Journey to the island of Krapanj, part 2

There were a hundred things she planned to do after the war: finish her doctorate, have a baby, see New York, own a sports car, drink champagne on the beach at Dubrownik. But if she were about to die, she was glad to be spending her last few moments in a sunlit square, looking at a beautiful old house, with the lilting sounds of the Croatian language soft in her ears. The monastery had been built as a home for the local aristocracy.,. The ornamental gardens had long ago been turned into vineyards, for this was wine country, the heart of the Shibenik district. The building now housed an important telephone exchange, sited here because the government minister responsible had been born there. When the Germans came they enlarged the exchange to provide connections between the Croatian system and the new cable route to Germany. They also sited a Gestapo regional headquarters in the building, with offices on the upper floors and cells in the basement. Four weeks ago the monastery had been bombed by the Allies. Such precision bombing was new. The heavy four-engined Lancasters and Flying Fortresses that roared high over Europe every night were inaccurate – they sometimes missed an entire city of Shibenik – but the latest generation of fighter-bombers, the Lightnings and Thunderbolts, could sneak in by day and hit a small target, a bridge or a railway station. Much of the west wing of the monastery was now a heap of irregular sixteenth century white bricks and square white stones. But the air raid had failed. Repairs were made quickly, and the phone service had been disrupted only as long as it took the Germans to instal replacement switchboards. All the automatic telephone equipment and the vital amplifiers for the long-distance lines were in the basement, which had escaped serious damage. That was why Melania was here. The monastery was on the north side of the island, surrounded by a high wall of stone pillars and iron railings, guarded by uniformed sentries. To the south was a small medieval church, its ancient wooden doors wide open to the summer air and the arriving congregation. Opposite the church, which now was in ruin, on the west side of the island, was the little town hall, run by an ultraconservative mayor who had few disagreements with the occupying Nazi rulers. The south side was a row of shops and a bar called Cafe´ des Sports. Melania sat outside the bar, waiting for the church bell to stop. On the table in front of her was a glass of the local white wine, thin and light. She had not drunk any. She was a British officer with the rank of major. Officially, she belonged to the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, the all-female service. But that was a cover story. In fact she worked for a secret organization, the Special Operations Executive, responsible for sabotage behind enemy lines. At twenty-eight, she was one of the most senior agents. This was not the first time she had felt herself close to death. She had learned to live with the threat, and manage her fear, but all the same she felt the touch of a cold hand on her heart when she looked at the steel helmets and powerful rifles of the chateau guards. Three years ago, her greatest ambition had been to become a professor of Croatian literature in a British university, teaching students to enjoy the vigour of Wictor Hugo, the wit of Gustaw Flaubert, the passion of Emil Zola. She had been working in the War Office, translating Croatian documents, when she had been summoned to a mysterious interview in a hotel room and asked if she were willing to do something dangerous. She had said yes without thinking much. There was a war on, and all the boys she had been at Oxford with were risking their lives every day, so why shouldn’t she do the same? Two days after Christmas 1941 she had started her professional training. Six months later she was a courier to Resistance groups in occupied Croatia, in the days when wireless sets were scarce and trained operators even fewer. She would parachute in, move around with her false identity papers, contact the Resistance, give them their orders, and note their replies, complaints, and requests for guns and ammunition. For the return journey she would rendezvous with a pick-up plane, usually a three-seater Westland Lysander, small enough to land on six hundred yards of grass. From courier work she had graduated to organizing sabotage. Most agents her friends were officers, the theory being that their ‘men’ were the local Resistance. In practice, the Resistance were not under army discipline, and an agent had to win their co-operation by being tough, knowledgeable and authoritative. The work was dangerous. Six men and three women had finished the training course with Melania, and she was the only one still operating two years later. Two were known to be dead: one shot, the hated Croatian security police, and the second killed when his parachute failed to open. The other six had been captured, interrogated and tortured, and had then disappeared into prison camps in Germany. Melania had survived because she was ruthless, she had quick reactions, and she was careful about security to the point of paranoia. Precisely at the moment beside her sat her husband, Michel, leader of the Resistance circuit codenamed Bollinger, which once upon a time was based in the cathedral city of Belgrad. Although about to risk his life, Michel was sitting back in his chair, his right ankle resting on his left knee, holding a tall glass of pale, watery wartime beer. His careless grin had won her heart when she was a student at the University, writing a thesis on Hume’s ethics which she had abandoned on the outbreak of war. He had been a dishevelled young philosophy lecturer with a legion of adoring students. He was still the sexiest man she had ever met. He was tall, and he dressed with careless elegance in rumpled suits and faded blue shirts. His hair was always a little too long. He had a come-to-bed voice and an intense blue-eyed gaze that made a girl feel she was the only woman in the world. This mission had given Melania a welcome chance to spend a few days with her husband. Michel about Melania has been spoken what turned her into a legend was her insatiable sexual promiscuity. She had had sex with anyone who briefly took her fancy. Her figure was still generous, though no longer like an hourglass: she weighed a hundred and eighty pounds. But she still exercised an extraordinary sexual magnetism. When she walked into a bar, all the men stared. Even now, when she was worried and hot, there was a sexy flounce to the way she paced and turned beside the cheap old car, an invitation in the movement of her flesh beneath the thin cotton dress, and Michel felt the urge to grab her right there. ‘What happened?’ she said as soon as he was within earshot. But now chance to spend a few days together it had not been a happy time. They had not quarrelled, exactly, but Michel’s affection had seemed half-hearted, as if he were going through the motions; and she had felt hurt. Her instinct told her he was interested in someone else. He was only thirty-five, and his unkempt charm still worked on young women. It did not help that since their wedding they had been apart more than together, because of the war. And there were plenty of willing Croatian girls, she thought sourly, in the Resistance and out of it. She still loved him. Not in the same way: she no longer worshipped him as she had on their honeymoon, no longer yearned to devote her life to making him happy. The morning mists of romantic love had lifted, and in the clear daylight of married life she could see that he was vain, self-absorbed, and unreliable. But when he chose to focus his attention on her he could still make her feel unique and beautiful and cherished. His charm worked on men, too, and he was a great leader, courageous and charismatic. He and Melania had figured out the battle plan together. They would attack the monastery in two places, dividing the defenders, then regroup inside to form a single force that would penetrate the basement, find the main equipment room, and blow it up. (to compare that with Ken Follet). Harald finished reading the magazine. But yet it seemed him as if he caught the eye of Melanie, the newest arrival. She was a tall, thin woman, twenty-eight years old, with striking good looks: pale skin, long hair the colour of paprika, and the body of a model. Her five-year-old son, Dusty, sat beside her. But after a while I saw Melania on the island of Krapanj. We swum for other shore. And I heard; ‘What?’ Melanie said in a shocked voice. ‘What is this?’ Melanie stood up. Her white skin flushed red, and her pretty face twisted in sudden rage. ‘No!’ she yelled. ‘No! They can’t do this to me—I’ve only just found you! I don’t believe it, it’s a lie.’ She turned her fury on Paul. ‘Liar!’ she screamed. I returned from the trip of Kapranj now. But I would already remember a long time that travel to Croatia even in a dream. As a priest I have a light sleep. It seems me sometimes I’m singing a baby to sleep. So, as the people fast in sleep we must defend dream and sleep in future. You keep a diary most of all. For you must stay here for the time being. You know we must account for every penny we spend. Somebody said to me:“I was about 50-60 m away from the street when I noticed a person dressed in white, looking out the window on the top floor. It drew my attention as it was the only opened window in the whole block. I was walking slowly towards the block and kept looking at the window. When I was considerably close I saw that the person was a man and his face was ominously pale.” In this sentence I saw myself from my living on the same street for years. I admit I had ruffled up my feathers at that time, but I have been never seeing myself as “a killer on the cellar”. You remember my “thatched cottage, mountain cottage, a log cabin”. The house had had all modern conveniences and comforts. Then I attempted the impossible. It had been the chalet of my mother in the first place. That’s the point. At that time I had trusted mum absolutely and blindly. The same wrote:“It was a horrible night.” Yet many a time the storm would be raged all night in our life. For example I must do without a car. So now I pray that we haven’t gone our separate ways, and drifted apart in our future. May first of all we have the friends in our life as Jesus of Nazareth. He was remaining with us for ever.
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Stanislaw Barszczak; Journey to the island of Krapanj
The third decade of August 2009 year. I went to Croatia on the island of Krapanj. I took a number twenty first bus from Częstochowa. Krapanj is the smallest inhabited island of the Adriatic Sea covering 0.36 km². It is also the most inhabited island (per square metre) and has the lowest elevation of 1.5 m above sea level. Krapanj is 300 m offshore at its closest point from the mainland town of Brodarica. Krapanj was founded by Toma Jurić, a nobleman from Šibenik and a descendant of the Šubić family from Bribir. Jurić purchased the island in 1436 from the Šibenik County with the intention of building a Franciscan church on the uninhabited island. Realising their father’s dream after his death, Jurić’s 4 sons completed The Holy Cross Church and monastery in 1523 with blessings from Pope Eugene IV on one condition: only the Friars were to live and inhabit Krapanj. The island came under the possession of the St. Jerome’s province of Dalmatia in the 16th century as the Ottoman Empire fiercely invaded neighbouring lands. The Franciscans allowed people living on the neighbouring mainland to build their own settlement, southeast of the monastery who then united to defend themselves against the Turkish attack. Since the work of the Franciscan friars was closely connected to the inhabitants of the island, in 1652, the monastery was given a parish and the friars began offering spiritual and other assistance to parishes on the mainland. The remains of the old church walls, in part, can be seen by the front door of the cloister. The church was expanded in 1937, and the wall bearing the consecration date (May 15, 1523) joins the new church building with the cloister. The island of Krapanj’s culture and traditions reflect the Dalmatian way of life. Hard work, good food and a healthy lifestyle embodies the seaside rock houses and tiny side-streets. Krapanj takes pride in its origins of deep sea diving and generally personifies a seafaring culture. Krapanj is not on the tourist map and generally very few tourists visit the tiny island in the peak tourism months of June, July and August. A main factor to this is the no vehicles policy the island has enforced. As a result, the island has kept many of the old world traditions that add a unique charm to the island. The art of producing wine (vino), olive oil (maslinovo ulje), rakija and sea sponge (spužve) are traditions that date back to pre-history but are still extremely evident in modern day Krapanj. Food is generally seafood, caught by local fisherman and distributed locally. Krapanj holds a host of cultural antiquities in the monastery including “The Last Supper” by the 16th century Italian artist Francesco da Santa Croce and a renaissance painting titled “The Black Madonna On The Throne”. The biggest event on the island’s calendar is the annual Krapljanska Fešta. The day-long festival is held on 2 August and celebrates Gospe od Anđela (Our Lady of the Angels). Thousands of people gather on the island for the cultural feast of good food, good wine and centuries of culture. The locals annually proclaim “a night the island almost sank”. Krapanj has a rich history in the harvesting and selling of sea sponges. Antun from Crete introduced Krapanj’s inhabitants to sea sponge gathering and processing over 300 years ago. For many years, diving for these sponges has been the major income for Krapanj families, earning them the title of “Spužvari” (sponge vendors). Sponges from this area are extremely well received throughout the world for their high quality and aesthetic beauty. The cosmetic market has in recent years opened the market for Krapanj sponges on an international scale. The traditions of sea sponge diving has in latter days given rise to scuba diving, free diving and spearfishing professionals from Krapanj. The Krapanj monastery museum permanently exhibits a show on sea sponge diving. (see the news in internet) In my imagination I remembered from my visit on the Krapanj as follow: Belgrad. We went on a guided tour round the city. Then we rapidely went to Krapanj. Close to the island I thought of heading for the town centre, to see if there was anyone I knew in the cafe´s and bars around the square, but I felt so disappointed about the jazz club that I decided it would be depressing to hang around. I steered for the harbour. Now I do not see a father who was parson of the church on Krapanj, a small island a couple of miles offshore. But I see Harald our guide in Croatia. The little ferry that shuttled to and from the island was in dock, and he drove straight on to it. The waves were breaking on the beach. It was crowded with people, most of whom I knew. There was a merry gang of fishermen who had been to a football match and had a few drinks afterwards; two well-off women in hats and gloves with a pony and trap and a stack of shopping; and a family of five who had been visiting relations in a little town. A well-dressed couple he did not recognize were probably going to dine at the island’s hotel, which had a high-class restaurant. His motorcycle attracted everyone’s interest, and he had to explain the steam engine again. At the last minute a German-built Ford sedan drove on. Harald knew the car: it belonged to Edwin Fijalkowski, owner of the hotel. The Fijalkowskis were hostile to Harald’s family. Edwin felt he was the natural leader of the island community, a role which parson Carsten believed to be his own, and the friction between the rival patriarchs affected all other family members. Harald wondered how Edwin Fijalkowski had managed to get petrol for his car. He supposed anything was possible to the rich. But they must have done without a car. The sea was choppy and there were dark clouds in the western sky. A storm was coming in, but the fishermen said they would be home before it arrived, just. Harald took out a newspaper he had picked up in the little town…And he read in it as follow: One minute before the explosion, the island of Krapanj was at peace. The evening was warm, and a layer of still air covered the town like a blanket. The church bell tolled a lazy beat, calling worshippers to the service with little enthusiasm. The square was dominated by the sixteenth century monastery. I enjoyed its graceful buildings, its mild weather, its leisurely lunches, its cultured people. Melania liked Croatian paintings, Croatian literature, and Croatian clothes. Visitors often found the Croatian people unfriendly, but she had been speaking the language since she was six years old, and no one could tell he was a foreigner. It angered her that the France she loved no longer existed. There was not enough food for leisurely lunches, the paintings had all been stolen by the Nazis, and only the whores had pretty clothes. Like most women, Melania was wearing a shapeless dress whose colours had long ago been washed to dullness. Her heart’s desire was that the real Croatia would come back. It might return soon, if she and people like her did what they were supposed to. She might not live to see it – indeed, she might not survive the next few minutes. She was no fatalist; she wanted to live.
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Stanisław Barszczak, A new Atlantis and a photographer

