodu
Odpoczywało szerokie jasne słońce;
Kiedy ta dziwna forma ruszyła nagle
Pomiędzy nas a słońce.
Na wprost Słońce stało popstrzone pręgami
(jakby Matka Nieba zsyłała nam łaskę!)
Jak gdyby przez ruszta oglądała mgłę,
Z szerokim i spalonym obliczem.
Niestety!(pomyślałem a moje serce uderzyło głośno)
Jak mocno zbliża się (ta forma) i zbliża!
Czy te jej żagle, które błyszczą w słońcu
Są niby niespokojne pajęczyny (babiego lata)!
Czy to są jej żebra, wręgi, przez które zaglądało słońce,
Właśnie jak przez ruszta?
I czy ta forma, nieznana kobieta zastępuje całą załogę?
Czy jest to śmierć? Czy razem dwie właśnie?
A może śmierć jest marynarzem tej kobiety?
Jej wargi były czerwone, jej spojrzenia wolne,
Jej włosy były żółte jak złoto:
Jej skóra była tak biała jak trąd,
Nocą-koszmarem była ona niczym życie-w-śmierci,
Która pokrywa krew człowieka grubym zimnem.
Nagi ciężki kadłub nadpłynął,
I teraz ta para rzucała kości;
„Gra się toczy! Wygrałam! Wygrałam!”
Rzekła gwiżdżąc po trzykroć.
Obręcz słońca nachyla się, zanurza; gwiazdy się rozbiegły:
Przy następnym kroku przybywa ciemność;
Z daleko słyszalnym szeptem nad morzem.
Ze strzałem jaskrawego spektrum.
Słyszeliśmy, wręcz rozglądaliśmy się na boki!
Lęk w moim sercu, jak z pucharu,
Moje życie-krew zdawał się sączyć!
Gwiazdy były niewyraźne i gruba noc,
Oblicze sternika przy jego lampie mieniło się bielą;
Z żagli rosa kapała—
Aż ponad wschodnią zasłoną (widniał)
Rogaty księżyc, z jedną jasną gwiazdą
Wewnątrz dolnego końca.
Jedna po drugiej, przez zawziętą gwiazdę księżyc
Zbyt szybką dla jęku i wzdychania,
Każda obróciła swe oblicze z upiorną męką,
Jakby przeklęła mnie swym okiem.
Cztery razy pięćdziesiąt żywych mężczyzn,
(nie usłyszało ani westchnienia ani jęku)
Z ciężkim głuchym uderzeniem, swym korpusem bez życia,
Padali wówczas jeden za drugim.
Dusze uleciały z ich ciał—
Poleciały ku szczęściu lub nieszczęściu!
I każda dusza przeszła obok mnie,
Niczym w szeleście mojego krzyża-jedynej samotności!
“Lękam się ciebie Marynarzu i twojego błyszczącego oka,
I twojej pokrytej skórą ręki, tak brązowej”- usłyszałem…
I zaraz powiedziałem: ale ty weselny gościu nie lękaj się, nie lękaj się!
To ciało nie upadnie.
Sam, sam, zupełnie sam,
Samotnie na szerokim, obszernym morzu!
Żaden święty nie zlitował się nigdy
Nad moją duszą w agonii.
Wielu ludzi, tak pięknych!
Wszyscy ułożyli się martwi:
A tysiąc tysięcy mulistych, śliskich rzeczy
Nadal żyło; w tym także i ja.
Spojrzałem na mizerne morze w rozkładzie,
Odsunąłem moje oczy;
Spojrzałem na lichy pokład statku,
A tam leżą nieżywi ludzie.
Spojrzałem ku Niebu, usiłowałem się modlić:
Modlitwą jaka kiedykolwiek (ze mnie)wytrysnęła,
Przyszedł nikczemny szelest i uczyniłem
Moje serce tak suche jak kurz czy proch.
Zamknąłem moje powieki, i trzymałem je zamknięte,
W gałkach ocznych wyczułem bijący puls…
Dla chmury i morza, dla morza i chmury,
Leżą oni jakby ciężarem w moim zmęczonym oku,
Oto martwi byli u moich stóp.
