And that’s it for his life, it likely wouldn’t take up any more space than the title itself. His beloved died before New Athens was published, though that, too, was written out of love.
But he has met with this strange decree of Providence of late, likely so that he will begin to reflect upon his life. In Kossakowska’s features he recognized her elder sister, and Dru?backa had served her for years, including at Princess Jab?onowska’s, until the bitter end. She had told him that she’d been with Joanna when she’d died. This had disconcerted him considerably—that Dru?backa turned out to be a messenger from the past. Her touch, her cheek, her hand had passed somehow into the poetess. Now nothing is so clear or colorful as it was—it’s all sort of blurry, without any definite contours. Like a dream that vanishes on waking, that flies out of your memory like fog from over a field. The priest doesn’t fully understand it, but he also doesn’t really want to understand. People who write books, he thinks, don’t want to have their own stories. What would be the point? In comparison with what is written, life will always be boring and bland. The priest sits with his pen, which has already dried up, until the candle burns out and with a quick hiss is extinguished. He is flooded with darkness.
Father Chmielowski tries to write a letter to Mrs. Dru?backa
Father Chmielowski feels unsatisfied with what he managed to say during Dru?backa’s visit. Because in fact he did not manage to say much, probably because of his natural shyness. All he did was boast, drag the poor lady around on a rocky path, in the winter, in the damp. The very idea that the intelligent and educated Dru?backa might take him for an ignoramus and an idiot now torments him. It torments him until he finally decides to write her a letter and lay out his rationale.
He begins with a beautiful turn of phrase:
Conductress of the Muses, Favorite of Apollo . . .
But here he gets stuck for the whole day. He finds the phrase pleasing until sometime around lunch. By dinner, it strikes him as pompous and pathetic. Only in the evening, when mulled wine has warmed up his mind and body, does he sit down boldly to a fresh sheet of paper and write his thanks to her for coming to visit his “Firlejów Hermitage” and for bringing a little light into his monotonous gray life. He feels sure she’ll understand the word “light” broadly and poetically.
He also asks after the puppies and confides in her all his troubles, like that a fox got all his hens, and that now if he wants eggs he has to send for a peasant. But he’s afraid to get new hens, for he would only be sentencing them to death by fox’s maw. And so on.
He does not wish to admit it, but after he sends his letter, he waits for her answer. He waits and waits. He tries to estimate how long the post might take to get to Busk, where Dru?backa is. But it isn’t far, after all. The letter should have arrived by now.
It comes at last. Roshko searches for its recipient all over the presbytery, holding the letter stiffly in his outstretched hand. He finds the priest in the cellar, decanting some wine.
“Goodness, you gave me such a scare,” starts the priest. He wipes his hands on the apron he always puts on when performing his domestic tasks, and then he takes the letter carefully, between two fingers. He does not open it. He examines the seal and his own name calligraphed in beautiful, self-assured penmanship, the flourishes fluttering over the paper like battle flags.
It is only later, after an hour or so, when the library has been heated by the stove, when he has warmed himself with some mulled wine and covered his feet with a fur, that—taking very great care indeed—he opens the letter and reads.
El?bieta Dru?backa writes to Father Chmielowski
Christmas 1752, Busk
My dear wise and generous Father,
What wonderful luck that I am able, during this time so near the birth of Our Lord and Savior, to wish you every good fortune, and in addition, the safekeeping of your health and your well-being—for after all, we are so brittle we risk being knocked over by anything at any time. Yet may everything turn out for you just as you wish it, and may the grace of the Divine Infant Jesus endlessly favor you.
I remain deeply impressed by my visit to Firlejów, and I must confess that I had imagined you, a priest of such renown, quite differently: that you would have a large library, and that in it rows of secretaries would sit at the ready, writing, rewriting. And yet instead you live as humbly as a Franciscan.
I admire in you your botanical arts, your ingenuity in all things, and your enormous erudition. As soon as I got home I had the great pleasure of dedicating my evenings to a rereading of your New Athens, which of course I know well, having devoured its every page when it was first published. When my eyes would allow it, I read your book for hours on end. Now I enjoy the special circumstance of knowing the Author personally, and it even happens that I can hear his voice—as if you were here to read it aloud to me—but it is also the case that the book possesses a strange magic: it can be read without pause, here, there, and something interesting always remains in one’s mind, giving one fantastic pretexts for thinking of how very great and complex this world is, so much so that one cannot possibly comprehend it in thought—no doubt only in fragments, the bits and pieces of small understandings.
Now night arrives so quickly, and darkness daily swallows up the moments of our lives, and candlelight is but a poor imitation of light, which our eyes cannot bear for too long.
I know, however, that your New Athens project is the work of a true genius with enormous courage, and it is of enormous value to all of us who live in Poland, for it is a true compendium of all that we know.
There is, however, one thing that troubles my reading of your wonderful work, my dear Father, and it is the very thing we spoke of while sitting in your home in Firlejów—I refer to Latin, and not only to it, but to its overwhelming abundance in your work, everywhere interjected, like salt poured too enthusiastically upon a meal, which, instead of elevating its taste, makes it difficult to swallow.
I understand, my dear Father, that Latin is a worldly language, versed in all things, and that it contains more useful words than Polish, but whoever does not know it will not be able to read your book—will get lost in it completely! Have you not thought about those who would love to read you but who do not know Latin—the merchants, the petite bourgeoisie who have a somewhat reduced level of education, or even those more intelligent tradespersons? They are the ones who could really benefit from the information you so scrupulously collect, as opposed to your confrères, priests, and academics, who already have access to books. If they wish it, of course, which they do not always. And I shan’t even mention the women who often know how to read quite well, but who, since they weren’t sent to school, will sink into Latin as if it were quicksand, right away.
Bishop Kajetan So?tyk writes a letter to the papal nuncio