IV

I want to return for mum’s stay behind Craow else. Since a long time the parrot had been on mum’s mind, because she came from the region city of Przemyśl, which
reminded her dead brother’s Stasio, and she had approached the negro on the subject. Once in an estate of Pniaki even, she had said to Madame: “How glad would
be to have him!” At last he had been transferred to mum. The man had repeated this remark to Madame who, not being able to keep the bird, took this means of
getting rid of it. He was called Jacquot. His body was green, his head blue, the tips of his wings were pink and his breast was golden. But he had the tiresome tricks
of biting his perch, pulling his feathers out, scattering refuse and spilling the water of his bath. Madame grew tired of him and gave him to mum for good. She
undertook his education, and soon he was able to repeat: “Pretty boy! I salute you, Marie!” His perch was placed near the door and several persons were
astonished that he did not answer to the name of Jacquot. They called him a goose and a log, and these taunts were like so many dagger thrusts to Felicite. Strange
stubbornness of the bird which would not talk when people watched him! Nevertheless, he sought society; for on Sunday, when the ladies and Monsieur of house
and the new habitues, like the chemist, dropped in for their game of cards, he struck the window-panes with his wings and made such a racket that it was impossible
to talk. The chemist’s face must have appeared very funny to Jacquot. As soon as he saw him he would begin to roar. His voice re-echoed in the yard, and the
neighbours would come to the windows and begin to laugh, too; and in order that the parrot might not see him, the chemist edged along the wall, pushed his hat over
his eyes to hide his profile, and entered by the garden door, and the looks he gave the bird lacked affection. Jacquot, having thrust his head into the butcher-boy’s
basket, received a slap, and from that time he always tried to nip his enemy. Mum, whom his manner alarmed, put Jacquot in the kitchen, took off his chain and let
him walk all over the house.When he went downstairs, he rested his beak on the steps, lifted his right foot and then his left one; but his mistress feared that such feats
would give him vertigo. He became ill and was unable to eat. There was a small growth under his tongue like those chickens are sometimes afflicted with. Mum pulled
it off with her nails and cured him. One day, Paul was imprudent enough to blow the smoke of his cigar in his face; another time, Madame Chilkowa was teasing him
with the tip of her umbrella and he swallowed the tip. Finally he got lost. She had put him on the grass to cool him and went away only for a second; when she
returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among the bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without paying any attention to Madame of house who
screamed at her: “Take care! you must be insane!” Then she searched every garden in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska and stopped the passers-by to inquire of them:
“Haven’t you perhaps seen my parrot?” To those who had never seen the parrot, she described him minutely. Suddenly she thought she saw something green fluttering
behind the mills at the foot of the hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she could not see it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird in
Zebrzydowice, in Mother Simon’s store. She rushed to the place. The people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came home, exhausted, with her
slippers worn to shreds, and despair in her heart. She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling of her search when presently a light weight dropped on
her shoulder, Jacquot! What the deuce had he been doing? Perhaps he had just taken a little walk around the town! She did not easily forget her scare; in fact, she
never got over it. In consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some time later she had an earache. Three years later she spoke in a very loud voice even in
church. Although her sins might have been proclaimed throughout the region without any shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the cure thought it advisable
to receive her confession in the vestry-room.

Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her Madame often said to mum: “My goodness, how stupid you are!” and she would answer: “Yes, Madame,”
and look for something. The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it already was; the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no longer reached
her intelligence. All things moved silently, like ghosts. Only one noise penetrated her ears; the parrot’s voice. As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the
tick-tack of the spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the saw of the carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the door-bell rang, he would imitate
Madame: “Stefcia! go to the front door.” They held conversations together, Jacquot repeating the three phrases of his repertory over and over, mum replying by
words that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was almost a son, a love. He climbed upon her fingers,
pecked at her lips, clung to her shawl, and when she rocked her head to and fro like a nurse, the big wings of her cap and the wings of the bird flapped in unison.
When clouds gathered on the horizon and the thunder rumbled, Jacquot would scream, perhaps because he remembered the storms in his native forests. The dripping
of the rain would excite him to frenzy; he flapped around, struck the ceiling with his wings, upset everything, and would finally fly into the garden to play. Then he
would come back into the room, light on one of the andirons, and hop around in order to get dry. One morning during the terrible winter of 1957, when she had put
him in front of the fire-place on account of the cold, she found him dead in his cage, hanging to the wire bars with his head down. He had probably died of
congestion. But she believed that he had been poisoned. She wept so sorely that her Madame-mistress said: “Why don’t you have him stuffed?” And mum went to the
town. Leafless apple-trees lined the edges of the road. The ditches were covered with ice. The dogs on the neighbouring farms barked; and mum, with her hands
beneath her cape, her little black sabots and her basket, trotted along nimbly in the middle of the sidewalk. She crossed the forest, passed by the river, and reached
Wadowice. Behind her, in a cloud of dust and impelled by the steep incline, a mail-coach drawn by galloping horses advanced like a whirlwind. When he saw a
woman in the middle of the road, who did not get out of the way, the driver stood up in his seat and shouted to her and so did the postilion, while the four horses,
which he could not hold back, accelerated their pace; the two leaders were almost upon her; with a jerk of the reins he threw them to one side, but, furious at the
incident, he lifted his big whip and lashed her from her head to her feet with such violence that she fell to the ground unconscious. Her first thought, when she
recovered her senses, was to open the basket. Jacquot was unharmed. She felt a sting on her right cheek; when she took her hand away it was red, for the blood was
flowing. She sat down on a pile of stones, and sopped her cheek with her handkerchief; then she ate a crust of bread she had put in her basket, and consoled herself
by looking at the bird. Arriving at the top of Stanislawów, she saw the lights of Pniaki shining in the distance like so many stars; further on.. Then a weakness came
over her; the misery of her childhood, the disappointment of her first love, the departure of her nephew, the death of brother Stasio when he was twelf years old; all
these things came back to her at once, and, rising like a swelling tide in her throat, almost choked her.

A most important event occurred: Paul’s marriage. As I said I loved my mum for frenzy. She was like September revolution in my life, it was being not that else. Her
kind-heartedness developed. There wast during the war in the village of Hucisko Nienadowskie, when she heard in an inn the drums of a marching regiment passing
through the street after second world war, she would stand in the doorway with a flag and give in march proceeding soldiers a drink and a candy. She protected
refugees, and one of them even declared that he wished to marry her. But they quarrelled, for one morning when she returned from the Angelus she found him in the
kitchen coolly eating a dish which he had prepared for himself during her absence. At that time Madame Ryłko has died. Mum mourned for her as servants seldom
mourn for their masters. The fact that Madame should die before herself perplexed her mind and seemed contrary to the order of things, and absolutely monstrous
and inadmissible. Ten days later the heirs arrived. Her daughter-in-law ransacked the drawers, kept some of the furniture, and sold the rest; then they went back to
their own home. Madame’s armchair, foot-warmer, work-table, the eight chairs, everything was gone! The places occupied by the pictures formed yellow squares on
the walls. They had taken the two little beds, and the wardrobe had been emptied of mum’s belongings! Mum went upstairs, overcome with grief. The following day a
sign was posted on the door; the chemist screamed in her ear that the house was for sale. For a moment she tottered, and had to sit down. Then after the German
refugees, came Peter, an old man who was credited with having committed frightful misdeeds in battles on Polish mountains. He lived near the river in the ruins of a
pig-sty. The urchins peeped at him through the cracks in the walls and threw stones that fell on his miserable bed, where he lay gasping with catarrh, with long hair,
inflamed eyelids, and a tumour as big as his head on one arm. So, after Easter he spit blood. Then Mother Simon went for a doctor. Mum wished to know what her
complaint was. But, being too deaf to hear, he caught only one word. From time to time the old man spoke to shadows. Then a most important event occurred in the
village: Paul’s marriage. But Peter was ill more and more. And mum has presented Jacquot for altar, in order to be at altar in time of Paul’s marriage. The time for a
marriage drew near. The window was open. But The old man saw Jacquot only as in a dream. Jacquot had been closer to altar now. Although he was not a corpse
there, he was eaten up by worms; one of his wings was broken and the wadding was coming out of his body. The old man was blind now, and mum took him and
laid him against her cheek. Then Mother Simon removed him in order to set him on the altar.