“Earthquake 1971.” In Bombay it was the earthquake that people remembered, the earthquake that gave us the shock that shook our confidence in who we were and how we had chosen to live. Are these new movements of the earth the prelude to a titanic divorce amidst the great continents of the earth? India would become the “new Atlantis” as the waters of the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea closed over the Deccan plateau. For three days the city seemed hardly to move. The earthquake had shaken up feelings which we had tried to bury long before, and now they were pouring out of us, like water from a burst tank. We were born with everything. “This is a lot to deduce from a change of our address of the earth,” I said, trying to make light of your hostility, of the thing that had burst out of your depths and attacked me for the crime of not being another man; of living in his home and not being he. But I remember from my visit at India how we made our escape to Ujjain and Goa. It seemed me as if we were going through the chaos of the city of the world of today (see earthquake of that month at Porte-au-Prince in Haiti) –the fallen trees, the collapsed balconies like soldiers’ chevron stripes, the demented birds, the screaming-to what was now your apartment. You want to go to the West, but I have learned most from the East. I don’t know how many other things are beyond any price. The wonders of India, of Mumbai (Backbai?) There is what I remain of them is the treasure I brought home. But as the years passed we become each other’s bad habit.
For these reason I want to write now about my journey on December 01-17,2009 year into the heart of a great country of an India once more. It seems certain that I’d been there a photographer only. And now I begin new period of my life. I’m taking the long way round to the exit at the end of my tale, because I can’t agree with myself to let go, to be done with it, to turn away towards my new life, just to settle for that fortunate existence. Lucky me, set me free Poland. On the beginning I had had an incident with a suitcase at the airport in Mumbai. It all ended well. After a flight aircraft via Warsaw-Paris-Mumbai I fund under a doctor Sebastian’s care. Nine hours on the plane from Paris. After a rest we began to carry out a plant of my visit, to implement a reach plan of seeking of the traces of the great cultures of India. Merely meantime I have visited two beaches in India. First the bus driver set professor Sebastian and me as the passengers down near the village of Bogmalo in Goa. If you are looking for a party time while in Goa, Goa Bogmalo beach is the place to be. With the five-star Oberoi hotel nearby, Bogmalo beach in Goa promises a very luxurious stay. There are places where you can take diving lessons while at Goa Bogmalo beach. There are special guides who can help you through during your diving period. Then I visited Juhu at Mumbai. Juhu (Marathi) is a suburban neighbourhood of western Mumbai. It is famous for its sprawling beach, the Juhu Beach. It is surrounded by Arabian Sea in the west, Santacruz and Vile Parle in the east. Juhu is one of the more affluent areas of Mumbai. Many Bollywood stars own bungalows in Juhu, famously including Amitabh Bachchan, Amrish Puri, Ajay Devgan, the Deols and numerous other stars.Industrialist Adi Godrej, Musician Khayyam, Lalit Modi, Media Expert Niranjan Parihar, Financial Advisor Bharat Solanki and Chairman of Montex group Raman Jain also have their bungalows in Juhu. The nearest railway stations are Santacruz, Andheri and Vile Parle.
To think about those days again, the lost love, the wasted chances. The size of the countryside, its stark unsentimental lines, its obduracy : these things did me good. I saw the most famous hotel of Tai Mahal close to the Gateway of India also. The sea stretched as far as the horizon. What, you think it was easy to get the photos here? I still have built “my house of morality of today” upon shifting Indian sands. I’ve worked for everything I’ve got. Such is a country of India. That was the decisive moment that created the secret image which I have never revealed to anyone, the hidden self-portrait. Nowadays I can behave, most of the time, as if it never happened. I have seen Acapulco, a region of the Dead sea. The payable beach at Ostia was teeming with people. There were the pebbles on the beach of Krapanij in Croatia. I’m a happy man, I can throw sticks for my dog on an sandy Mexican beach and let the turn-ups, but sometimes in the night I wake and the past is hanging there in front of me rotating slowly, with the presence of silent countryside of India. I repeat myself You know the old song of mother. “I promised you I would open my heart, I swore that nothing would be spared. So I must find the courage to reveal this also, this terrible thing I know about myself. I must confess it and stand defenceless before the court of anyone who can be bothered to judge. Even the President of the United States sometimes must stand naked. I washed my hands but they wouldn’t come clean. And now at a certain point I am leaving our Indian Jeep behind, off the track, and proceeding on foot. As I crept there towards my goal I felt an excitement; it was fulfillment which left me in no doubt that I had discovered what I wanted most. More than money, more than fame, maybe more than love. To look with one’s own eyes into the eyes of the truth, and stare it down. “To see what was thus, and show it so”. To strip away the veils and turn the thunderous racket of revelation into the pure silence of the image and so possess it, to put the world’s secret wonders in your suitcase and go home as if from the war’s journey. This world , its stillness is much more than country hush. As I mentioned I was in India for an invitation of professor Sebastian from the Congregation of priests of Saint Thomas Apostle. Listen: once I received the invitation from Miss Susan Morgan from Ivory Cost I’d have left anyway, but I’d have kept my links to the old country of India. I’d have made it one of my subjects, because there it was inside me, colonizing every cell, an addiction do deep it could not be destroyed without killing the addict too; or so I naively believed. My dream was of an India which would deserve me, which would show that it had been right for me to remain. And of course there was somewhere I could go. I locked up my flat, dismissed the servants and went to see professor Sebastian. I’ll tell you how it feels, after all these seventeen days of being there. It feels like an ending in the middle pathway of my life. A necessary ending, without which the second half would have been impossible. Freedom, then? Not exactly. Not quite a liberation, no. It feels like a divorce with my photographer’s profession up to date. I was the one who sat around waiting, telling myself, it’ll be okay, the Indian children will think better of it, they’ll come back to me and all manner of thing shall be well. At the end of a period of life the moment comes when you have to turn away from there, from the unbearably beautiful memory of the way you were, and turn towards the rest of your life. That’s me at this point in this story.
From time to time my friends from India spoke a local dialect that made no sense at all to me. However, conversation quickly became redundant. They took me to the House of the Indian Fathers the Pallottines, who have been with me together on the feast of Saint Xavier at Goa. Here I met the other journalist, the one of whose existence I had previously been unaware. There boredom and laziness saved my life. I could say I enter passionate, dangerous action be the experience of spending a day in the company of the men and women, who wore the similar clothes and boots as myself. Their faces might have learned me lots about the greatness of the church. In the region of Goa that we had reached by a plane the polyphonic reality of the road disappeared and was replaced by silences, mutenesses as vast as the land. I drove towards my fate. A deeply rutted dirt path led off the country road towards “prince Thomas” mysteries. There was his kingdom, a gymnasium for teenagers. It seemed, an unreality of India here disappeared. I saw the teenagers close their school and tell them about Poland. Here was a wordless truth, one that came before language, a being, not a becoming.
The next day after our returning to Mumbai I left city without telling about it nobody and plunged into the hard heart of India. I would enter rural India, learn something about rhythm of Indian culture also. A church in India. His ranches were spread across rural Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. A cautious driver gave us a lift to the railway station. We had reached our destination by a train the next day. Ujjain- a journey to the centre of the earth. Our colleague looked out for us at the railway station. The air grew hotter with every mile, the wind seemed to blaze more fiercely on my cheeks. The local bugs(“mosquitoes”) seemed larger and hungrier than their city cousins, and I was, as usual, lunch. The road never emptied: bikes, horse-drawn carts, burst pipes, the blare of buses and trucks. People, people. Running dogs, lounging cattle, exploded rubber tyres prominent among the piles of detritus that were everywhere, like the future. Groups of youths on the feast at Ujjain with orange headbands and flags. Tea stalls. The omnipresence of gods. Everywhere around me, life was striving, pullulating, the right to see another day of life. This was life in its pure form, life seeking no more than to remain alive. In the universe of the road, the survival instinct was the only law, the hustle the only game in town, the game you played until you dropped. To be here was to understand why professor Sebastian was popular among the students also. He was a miracle man, a prophet.
On the Seminary at Ujjain I found a hiding place from which I could work by day. I became invisible, invincible. I gave classes from philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas there for fifty listeners. On December 12,2009 (Saturday) I have preached a sermon in the Seminary’s chapel about a vocation of Zacchaus. To celebrate an anniversary of the revelations of Holy Mary of Guadalupe I said a song of a Monastery Of Jasna Góra at Częstochowa in Poland. During the next days I saw the nuns of Saint Therese the Great. The priests of Saint Thomas like the monks lead an austere life there. To keep myself busy while the Lord examined the pictures of my life of today, I began to pick up the volumes from the Seminary’s library. I had been reading my way through the old texts and commentaries. The books in Greek and Sanskrit were beyond me. The ones I could read had captured me, drawing me into their cosmos of savage divinity, of destiny that could be neither diluted nor avoided, but only heroically endured, because one’s fate and one’s nature were not separate things, only different words for the same phenomenon. There were villages buried in the backlands that never knew about the British Empire, villagers to whom the names of the nation’s leaders and founding fathers would mean nothing. To journey down some of these tracks was to travel back in time for over a thousand years. The professors of the Seminary of “Ruhalaya” at Ujjain as if lived happily ever after and were constantly told that village India was the “real” India, a space of timelessness and gods, of moral certainties and natural laws, of the eternal fixities of caste and faith, gender and class. Such statements were made as if the real were solid, immutable, tangible. Whereas the most obvious lesson of travelling between the city and the village, between the crowded street and the open field, was that reality shifted. Where the plates of different realities met, there were shudders and rifts. Chasms opened. A man could lose his life. At the time of my visit in India all manner of bizarre rumours were in the air. Those about deputies’ electoral fraud. Would the Prime Minister resign, or try to cling to power? The unthinkable was becoming thinkable. I still was watching television I have seen the match on cricket.
And now I must sing the last song of India that will ever pass my lips, I must quit my old stamping grounds once and for all. Here’s an irony worth a shake of the head or a rueful grin: that the severance of my connection with the country of my birth should come to pass at the point of my deepest intimacy with it, my broadest knowledge, my years as a photographer had opened my eyes to the old place, and my heart as well. I had started be searching for what my mother had seen in it, but soon I began to see it for myself, to make my own portrait, my own selection from the overwhelming abundance that was everywhere on offer. After a period of feeling an odd, alienated disconnection, feeling it as something not chosen but simply so, I was seeing my way, through the camera lens, of being a “proper” Indian. Yet it was the thing I most rejoiced in, my photographer’s craft, that ensured my banishment. For a while this created problems for me of value, of defining right thought, right action. I didn’t know which way was up any more: what was ground, what sky. The two seemed equally unsubstantial to me.
I was writing about my journey into the heart of a great country of an India, but it’s just another way of saying goodbye. Now I left my Mumbai’s apartment. Probably I would never again set foot in those rooms; nor on that street, nor in that city, nor in any part of India, though it remained a part of me, as essential as a limb. I suppose the corruption of money and the corruption of power is also here. For that reason once day I was heading full of anticipation towards a new life, the life I wanted, but I had no sense of having burned my boats. And so farewell, my country. I won’t phone you in the middle of the night and hang up when you reply. I won’t follow you down the street when you step out with some other fellow. Probably I still have a landscape of a lucky youth. But my home is burned, my parents dead, and those I loved have mostly gone away. Those whom I still love I must leave behind for good. India, I have sum in your warm waters and run laughing in your village. I have walked your filthy streets. For many days your malaria mosquitoes would bite me wherever I went. India, my crowd, my everything at once, my mother and my first great truth. It may be that I am not worthy of you, for I have been imperfect, I confess. I may not comprehend what you are becoming, what perhaps you already are, but I am old enough to say that this new self of yours is an entity I no longer want. Though India is a fount of my imagination, source of my savagery, breaker of my heart. Nothing remains except to say goodbye.

