The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  Secret associations do not leave a register of their members for posterity, therefore it is hard to ascertain whether Torrentius was a Rosicrucian. But it is a fact that surveillance of the painter started for this reason. The Republic’s authorities might have been afraid of the activities of this secret confraternity, with its far-flung international influence; in 1625 an agreement between French and Dutch Rosicrucians was discovered in Haarlem. But this might just as well have been a pretext. Holland was famous for religious and denominational liberty, unparalleled elsewhere in Europe. The following event best illustrates the spiritual situation in the homeland of Erasmus.

  In 1596 an artisan accused of heresy was brought before a tribunal in Amsterdam. He was a cobbler by profession, but an unusual one because he had learned Latin and Hebrew by himself to study the Bible. During these studies, carried out with the proverbial passion of cobblers, he came to the conclusion that Christ was only a man. He talked about it widely with his relatives and friends, and, what is worse, with strangers. The accusation of heresy could theoretically lead to the stake, but one of the mayors of Amsterdam intervened in the trial and took up the defense of the unfortunate enthusiast of the Bible, proving that if the Church had already dispensed appropriate spiritual punishment—exclusion from the community of the faithful—it was unnecessary for fallible human justice to pronounce a verdict once again in this intricate matter. He also said that human life should not depend on the subtle considerations of theologians.

  Quite unexpectedly, on June 30, 1627, Torrentius was arrested and put in prison in Haarlem.

  In the beginning one could suppose the whole affair would end quietly, primo, with a paternal reprimand from the tribunal; secundo, with an earnest promise by the repentant sinner to desist; and tertio, with a heavy fine. It soon appeared, however, that the matter was taking a fatal turn, and that even before probate proceedings the court was trying to sentence the criminal artist at any price, severely and using any pretext.

  This was shown by the huge number of witnesses who were called. Personal enemies of Torrentius were predominant, and these were innumerable. Testimonies concerned the two kinds of offense the painter was accused of: breaking obligatory moral norms, and impiety. With regard to the first, abundant criminal evidence was provided for the court by servants from the houses in which the artist lived, owners of taverns, and accidental witnesses of his notorious extravaganzas.

  One of them saw this intimate scene: Torrentius with a young woman on his lap. Another, the owner of the tavern Under the Snake, in Delft, told a moving story about a girl to whom the painter threw candies through a window until she succumbed to him, and when she became pregnant he viciously abandoned her. In addition, he publicly laughed at her. A member of the well-known family van Beresteyn also came forward as witness; he asserted that Torrentius brought women of easy virtue together in a tavern, using a letter from the Prince of Orange, salvia guardia, as his authority. Supposedly it gave him power over the demimonde of the entire Republic. Van Beresteyn also testified that the accused organized feasts for honorable councillors and wealthy merchants, inviting young ladies from honest households; these were followed by collective carnal pleasures. One might prolong the list of accusations; most likely truth was mixed with gossip, honest testimony with vile denunciations. But let us stop with these selected examples. It seems more important to attempt to answer the question of whether Torrentius, against the background of the manners of his time, was a figure impossible to accept: a malicious type of moral monster.

  The English ambassador William Temple, a keen observer of the life of the Dutch, says their temperament and traits of character were conditioned by their physical constitution; reasonable and moderate by nature, they did not succumb to great passions, of course with some exceptions. The severity of Calvinism in the Republic was tempered by a universal spirit of tolerance. A sizable margin of freedom existed next to exemplary bourgeois and philistine morality. Someone rightly observed that the liberty so beloved by the Dutch originated in hatred of force rather than the fascination with abstract slogans, in which various revolutionaries did, and do, excel. Imposing achievements in the domain of democracy were guarded to a greater degree by custom, to a smaller degree by institutions. Likewise, tolerance usually ended when it encountered extremes, for example blatant manifestations of disbelief. In 1642 Francis van den Meurs, who did not believe in the divinity of Christ and the immorality of the soul, was put in the Amsterdam prison. He stayed there seven months, then was released.