Stanislaw Barszczak; Trauen der Wirklichkeit mehr, 2
“Veritatem facientes in caritate crescamus.” Sie sind nicht einfach ganz wahrheitslos, so dass sich bei ihnen gar nichts von Kirche fände…”Ceterum censeo, ich bin der Primas!”(Paweł VI) Wir haben sie ja nicht, die Wahrheit hat sozusagen uns, sagt Bonaventura. Ich meine, dass das Überzeugende an ihm darin bestanden hat, dass er den Willen Gottes in dem Sinne herausgestellt hat, dass der Wille Gottes wirklich das Heil des Menschen ist und der Mensch auch wichtiger ist als die Gebote, dass es darum geht, dass auch der Sabbat z. B. um des Menschen willen da ist und dass es mehr darauf ankommt, was der einzelne Mensch tut, als das, woran er glaubt. Es geht also um all die vielen Dinge, die wir von Jesus wissen. Im Grunde genommen ist es nämlich so, dass es ja nicht das Wissen ist, das uns abgeht. Nein, wir sollten das halt auch in die Praxis umsetzen: und auch von der Kirchenleitung sollte das endlich einmal in der Weise gemacht werden. Um die Figur des Jesus sollte sich also jeder Mensch ein klein wenig selbst bemühen. Ich will das nicht in ein paar Sekunden noch weiter ausführen. Für eine wirkliche, ausführliche Darstellung ist nämlich in diesem Gespräch gar nicht die Zeit vorhanden. (H. Küng) Ich bin dagegen schon der Ansicht,dass es sehr wohl ein Grundvertrauen braucht. “tu dem anderen nicht an, was du nicht willst, dass man es dir antut”, für alle eine Ehrfurcht vor dem Leben gibt, dass man nicht töten darf, dass man sein Leben in Wahrhaftigkeit führen muss, dass man nicht lügen darf, dass man kein falsches Zeugnis abgeben darf, dass man gerecht und fair sein muss, dass man nicht stehlen darf, dass man die Sexualität nicht missbrauchen darf, dass man einander achten und lieben soll usw. “Du sollst nicht töten!” (die Worte von E. Levinas also) Die Goldene Regel sollten die Kinder schon im Kindergarten nicht doziert bekommen, sondern einüben können. Hans Küng spricht heute über Weltethos…dass es Probleme gibt, weil die Meinungsumfragen anders lauten usw. Ja, da braucht es eben nicht nur den politischen Willen, sondern auch den ethischen Willen, um sagen zu können: “Das habe ich als richtig erkannt, das wird gemacht! Davon versuche ich jetzt die Menschen zu überzeugen.” Das sind die Dinge, bei denen ich mich für ein Weltethos einsetze. Sie meinten, dieses Problem des Risikos des Christentums habe eine neue Dimension angenommen. Gott sei – das füge ich nun hinzu – nicht tot, sondern sei einfach entbehrlich und funktionslos geworden. Ist das ein neuer Aspekt unserer Zeit? Kardinal Joseph Ratzinger sagte: . Wir könnten vor allem auch unser eigenes Leben anders bewältigen. “Hier ist einer, der auf euch wartet! Hier zu suchen, lohnt sich!” Adam Scharf sagte, im freien Sinne zitiere: Ist Wohlstand eine Gefahr für den Glauben? Wir leben ja immerhin in einem Wohlstand, wie er uns noch nie zuvor in der Geschichte beschert worden ist….Ist manchen Menschen die Kirche dabei sogar ein Hindernis? Ein deutscher Philosoph aus der Societas Jesu hat vor einigen Jahren ein Buch geschrieben mit dem Titel “Jesus lebt, die Kirche stirbt”. Ist das eine Vision? Kardinal Joseph Ratzinger eimmal sagte, eine Stelle im freien Sinne aus Ihrem Buch zitiere : In Wirklichkeit ist aber doch die Begegnung mit Gott gerade dazu da, dass sie Gemeinschaft bildet:.. Es war ja gerade die Größe der Kirche, dass sie immer für ganz vielfältige Ausdrucksformen, Orden und Bewegungen unterschiedlichster Art Platz hatte…die Christen wirklich eine Stoßkraft des Guten.(sind)…Identifizierungen heute schwierig sind…Wenn auch wir so etwas fertig brächten, wäre das eine schöne Sache…in Jesus wirklich der Sohn Gottes Mensch geworden ist, dass Gott sich selbst ausgesprochen hat. Das ist dieses Grundbekenntnis, dass Jesus nicht irgendein religiöses Genie war, deren es ja viele gegeben hat und gibt. Nein, Jesus war schon etwas anderes als ein Genie: Er war jemand, der von Gott selbst gekommen ist und der selbst Gott war…Wir mussten dann jedoch hinzufügen, dass dieser Jesus nicht irgendwo in der Luft schwebt oder irgendwie nur in der Vergangenheit vorkommt. Nein, er ist gleichzeitig mit uns. Er hat sich einen Körper geschaffen, sozusagen einen Organismus, ein Organ. Er bleibt für immer Zeitgenosse von allen.Warum gibt es zwischen Kirche und Kunst eine solche Sprachhemmung?…Die Geschichte nicht einfach ein Kontinuum ist, immer das Abenteuer neuen Beginns… Drama unserer Geschichte?: Das ist schwer zu sagen, aber das Drama ist, daß der Mensch immer wieder ein Versagender ist, daß er eben leichter böse als gut sein kann -zumindest dem Anschein nach – und daß infolgedessen dieses Drama immer wieder vor Zusammenbrüchen steht, bei denen man das Gefühl hat, es geht eigentlich gar nicht mehr weiter und sich die Geschichte dann aber doch irgendwie wieder weiterbewegen kann… Am Schluß wird der Bericht wichtiger als das Faktum selbst. Was ist das Wesentliche der Religion?: Daß es Gott gibt und daß er uns kennt, und daß wir von ihm her einerseits einen Maßstab haben, wie man lebt und wie man stirbt und andererseits von ihm her eine Hoffnung haben und wissen, daß wir nicht ins Leere hineinleben. Ich glaube, beides ist wichtig, der Maßstab, der uns fordert, aber auch die Hoffnung, die uns hält…. Ganz offenbar wird doch eine Sehnsucht nach Werten wieder sichtbar. Ich meine, für die Kirche ist so ein Wechsel nach zweitausend Jahren nur ein Lidschlag… Der Mensch braucht einen Anspruch, den er sich nicht selbst macht, sondern dem er unterstellt ist und der ihn bindet. Erst dann zieht es ihn wirklich hinauf, und er wird er selbst. Man muss unsere Leben mit Christus über einer persönlichen Beziehung wachsen….Den Tag Christi sehen, heißt sich freuen… die Zeiten sind mühsam und die Wege sind steinig, und der Esel, der ich selber bin, hat eigentlich nicht immer Lust ihn zu ziehen oder möchte gerne wo anders hingehen…Johannes Paul II über die Eucharistie sagte: “Damit mein Lehrwerk einigermaßen rund und auch richtig proportioniert ist, muss ich auch dazu etwas sagen!/…/Ich habe über so viele Themen geschrieben, ich habe Enzykliken und Lehrschreiben aller Art geschrieben. Dieses Thema nun ist so groß, dass es ganz einfach nicht fehlen darf.”…Das zweite Jahrtausend war wirklich ein Jahrtausend von Spaltungen… vielleicht sollten wir ein neues Konzil haben. Kardinal Döpfner habe beide Hände in die Höhe gehoben und gesagt: “Not in my lifetime!”. Wenn ich mich in der Sixtinischen Kapelle umschaue, da hat Michelangelo gemalt, Perugino, alle zeitgenössischen Maler haben dort gemalt. Heute sind solche Maler nur bei Amnesty International oder ähnlichen Organisationen zu finden. Es ist keine Begegnung mehr da!… Wie reagieren Sie auf den Satz von Professor Küng, wenn der sagt:”Ratzinger vertritt mit moderner Terminologie ganz mittelalterliche Positionen.” Das Zitat von Kardinal Meißner war anders. Er hat gesagt und gemeint, daß die Kirche eine zu große Karosserie mit einem zu kleinen Motor ist… Die Kirche müßte ärmer werden, um reicher zu werden… Was sagen Sie zu dem Satz von Karl Rahner: “Der Christ der Zukunft wird Mystiker sein oder er wird nicht mehr sein.”? Woher wissen wir, ob das innere Auge einen Spiegel sieht (sei’s ein Zerrspiegel, sei’s ein verzaubertes Glas) oder einen Schleier?“ Richard Rorty wusste, dass das Philosophieren nie ans Ende kommt, nie zu endgültigen Ergebnissen gelangt. Und war sein Gegenüber einmal der Auffassung, nun die Lösung eines philosophischen Problems gefunden zu haben, setzte Rorty die Ironie ein… Sokrates erkannte, dass ein Unwissender, dem seine Unwissenheit bewusst ist, weiser ist als ein Unwissender, dem auch seine Unwissenheit noch verborgen bleibt. Goethe sagt ja, alle Befriedigung liegt im Kontrast. Ich denke auch, Kontrasterfahrungen sind für unser Erkennen das Wesentliche… Der Kontrast mit Indianerkulturen ist auch ergänzend, erweiternd…Ich glaube einfach, ein gutes Leben, ein gut geführtes Leben ist ein kontrastreiches Leben. Und dazu ist gar nicht einmal viel Geld notwendig. Häufig braucht es einfach nur ein bisschen mehr Entschiedenheit, Mut und Courage, um aus den eingefahren Gleisen wirklich herauszukommen. Obwohl ich nicht sagen will, dass das leicht ist. Ansonsten, ja, ich bin im der nahe von Katowice geboren und lebe auch dort. “Butter bei die Fische”, sagt man dort… Erinnere dich daran, dass jeder Mensch seinen eigenen Traum verfolgt!”… Individualität ist etwas, das wir tagtäglich immer wieder neu erkämpfen müssen. Wenn sich z. B. Jugendliche heutzutage – ich habe das in manchen Phasen meiner eigenen Kinder teilweise auch feststellen müssen – mit irgendwelchen Markenklamotten behängen, dann ist das natürlich nicht ausgesprochen individuell, sondern stellt eigentlich auch nur Mitläufertum dar. Ich glaube, ein eigenes Leben, ein selbstbestimmtes Leben zu führen, ist etwas, das einen täglichen Kampf um Freiheit bedeutet. Dazu muss man manchmal fast schon ein bisschen rebellisch sein, um nämlich Entmündigung nicht mitzumachen, um nein zu sagen, wo viele andere ja sagen. Ganz ohne Preis ist das also nich zu haben…Ich möchte gut lesbar sein…Meine vielen Texte werde ich eines Tages auch in Lyrics, also in Gedichte komprimieren und mit Musik hinterlegen und dann damit die CD “Eigensinn” veröffentlichen. Ich werde das machen, um ganz einfach ein Transportmittel zu schaffen, das nicht nur den Geist, die Vernunft anspricht, sondern auch das Gefühl und damit den ganzen Menschen. Ich glaube, es ist wichtig, sich an ein paar wesentlichen Gedanken zu orientieren. Ein Mensch sagte: “Der erste Punkt für das Individuum heißt: Tue das, was du möglichst sehr gut, was du erstklassig kannst, wo dein Talent wie eine Sonne leuchtet.
ende