Somehow life needs otherness also. I come to you ´from above´, he ´descends on me´, like God spoke from the heights of mount Sinai to his people. My own self is always the exception (E. Levinas) I may try to picture the other as a self too, but I never succeed in doing so. The self of the other always remains enigmatic, escaping all objectification of consciousness. I am never able to see the other as she or he really is. This makes my small, relatively familiar `I` the exception in a world of silent, hidden and mysterious selves. But it is the most fundamental difference between us and Levinas is the axiom of mine that the otherness of the other is just an illusion. At a fundamental level I and the other are the same. We have the same divine ‘substantia’. We all share the same Self with a capital. When I look the other in the eye and when the other looks at me, we recognize ourselves in our eyes. We love and respect each other, because we are basically the same. This is not a metaphor meaning ´we are all in it together´ or ´we are put up with each other´, no, this is very literally so: my deepest `self´ is no different from your deepest `self´. Today we speak to ourselves happy new year. Now we look to the future and gather our hopes for that. As you know that the North Pole is not where it was two weeks ago and the length of our days is different from what it was in the past, not by much, but the whole planet changed. Looking back can be difficult, and it helps me to remember that, even though we speak of the celebrating of New Year’s as the most ancient of the holy days and holidays, nothing is very ancient right now. We live in a very fresh new world. And we have a long, long way to go. As a human family we have a long way to go to become fully responsible for each other. And as Christians we have a long way to go to digest and make part of our world the teaching of Christ and truly to become the Body of Christ on earth. So, we have a long way to go.

