“I feel fine now. Don’t look at me like that, brother,” Moliwda says, and pulls his habit over his head.
A carriage waits in front of the monastery, and in it is clothing for Antoni Kossakowski, known as Moliwda: trousers, a shirt, a Polish ?upan, and a modest kontusz, dark in color, with a dark belt, no ostentation. To the prior of the monastery he has offered financial support, although the prior still seems slightly disappointed. After all, Moliwda-Kossakowski appears to be truly devout—he often spent whole days and nights in prayer, lying as though on the cross in the chapel, never wanting to leave the picture of Our Lady Queen of the World, to which he had taken such a liking. He rarely said a word to the brothers, and he declined to participate in the monastery’s daily tasks—it was hard for him to accustom himself to the monastery’s ways. Now he walks before his colonel brother, sticking close to the wall, his hand gliding over the bricks, his bare feet inside their sandals irritating his brother—feet should be shod, preferably in boots with bootlegs, in military style. Naked feet suggest peasants, Jews.
“I made use of all of my influences to get you into the royal chancellery. You got good backing, too, from the primate himself, and that was what did it. They don’t remember anything else about you. They do care a great deal about your knowledge of languages . . . I don’t want any gratitude from you, I’m doing this so that the soul of our dearly departed mother may rest in peace.”
When the carriage starts up, Antoni suddenly kisses his brother’s hand and starts to sob. The colonel clears his throat, embarrassed. He wants Antoni’s return to occur in a masculine manner and with dignity, as befits a person of noble birth. Of his younger brother he thinks: What a failure. What could have guided him to a monastery, when so much ill is occurring in this country? Whence these attacks of melancholy, while the nation-state, run by a young and foolish king, falls into ever greater dependency on the tsarina?
“You know nothing at all, brother, as you have been hiding within the monastery walls, leaving your country in need,” he says reproachfully and disgustedly, turning his gaze out the little carriage window.
And then, as if not to his brother, but to the landscape outside:
“In the Sejm, four members of the parliament of the Republic were dragged off the bench by henchmen of the empress’s ambassadors. They treated them like they were a bunch of bumpkins . . . For what reason, you may ask? Oh, but of course: they dared oppose the reforms for the religious dissenters that they’re trying to impose here by force.”
Now that same righteous indignation he felt when he first heard of that barbarity returns; he turns once more to his brother, still in tears, now wiping his eyes with his sleeve:
“They refused, and shouted, which led to a great uproar, since some of the members of parliament tried to side with them, and then—”
“Who were the members who were so brave? Do you know them?” Moliwda interrupts him, as if he’s just woken up again.
The colonel, glad his words are having some effect on his brother, responds animatedly:
“Absolutely. Za?uski, So?tyk, and the two Rzewuskis. The rest of the members, when they saw the army—the Russian army—coming in ready to shoot, simply shouted, ‘Shame, shame, they’re invading the Sejm,’ but those Muscovites couldn’t have cared less and dragged those four out of the room, too. Fat old So?tyk, all red in the face, near to an apoplexy, tried to resist them and ended up grabbing on to some piece of furniture, but they still overpowered him. And you can imagine, the rest of them just let it happen, damn them all, those cowards!”
“And what did they do with those four? Are they in prison?” asks Moliwda.
“If only it had been prison!” cries the colonel, now fully facing his brother. “They sent them straight out of the Sejm to Siberia, and the king didn’t even lift a finger!”
They both fall silent for a moment. The carriage is entering some small town, and the wheels start to clatter over the cobblestones.
“But why are they so determined not to give rights to religious dissenters?” asks Moliwda, as the wheels return to their soft, muddy ruts.
“What do you mean, why?” Moliwda’s brother cannot comprehend this question. After all, it is crystal clear that salvation can come only through the Holy Roman Church. Wanting leniency for Lutherans or Jews or Aryans is regular devilry. And why should Russia be interfering in their affairs? “What are you talking about?” he says, unable even to find the words.
“Wherever I have wound up in the world,” says Moliwda, “I have seen that maybe there is just one God, but that the ways of believing in Him are many, maybe even infinite . . . All kinds of different shoes can tread a path to God . . .”
“You should keep quiet about that,” his brother snaps. “That is a great stain on your honor. It is a good thing that your ignoble past is nearly forgotten now.” And he puckers his lips like he wants to spit.
They don’t talk much more until they get to Warsaw.
His brother installs Moliwda in his home, an old man’s messy bachelor quarters in Solec, and he tells him to get himself together so that he can start his new employment soon.