Stanislaw Barszczak; Trauen der Wirklichkeit mehr
Ein paar Worte noch einmal zu meinem Privatleben. Ich rede nicht gerne über mein Privatleben, zumindest haben wir das irgendwo so gelesen. Aber eines kann man sagen: Ich stamme aus einer ländlichen Gegend, Ich stamme von einem Bauemhof. Ja, das Städtchen von Ząbkowice habe ich nie verlassen. Ich habe mich neulich mal daran erinnert, dass ich schon sehr früh damit begonnen habe, einen Typ von Lektüre zu praktizieren, der mich eigentlich bis heute habituell begleitet, nämlich das Lesen ohne eine Zeile zu verstehen. Ich habe mit fünfzehn Jahren ein dickes literarische Werk über die Liebe von Maurice Maeterlinck gelesen…Ich habe gerade Epigramme von ihm gelesen. Auf ähnliche Weise habe ich dann an der Schwelle von der Volksschule zum Gymnasium die „Kritik der reinen Verstand“ von Immanuel Kant gelesen. Ich habe das ganze Buch, also alle gut 500 Seiten, von vorne bis hinten durchgelesen: Ich habe fast nichts verstanden, aber ich habe immer weiter gelesen. Częstochowa, Krakau, Sosnowiec: Drei Orte, an den Ich studiert habe. Ich habe Philosophie und Literatur studiert. Ich muss vorab sagen, dass Krakau für mich immer nur eine Art von Zuflucht gewesen ist, ein Asyl. Im Jugendzeit habe ich die Bücher namentlich gesammelt. Das Zentrum der meinen Sammeltätigkeit der Bücher waren also die literarischen Autoren und Dichter. Aber diesen unglaublichen Reichtum, den es hervorgebracht hat, ist es quasi im selben Atemzug auch wieder im Begriff zum Verschwinden zu bringen: ganz einfach durch die Katastrophengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts, also durch die Vernichtung, meine Emigration usw. Wir haben das Glück einen sehr namhaften Schrifsteller zu haben…Die Zeitungen der meinen Jugendzeit habe Ich schon erwähnt: Słowo Powszechne, Trybuna Robotnicza, Przekrój, da „Le Monde“ war mal gut. Ich finde es gelegentlich auch hinreißend, was die Kollegen von „Liberation“ machen. Aber schon Mark Twain hat ja die Journalisten heftig gescholten. Dennoch haben die Politiesierung des Feuilletons und die Entwicklung des politischen Feuilletons meiner Meinung nach ganz enorm zum Diskussionsniveau in der öffentlichkeit in Polen in den achtziger und neunziger Jahren beigetragen. Wahrheit und Politik wohnen selten unter einem Dach. Wahrheit und Unwahrheit sind natürlich oft nicht so ganz leicht voneinander zu unterscheiden. Ich bin ja nun schon seit Lengem in der Kirche praktisch tätig: Ich bin seit über 30 Jahren Mitglied des unseren „kirchlichen Parlaments“. In der Motivation eines Kindes liegt ja bereits die halbe Miete, wenn aus dem Kind etwas werden soll. Ich hatte das Glück, als ganz junger Bub mit zehn Jahren einen Klavierlehrer zu haben, der mich unglaublich motiviert hat. Wenn es ein Lehrer fertig bringt, einen Jugendlichen mit 15, 16 Jahren zu motivieren, jeden Tag zwischen fünf und zehn Stunden die Bücher zu lesen. Ich hatte dann wahrlich große Vorbilder wie die Pfarrer der Kirche usw. Ich fing also an, denen nachzueifern und meinte, ich könnte doch auch. Und dann ist man eben auf dieser Bahn und hat dabei ja auch wirklich hervorragende Lehrer. Ich spielte also mit dem Gedanken, auch selbst eine solche Laufbahn einzuschlagen. Aber am Ende des März 1976 Jahres ist dann doch etwas anderes daraus geworden…Nach den großen Ferien war ich selbst auf dem Internat. Im Alter von 17 Jahren habe Ich jedoch meinen Vater verloren. Wie ist der kleine Stasio mit dieser Situation eigentlich klargekommen? In Internat hatte Ich persönlich kennengelernt eine riesengroße Mühle zur Kirche. Ich will Meine Promotion über den von mir bereits erwähnten Emmanuel Levinas machen. Was habe mir an Levinas so fasziniert, dass Ich so viel Zeit in eine Doktorarbeit über ihn investieren? Na, seine Texte und sein Zugriff auf das historische Material! Seine Texte lagen zum großen Teil auf Deutsch noch gar nicht vor. Natürlich gab und gibt es einige Autoren, die toll schrieben bzw. Schreiben oder sehr stark begriffsprägende Potenzen hatten wie z.B. Reinhart Koselleck oder Christian Meier. Natürlich hat es auch das immer gegeben in Deutschland, aber es hat uns darüber hinaus doch etwas gefehlt in der hiesigen geisteswissenschaftlichen Landschaft. Ich will mich an der Universität in Krakau habilitieren. Ich wollte Professor immer werden. Nur bin Ich einer. Ich besitze bereits nicht die Nachtlässe von meiner Familie. Es ist eine grosse Freude für mich, wenn ich so an meine Heimat erinnert werde. Ich bin so alt wie der Präsident der Verreinigen Städte von Nordamerika, also in den ersten Friedenstagen geboren. Aufgewachsen bin ich dann im Dorf auf der Gospodarcza Strasse, wo meine Mutter mit mir alleine gelebt hat. Meine Mutter hatte, wenn ich das richtig nachgelesen habe, eine sehr ordentliche Anstellung in einem Fabrik des Kristallglas. Diesen Beruf gab sie aber auf, um mehr Zeit für Sie zu haben, und hat dann als Trägerin des Glass gearbeitet. Daher rührt vielleicht auch die ganz besondere Nähe, die ich zu meiner Mutter immer gehabt habe: Sie war, wie viele Tausende andere damals, eine alleinerziehende Mutter in dieser Jugenszeit. Sie hat sich sehr um mich gekümmert und war nicht nur Handarbeits-,sondern auch Kochlehrerin…Wir hatten also durchaus auch Beziehungen zum guten Leben. Ich selbst bin daher ein typischer Schlesier (in Tarnowskie Góry geboren), das bedeutet, ich bin eine gute Mischung: Mein Grossvater war an der Aussenfront der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie stationiert gewesen. Mein Vater wurde daher in der Nähe von Kalwaria Zebrzydowska bewohnen. Ich würde hier gerne eine kleine inhaltliche Zäsur machen, um unseren Zuschauern den Menschen näher vorstellen zu können. Wer über mich und meinen gesamten Werdegang mehr wissen möchte, kann das alles wunderbar nachlesen in meinem Buch, das ich nun gerne vorstellen würde und das den Titel trägt „Der Freund liebt in jeder Zeit“. Für mich ist das eine enorm bereichemde und feeselnde Lektüre. Mein Vater war Professor und hat die Familie relativ früh verlassen. Ich bin in Tarnowskie Góry geboren. Daher hat mich auch immer schon dieses grössere Schlesien interessiert. Das war nämlich etwas, das wir bei uns in schlesich jahre-und jahrentelang verdrängt haben. In bin also in Częstochowa aufgewachsen und habe das Gymnasium besucht. Dieses Gymnasium in der Nähe von Kloster „Jasna Góra“ war in der Tat eine sehr gute Schule. Danach habe ich studiert ebenfalls in Krakau. Mein Freund ist Direktor im Haus der Spiritualität in Olsztyn in der Nähe von Częstochowa. Ich stelle ihm die Frage an. Wie kam es dazu, dass Sie dort Director geworden sind? Und jetz stutze ich, um den korekten Titel zu finden, weil Sie ja Ihr Museum, Ihre Gedenkstätte, Ihr Spiritualiätarchiv umbenannt haben. Ich bin ohne Antwort. Er hat lediglich gesagt in seiner Rede, schreibst du! Das war eines der letzten Ihnen großen Stücke. Ich will schreiben ganz einfach unterhaltsam, aber ich schreibe gelegentlich höchst spannend.
Die Beduinen in der Heimat Abraham erzählen sich eine Legende, die uns zu denken gibt. Ich habe diese Legende als die Predigt gelesen. Ein Mann verirrte sich in der Wüste. Er irrte umher, bis ihn die umbarmherzige Sonnenglut ausgedorrt hatte. Da sah er in einiger Entfernung eine Oase. „Aha, eine Fata Morgana“, dachte er, „eine Luftspiegelung, die mich narrt! In Wirklichkeit ist da gar nichts.“ Er näherte sich der Oase. Sie verschwand nicht. Er sah immer deutlicher die Dattelpalmen, das Gras und vor allem die Quelle. „Natürlich eine Hungerphantasie, die mir mein Gehirn vorgaukelt! Jetzt höre ich sogar das Wasser sprudeln. Eine Halluzination!“ Kurze Zeit später fanden ihn zwei Beduinen. Er war tot. „Kannst du so etwas verstehen?“ sagte der eine zum andern, „die Datteln wachsen ihm beinahe in den Mund, das Wasser ist zum Trinken nahe, und er liegt verhungert und verdurstet daneben. Wie ist das möglich?“ Da antwortete der andere:“Er war ein moderner Mensch.“ Sind wir nicht dieser „moderne Mensch“? Ich meine: Sind wir nicht alle vom BewuSstsein dieses Wüstenwanderers geprägt? Dieses Bewusstsein umgibt uns. Wir leben darin. Heute tut sich uns die Welt auf. Aber wir schauen sie nicht mit unseren Augen an, sondern durch den Fotoapparat, durch die Fernsehlinse, vor allen durch die Instrumente des Labors. Wir sehen immer weniger, wie sie ist, sondern wie sie im Experiment sein muss, ja, wie sie nach unseren Vorstellungen sein soll. Die Wissenschaft nimmt die Welt nicht mehr entgegen. Sie will sie entwerfen. Dieses Bewusstsein durchdringt uns bis ins Persönliche, Menschliche hinein. Können wir noch etwas normal annehmen, ohne es zu hinterfragen? Wird nicht alles der öffentlichen Kritik unterzogen und vom Stuhl der Vernunft aus herabgewürdigt, auch das Schönste, auch das Heiligste?Hier äussert sich, was die Legende sagen will: Der „moderne Mensch“ traut der Wirklichkeit nicht mehr. Er traut nur noch sich selbst und seinen Planspielen. Er will sichergehen.
“Wer in mir bleibt und in wem ich bleibe, der bringt reiche Frucht/…/Vater, ich habe mich gegen den Himmel und gegen dich versündigt; ich bin nicht mehr wert, dein Sohn zu sein.” Die Liebe Christi alle Erkenntnis übersteigt. “Aber jetzt müssen wir uns doch freuen und ein Fest feiern; denn dein Bruder war tot und lebt wieder; er war verloren und ist wieder gefunden worden.” Jesus Christus, der den Jüngern seine Herrlichkeit offenbarte, wollen wir bitten: Schenke allen, die du an deinen Tisch geladen hast, eine tiefe Erfahrung deiner Gegenwart. Wecke in allen, die sich von dir abgewandt haben, das Verlangen, dich zu suchen. Tröste die Verzagten, und stärke die Schwachen. Sende uns dein Licht, dass wir als Kinder des Lichtes leben. Papst Paul VI. hat wohl selbst einmal gesagt: “Das entscheidende Hindernis für die Einheit der Kirchen ist der Papst!” Das ist ja das eigentliche Paradox: dass das Papst-Amt, das für die Einheit der Kirche da ist, heute faktisch, wie das Paul VI. gesagt hat und wie das auch der jetzige Papst sagt, zu dem großen Hemmschuh geworden ist. Wir müssen das sozusagen in der eigenen Kirche zuerst einmal paradigmatisch vorführen, damit es für die anderen überzeugend wird. Denn sonst glauben sie es ja nicht. Worte genügen da einfach nicht, Worte genügen nie im ökumenischen Gespräch: Man muss auch etwas tun! Und der gegenwärtige Papst hat ja auch sehr oft gesagt: “Es gibt keine Ökumene ohne Bekehrung und ohne Reform! Und die Bekehrung und die Reform fängt immer bei uns selbst an und nicht bei den anderen.” Es gibt sehr viele Bischöfe, die, wenn sie bei Bischofskonferenzen nach Rom zu Ad Limina-Besuchen kommen, hinterher sagen: “Das Beste an der ganzen Kurie ist der Papst!”(W.Kasper)
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Stanislaw Barszczak; Mum’s custody