Przejmujące zimno topniało przy ich kończynach…
Nie byli przyczyną ani gnicia ani smrodu,
Spojrzenie z jakim patrzyli na mnie
Nigdy (mnie)nie odeszło.
Z przekleństwem sieroty pójdziemy do piekła,
Bo duch jego na wysokościach;
Ale jeszcze straszniejsze od tego
Jest przekleństwo w oku martwego człowieka!
Siedem dni, siedem nocy, widziałem to przekleństwo,
I jeszcze teraz nie może ono umrzeć.
Ruchliwy księżyc przebił się przez chmurę,
Gdzie on nie mieszkał:
Miękko wychodzi,
A gwiazda albo dwie obok niego.
Jego ramiona(promienie) objęły duszną przestrzeń morza,
Rozpostarł się jak siwy przymrozek kwietniowy;
A gdzie położył się ogromny cień statku,
Tam urokliwa woda brązowieje teraz
Straszną czerwienią.
Poza cieniem statku,
Oglądałem wodne, przepysznie strojone węże,
One poruszały się po śladach jaśniejącej bieli,
A kiedy podniosły się, psotne światło
Upadło na (ich) siwe łuski.
Wewnątrz cienia statku
Obejrzałem ich bogaty strój:
Błękit, lśniącą zieleń, i delikatną czerń,
Zatoczyły spiralę i popłynęły; a każdy szlak
Był błyskiem złotego płomienia…
O szczęśliwe żywe rzeczy! Żaden język
Nie mógłby zadeklarować ich piękna:
Wiosna miłości wytrysnęła z mego serca,
I pobłogosławiłem je nieświadomie:
Pewnie jedyny rodzaj świętego zlitował się nade mną
Bo pobłogosławiłem je nieświadomie.
W tym samym momencie moje ja mogło się (w końcu)modlić;
A z mojej szyi wyjątkowo teraz wolnej
Spadł tymczasem mój Albatros,
I utonął jak ołów w morzu…
Sen! To jest miła rzecz, on jest
umiłowany od bieguna po biegun!
Królowej Marii nosi on pochwałę!
Teraz to ona zesłała uroczy sen z Nieba,
Który ześliznął się w głąb mej duszy…
Dziwaczne kubły na pokładzie,
Które tak długo były tam pozostawione,
Zamarzyłem, żeby były wypełnione rosą;
Więc gdy się przebudziłem padało.
Moje wargi były mokre, moje gardło zimne,
Mój ubiór cały przejmująco wilgotny;
Pewnie piłem w mych marzeniach,
Że moje ciało było już upojone.
Poruszyłem się, ale nie mogłem poczuć mojego grzbietu:
Byłem tak rozanielony,
Pomyślałem, że umarłem we śnie,
Że jestem błogosławionym duchem.
Gdy tylko usłyszałem ryczący wicher:
Choć on się nie zbliżał;
Ale właśnie z jego dźwiękiem poruszyły się żagle,
Które były teraz tak słabe, jakby pogodne.
Wtem górne powietrze buchnęło w życie!
I sto płomieni-flag jasności,
Spieszyły one tam i z powrotem
Tu i ówdzie, do i na zewnątrz,
Pomiędzy nimi tańcowały blade gwiazdy.
Przybywający wiatr zawył głośniej,
I żagle zaszeptały jak turzyca;
Deszcz wylał się z jednej czarnej chmury;
A księżyc był przy jej krawędzi.
Gruba czarna chmura rozszczepiła się,
A księżyc był blisko tej części nieba:
Strzeliły wody jak z jakiejś wysokiej skały,
Pokazała się jak nigdy błyskawica, niczym skalny występ,
Jak urwista i szeroka rzeka.
Głośny wiatr nigdy nie osiągnął statku,
Statek poruszał się wciąż jeszcze!
Poniżej błyskawicy i księżyca
I oto martwi ludzie wydali jęk…cdn