  Morality was severe, especially in the villages. Choice of future wives and betrothals were regulated by rules of century-old traditions and, just in case, took place under the watchful eyes of grown-ups. Of course the young preferred less formal ways of meeting: on the ice rink, in secluded places in the woods, on the shore of the sea, even in church. The pastors thundered against this from their pulpits, meddling in every possible and impossible matter of daily life. They fought against the theater, tobacco smoking, drinking coffee, pompous funerals, lavish weddings; they condemned long hair for men, silver platters, and even Sunday excursions outside town. The faithful listened with pious expressions and did what they pleased. Marriage was in general a solid institution. A father or husband had the right to punish a woman caught in flagrante; in such cases, even murder could go unpunished. They shut their eyes when a single man maintained relations with an unmarried woman, provided he kept up necessary appearances; but if he was married and caught in the midst of sinful, amorous cooing, he usually paid a hefty fine.

  In comparison with most European royal and aristocratic courts of the time, the court of the sovereigns of the Netherlands was an oasis of modesty. Only William II spoiled this exemplary image of moderation and virtue. His exuberant temperament was a charming subject for biting satires and ephemeral poems, while his all-too-numerous love affairs were pointed out even on theater stages.

  On the other hand, a widespread, half-pagan institution existed that was deeply rooted in tradition, namely, fairs—a combination of market, church holiday, and an explosion of unbridled folk licence. Hundreds of paintings represent these Dutch bacchanalia (it is impossible to understand the life of the Dutch without them). A crowd of parsimonious peasants and artisans undergoes a sudden metamorphosis; they hang their steadfast virtues on a peg and gladly succumb to the temptations of the Seven Capital Sins. The aftermath of these fairs was a huge number of children born out of wedlock, and foundlings. Patient public benevolence built ever new houses and orphanages for them.

  In the big cities and especially the ports, prostitution thrived. No attempts were even made to fight it, as people realized the effort was in vain, yet the sense of order required these social phenomena to be contained within certain limits. It was done in an original way. In some districts of Amsterdam the care of the houses of ill-fame was entrusted to policemen, and these guardians of public order collaborated with prostitutes in exemplary harmony. They carried out a procedure not quite legal but lucrative. The streetwalker, disguised as a young girl, lured an honest, rich citizen to a specific spot where the police were already waiting and meted out to the “seducer” an appropriate monetary fine. Most likely everyone paid, fearing a scandal.

  How did the “Torrentius case” look against this background? To speak delicately, the painter violated generally accepted moral norms; he did it systematically, from conviction, and ostentatiously as a confession of faith. Therefore the artist’s main guilt was not his exuberant and dissolute life but the atmosphere of scandal and notoriety he gave to his vagaries. Bourgeois morality does not excuse this. The collected evidence of his guilt in the matter did not yet constitute a basis for imposing a stiff penalty. So a charge of a much greater weight was drawn up: namely, impiety.

  It is well known that this is not a precise concept and leaves a wide field for legal interpreters to display their talents. The privilege of lack of clarity has only too often been abused in history, usually with fatal conseq
uences for the accused. In the case of Torrentius, they wanted to prove that the painter was an avowed, aggressive blasphemer who fought not only the dogmas of faith but doubted the existence of God.

  Then it began, horribile dictu because the affair took place in enlightened Holland. Testimonies were collected to prove a close connection between the painter and the unclean powers. Someone informed that Torrentius often strolled in the forest, where he had conversations with the devil, far from human eyes; that he bought a black rooster and a hen at the market for his supposedly magical practices; and that voices of immaterial beings came from his atelier. It is easy to guess that these were whispers of completely corporeal ladies who visited the painter under cover of darkness.

  Accommodating owners of taverns and inns where Torrentius used to spend rollicking evenings and nights outdid one another in providing proofs of his guilt. What kind of proofs? To say the least, dubious proofs: overheard conversations, bits of dialogue, even drunken shouts. They did not form any logical whole. So much the better.

  One witness testified that the painter pronounced incomprehensible remarks about the Trinity and Christ’s Passion, others informed that Torrentius once called the Bible a muzzle put on enlightened minds, he thought the Deluge too severe a punishment against humanity, he had his own views on the subject of hell and paradise, once a toast to Satan was drunk in his presence, he also addressed women by using his favorite expression, “My soul desires your body.”