Mother had had a lot friends, for example the family of Krutnik, the family of Kwieciński, the family of Odrobina. So, I don’t know how I gained the confidence of them…At certain time I can venture to say a half of village loved me as if I were one of the family…I have scarcely time to get acquainted, and all at once I am pouring out to him or he to me all our secrets, as though I were at confesion. I declare I don’t know how to tell you. Then I was an educated man, clever at that time and well-read, and I became another man…One day in autumn on my way back from a remote part of the country I caught cold and fell ill. Mother was sixty five kilometre from the town, and it was midnight out of doors; such kilometers from the town of Częstochowa where I have learned and then the same distance from Cracow where I have studied theology. At that time Ząbkowice was in the centre of the world. Meantime the road was infernal: streams, snowe; the roads were in a worse state than ever; all communications, so to say, were cut off completely. However, I arrived at last. On this trip there is unfortunately no question of an audience with other my friends. It was a little “thatched house”at village. There was a light in the windows; that meant they expected me. I was met by mum, very venerable, in a cap. I see a clean little room, a lamp on the ceiling; Mother was tiny at all. But that day she was on the bed. There were two other ladies there also, Mrs Helen and Mrs Louisa. I looked at her, you know, there by God! I had never seen such a face! She was beauty, in a word! I felt quite shaken with pity. She abides. Such lovely features. Now I understand better of the contemporary Czech Milan Kundera, who thinks that our lives are composed like music. “Without realizing it, the individual composes his life according to the laws of beauty, even in times of the greatest distress.”
But, thank God! Then mother cleared his throat and rubbed his eyes; she became easier, smiled…I consented for that. How my heart beat! I looked in…in a day or two, please God! We will set you on your feet again; I said. Why do you talk like that-she said. There was a samovar, I’m sorry awfully, a television standing on the table, we might have watched the program. But I began in a weak and quavering voice to pray about the health of mum. The next day, there has not been contrary to my expectations, mother was no better. But I tell her amusing stories, you know, and play cards with her; but I think to myself, I don’t deserve your gratitude. I watch by her side at night. Yes, she says, you are a good, kind man; you are not like our neighbours…No, you are not like that. The lamps were burning on the wall before the holy image. I set there, you know, with my head bent; I even dozed a little. Suddenly it seemed as though some one touched me in the side; I turned round…mother gave me the chocolate, as if telling…for God’s sake!, I believe in you; you are a good man, an honest man. Yes, now I can tell you that I thank you with my whole heart, that you are kind and good-that I love you! I stare at her, like one possessed…I began to soothe her, to assure her. You remember, for years the booths at Ząbkowice during the feast of the holy Spirit. The whole street of Gospodarcza, from school to our house, I said. I liked go to the church. I loved our priests. I feel, believe me, I don’t know how I have gained them. I really don’t know what I did say to her…You shall live mother; I will cure you; I will ask the holy Mary’s blessing from of Jasna Góra, we will be united, we will be happy. I spent the whole night with her in this way.
After 1976 year we live separately, not yet in the house close to the church. I flatter myself that here I use the word “we” to describe a collectivity of which I am a part. She’s in a ground floor, all the way west on Rail Station, a large space rescued from post-industrial decay in a building with brutalist common parts that satisfy some instinct of hers roughness; though the second floor with the loft building is eminently creature-comfortable. Yet mother had been worked in the factory of glass there. A several years later I would see all that as an emptiness around. The ringing noise of the trains is not my life; it seems mother has been exactly saying. Before morning I went away from my house, feeling as though I were mad. When I went again into her room it was daytime, after morning tea. What things she said to me! She began to talk to me, to ask me questions; how I lived, who are my people, whom I go to see. I feel that she ought not to talk; but to forbid her resolutely, you know, I could not. Once day they took her in the hospital…And I visited mother in hospital. Meantime my heart sinks into my boots, you know. Dear reader, you are not a doctor, my good brother; you cannot understand what passes in a poor fellow’s heart, especially at first, when I begin to suspect that the disease is getting the upper hand of her. What becomes of my belief in myself? And once day I lay myself in the hospital. It’s just another thing I can’t escape. You imagine, you suddenly grow so timid; it’s indescribable. You fancy then that you have forgotten everything you knew, and that the women at hospital have no faith in you, and that other people begin to notice how distracted you are, and tell you the symptomps with reluctance, that they are looking at you suspiciously, whispering…Ah! It’s horrid! There must be a remedy, You think, for this disease, if one could find it…You clutch at one thing, then at another. Sometimes you take up a book…And what a fool I looked at such times, I do not remember. Recently they have been took mother in the hospital at Olkusz. When the sick girl saw me she said: It’s very well you have come; look at us, we love one another, we have given each other our word…I have no need to tell lies. And meanwhile mother was growing worse and worse, all the time; she will die, I think to myself…Mother passed away the next day. God rest her soul. Before her death she asked all to go out and leave me alone with her. Forgive me, she said; I am perhaps to blame towards you…my illness…but believe me, I have loved no one more then you…do not foget me…keep my commandments. It is not for people like me to give way to exalted emotions. But I went home late, well pleased with my fate. Since then, 2005 year you know, I have had time to give the furniture of mother away and enter into books…

Stanislaw Barszczak; Memory of a storm on sea

The year culminated in the huge free Concert in the Park at the end of the summer. There is a story about a power of sentiment and love. First I would say I make general orders before enter interference in new period of life definetely. On the same statement of a will Lev Tolstoi gave liberty of a paisants, and Thomas Jefferson gave liberty to all slaves. I’m giving the liberty liberty all heroes of my books , who so faithfully served me during my writer’s working. You, stand up now, because you are free! My greatest concern is that I feel the fragility of the fabric of our space and time. I feel its growing attenuation. Maybe it’s running out of steam, coming to its predestined close. Perhaps it will fall away like a shell and the great granite truth of the otherworld will stand revealed in its place. Maybe the otherworld is the next world, not in a supernatural sense, not in the sense of an afterlife, but just the world that will succeed our own. I am still convinced that when our scientific knowledge is greater, we will be able to explain such phenomena as these without recourse to superstition. It is simply a new aspect of the real. Maybe our own world is no more than a vision in some other accidental individual’s damaged eye. We are aboard the whaleboats of the Pequod, awaiting the final coming of the whale. As a man of peace, I am not shouting “Man the harpoons! But I do say we must brace ourselves for the shock.” Neither hearse nor coffin can be thine…but our present life is as a glove…So, call me Ishmael. Once when I was young my mother took me to the state fair. There was a special kind of wheel, the Orrery, with cages around the seats and a lever you could pull that would permit your little capsule to spin right over, turning you head over heels while the wheel took you up and around. Of course you could lock it off if you wanted and have the normal ride, but the bored little rat-toothed runt of an attendant didn’t bother to tell them a damn thing about that, so when they started tumbling they both thought something had gone dreadfully wrong and they were about to die. Those five screaming minutes in the moving cage still returned to me in dreams. Then I was talking about it wasn’t funny. I was talking about being out of control of your little bit of world, of being betrayed by what you counted on. I was talking about panic and the fragility of being and the skull beneath the skin.

I remember her despair. I remember promising at that moment, I will see this marriage if it’s the last thing I do. She still fought her daily bout against self-doubt and existential uncertainty, the universal bogeys of the age. She was saying she was married to a lunatic and she loved a husband and couldn’t handle it and didn’t know what was going to happen, how it would end. Recently she has taken up new residence at village of Ząbkowice. Now she was standing in window with based hands about windowsill. Certain boy proceeded this street close to her window. The boy has learned her from first look. She worked in store “after stairs”. For the years the boy visited a store, came for the sweets Now he is fifteen year old. He has a full face and the plainest eyes as sea in a beautiful weather, dressing to jacket and sweter. Then a high store’s woman had taught the boy to hear her voice and the boy loved her. Now the boy stopped at window.
“Mrs. Yanina, I could go with you again,” the boy said.”We’ve made some money.”
“No,” the store said. “You’re with a lucky boat. Stay with them.” He was as serve in church.
But remember how you went eighty-seven days without fish, bread. Commodity, there had been a meat on sheets of paper, rationing coupons.
“I remember,” the store said. “I know you did not leave me because you doubted.”
“It was papa who made me leave. I am a boy and I must obey him.”
“I know,” the store’s woman said. “It is quite normal.”
“He hasn’t much faith.” The boy has remembered squally sea, surges here , he saw the years before.
“No,” the Mrs. Yanina said. “But we have. Haven’t we?”
“You bought me a buds,” the store said. “You are already a man.”
“How old was I when aunt Wartak first took me from my mother for store?”
“Four and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly darted in container with water awfully. Can you remember?”
“Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?”
“I remember everything from when we first went together.”
The store’s woman looked at him with her sun-burned, confident loving eyes.
“If you were my boy I’d take you out and gamble,” she said. “But you are father’s and your mother’s and you are in a lucky boat of church.”
“May I get the reminders-souvenirs?”
“You didn’t steal them?”
“I would,” the boy said. “But I bought these.”
“Thank you,” the store said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it carried no loss of true pride.”
Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this current,” she said.
“Where are you going?” the boy asked.
I will go to the parish-priest of Liszka at Wieruszów. When he worked in our parish, there was ideal priest, very good person.
“I admire you,” the boy said.
“I am a strange store.”
“But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?”