Is there not also a central obscurity, something noble, heroic, beautiful . . . but obscure, obscure? Tolstoi said,”These essays do suggest that he is misty in the middle as well as at the edges, that the secret casket of his genius contains a vapour rather than a jewel”. Moreover the base from which he starts—Christianity “is distasteful to me”(Tolstoi) If anybody had ever struggled with a soul, I am the man. . . . I saw the inconceivable mystery of a soul that knew no restraint, no faith, and no fear, yet struggling blindly with itself.” nevertheless achieves in the course of the novel what one has to call a saving faith, even though he does it at the price of his life. Heyst is not an “infidel…he only thinks he is…Conrad is. Isn’t actually stageable: too much depends on the narrator’s ironic control. For me Victory passes the crudest, indispensable test of tragedy: it makes you cry. That, though, is a necessary but not sufficient condition of tragedy…The tears in Victory are not tragic ones…Heyst says, “She was engaged in the task of defending her position in life. …It’s a very respectable task” Heyst p?re is not systematic but a “destroyer of all systems, of hopes, of beliefs”…Heyst is a post-Hume Victorian unbeliever,…But the philosophical position is strong more by force of character than by any argumentation: “You still believe in something, then? You believe in flesh and blood, perhaps? A full and equable contempt would soon do away with that, too. But since you have not attained to it, I advise you to cultivate that form of contempt which is called pity. . . but all action is bound to be harmful It is devilish. That is why this world is evil upon the whole. But I have done with it! I shall never lift a little finger again. At one time I thought that intelligent observation of facts was the best way of cheating the time which is allotted to us whether we want it nor not; but now I have done with observation, too…by folly alone the world moves. His apparently illogical lurch in to action in the interests of progress, bringing coal as “a great stride forward for these regions”…Heyst has none himself, is never hostile or contemptuous. Compare his narrative to Lena: Being cornered, as I have told you, he went down on his knees and prayed. What do you think of that?” Heyst paused. She looked at him earnestly. You didn’t make fun of him for that?” she said. Heyst made a brusque movement of protest. “My dear girl, I am not a ruffian,” he cried. .. Heyst is in fact as far from Kurtz as from Don Martin Decoud, dying because he can’t stand his own company. Heyst prefers his own company and consistently ascribes all his misfortunes to involvement with the world…“A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth that which is good.”Victory is the story of Heyst’s attainment 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, self-knowledge is of a redeemed state. Heyst the sceptic is unable to resist the temptation of his Christian impulses…Heyst felt a sudden pity for these beings [the lady artists of Zangiacomo’s troupe, exploited, hopeless, devoid of charm or grace, whose fate of cheerless dependence invested their coarse and joyless features with a touch of pathos” (60). Heyst’s goodness—what else to call it?—provokes him to intervene first in the matter of Morrison then in that of Lena,… The Christ-like self-sacrificing love of Lena, for instance, is much clearer in Victory…Heyst-a man more unexpected than an angel. “Nobody has sent me. I just happened along.” In the New Testament our Lord repeatedly assures those he has miraculously healed that their faith has made them whole: without it there would have been no miracle. The moral discovery in Conrad’s Victory is that it may be possible to love God unawares. before Heaven, I am not!’”… As to me, I am no blacker than the gentleman you are thinking of, and I have neither more nor less determination.” It is true that at one point he calls himself “the world itself, come to pay you a visit” But the other signs are consistently Satanic…A man living alone with a Chinaman on an island takes care to conceal property of that kind so well that the devil himself. ”Heyst’s skepticism…Lena or to Heyst, whose convictions are actually redeemed by his passions…Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm mental fog”… You should try to love me!” she said. He made a movement of astonishment…She resisted without a moment of faltering, because she was no longer deprived of moral support; because she was a human being who counted; because she was no longer defending herself for herself alone; because of the faith that had been born in her—the faith in the man of her destiny, and perhaps in the Heaven which had sent him so wonderfully to cross her path…We have here the wholeness of faith…

One of the major themes of Faulkner’s Light in August is the isolation of individuals from communities and from one another. In the first four chapters of the novel, Faulkner presents four major characters, each of whom is separated from society in some important way. Lena Grove, though she relies cheerfully on the kindness of strangers, is morally isolated because of her illicit pregnancy and socially isolated because of her constant traveling. The sullen Joe Christmas is isolated because of his seemingly mixed racial heritage, which causes him to emphasize the differences between himself and those around him. Byron Bunch is, like Lena, morally isolated, though by his own choice; he makes no friends except Gail Hightower and works almost all the time because he is so afraid of how he might spend his time otherwise. Hightower 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 Faulkner portrays inherently inconsistent and self-contradictory nature of identity. People, he argues, 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 Joe Christmas, Faulkner continues to explore the notion of a fluid, unstable, indeterminate identity. Christmas 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 Jefferson, 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, Christmas 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….Although Faulkner often shows us 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 Christmas is caught behind a screen in the dietician’s room, a black comedy of misinterpreted intentions and mistaken impressions ensues. Faulkner’s authorial eye 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 Atkins only at the episode’s end) populate a classic setting of childhood deprivation and abuse: the orphanage. Ultimately, Faulkner’s portrait of Joe’s formative years serves to complicate the moral questions of his tale.

Throughout Light in August, Faulkner 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 Joe Christmas, 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 Joe, memory is a burden that cannot be erased or escaped. With his own life and sense of self so emptied and devalued. Yet Faulkner does not seat his characters in a tidy world of moral absolutes, and we cannot label Joe’s upbringing as the sole cause of his vagrancy and criminal activity. Joe himself also plays an active role in seeking his own demise and self-destruction…Her baby represents a hope and a boundless possibility that Joe 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. Hightower 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 August. The novel resides in a male-centered, male-dominated world, exploring masculine brutality and the idea of the Byronic hero (named for the nineteenth-century English poet Lord Byron)—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, Hightower, despite his isolation, emerges as the philosophical center of the novel—a humanist presence who rejects the rigid moral codes that confine Jefferson’s residents. Hightower’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. Hightower, Lena, and Christmas 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. Hightower 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…Faulkner equates 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…Hightower 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. Hightower entered the seminary and later married, intent on being given a church in Jefferson.
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…I had to do it already in the past tense; I had to do it. She said so herself…Perhaps he realized that he could not escape. Anyway, he stayed…“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.”

Do you know what last 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 last summer. Earlier I have spent many time in an emotion and an enthusiasm. Now I want to give these gifts to the people away. I want to bestow on them my deepest ‘self’ and pray that each man would find employment based on a natural and a rational joy. We may be in own profession. There is precisely the responsibility of me.
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Now a thinker says: I am respectable. If I with you am responsible not only for your corporeal well-being, but also for the orientation and quality of your entire life, this presupposes in me the necessary conditions for such a huge task: benevolence, freedom of action, some wisdom about human destiny, a certain degree of prudence, acquaintance with a good tradition, and so on. But to accept responsibility for your life would be irresponsible if I cannot bear responsibility for myself. But how, through which experiences, do I discover my responsibility for my own life? How do I awaken to the respectability of my own, non-chosen but amazing and amazingly worthy existence? How do I become aware of the «height» of that in me, which orders me «to take good care of myself»? To follow my conscience presupposes that I discover what calls me through it. The substantial or «hypostatic» core of my life precedes my acceptance of the responsibility to which my given self trusts the unfolding of my possibilities. The conscientious realization of my own self is a service that I desire to perform in order to honor the conscience that targets me. On the elementary level of life, my happiness is confirmed and unfolded by an enjoyable transformation of the earth into my home, but the deepest, originary interest or Desire in me is the most disinterested, unselfish, and un-egoistic of all interests. Thinker said: if we are not motivated by this «Desire of the Absolute,» neither my own, nor any other self could inspire any interest in the Good beyond being. Then I think being the result of any kind of cognition, the self’s responsibility to the other who faces is immediate, originary, and irreducible.
Now, You looked at me, his(your) face pained. “Let’s wait outside,” I said. And luck was with us. Probably yet not an interesting life but only the tribulation is gaining on the cosmos. For this reason at last time it would be a great tribulation close to us. We need to invest new forum of collaboration behind a market and bureaucracy also. It is very important to use the sanctions for the irresolute people now It is a need of the reason now, of the political and economical actions for them, an using of your era of power. Once more the process of a responsibility for a power of a state and the church in a new millennium has begun. The church is on the boat of Peter always. But I am never able to see the other as she or he really is. The third impel you to think. So, it is necessary, one should, one ought to fight for every inch of Self’s land, in my self-imposed exile for this a just cause. I’m only responsible for my own attitude; and I have a duty to other people not to lay a downer on them. That’s my own choice, I picked that duty up, nobody laid it on me, I chose it for myself–that is that I don’t want to lay something on somebody else. We have a choice to pick out “duties.” But I’m “responsible” for me. You can’t drink a glass of water for me. You can’t eat a sandwich for me. You could cook a beautiful steak and put it in front of me, but you can’t eat it for me, is that correct? And you can’t go to the bathroom for me. So I’m “responsible” for all that. I’m responsible for how I feel. You can’t think for me. You can’t act for me–you can’t do any of those things. Now, we pick up duties for other people. That’s a free choice. I did it or I did not. I can also lay the “duties” down. Again, it’s a free choice, ok? And I don’t choose to keep some “duty” for eternity, that’s my own choice. And I was responsible for accepting the duty, nobody laid it on me. I did that on my own. “Duty” and “responsibility” are two different things. Duty is what you would have for whoever you want to do it, your mother, your friends, or both, a job, Life whatever you wanted to. But you can pick it up and lay it down. Responsible is what you are for yourself whether you like it or not. There is an ethics in which responsibility is seen to precede freedom has been based on an exercise of any violence. A tribulation of the world may be overcome by a dressing of my own’s wound. So, I am called by your face and you are called by mine, I suppose by our lit up and young eyes more and more. I am concerned about my own destiny because I experience it from within as an awesomely lovable burden, whereas I experience your destiny as the call that liberates me from being imprisoned in endless self-reflection. My caring for you also takes care of my own true self because it promotes me as if I were another Other. For this reason I must honor and love the Self in me as much as You, because You and I meet in the trace of the Good, which has made us responsible keepers of one anOther.(R.Peperzak)
The other is the same as self …So, like masters of the height (or depth), speaking in his uniqueness. The other man in this relationship is beyond any knowledge He remains absolutely in its otherness The other has to bear as an equal among equals The thinkers described the ontological determination of this I They also described that on the interpersonal level as a “way from the others to myself.” “How the Other is also the face and appearance, the defendant and self.
So, a thinker says, that is the identity of the subject not reflexive, but a ethical, since the subject is chosen by others in his uniqueness … A thinker tries to take this opportunity to justify a recourse to Plato’s descriptions of the good to appear the primacy of the ethical. One possibility here is also the way in terms of thinker’s wonder about the passive choice of the self through the calling of arrival through the face of the Other Now we understand better thinker’s the questions: “Why are there beings rather than nothing?” “We must remain in ethics, even if it disappointed and even if it promises nothing. And we have to a faith without a happy ending. Even if you’ve seen the end in Auschwitz, the death of ethics, that is no reason, ethics regarded as dead. I still believe in ethics. The crisis of ethics is no reason not to conduct yourself in accordance with ethical.
A thinker writes: What we are talking about, namely education, civilization, culture, scientific and aesthetic there is a garment spirit of the nation. Why its so different colors we see in this or that time, the other in the east, the other in the north, the west and the south? Naturally, since each people, strange in the old ages, another had a different imagination and poetic inspiration, even the memory of another past time, another reason in philosophy, at the end of another method, or procedures to improve the science and skills. Famous thinker says: “Every spirit of Corinthian’s ore is exposed of the ruins. In fact, only ruins are! Otherwise I cannot understand the man and his history. Primary, never enough no greater depth, the human mind split burst. There is scampered it so that now no way, no effort the agreement and unity with itself, in itself, can not come. In his own heart, we have a great tribulation and storm, in the spirit wear upset. Does this effect is not expressed in the civilization of all peoples? Know yourself is to have the ground beneath himself, and shot inside. (M. Mochnacki)
Then “the people have always lived on hope alone.” So, “not quite here, but yet at hand” A thinker said: The Lord did not created religion, but the world. Then since it is suffering, God by all possible means writes itself. The bible says: At the end of the world would be the great tribulation. Now for that reason we may ask: what is suffering? The most fundamental in me is coming uppermost, and the transient, the sensational, is dispersing. For it can’t adversely influence what is essential to me. That’s why my work is now more powerful and less arbitrary, as if seen by another person, and illuminated from outside. In the midst of the confusions of nature one person trusting eternally in another, and making himself and the other secure through faith. All that’s left now is purely poetic work, putting more life into individual places, as I’ve made so sure of the fundamental mood and dimension of expression that it won’t leave me groping around in uncertainty any more. So I used to be too subjective, and I was always tempted to find my inner self in the exterior and dissipate my imagination on other people and on life.
The great theologian said in an interview: I estimate that what convincingly in Jesus inside were overcome, what occurred, survived was that he was imposing God’s will the specific direction in understanding the intention, in the mood, a sense of meaning, the sense of (full) pleasure (and inclinations), at such and such way of thinking , in this sense that the will of God is truly holy man, and (that) the man also important is as injunctions, but it remains true, and that the Sabbath, for example, is the human will, and that it is more important-that it depends more on the more-which includes a single man does, as that what believes. Goes also to all the many (powerful) things that we know of Jesus, which we learned from him, which we initiated, we remember. We are able to do it, for which we are grateful to him. But in principle this was the so-called, that it is not the knowledge, skills, which leaves us that with us end, peel, and relaxes. Not We should keep it very well in practice: and also by the leadership of the Church should finally once in this way (it) be done. As for the statue of Jesus, it should also be every man for her himself a little care, it should disturb him. I do not want this in a few seconds further developed. To an actual, detailed explanation is not to say we have this conversation almost no pop-up time, time present and so there was no time. Theologian continued in the same interview: I is (something) recognized as legitimate, and it will do. But now trying to convince people. These are the things for which intercede, which I designate as , describe because of the ‘global ethos’ (Weltethos) Here the problem arises because the question of sentence, opinions, otherwise (very different) sound, etc. For this ( to investigate these cases) is required not only political will but also an ethical will, to be able to talk about it. I am of the opinion that it is-what-I said here a very, very basic need some confidence. Well, precisely because (a) all there is deep respect, esteem (Ehrfurcht) with respect to life, you see not kill, “you should not kill. (H. Küng)
This paper, there is the outcome of several years research supported by a tedious, tiring exhausting work. So, we have this idea that we are supposed to be responsible and have responsibility within us. But what if this is not responsibility at all. I’m not saying I would choose “hate or indifference or negativity” over “Responsibility” or compassion or positivity. – But I question myself if I really know what responsible is. So far I’ve been taught that responsibility is when someone does something for you or gives you something or vise versa. and When you don’t give them what they want or don’t give…then Responsibility is questioned. For me the responsibility is as while on the way of Love. I chose the responsibility. And what’s more I’m serious connate with the ethical now. For I’m not in power I’ve begun to hold in great respect a individual contribute, state’s contribute also to happiness of mankind and glory of a Lord God. I’m of the opinion that there is carring of today. Namely a calling to be in own profession. For exemple the people want to be representative themselves on the television and have satisfaction. So I never cite other philosophers as yours.
I bear for the person before me an infinite responsibility which is regularly betrayed for the sake of justice in responsibility for other people, too. The deeper question is how the court can be founded on this betrayal, and how institutions in general can work for the sake of justice through the use of violence. Looked at in this light, these ideals are not merely renewed, but also radically deepened. Instead of being a declaration of individual freedom, they must now be read as a recognition of responsibility for every other human, a responsibility limited only by the finite nature of one’s individual assets. In this paper, the author argues that the metaphysical ground revealed by Lévinas’ work provides the basis intended by the founding fathers for their stated ideals, and also provides a way to approach the practical restoration and renewal of those ideals…
According to Lévinas, our encounter with the other immediately commands responsibility, a responsibility which emerges out of the transcendence of the other. This suggests a re-thinking of conventional notions of sovereignty also. On the one hand without an account of the problem of subjectivity, it is impossible to construct any adequate and satisfactory theory of consciousness. On the other hand Although the thinker of contemporary argues that justice must be globalized, she rejects a world state because such a state would require the use of military force or coercion. The thinker argues for the superiority of her capabilities approach against the social contract tradition. The strength of her capabilities approach, lies in her rejection of the Kantian and Rawlsian conception of the person as a rational being. The capabilities approach, by contrast, sees rationality and animality as thoroughly unified.(M.Nussbaum)

There is life of yours. A poet says: You dropped your whispers: We are never going to die, you fool! T he essence of our soul most pure will speak to you. No more the flesh but still providing ecstasy. We bards forever never do depart. But why’s your picture withered now? Why does your face look pale and grey? There’s sorrow in your tone. And slowly, oh so slowly all your words will fade. “We grieve about our art. It’s nothing but a shadow. We’ve touched upon the essence but still we grope the dark. Go on ahead, you brave man! Search further, further still. Lead us down the hall where Stillness rules. That finally our voice may rest. And you may rest upon the Timeless. Voices of time once golden! May Stillness be your arts transcendence. Find out the longing of your youth. Make ignorance look pale. Do not betray the fresh desires of spring. That autumn yield abundant happiness. And fertile be the soil of winter.
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Stanislav Barszczak: To come to the most intelligent man’s help

Listen to Chopin. Take long walks. Ask yourself what you did now. Do that every night. Before you go to sleep, ask yourself if the world is better because of you. After all, it’s your world. You are the world. So, take responsibility for your actions. Someone once said, “Excuses won’t lift your butt?” Listen to that. Believe that with all your heart. “Plus ratio quam vis.” Confess something about yourself to a friend-something awful, something you’d never want anyone to know. You’ll feel better. You’ll still see that you’re worthy of love. And since your friend is you, you are really just telling yourself. Have an interest in everything. Thirst for knowledge. Remember that it’s all about you. When you learn about other thing, you are actually learning about yourself. Get to know you better. Now, your behaviour is worthy of praise.