Stanisław Barszczak, Pamięć wakacyjnego sztormu

Boże, nie pamiętam kiedy wziąłeś mnie po raz pierwszy, ile miałem lat jak z tobą jeździłem czy spacerowałem po górach…Dziś już dwadzieścia cztery lata od jedynego błogosławieństwa, jakiego dostąpiłem u zarania mego kapłaństwa z rąk mojej mamy. Wciąż wydaje mi się, że wówczas jakby czas się zatrzymał. I tak, gdy podczas wakacji, jako nastolatek spacerowałem z naszą wychowawczynią i grupą kolonistów nad Bałtykiem, pamiętam pewien sztormowy dzień. Mama musiała być wówczas w zakładzie pracy. Wysokie fale, ich szum-jak mi się zdaje- pobudziły jednak bardzo wyobraźnię młodego chłopca. Właśnie, zapytuję się dzisiaj, ile ja mocnych ludzi spotkałem w swym życiu. Ta opowieść niech będzie ratowaniem jedynej pamięci o tych bohaterach sprzed lat.
Ona była sklepową, której się nie zapomina. Wchodziła w osiemdziesiąty siódmy dzień, odkąd zamieszkała w swojej nowej rezydencji, która jednak nie zdradzała jakiegoś nadzwyczajnego bogactwa. Właśnie wczoraj powiedziała sobie, jutro będę miała szczęśliwy dzień. Wstała jak nigdy wyspana i po obfitym śniadaniu stanęła jak zwykle przy otwartym oknie, by zaczerpnąć wiosennego powietrza, kwietniowej sauny. Jej owalne oblicze jakby nie pamiętało szczęścia większego od chwili tego dnia. Bardzo chciała rozmowy z jakimś przechodniem. Na polu nie było zimno, przebijało się z porannej rosy wielkie słońce. W pobliżu okna pojawił się chłopiec radośnie wracający ze służby w tutejszym kościele. Kończył piętnaście lat, był średniego wzrostu, ale dobrze zbudowany, nosił ulubiony pulower, kurtka była jakby na niego szyta. W delikatnych kolorach zbliżał się teraz do wybranego okna. Już z daleka pani Jasia ujrzała znajomą skądinąd twarz. Chłopca zdradzała młodzieńcza, pełna twarz. Ogólna jej bladość przekonywała o długim pobycie w murach szkoły. Jego oczy zdawały się być obecnie jeszcze bardziej jaśniejsze od widoku pogodnego morza, były sympatycznie niezwyciężalne. Był nadzwyczaj dojrzały, jak na swój wiek. Jest czas wakacji, ale chłopiec zawsze pragnął spotkać kompetentną postać, właściwego rozmówcę. Ponieważ dysponował czasem zamierzał wejść dzisiaj na kawę do znajomych. Ci ostatni podejrzewali u niego jakiś niepokój wewnętrzny. Jego zaś cieszyła jedynie myśl bawienia się wypowiadanym słowem. Podczas rozmowy wracał najchętniej do pamięci o odchodzących dobroczyńcach parafii, jakby tylko na marginesie zdawał się jednak pieścić wszystkie odcienie i akcenty wypowiadanych słów.
„Pani Jasiu,” powiedział chłopiec kiedy zatrzymał się naprzeciwko jej okna. „Czy mogę znowu wejść po schodkach. Kupię tylko miętusy. Zaoszczędzimy troszkę pieniążków.”
Sklepowa w czasie pracy w sklepie „po schodkach” nauczyła go swego pięknego głosu i chłopiec z uwagi na jej olbrzymią postać, zarazem silny głos, pokochał ją, choć miłością platoniczną.
„Nie,” -powiedziała sklepowa- „Zaraz wychodzę… Aleś urósł.”
„Czy pamięta Pani, jak jeszcze
przychodziłem po miętusy.
„Pamiętam, powiedziała sklepowa. „Wróciłeś do nas, nie pozostawiłeś nas, odchodziłeś gdzieś, by przybyć teraz z powrotem. Spraw teraz, żebyś nie był dublerem tylko naszego miasteczka.
„Pozostawiłem was dla panujących warunków w naszym kościele. Jestem ministrantem, to podoba mi się. W związku z tym muszę słuchać księdza.”
„Wiem,” powiedziała sklepowa. “To jest zupełnie normalne.”
“Ksiądz, a nie ma dużo wiary.”
„Nie,” powiedziała sklepowa. „Ale my mamy, nieprawdaż?”
„Tak,” powiedział chłopiec. „Pomodlę się za panią.”
„Dlaczego nie?” powiedziała sklepowa. „Proszę wejdź na kawę z ciastkiem.”
Usiedli w salonie chłodniejszym. Sklepowa wspominała Księdza Prałata Liszkę, który przed laty zajmował plebanię w miasteczku, który był bardzo dobrym kapłanem. Teraz pracuje na parafii za Częstochową. Zahaczyliśmy o historię naszego miasteczka, przywoływaliśmy w pamięci państwo Januszewskich, była mowa o podniesionej ulicy 22-lipca, która po remoncie odwadniającym obecnie wije się wysoko nad torami.
„Pani Jasiu,” powiedział chłopiec.
„Tak,” powiedziała sklepowa. Trzymała swą szklankę, ale myślami powracała do czasu sprzed wielu lat.
„Czy mogę ci podarować narzutę na tapczan?”
„Nie bardzo wiem, co powiedzieć,” powiedział chłopiec. Pojadę niedługo na oazę. Byłem już w Dzianiszu koło Zakopanego, jeździłem na koniu, musiałem przybliżać Dzieje Apostolskie dla naszej grupy w pięknym drewnianym kościele
z witrażem Świętego Jana Vianneya. A niedawno w Bukowinie Tatrzańskiej w pięknej scenerii gór, z wspaniałą kadrą wychowawców, przeszliśmy ze śpiewem na ustach drogę krzyżową, której nigdy nie zapomnę.
„Ja mogę jutro pani przynieść chleb i bułki.” Chciałbym pójść z panią do naszego sklepu „po schodkach” i słuchać panią po wielekroć, jak sprzedaje pani towar bieżący, i moje dropsy. Chciałbym posłużyć w jakiś sposób.
„Kupiłeś mi okrągłe bułeczki,” powiedziała sklepowa. „Jesteś już mężczyzną.”
„Ile miałem lat, kiedy przyszedłem z mamą do sklepu?”
„Cztery i pewnie nie pamiętasz, że kupowaliście makowiec i sernik na święta. Wtedy weszła do sklepu ciocia Wartakowa, która odtąd z tobą się nie rozstaje. Czy pamiętasz?”
„Mogę przypomnieć sobie wielkie lady, a za nimi półki pod sufit, chodził za mną zapach chleba i ryb.”
„Czy pamiętasz, co mówiłam do ciebie?”
„Pamiętam wszystko, kiedy byliśmy razem.”
Pani Jasia spojrzała na niego ze słonecznie rozpalonymi, ufnymi, kochającymi oczami.
„Gdybyś był moim chłopcem wzięłabym cię, zaryzykowałabym,” powiedziała sklepowa. „Ale ty masz mamusię i jesteś w szczęśliwej łodzi kościoła.”
„Czy mogę dać pani pączki?”
„Jednego,” powiedziała sklepowa. Jedna nadzieja i jedna ufność nigdy ją nie odeszły. Ale teraz się odświeżyły, z powiewem od uchylonego okna.
„Dwa,” powiedział chłopiec.
“Dwa,” powiedziała sklepowa. “Nie ukradłeś ich?”
“Tak,” powiedział chłopiec. “Ale kupiłem te.”
“Dziękuję,” powiedziała sklepowa. Była zbyt skromna, żeby zastanawiać się nad tym kiedy osiągnęła swe człowieczeństwo. Ale wiedziała, że zdobyła je i wiedziała, że to nie było niewdzięczne i nie prowadziło do utraty prawdziwej dumy.
„Jutro będzie dobry dzień, by uaktualnić naszą przyjaźń,” powiedziała sklepowa.
„Ciocia Wartakowa przyjechała do miasteczka.”
„A gdzie pani zamierza pójść?” powiedział chłopiec.
„Daleko, na peryferie miasteczka. Nim nastanie światło chcę być na ujejskiej górze, by pojechać aż do Wieruszowa.”
„I ja chcę być tak daleko… zatem gdy pani pojedzie, mogę być tam pomocny. Niech pani wraca prędko, zaraz po pani powrocie wejdę do sklepu, by kupić miętusy,” powiedział chłopiec.
„Ksiądz Liszka nigdy nie pracował tak daleko.”
„Nie,” powiedział chłopiec. „Ale zobaczy pani tam coś, co on nie może widzieć, niczym utrudzonego ptaszka- i pozwoli mu pani pójść nową za daleką drogą.”
„Czy jego oczy są takie złe?”
„On jest prawie ślepy.”
“To jest dziwne,” powiedziała sklepowa. „Przecież on szedł zawsze z otwartymi oczami. Ale może to właśnie zabija oczy.”
“Za to pani od lat pracowała swym normalnym rytmem i oczy ma dobre.”
„Jestem dziwną sklepową.”
“Ale czy wystarczająco silną teraz dla tej prawdziwie olbrzymiej ryby?”
„Myślę, że tak. Albowiem istnieje na to wiele sposobów i są spore umiejętności.”

Stanisław Barszczak; Unavoidable supper with others

As said I lived in the wooden house at Ząbkowice . For years I looked by dark window on church from here, and I drowned cats in pond, a square entertain now. I returned here in my thirties, to my mother. Having bought a house on the Komorna street I’ve lead farm at once.(street Związku Orła Białego now) Here only the entire world from outside has been broken. Another fact is abnormal I want to notice now. Here it is possible to invent that pleases whom about aberrations and human frenzy. It is possible to distrust and suspect each other. In house such low thing. I could not trust here, that my house was one of madman! For that poor reason I combated for whole life. As the evil it will not conceal goodness somewhat. So, I fed hens, ducks, geese here. Once day a familiar man has killed me a rabbit. Once I wanted to restore sputter of a moment to be born, I remember that from my living at village also. For we have been born from a chaos we could not adjoin with him. We will peer merely, but order is born already. I bought a dog on a market. Dog has grown beautiful. I wanted to rule him, but I did not be able do that. So, I sold him for a cassette with movie ‘With fire and sword’ based on the novel of Henrik Sienkiewicz. He has gone on service for somebody else. I remember beginning build other house, annexing a garage close to one old. There was summer. The great heat were outside. Once day after working I has been put in chamber over garage. My look has gotten lost to depth of chamber; I based sight on nail on wall; and behind shelf I got it on from nail to case. I counted the tints of colors on case. I remember I was weak and weakness included everything. A movie of me it had broken suddenly. Then I was weary and sleepy, but for instance I went far to the places over case less available. First I peered at ceiling, white a desert, somewhat a boring whiteness it was changed further, near window, to rough area about abstruse geography of the continents, gulfs, islands, peninsulas, strange concentric rounds, they reminded a moon’s krateries. There was places ill, it breathed grimness of danger extreme, and it was lost in dizzy distance. On the table I have seen several books, spectacles and other things also- sluggish as if returned the last gasp. There were indifferent. Stared in that, and in personal involvements I stared in one’s insistently, but without special a fetch. Then I met people in these conditions even. I meet young people still. At that occasion they were loved or they were not, I did not know it. So, I was on wedding. Here at table in the presence of family there was fractional affection of a young marriage. Now observe hard, it is possible only slide look for; but it is necessary to employ this whole system of maneuver ‘on borderland’ not breaking line demarcation. I could not look to eyes very deeply, my investigation passionate but nasty, they must be limited for hand that lay before me on the table. So, that’s nothing that it is lived as behind glass window-pane in village. Here you rest in bright and plain day, among mere things, daily, which you are known with from childhood, grass, bushes, dog, cat, chair. But at the end of my I have comprehended, I still have apprehended, that each object is enormous army, unexhausted, big amount. Let’s one’s love will conquer (will win). Never I will forget huge love, such a giant’s youth from my childhood’s village.

I lived at Olsztyn now. I may see the fine views on the castle from fourteenth century and region here. I walk about often. Once day I was walking a graveled path. A sun had broiled me from dilute, oscillating sky. Mountains since long time approaching already, they have appeared as intruded suddenly. I moved to valley. I went, grass yellow and red, verge of pull-out after staying land of white tree with stakes and lands with weeds uncultivated land and rubble. I got on after grassland. A shadow had been at least filling until a side-spaces of mountain near castle, which had flourished on heights with a green; it isn’t known where come from was a calm here. The sun, heat, but fresh air. And me as if I would like a corpse in basket. Bend to right, there were violent top mountains, the walls are heaped around, rounding greenly –quiet; coming off rocks on the top of mountains or their spikes and vertical steeply falling down, which clung the bushes; the boulders on heights further, the grasslands in calm coming down. The silence was reigning, uncomprehended, general, immovable, spreading and so influential, that our vehicle carrying on slowly , they were as if apart. Shadows of boulders and outstanding scales beat down after flanks vertically. Yet the panoramas were kept some time, naked, sometimes heroic abysses, pendent stones, in rhythms coming down and up, made from bushes, trees, idyllas, repeatedly sweet, repeatedly lacy.

I have peered upwards. I was entertaining a view of that sole bird in zenith. I got weary. I met the priest here as if were from the second my life. I have sat on trunk further a bit. And I fought, therefore two young men meet by chance in a polish resort town in the Jura Mountains. Intending to spend a vacation relaxing, we will find a priest-pension. He has been thick and young, with a nose of duck, a peasant face sticked from priest’s collar out. He has lowered eyes. His bald had created with spectacles a glass-cupola, roundness’ integrity. His hair fused together from sweat.
– I walked after mountains, I have declined from way a bit.
– Priest get tired.
– I live in Zakopane.
He had dirty cassock at bottom, the worn out shoes, the eyes red. In the cassock on excursion?
And suddenly we twist to flank. We cut across valley, not easy and we move a little visible path’s mountain. We were in a ravine, which had narrowed, then has been opened a forest, we went among new tops, but we would have cut off completely already. The new trees, grasses, stones, however, completely new, and yet incidental, on the side, as if from twisting to flank subordinated, from main way.

A conversation was over. History forces in to our life. Therefore two young men meet by chance in a polish resort town in the Jura Mountains. Intending to spend a vacation relaxing, we will find a secluded family-run pension. We become embroiled both first in a macabre event on the way to the pension, then in the peculiar activities and psychological travails of the family running it.
O God, why it is possible to devote nothing note, one is bright, this bird hung highly. They think, that I have piled them for admiring view here. And now extensive place, a place not mine, the coniferous trees, a grassland with boulders, sunny, hot; behind me a swollen, sleeping house, the mountains around, but the forests impossibly deaf here. And we come for a boarding house. House was bite a twilight, a heaven passed away, the sky were dragged (were tightened); the curtains were closed, a contumacy grew, the things sheltered, entered a hole, an end. I have seen flashes of torches. Somebody is inside, leavings remain else enlightened. There was a group of young people. They went adding themselves an animation by the songs and jokes. I began cross by country to them. Several mute minutes, quiet, these long minutes dripped with a stupidity, but there was a confession.
end

The present volume includes certain number of portrait of persons. There had been in my second half of thirties. In a certain redaction of a magazine there was a certain official, short of stature, but yet black-haired, and beautiful-eyed, with a roman forehead, somewhat wrinkled cheeks, and a complexion of the kind known as elegant. He entered the department of press many years ago. However much the directors and chiefs of all kinds were changed, he was always to be seen in the same place, the same attitude, the same occupation- always the letter-copying clerk- as if he had been born in uniform with a intelligent head. And the great respect was shown him in the department. It would be difficult to find another man who lived so entirely for his duties. It is not enough to say that Mr George Turowicz, for such was his name, laboured with zeal; no, he laboured with love. In his copying, he found a varied and agreeable employment. Enjoyment was written on his face. And once day I had had pleasure to meet with him in his flat. On reaching home, he sat down at once at the table in his saloon. You have to know that even at the hour when the grey Cracow sky had quite disappeared, and all the official world had eaten or dined, each as he could, in accordance with salary he received and his own fancy, when all strive to divert themselves- it’s had been still happened at time- Mr Redactor indulged in no kind of diversion. Having spoken something beautiful to his wife, and written to his heart’s content, he lay down to sleep, smiling at the thought of the coming day- of what God might send him to copy on the morrow. So, ascending the staircase which led to his room, I pondered now what Mr Turowicz would ask about. The door inside was open. I passed through the kitchen perceived by the housewife, and at length reached a room where Mr Redactor beheld seated on a large painted table. “Please”, said Mr Redactor squinting at my hands, to see what sort of intelligent booty I had brought. My heart sank at this word. I began telling about my first writings, almost in the pleading voice of a child. Now it issues me, that I saw further. It searches each generation order. So, we are divided among generations but connected by ideals of tomorrow.

I do not want to be as involvements of policy of State, those we shake before, they never convict anybody nor earn one’s. But I have a huge debt of thank to mum; mother has discovered the last land before me. First I lived with her close to church, then in “camp of ghetto”, at last I have found with her the house at our village. Then I want to say something new. When Helen in a white mansion high above the rural river of Tschebichka hears the news of Adam’s disappearance she bundles her husband into the back of her Mercedes and drives aimlessly for three hours through the surrounding country lanes. Helen is an old woman these days, there are cataracts in both eyes, so it’s like driving in blinkers, half blinded by a lifetime’s accumulated tears, the stalactites of grief. In the local village of Golonog she ignores a street way sign and is hit simultaneously from both sides by surprised farmers’ wives in Mitsubishi. It’s a slow-motion accident, nobody is really hurt, by Helen’s car doors won’t open. Without apology or complaint she drives to the nearest garage and the three of them wait patiently while mechanics cut them free. She goes home with husband in a mini-cab and when she reaches her front door she tells husband that this was her last journey, she is no longer interested in the world beyond her doors. ‘I will just sit on and think of the departed and you, our sons, will take care of me.’ Then she calls her doctor and cancels the planned operation to remove the cataracts. Blinkered sight, tunnel vision, is all she now requires. The big pictures is no longer a thing she wishes to see. New world is born from requirement, in pains. A new world includes always more than old. But we begin unclearly realize what it has become centuries before; in result we are a staggering space, probably we will play the role of gods there. I do not want be a polish man and smaller than in essence simultaneously. Poland, I would like to make our country again on image of hope, which inspired her formerly. My earliest memories are joined with affluence, tranquility, peace, joy. I had fine childhood in the midst of simple people without particular talents. Then I have met only multifish. He taught me polish language. Then I saw profesor Joseph Tischner whom I might have learned in the church of Saint Catherine at Cracow. Now I may say our children inhabit in imagination emerged world already, boldest and closest new era than it in adult mind. Mum has left message me even through Her dead about 1.15 hour at night. Bug can be changed by dream to butterfly, so a man has to discover a knowledge and power in time of long heavy night surely in order to rescue himself. Many fetches must cost me leaving of something what it had been instructed me at school. Intelligence and soul they rivaled by whole that period. And I have saved diversity in our epoch. Only man is able to destroy that loves. Dark, the director of my home of today, who is going to next far journeys I would say: nowhere I not choose ride. I’m full of blue sky now. I stand in bloody Olsztyn with the leg, and other one at Ząbkowice. This eternal conscript for troop it effects for me and cures wounds. But I desire change all on better, sometimes to wipe, and even break skin on my own. And if it will lose nothing it gains nothing also. Poland is like a mother. I have forecasted that this country would give me freedom and tranquility. I am looking on Poland, on my country after visit in India last time, and everything it is fine. I’m looking for the last time at this opening on village of Ząbkowice which is quiet, so full lost brilliance, historic recitement are red bones of sleeping factory ruin. These places have smell of past and they live future. As if the last silent witnesses of a departed epoch stand the chimneys there. They still signify other area standing in a blinding sun solitary. Never I will forget train leaving Ząbkowice I may add here. Recently I have had a accidental meeting with Indian man. For two months I’ve been at India. Now You may imagine an Indian street near academic village at Mumbai, without footpath; this one however, daily sun was pierced on which by branches of trees. Did not have this street her whole face. It looked about eighth early morning sleepy. Sky as if did not correct this impression. As I knew opening time on world is very important for hindu always. So, I suppose all anonymous persons that I faced each other in moments of fears and desperation for always would remain dug in my memory out. I identify them with such streets of India which I had walked after. A world of this person was similar of mine one, there was world without passports, visas or visiting-cards. Common requirement connected us. It seemed now that I would found chance of escaping on similar streets in other cities always. So, leaving out on street it’s like an entering bar for joint; everything always or nothing. May I say I have taken touch , smell, paint of landscape from India; for the best our future.
end