You face me, I am the one who, while enjoying my life in the world, am summoned to make place for you. By addressing me, you are the first who shows me the meaning of a human face. You open the dimension of ethics by the command that targets me when you look at me or speak to me. Independently of all your wishes and motivations, by simply being yourself, but against the ego-centered intentions of my enjoyment, you offer me a meaning for my life, which, thereby, is revealed as being more and different than a possibility of enjoying everything that comes my way. The meaning you impose on me lies in my devotion to you, my responsibility for you — not only for your future, but also for your past and presence with all the right and wrong they contain. I can become a saint by carrying your burdens with you. By serving you, I will at the same time accomplish, as far as I can, my own destiny…
But the Other is described in our work. I appear to myself otherwise than others appear to me: I do not look at myself and I do not speak to myself as if I were two persons at the same time, but, in a certain, further to be determined sense, I too am an Other for myself. If it is at all possible to experience myself as somehow commanding, summoning, or obligating me, this experience of my own otherness must be described in a simultaneously different and analogically similar way. Other is me! For you (the Other)also are needy, my responsibility for you includes your enjoyable use of worldly goods for making you good and happy. Your enjoyment of the earth and its elements is a purpose, and thus a part, of my dedication to you; even if I must sacrifice my pleasures to your well-being, such devotion belongs to the accomplishment of both your and my own destiny… The Other, Autrui, is you who, by facing me, awaken me to my incessant responsibility for you. This responsibility does not stop at feeding, clothing, healing, and protecting you against dangers. Your humanization demands education and civilization. It also includes my responsibility for your moral growth, which includes your moral awakening and your acceptance of your own responsibility. Within the limits that your singular destiny and your freedom impose on me, I am responsible for your responsibility. I awaken and encourage you, and cooperate with your taking responsibility for other Others: him, her, them, and… me!
Your being responsible for me confirms what I said above it links you and me by a double bond, which is stronger than any unilateral devotion. Mutual and generous(‘asymmetric’) responsibility, implied in the meeting of your and my own «heights», is essential for the universal responsibility that regards not only you, but all those others who may become and are already waiting for being linked to you or me: he, she, they and all of them.
When the great writer insists on my responsibility for the entire humanity, this seeming exaggeration is a consequence of the fact that every human individual has a face and that the unicity of each potential you is as absolute as that of you who face me here and now. The problem that emerges from the multiplicity of yous that obligate me, is that it seems to annul the infinity of your command and my total dedication: how could I be as completely and endlessly responsible for all possible or virtual yous as I am for you who here and now regard me? Will my being-for-you then not be scattered into minimal and irrelevant portions of service to innumerable yous?
The problem is aggravated by the fact that the pronoun «we» does not receive much emphasis in thinkers’ analyses. If the asymmetric relation that dedicates me to you cannot be reversed (you are also responsible for me), the emergence of an authentic we becomes very difficult, because then no ego, no I or me, can share in the rights of all Others. If, on the contrary, it is correct to state that the originary asymmetry is reciprocal and chiastic between each You and me, then we can at least speak of a nuclear We that unites you and me through a relation of mutual care from which some kind of solidarity or even friendship may arise. But even this is not yet enough for constituting the broader «we» of a society. Thinker mentions the human fraternity that issues from creation. He says here about the constitution of communal structures that differ from my interpersonal relations to other individuals.(Mitsein)
Does the latter question betray the unicity of each you or I? Must we maintain a radical and ultimate separation between all face-to-face relations and those social relations that tie us together as sharing members of encompassing communities, must we stick to an absolute separation between you and me, on the one hand, and a massive gathering that unites all of them, on the other?
It is certainly important to prevent your unicity and my own from drowning in the anonymous mass of a totalizing realm. Each individual’s destiny is so radically different from each other’s that no You or I can ever be reduced to a mere component of some higher, all-encompassing union or communal unity. Insofar as You or I are merely parts of a supra-individual or infra-singular reality, we are no longer You and I, but instances of one and the same universal that only allows for variations.
In the strong sense of You-as-high, you correlate with me, your servant, who find myself dedicated to you despite myself (malgré-moi). I discover my self as ethically situated and determined by your existence. But there are other figures of the Other in thinkers’ work, and, since each figure of the Other induces a corresponding figure of Me, there are as many configurations of «the I».
Within the horizons of the egocentric economy, my dwelling in the world would be cold and barren without intimacy with a feminine other, who creates the homely climate of a house. Phenomenology of dwelling shows that being at home (chez soi) in the world demands more than material protection. It also includes a human and humane companionship. When written by a man, such a phenomenology will easily evoke the feminine tenderness (la douceur féminine) of someone who, as such, veils and mitigates the rigor of persistent demands and commands by showing the welcoming warmth of ongoing hospitality. Thinker emphasized that the «feminine» component of «homeliness» can also be represented by men. The home of a homosexual couple, for example, would demand an analogically similar and different description.
How is the intimacy of a hospitable home related to the erotic intimacy of lovers who are driven by a seeking that is neither Desire nor a mere need, but still a form of mutual enjoyment open to a hidden future? Love opens a dimension that is neither merely needy, nor already ethical. Here I am not yet confronted with my ethical destiny. Being at home in the world and belonging to a history of love and procreation condition my self-appropriation and the realization of my destiny, but they do not yet show the ultimate meaning of human lives. The life always limited but real, degree fulfilled or to live, like Moses, for a history that goes on after one’s death. The «infinition» of a mortal life that is relived in others, history as messianic endeavor and expectation, is that the final hope that emerges from obedience to the unchosen but embraced election that consumes our lives? Is this the final meaning of «the I», of Me who find myself subjected to each and all of those who come my way? I suppose even the greatest uncertainty about the meaning of history cannot destroy my substitution for the Other(s). I like You.
I myself. Desire, Needs, You, He/She/They, the beloved Companion, the Father, and the Son, all of these reveal correlated figurations of Me. I am a multitude of figures, while maintaining one unique happiness. How can these figurations of my self compose one singular individuality? The main tension, or rather, the real struggle, that seems to split me in two different orientations is caused by the opposition between the Desire of the Absolute that draws me out of myself, on the one hand, and the needs that imprison me in a hedonic «interiority», on the other. Both orientations are constitutive of my existence, but they seem to exclude a synthesis. What I must learn and perform is a true or a conversion from my being steeped in narcissism to complete devotion. I must give my bread to the hungry, my energy to those who need help, my thoughts to the child that needs education. I must spend my life and work for the survival of the wounded, the liberation of the persecuted, and the salvation of the abused. But giving my life for others implies that I die and my needs with it. Are we summoned to sacrifice ourselves and to become saints like the Servant of the Lord? Must I hate my own life in order to be devoted? Insofar as human existence participates in being-as-intéressement, it is essentially egoistic. A thinker evokes a primordial level or dimension of being that precedes the interested endeavour of life. The «be-ing» of «there was» or «there is» must be characterized as the opposite of any giving or granting, as another thinker would have it when he evokes being’s generosity through the German formula Es gibt.
Thinker describes our being steeped in the unlimited and indefinable (apeiron) kind of being evoked by a burden from which we cannot escape, a meaningless charge that weighs on me and resists my liberation. It makes me guilty and accusable before I have had any chance to position myself with regard to the existence of the world, humanity, or myself. Its impersonal and wholly indeterminate obscurity is what weighs me down and makes me guilty by association. For it is only by awakening to faces that light and goodness are revealed to me, so that my existence may discover a meaning and a destiny. Then my addiction to life at any cost, the self-enclosing narcissism that never seems to abandon me completely, shows affinity with the tendential returning toward chaos that precedes creation. Transcendence, Desire of the Good, saves me from drowning in the burden (apeiron) that draws me down into an idleness from which only a more radical interest, the interestedness in your true interests, can save me.
So, we find the root of evil in the most primitive levels of being itself. Thinkers refer to a source that precedes the human capacity of making conscious choices: in acting badly, we are seduced, and by acting well, we testify to our being-for-the Other and thus to the Good that empties our egoism. Their description of being as a selfish effort portrays this self-promoting process as motivated by an unchosen kind of self-determination that precedes and tempts the human will. Being itself is driven by a tendency that prefigures the voluntary preference for my own interest over yours. But the Good itself, as «uncontaminated by being», is generous.
If my self-interested effort, my enjoyment, as participation in the all-encompassing intéressement of being, constituted my happiness, I would never be able to be completely dedicated to the Other, completely «yours». Not only would I then never be able to perform the infinite task of serving you, but I must then continually «expiate» the self-preference that I cannot stop performing. If I cannot put an end to my self-enjoyment, because I am imprisoned in my egoism, I am and remain necessarily guilty and stand rightly «accused» of not taking my being-for-you seriously enough. My guilt is aggravated if my obligations do not only signify my responsibility for your well-being, but also, more radically, my incessant substitution for you. As such, I am guilty of your guilt and responsible for your responsibility, liable for your misdeeds and the entirety of your life, like «the servant of the Lord».
I am responsible for you, so I cannot and should not take away your liberty, does not mean that my life can replace the entirety of your life, because this would erase your freedom and your own responsibility. Nor can I burden you with the entirety of my words, deeds, and thoughts. My life is then not empty but meaningful. as I live for you, I realize what I am supposed to realize as being always already dedicated to you, even if the ensuing emptying exhausts me. If I die because I let you eat my bread, I cannot indulge in materiality of life and neglect the interestedness of my needs; but does the realization of an utterly dedicated — and thus meaningful — life exclude all kinds of joy, contentment, delight, or jubilation? No! Even suffering can be undergone without destroying the experience of a certain joy that accompanies devotion. It is often necessary to accept pain, suffering, and death for you.
A different point of view on your and my survival can arise from scarcity. But always «I am happy about your success.» «I enjoy our conversation and your enjoying it». «I intensely desire that your best desires be fulfilled, even if it costs me a lot». «I am happy because you are happy and I would not be happy if you were not». However, if it is possible to show that my service and responsibility for your true interest does not exclude but includes the realization of my own life’s true interest, then my being-for-you does not destroy, but, on the contrary, fosters the main task of my life and the fulfillment of my destiny. This would not exempt me from sacrificing certain kinds of interest, not even from suffering and dying in your place, but it would integrate these sacrifices into the decisive meaning of my own life as much as yours.
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Stanisław Barszczak- Fantom Opery

Osoby:
Charlotta, Christina, Pani Dai, mała Lota, Raul, Faust jako fantom opery; wszyscy raczej młodzi, w odświętnych strojach

Miejsce:
Bal w Operze Bytomskiej albo w Filharmonii Berlińskiej, który przypomina atmosferę koncertów filharmoników wiedeńskich, cudownie oświetlona grota, cmentarz w zimie

(Wszystkie części sztuki mogą być odśpiewane na wybraną melodię. Tancerze i uczestnicy balu odśpiewują razem prolog)

Trucizna życia zawsze już była na świecie,
Maska ludzkości kroczy przez dzieje wciąż jeszcze przed nami…

On krzyczy: „ona chciała mnie zabić pierwszego”
Ona mu wtóruje: „nie pragnę jeszcze śmierci”

(Przejawem odwiecznych pragnień ludzkości kolejny bal w teatrze, na który przybywają Faust nocy, fantom opery, współczesny don Juan, zjawa wieszcząca obecną moc muzyki, Christina- jego odwieczna powiernica, Charlotta, Pani Dai, Raul- nowy adorator Christiny. Podczas tańca na balu trwa nieustanna maskarada, przed nami przechodzą tancerze, pośród nich Charlotte- Dyrektor Teatru, don Juan, kolejne tony pieśni przejmują kolejno primadonna Pani Dai oraz Christina, która z donośnym głosem śpiewa przeuroczo)

I

Charlotte przerywa taniec

-Czyje to oblicze w masce?

Faust przybywa w masce i zwraca się do nadzwyczaj pięknie ubranej Christiny

-Przez muzykę moja dusza zaczęła się wznosić…
Pozwól mi czynić muzykę nocy
Obwieszczać moc muzyki nocy…
Dotknij mnie, usłysz mnie-zbawcę każdego z ludzi.

II

(Jaskinia-pełna światła, blasku, złota i wielu wód jedynego uroku)

-Zabrałem cię do jaskini światła i wiecznych źródeł…
Ta grota to miejsce ostatniego szczęścia,
Zobacz mój triumf-rzecze
-Zabrałem cię tutaj, nie będziesz mi już śpiewać…
Księżniczko mocy mojej muzyki…
Ale zostaw mnie samego!

-Jesteśmy tak blisko siebie…
Trzymaj rękę na poziomie twoich ócz,
Mi z tobą dobrze, wszystko to stało się w pośrodku nas,
Ale musimy wrócić!

Faust z maską na prawym oku najpierw jakby do siebie, następnie zwraca się do Christiny

-Zbudziła mnie i dała mi muzykę…
Pozwól mi być twym ramieniem,
Dziel ze mną dzień i noc,
Powiedz mi, że mnie kochasz w czasie lata jutra,
Gdzie pójdziesz pozwól mi iść razem z tobą…
Inaczej przeklinam cię
i wszystko to, o co cię prosiłem!

Christina do Fausta

-Strzeż mnie i prowadź…

III

(Bal w Operze, Charlotta wychodzi do ludzi zebranych na dziedzińcu przed Operą, wymijająco odpowiada na pytania reporterów i publiczności. Zabiera głos jeden z reporterów)

-Adoratorzy są na kolanach…
Twoja publiczność oczekuje cię…
bo on nie umiera.

Charlotta zwraca się do tancerzy

-Istotnie odchodzę!

(Maskarada na balu trwa dalej, Faust w pełnej masce przechodzi pośród zwierciadeł)

Christina do Fausta

– Przez osiem lat geniusz zamienił się w galaretę z błota…
Co z ciebie pozostało…
Naucz się, jak być samotny!

Christina w sali balowej najpierw do siebie, następnie do Raula, w tym czasie Pani Dai stale śpiewa

-We śnie mi śpiewał,
W marzeniach do mnie przyjeżdżał,
Nosił moje imię.

(do Fausta)

-Nie jestem sama,
Raul cię uśmierca.
Ty potrzebujesz mnie…
Naucz się być samotny!

IV

(Cmentarz przyprószony śniegiem, mała Lota przechadza się pośród mogił, ponieważ ojciec jej wiele obiecał. Faust najpierw do siebie, następnie do Cristiny)

-Byłem moim marzeniem,
Potem przyszedł cień.

Christina

-Pragnę usłyszeć twój głos raz jeszcze…
Byłeś ciepły i miły,
Naucz mnie żyć,
Nie patrzeć na zmarnowane lata,
Pomóż mi powiedzieć goodbye

Przybywa Raul i śpiewa

-Zostałem sam, ale wcześnie poznałem przyjaciół,
Następnie starałem się ze wszystkich sił
Realizować marzenia mego serca,
I mogłem je wreszcie zrealizować,
Ponieważ byłem im zawsze wierny.

Faust do Christiny

-Kiedy już wychowałem Lotę
Zaparłaś się mnie, anioła muzyki.

V

(Po walce z Faustem Raul doznaje ran. Scena przenosi nas do Teatru, ma miejsce pożar w teatrze, żyrandol spada na publiczność. Wybrani artyści, z pierścieniami na palcach, ale i z pewnym przerażeniem podejmują słowa)

-Don Juan przybywa, gdy jesteśmy martwi…
Dlatego on znów nigdy nie wiedział będzie
Jak czeka przyszłość jego i człowieka.

(monumentalne marmurowe schody pełne światła po których przemieszczają się goście opery i nasi bohaterowie, następnie z rozświeconych czeluści słychać głos zdecydowanego Fausta przy którym znów jest Christina)

-Wejdź w loch mego piekła…
Żadnego współczucia –Dlaczego!

Christina do Fausta

-Bądź samotny!

Epilog

(Kurtyna zapada, za to przed fleszami i kamerami na siedząco występuje kapłan ludzkości, ubrany jak stary marynarz kieruje w stronę publiczności zachęcające słowa)

Całe odkupienie zdaniem apostoła narodów ziemi, świętego Pawła ,jest zakorzenione w planie i wypełnieniu troistego Boga. Nie zbawiamy się w pojedynkę. Nasza samotność oparta została na chwale Ojca, Syna i Ducha Świętego. A jak ty możesz dzisiaj się zbawić? Wyobraź sobie, że Syn Boga-Jezus mówi do ciebie: Muszę zatrzymać się w twoim domu dzisiaj. Jak zareagowałbyś na to zaproszenie? Czy twój dom będzie gotowy? Czy będziesz osobiście gotowy powitać Jezusa w twoim domu? Na ziemi Pan Bóg jest jak poranna rosa, jak zmierzymy wymiar ludzkiego bycia? Gdybyśmy wyznaczali miary dla świętości, to Bóg kocha bardziej to, co jest większe. Bóg dał Syna. W jego miłosierdziu skierowanym do wszystkich Pan ogląda grzechy ludzi, tak że wszyscy mogą za nie żałować. Przez boskie miłosierdzie Boga widzimy wypełnienie miłosiernej obietnicy. Nawet z racji na ich niesprawiedliwość, wszystkich ludzi, ja nie będę pamiętał ich grzechu więcej-powiedział Pan. Taka konwersja może tylko być rezultatem miłości i łaski miłosiernego Pana. Zresztą łaska kosztuje tak Chrystusa jak i nas. Przez uczynienie szlachetnego aktu odkupienia grzeszników niebieski ojciec jest nieustannie wielbiony. Jezusowe spotkanie z Zacheuszem nie było okazyjne. Pan Bóg wezwał kolekcjonera podatków, zdeprawowanego Zacheusza w unikatowy sposób. Co on uczynił? Nie miał trudności wspiąć się na drzewo, ponieważ sykomora ma nisko i szerokie gałązki. Był szczęśliwy powitać Jezusa. Za to oni szemrali między sobą, ludzie obgadywali Jezusa. Zamieszkanie Jezusa u Zacheusza symbolizuje zupełnę przemianę każdego właśnie dzisiaj. Albowiem tak realizuje się uniwersalne zbawienie Boże, w obliczu innych wrażliwych ludzi przez naszą większą odpowiedzialność od innych. W tym roku przeżywamy raz jeszcze Wigilię-wciąż jeszcze jeden z najwspanialszych wymysłów ludzkości, który jest rodzony tej nocy. Jest tylko jeden Zbawiciel ludzkości. Z Chrystusem długi za (wszystkie)grzechy zostały spłacone, dlatego powinniśmy nieustannie adorować z aniołami Boga. Jezus Chrystus jest racją dla Bożego Narodzenia. Nasz obecny trud będzie miał koniec. Misja Jezusa to celebracja zbawienia. Bóg chce, żebyśmy go znali, znali jego plan dla świata i wobec nas. Widzi nas zupełnie odmiennie jak my sami widzimy siebie. Ma wspaniały plan zbawienia każdego z nas. Jaki jest twój wybór dzisiaj? Przyjmijcie zatem Chrystusa, który kiedyś już przyszedł ku nam niczym Boża Dziecina, która spoczywała raz na kamiennym żłobie, to znów na wyścielonej drabinie może- tym samym przyjmijcie wszyscy życzenia Szczęśliwych Bożych Świąt!
Koniec