Stanisław Barszczak; Time of happiness

I remember Times full of happiness, simple pleasures, and giving-despite how poor I was. At Christmas my memory was clouded by my innocence. So, I remember the friendship I had with Miss Lucy. The 40-year-old homely dressed aunt from Ząbkowice, then Szczecin, considers 7-year-old Stasio her best friend. We spent time with each other because we had had no other friends or less than several. She called me by my real name always. The aunt get out much, cares a lot for her appearance, is watching television…We begin the routine by gathering pecans for the fruitcakes. Once day with the aunt and the uncle Georg her husband we went to a village behind the city and spend three hours in the forest filling an old baby carriage with the nuts that have fallen on the ground in the friend’s orchard. The next morning the aunt and I go to buy the cherries, pineapples, raisins, walnuts, and other ingredients. We also pay a visit to Miss Greshta to buy the whiskey, necessary for the fruitcakes. Buying alcohol is illegal where they live. The aunt says the fruitcakes must have whiskey…She takes me to bar and buffet that Miss Greshta owns. It is public knowledge that people have been murdered and cut up there. There were many people there. But these empty people had had nothing to do at that time.

By Christmas Eve the aunt and me are broke. I draws paper ornaments. The aunt cuts them out and hangs them on the tree. Once we finish decorating, the aunt declares it is the most beautiful tree. We make presents for everyone. Women relatives get color scarves. Male relatives get syrup that can be used to clear a cough or heal ailments after hunting. Although we would love to get each other elaborate gifts, I and the aunt secretly make kites to give each other for Christmas. For the past two years we have given each other kites, so it isn’t a huge surprise. The aunt is a little hurt at only being able to get me a kite. Nobody understood the working of fame, upside and downside, better than the aunt. That’s right, I confirmed, and didn’t need to add nothing. I like to remember an aunt Lucy the way she was in those last years, the years of her marriage and greatest happiness, when she became the world’s most dreamed about woman, not just Poland’s Sweetheart like Christine Janda but the beloved of the whole aching planet. Her bright hair would never escape hairdresser. Now what’s gone is gone, aunt Lucy would say without regret of the old days. Those were the days when the first crossover stars were making their way through the firmament: Anna Nehrebecka, Anna Seniuk, Francis Pieczka, Janus Gajos, Thadeus Lomnicki, Georges Stuhr, Peter Fronczewski. Then, I would say, Christmas morning our pair suffers through a huge breakfast with relatives. I remember from my childhood a visiting of Daniel Olbrychski in our common house- Community center at Ząbkowice a few days after display, making of movie titled ‘Deluge’ of Henrik Sienkiewicz. I have a several movies with his roles on alive memory, but it has returned no justice him. I think humor is a way of holding off how awful life can be, to protect yourself. Somebody like Mark Twain thought life was awful, but held the awfulness at bay with jokes and so forth and finally couldn’t do it anymore, but of course his wife died, his best friend died and two of his daughters had died. If you live long enough, a lot of people close to you are going to die. What do you think happens when we die? For a few days I’m watching the results of the Haiti’s earthquake on television and I can change my mind. For we behave from time to time as well as we can without any expectation of rewards and punishments and an afterlife, and so I don’t think there is one. My mother didn’t think there was one; my friends didn’t think there was one; it was enough that they were alive. I love sleep, don’t you? It’s been possible for politicians and movie-makers to encourage us we’re always good guys. Somebody says: the Second World War absolutely hat to be fought. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. But we never talk about the people we kill. This is never spoken of. God knows, that’s the soul seeking some relief. There are places they have no conscience. Is it possible to relieve in our hospitals of today? We are saying laughter is health. I suppose there was laughter of a very ghastly kind by victims in Auschwitz. There is a superficial sort of laughter. There’s terrible tragedy there somehow, as these people are too sweet to survive in this world and they are in terrible danger all the time. They could be so easily killed. You imagine I’ve been in Warsaw by the train for the first time in July 1978 year. I saw that city with my friend Adam T. Warsaw’s condition during the world war II was particularly interesting. German engineers undermined all the prominent buildings. That’s why there was nothing left. The German wanted a Slavic capital. I think I was the luckiest guy in the world. I wouldn’t have missed it. I got to see so much. I had to be successful, and I had to be successful early. As I mentioned already I later credited Joseph Mikolajtis, an Polish teacher at Minor Seminary School in Częstochowa, with being the first person to recognize my writing talent and to give me guidance. With his encouragement I wrote poems and stories for myself. Later on the parsonage still, I was fortunate to have it, especially since I was determined never to set a studious foot inside a college classroom. I felt that either one was or wasn’t a writer, and no combination of professors could influence the outcome. I still think I was correct, at least in my own case. My first text was published in the school paper while I was still in my early twenties in Seminary, but I squandered lots of my time, talent and health on the pursuit of celebrity, riches and pleasure. The think about people like me is that we always knew what we were going to do. Many people spend half their lives not knowing. But I was a very special person, and I had to have a very special life. I was not meant to work in an office or something, though I would have been successful at whatever I did. But I always knew that I wanted to be a writer and that I wanted to be rich and famous. My texts were most of the volumes of short stories, reportage and novellas that followed, including “Cousin of flying Escadron”. But a book that perhaps will solidify my claim to literary fame wouldn’t still go on. On the parsonage of Konopiska I met Miss Helen G. who lived for the church. Several things about her life irritated me. For instance, her voice: she sounded always as though she were bidding in a poker game. Miss Helen went to me at Rzasnia also to include to role of Saint Nikolai. Once I remember the priest John Czajor from Rzasnia he has spoken directely to the child with a special emphasis about Christmas Eve, as if he would have been told about my way of arts in the future. But now you imagine a sun morning in late August more than eleven years ago. The scene is a kitchen of a rambling house in a small town of Ząkowice. I stand at the kitchen window and proclaim that it’s lovely weather. This is delightful news to my friend, Richard S. who today with his car went to me. Such weather signals the beginning of the holiday season for all my best friends-priests. On year 2005 my mother died. In that period I felt like “a spiritual orphan, like a turtle on its back.” I was so different from everyone, so much more intelligent and sensitive and perceptive. I was having fifty perceptions a minute to everyone else’s five. I felt yet that nobody was going to understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I guess that’s why I started writing seriously. At least on paper I could put down what I thought. My texts were an attempt to exorcise demons: an unconscious, altogether intuitive attempt, for I was not aware, except for a few incidents and descriptions, of its being in any serious degree autobiographical. Rereading it now, I find such self-deception unpardonable.” Many of my stories, notably “Song of a proud knight”, which paid loving tribute to my mother, who succored me in my childhood loneliness, were based on my recollections of life and around Ząbkowice. On August 2007 year I have been in the holy Land. I conceived the whole pilgrimage as a short book titled “Petra and the holy Land”. That book was an important event for me. While writing it, I realized I just might have found a solution to what had always been my greatest creative quandary. I wanted to produce a novel, something on a large scale that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry. Now I try to be careful. But I still get mail. And my fan mail is the size of Quick Study of the Hembree’s family from USA (see biblediscoverytv.com). The whole bible is here. Today I’m completely in print and how the hell I did it, I don’t know. I am trying writing another book. I didn’t expect to live this long. As you know it’s far from me a remembering of the details. In a usage of metaphors I was not led a part of a bright jokes or grotesquely a darkness. I express it I feel, I suppose, with an extreme truthfulness and a receipt. It’s seemed me always I’m more informed than others about a battle of life. So, I wanted to say something even imperfectely. As one truth exists, one pacience, mercy and courage. For that reason something must recede for a goodness of all. Unfortunately I am too young to be indifferent for a calling of politics but too old that stand in range or remain insensitive. I have a considerable talent, but I am forty nine years old. You may accept this blush of an inconvenience of sincerely you devoted me. For I wrote these words in worry and devotion, towards the reinforcement of hearts.