Stanisław Barszczak – Podróż do Indii
Żeby zrozumieć świat, musisz najpierw zrozumieć miejsce, które cię fascynuje, ot takie przykładowo amerykańskie Missisipi…Kochani wybrałem się w podróż tym razem do Indii via Warszawa-Paryż-Mumbai. Mam już nawet zdjęcie na tle Hotelu w Mumbai, który palił się przed rokiem za sprawą terrorystow. Tą drogą żyjąc w galaktyce ‘niepotrzebnego’ nasłuchuję obecnie takiej a nie innej prawdy życia. Stąd najserdeczniesze pozdrowienia niejako z dalekich Indii zasyła profesor Stanisław. To właśnie ja. Teraz zamierzam napisać coś nowego, właśnie o Indiach, byśmy mogli uczynić sobie obraz tej dalekiej i nieco innej kultury na wielkim kontynencie azjatyckim. Już dzisiaj czytam w języku hindi o tej przedziwnej kulturze ludów Wschodu.Wylądowałem na lotnisku międzynarodowym w Mumbai w nocy z 1 na 2 grudnia 2009 roku. Następnego dnia tym razem niejako na drodze do głęboko katolickiej krainy w Indiach, Kerala, zatrzymujemy się na placówkach misyjnych w pobliżu Goa. Mszę świętą mogliśmy sprawować w rycie syro-malabarskim, zatwierdzonym przez kościół. Poznaję z zapraszającym mnie księdzem Profesorem szkołę dla dzieci hinduskich, także przedszkole. Po pobycie u Pallotynów w Goa zwiedzam to miasto świętego Frańciszka Ksawerego, który tu przybył przed pięciuset laty. Następnie jedziemy pociągiem całą noc na północ Indii, by poznać święte miasto Ujjain. Tutaj zamieszkałem w Seminarium Diecezji Ujjain- „Ruhajala”-miejsce Ducha świętego. Po przedstawieniu mnie w refektarzu przez księdza Rektora, w następnym dniu mówię kazanie w języku angielskim w tutejszej pięknej kaplicy. Przytaczam epizod spotkania Chrystusa z Zacheuszem, mówię nie tyle o okazji, ale o unikatowym spotkaniu człowieka z Bogiem. Nawiąże tutaj do epizodu szwedzkiego Potopu w Polsce, mówię o Jasnej Gorze. Kazanie podobało się bardzo. Ponieważ jedyną jedność przeżywamy w domu-dodaję- do zobaczenia w domu w niebie. W Sali wykładowej z kolei daję wykład z filozofii Emmanuela Levinasa. Jak kiedyś w Chorwacji tak i tutaj rozegrałem mecz, tym razem w piłkę możną. Mój zespół pokonał drużynę przeciwną 3:2. W czasie mego pobytu w Ujjain jestem na festynie z racji Dnia Dziecka w Indiach, następnie jestem na zapowiedzianej audiencji u Księdza Biskupa Sebastiana Vidikala. Oglądam świątynie hinduskie, bywam przyjmowany w misjach sióstr św. Józefa i Karmelitanek. Nabieram kontaktow akademickich. Spinam się do napisania tekstów do czasopism anglojęzycznych. Po powrocie do Mumbai taksówką, wspominam mój pobyt z drugiego dnia podróży w Kurii Archidiecezji w Mumbai, gdzie spotkałem się z biskupem Agnelo. Zwiedzam przeurocze miejsca dawnego Bombaju z plażą Juhu, na której rozmawiałem w tym samym czasie z młodymi Muzułmanami, Hindusami. Jeden sprzedawał przepiękne mapy Indii, drugi prosił o papierosy, bo-jak mówił- dopiero gdy zapali papierosa wówczas przeżywa jedyną radość tego dnia. Zatem teraz na drugi dzień po podróży do Indii mogę powiedzieć, że jestem dziś bardziej kompletny i wszystko mnie bardziej interesuje…Miasto Bombay, od 1996 roku Mumbai- to nieskończona róznorodność, która fascynuje zwiedzających. Muzea, jednak nieliczne kościoły, za to meczety, synagogi, bazary…Bombay był pod panowaniem rządców hinduskich od szóstego wieku, ostatecznie został wzięty przez Sułtana Gujaratu w XIV wieku. Następnie zarządzany był przez Admirała ze strony Brytyjczyków. Oglądałem rezydencję Admirała z XVIII wieku, w jej pobliżu ewangelicki kościół. Miasto Mumbai jest domem kilku najbardziej ważnych i najpiękniejszych budynków Indii, każdy z nich ma bogatą własną historię:1/ the Gateway of India. Najbardziej romantyczny łuk w stanie Maharashtra. Ten łuk został zbudowany, ażeby upamiętnić przybycie tutaj Królowej Marii i króla Jerzego V w 1911 roku. Z bazaltu, wysoki na 26 metrów. 2/ Naval Dockyard- w XVIII wieku Bombay- archipelag siedmiu wysp-centrum indyjskiej marynarki. 3/the lock Tower- wieża miasta 4/ the National Galery of Modern Art. (the Jehangir Art. Gallery, the Chhatrapati Shivai -Museum , pamiątka wizyty króla Edwarda VII. 5/ Bombay Stock Exchange on Dalal street- giełda. 6/ Jaskinie na wyspach-Elephanta caves, Karla caves, Kanheri caves- pomniki buddyjskiej architektury i kultury. 7/ Okoliczne wzgórza-the hill stations Matheran, Lonovala, Khandala 8/ Dzielnicę Bollywood- przemysł rozrywkowy 8/ przepiękny kościół katolicki na wzgórzu Marii- w dzielnicy Bandra ; byłem tez w kościele Salezjanów 9/meczet-the Dargah (tomb or mosque) – grobowiec Haji Ali, zbudowany w 1431 roku, „pieszczony przez przemiłe fale i słony wiatr”, powierzchnia 4500 metrów, z wieżą 26 metrów. 10/ Hinduska the Malaxmi Temple z XVIII wieku, ku czci bogini Laxmi bogactwa i pomyślności(prosperity). 11/ Shirdi Vinayak Temple, pana Ganesha boga sukcesu. 12/ The Mumba Devi Mandir z 1675 na uczczenie bogini Mumba Devi…Do bogów hinduskich należą: Brahma, Vishnu, Pan Shiva…Mumbai może być spostrzegany jako mikrokosmos sekularyzmu, z którego Indie są znane…Co zwiedzałem w Świętym miescie Ujjain? Kal Bhairav Temple, Kshipra River RamGhat, Mahakaleshwar Temple, Mangal Nath Temple(chyba najpiękniejsza), Sandipni Ashram gdzie Pan Krishna pobierał naukę. Wreszcie wspomniane już przepieknie położone Seminarium Ruhalaja w scenerii podmiejskiej wioski. Tutaj wolność myśli i wyrażania są uniwersalnymi ludzkimi prawami. Dlatego te wolności nie powinni być nigdzie ograniczane przez użycie narodowego sentymentu, moralnych wrażliwości czy biznesu albo militarnych interesów. Cenię teraz jeszcze bardziej szacunek dla mniejszości…Jeden z laureatów nagrody Nobla powiedział: Ja nie należę, (za to) zawsze czułem sens inności. Nie myślę, że czuję się w domu na Zachodzie czy też nie na Zachodzie. (Za to) mam obawę przynależenia (wszędzie tam) gdziekolwiek idę…Żyjąc w tym samym miejscu -nie znaczy to, że jestem wygodny(confortable)… Kiedy z kolei teraz ja poznaję dalekie miejsca hinduskie, z ich przebogatą tradycją, zaraz cisną mi się na myśl wyrazy najwyższego szacunku dla tych ludzi, którzy tu żyją i pracują. Miliard ludzi w Indiach, co pięć metrów drugi człowiek…Ludzie przeróżnie ubrani, biednie, ale myślę, że są bardzo szczęśliwi. Ta podróż do Indii to obecne drogi patrzenia i czucia wewnętrznych prac człowieka. ( will join we anywhere but home…inner workings…ways of looking and feeling)…Ktoś powie, chyba wszyscy powiemy, ale twoje spojrzenie daje dziwne, tajemnicze znaczenie tym lichym detalom szos hinduskich. Kochani wszystkie te rzeczy, które tam widzialem konstytuują-powiem-rdzeń miasteczka mojej młodości. A każde miasto w tym fasonie jest bardzo różne. Otóż nie można dać obrazu hinduskiego miasta ‘według pocztowki’- ale faktycznie zgodnie z jego wewnetrzną istotą, z krojem tkaniny- to jest to, co zamierzyłem obecnie. Tak dużo ludzi przyszło i chodziło po ziemi hinduskiej, ale niektórzy z nich ominęli cały punkt istotnej prawdy o tej ziemi i narodzie ją zamieszkujacym…Niektórzy mieli ‘coś z tego’, ale najwięcej obcokrajowcow widzialo i zwróciło uwagę na egzotykę tej krainy raczej jak na jej rzadkość. Powiem, ominęli istotę(texture), charakter miasteczka. Inna sprawa z kolei to są dzwięki-rzeczy, które słychać w każdym miasteczku, a które są różne. W zachodnich miastach dzwięk kolei lub metra jest bardzo szczególny i to pozostaje w twojej duszy i gdziekolwiek słyszysz go, na przykład w filmie, nagle wszystkie pamięci miasta budzą się w tobie. W Istambule są to syreny statków, piski z komina, fale Bosforu uderzające o mola wzdłuż zatok i “glossy” staromodnych małych łódek. W Paryżu urok placu przed katedrą Notre Dame, widok Sekwany i tutejszych kamienic, metro wyjeżdżające na powierzchnie przy wiezy Eiffla. Do końca moich dni będę nosił w sercu obraz miasta Ujjain jakby z zatrzymanego czasu, epoki może sprzed lat trzystu, bieda jakby dokoła, a zaraz za murem bogactwo kościoła, z uwagi na ocierające się o mnie hinduskie krowy, kozy, owce, odczuwałem jedyną wesołość tej krainy. Moje Ząbkowice-powiedziałbym- że są na marginesie Europy, a nie w centrum. I to mama dała mi ten substancjalny przydział, czas tolerancji świata. Tedy nigdy ich nie zostawiłem, to miasteczko idzie wszędzie za mną…Przed laty domagałem się siebie jako podmiotu, istotnie wybrałem podmiot jedynej obrony godności człowieka…Tym samym już przekroczyłem -choć nie pozostawiłem- wręcz podarowany mi substancjalny obraz zycia, a kroczę ku niesubstancjalnym przebłyskom buddyjskiego swiatła, otwieram się na nierealność życia, by tą drogą dotrzec do głębi ludzkiego losu. Na powrot tutaj niejako spotykam Chrystusa…Dzisiaj też dostrzegam lepiej biedy naszych dni-polityczną regulację języka, psychologiczne doświadczenie gwałtu, ignorancję osobliwości, wielkości bliźniego, urokliwości(particularity)innego jak mało kto. Przez wszystko do mnie przemawiałeś Panie…tam w Indiach, przez terenową eskapadę w nieznane gazikiem z grupą wiąż młodych wyznawcow Chrystusa ze Stowarzyszenia sw. Tomasza Apostoła, przez nawiedzenie świątyń hinduskich, poznawanie imion ich bogow, przez bardzo przyjaznych ludzi, przez przemiłe powitania. Na odpuście św. Frańciszka Ksawerego w Goa zostałem uroczyscie przedstawiony jako kapłan z Polski. Korzystałem na liturgii z pomocy w tamtejszym jezyku, na którym są życzenia dla wszystkich, własnie szczęśliwych świąt. I tego więc wam dziś, po siedemnastodniowej podrózy mojej do Indii, niejako do innej kultury, wszystkim życzę. Przepraszam wreszcie za nieopierzone myśli, a dla wszystkich Czytelników załączam jak zawsze wyrazy najwyższego szacunku.
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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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