Stanisław Barszczak; Own sense isolation from my past! (response to the neighbour inquiry)
Joseph Conrad gave us the glorious text about “the Other”. I learnt it almost by heart. There is like my own experience. We let our imagination run away with us. It seemed I knew it. “We knew him in those unprotected days when we were content to hold in our hands our lives and our property. None of us, I believe, has any property now, and I hear that many, negligently, have lost their lives; but I am sure that the few who survive are not yet so dim-eyed as to miss in the befogged respectability of their newspapers the intelligence of various native risings in the Eastern Archipelago. Sunshine gleams between the lines of those short paragraphs–sunshine and the glitter of the sea. A strange name wakes up memories; the printed words scent the smoky atmosphere of to-day faintly, with the subtle and penetrating perfume as of land breezes breathing through the starlight of bygone nights; a signal fire gleams like a jewel on the high brow of a sombre cliff; great trees, the advanced sentries of immense forests, stand watchful and still over sleeping stretches of open water; a line of white surf thunders on an empty beach, the shallow water foams on the reefs; and green islets scattered through the calm of noonday lie upon the level of a polished sea, like a handful of emeralds on a buckler of steel…From the deck of our schooner, anchored in the middle of the bay, he indicated by a theatrical sweep of his arm along the jagged outline of the hills the whole of his domain; and the ample movement seemed to drive back its limits, augmenting it suddenly into something so immense and vague that for a moment it appeared to be bounded only by the sky. And really, looking at that place, landlocked from the sea and shut off from the land by the precipitous slopes of mountains, it was difficult to believe in the existence of any neighbourhood. It was still, complete, unknown, and full of a life that went on stealthily with a troubling effect of solitude; of a life that seemed unaccountably empty of anything that would stir the thought, touch the heart, give a hint of the ominous sequence of days. It appeared to us a land without memories, regrets, and hopes; a land where nothing could survive the coming of the night, and where each sunrise, like a dazzling act of special creation, was disconnected from the eve and the morrow…The bay was like a bottomless pit of intense light. The circular sheet of water reflected a luminous sky, and the shores enclosing it made an opaque ring of earth floating in an emptiness of transparent blue. The hills, purple and arid, stood out heavily on the sky: their summits seemed to fade into a coloured tremble as of ascending vapour; their steep sides were streaked with the green of narrow ravines; at their foot lay rice-fields, plantain-patches, yellow sands. A torrent wound about like a dropped thread. Clumps of fruit-trees marked the villages; slim palms put their nodding heads together above the low houses; dried palm-leaf roofs shone afar, like roofs of gold, behind the dark colonnades of tree-trunks; figures passed vivid and vanishing; the smoke of fires stood upright above the masses of flowering bushes; bamboo fences glittered, running away in broken lines between the fields. A sudden cry on the shore sounded plaintive in the distance, and ceased abruptly, as if stifled in the downpour of sunshine. A puff of breeze made a flash of darkness on the smooth water, touched our faces, and became forgotten. Nothing moved. The sun blazed down into a shadowless hollow of colours and stillness…In many successive visits we came to know his stage well–the purple semicircle of hills, the slim trees leaning over houses, the yellow sands, the streaming green of ravines. All that had the crude and blended colouring, the appropriateness almost excessive, the suspicious immobility of a painted scene; and it enclosed so perfectly the accomplished acting of his amazing pretences that the rest of the world seemed shut out forever from the gorgeous spectacle. There could be nothing outside. It was as if the earth had gone on spinning, and had left that crumb of its surface alone in space. He appeared utterly cut off from everything but the sunshine, and that even seemed to be made for him alone. Once when asked what was on the other side of the hills, he said, with a meaning smile, “Friends and enemies–many enemies; else why should I buy your rifles and powder?” He was always like this-word-perfect in his part, playing up faithfully to the mysteries and certitudes of his surroundings. “Friends and enemies”-nothing else. It was impalpable and vast. The earth had indeed rolled away from under his land, and he, with his handful of people, stood surrounded by a silent tumult as of contending shades. Certainly no sound came from outside. “Friends and enemies!” He might have added, “and memories,” at least as far as he himself was concerned; but he neglected to make that point then. It made itself later on, though; but it was after the daily performance- in the wings, so to speak, and with the lights out. Meantime he filled the stage with barbarous dignity. Some ten years ago he had led his people-a scratch lot of wandering Bugis-to the conquest of the bay, and now in his august care they had forgotten all the past, and had lost all concern for the future. He gave them wisdom, advice, reward, punishment, life or death, with the same serenity of attitude and voice. He understood irrigation and the art of war-the qualities of weapons and the craft of boat-building. He could conceal his heart; had more endurance; he could swim longer, and steer a canoe better than any of his people; he could shoot straighter, and negotiate more tortuously than any man of his race I knew. He was an adventurer of the sea, an outcast, a ruler-and my very good friend. I wish him a quick death in a stand-up fight, a death in sunshine; for he had known remorse and power, and no man can demand more from life. Day after day he appeared before us, incomparably faithful to the illusions of the stage, and at sunset the night descended upon him quickly, like a falling curtain. The seamed hills became black shadows towering high upon a clear sky; above them the glittering confusion of stars resembled a mad turmoil stilled by a gesture; sounds ceased, men slept, forms vanished–and the reality of the universe alone remained-a marvellous thing of darkness and glimmers…Before sunset he would take leave with ceremony, and go off sitting under a red umbrella, and escorted by a score of boats. All the paddles flashed and struck together with a mighty splash that reverberated loudly in the monumental amphitheatre of hills. A broad stream of dazzling foam trailed behind the flotilla. The canoes appeared very black on the white hiss of water; turbaned heads swayed back and forth; a multitude of arms in crimson and yellow rose and fell with one movement; the spearmen upright in the bows of canoes had variegated sarongs and gleaming shoulders like bronze statues; the muttered strophes of the paddlers’ song ended periodically in a plaintive shout. They diminished in the distance; the song ceased; they swarmed on the beach in the long shadows of the western hills. The sunlight lingered on the purple crests, and we could see him leading the way to his stockade, a burly bareheaded figure walking far in advance of a straggling cortege, and swinging regularly an ebony staff taller than himself. The darkness deepened fast; torches gleamed fitfully, passing behind bushes; a long hail or two trailed in the silence of the evening; and at last the night stretched its smooth veil over the shore, the lights, and the voices.”
It is necessary to defend any man, so a commander of tribe or a slave, against the technology of our century. We are no yet a master of ourselves. But we can be the master of our own fate. A man has arisen completely in recent years. In homogeneous space without a place. And the earth is a matter of course for itself. A man is a patron himself to serve all people. And what’s more a man did not stop to believe God. He trust to God ahead of oneself. I must say that according to Emmanuel Levinas the face of the Other, “expresses my moral impossibility of annihilating.” The thinker said: “in each case when somebody is dying all humanity is responsible to that.” Saint Father Pio said: “I can forget myself but not my spiritual children and assure you that when the Lord calls me, I will say to Him: Lord, I shall remain at the gates of Paradise: I shall enter only when I have seen the last of my spiritual children enter.” Then in the Bible is mentioned: “You shall not hate in your heart anyone of your kin; you shall reprove your neighbor, or you will incur guilt yourself. You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord” (Leviticus, 19:17-18) “No one has grater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13) Levinas said: “Thou shalt not kill,” comes from elsewhere, from another shore. I am not the master of this original-originary and anarchical and therefore also not originary-speech. The other dictates the sense of my words, and I discover in my words my response. This is not a spontaneous, or free, speech. I do not project my meaning; I do not anticipate my response; I do not coincide with myself. I am not first of all an autonomous being. I find myself uprooted before the other’s command. I am powerless. The temptation of murder is also prohibited-elicited and prohibited in one movement.
To “love one’s neighbor” is for Levinas “to redeem the world” .It is also “to go to Eternity”, through a death also. For Levinas death, in essence, is evasion, otherness, ungraspable. It defies us. It is impossible. It comes to us as other, as mysterious, foreign. We are no longer master of ourselves. And a death ,Levinas says, presents itself as murder, it comes to us as if from another. Death is other. Death is not me. The shrill laughter of Shakespeare’s witches evoke the mood of Levinas’ meditations on death. Death is a ruse. It makes fun of us, ridicules us, makes of us fools. I am not master of my own death. Suicide provides a shallow reprieve–I reach for death, but my aim is mistaken. “To kill oneself,” says Blanchot, “is to mistake one death for the other”. For death is precisely that over which “I have no power” . To try to kill myself is to try to die for others–it is to have in mind the effect of my death on others, and not my death at all. Hence Blanchot speaks of the impossibility of suicide . Mortality is fundamental both for Heidegger and Levinas–but what is in question is what it means for death to be fundamental: is it my death or the other’s death that comes first? “Mortality,” says Levinas, “is the concrete and primary phenomenon. It forbids the positing of a for itself that would not already be delivered over to the Other and consequently be a thing” . Let me briefly outline four points which need to be understood, in order to grasp the significance of Levinas’ critique of the philosophy of contemporary. Why is murder at the origin of death, according to Levinas? Because in both killing and dying there is an effort to “escape from being, to go where freedom and negation operate.” Death approaches not as nothingness, but as fear–fear “for my being” ,”fear of violence”. Levinas says: “In death I am exposed to absolute violence, to murder in the night” . The formulation is telling. “Death threatens me from beyond”, The impossibility of death is an “impossibility of knowing” , “the impossibility of every possibility” .
Death here as the impossibility of possibility. For Levinas, the character of Self is not fundamentally possibility. I am not first of all a power or a freedom to be, whether or not this is cashed out in terms of potentiality-for-being. I am first of all sensibility, passivity, responsibility. As passivity and exposure to the other, I am not first of all a potentiality for anything, least of all death. My concern here has been not only with the shadow of Levinas’ death but also with the shadow cast over us by the Shoah-a shadow under which Levinas lived…Now better to ask how responsible my response will have been, not according to the realm of appearances or phenomena, but according to the other for whom I am responsible. Levinas-both as a philosopher, and as a survivor of the Shoah-has asked, perhaps more insistently than any other philosopher, after the meaning of ethics. Once day I have written the book titled “Another and he”. For the death is first, mortality is real phenomenon. It forbids the positing of a for itself that would not already be delivered over to the Other and consequently be a thing. In this way a death is appointing oneself over to the Other. I am powerless. So we can’t leave Other out of one’s will. We must do it, one way or another. Now to be answerable to Emmanuel Levinas, to his legacy is to see that ethics in our era can no longer be a call to responsibility, as if it were a duty abstractly outlined, a future possibility, yet to be realized. Ethics is a responsibility to which I, unique and irreplaceable, come always too late. Whether this means one should go out into the world, ethically, or stay close to God, is a matter of religion. But it is not merely a matter of arbitrary choice. I do not mean to end with a demand to be religious in any conventional sense. I recall religion as a dedication to Levinas’ insight that to testify is to bear witness to the infinite.