  The court did not want to acknowledge the simple fact that the painter was talkative by nature; when excited by wine and joyous company demanding displays of extravagance, he provoked, scandalized, spouted nonsense—in a word, entertained his companions and not always in the best style. What is worse, voices raised in favor of the accused were not taken into consideration. A young painter from Delft, Christian van Couwenberch6, and his father testified under oath that during their six-year acquaintance with Torrentius they did not hear a single blasphemy from his mouth. On the contrary, he always defended the truth of the faith with zeal, and he also attacked Socinians7 and other heretics. The court annotated this kind of testimony with the comment “nihil,” which means it was rejected without any reasons given.

  Torrentius was alone. All the legal guarantees of the accused were waived, because extraordinary proceedings were ordered that did not even permit a defense. The indictment accused him with thirty-one counts; the most severe concerned heresy and offense against what is sacred.

  He was interrogated five times, the last on December 29, 1627, in extraordinary circumstances, about which more in a moment. Torrentius defended himself with consistency, logic, and persuasion, realizing it was a game for high stakes. Yes, it is true he often took advantage of the services of different girls, but as a painter of mythological scenes (a rare genre in Holland) he always looked for models ready to pose naked, because the Olympians had a liking for this. When he organized feasts in some setting of not the best reputation, he invited exclusively adult males, who realized that they were not coming to meditate on riddles of existence. Therefore, he was not a depraver in the ordinary sense of the word.

  Energetically and deliberately he refuted the accusations about questions of religion: he never insulted God or attacked dogma. Yes, it happened that he discussed religious subjects with passion and the inquisitiveness born of a restless conscience, but even this testified to his advantage, because it showed these problems were important for him. Other citizens behaved the same way. A curious thing—during the investigation the accusation that Torrentius belonged to a secret association simply evaporated. Yet it was the point of departure for the whole action.

  Against the background of Dutch court chronicles of the seventeenth century, Torrentius’s trial is the most convoluted, obscure, and morally repelling, especially from the moment when the decision was taken to employ methods of physical force against the accused. The court, unable to force an admission of guilt from Torrentius, decided to break him by torture. This method belonged to the repertory of the hated Inquisition and continued to be used only for common criminals, yet the accused did not belong to this category in any way. The Haarlem judges certainly realized they had gone too far when they addressed a letter to five eminent jurists from The Hague, asking them for an opinion as to whether such drastic methods of investigation were permitted in this case. The five famous lawyers responded: the application of torture to those who commit a weighty offense against divine majesty is a legal means.

  “If something slips from my lips when you inflict suffering on me, it will be a lie,” the artist supposedly shouted at his torturers. An amazing thing happened: the tools to force his confession appeared to be powerless. Torrentius did not admit the crimes he was accused of.

  On January 28, 1628, a verdict was pronounced: burning at the stake, and hanging of the corpse from a gallows. As if frightened by its own cruelty, the court changed the punishment to twenty years in prison. It was synonymous with slow death in a dungeon.

  To the credit of Dutch society it has to be stated that this cruel verdict had wide repercussions and provoked outrage, though of course bigots gave voice to their satisfaction. Many leaflets appeared claiming the whole trial was a return to the practices of the Spanish occupiers. Eminent lawyers protested to the city authorities, claiming that the legal guarantees to which the accused was entitled were systematically violated during the investigation and court proceedings. The prosecutor’s office, with a calm undisturbed by pangs of conscience, answered simply that in the case of Torrentius the severity of the crimes committed justified the extraordinary procedure.

  Even Holland’s regent, Prince Frederick Henry, took a lively interest in the whole matter. He could not have the slightest influence on its outcome, but during the trial he demanded an impartial investigation. After the verdict, he listened to reports by friends of the condemned painter who informed him that Torrentius remained in complete isolation from the world, without medical aid or the possibility of practicing his profession. The prince proposed that the artist be freed from prison. He promised he would give instructions to find another suitable place of isolation where the condemned man would find care, supervision, and the conditions indispensable for creative work.

  The fathers of the respected city of Haarlem answered with a letter full of courtesies and subterfuges. They maintained that the condemned man was not as badly off as he was reputed to be. The prison guard took care of him as if he were his servant; the prisoner had a surgeon at his disposal, but he refused to undergo the necessary small surgical interventions (marks of torture could be seen “only” on his legs). His friends brought him linen and delicate food (it was probably their delicate consideration that prevented the councillors from mentioning that intensive interrogations of the prisoner had resulted in a damaged jaw, and problems with eating). No one had objections, either, to his performing his art, but clearly he did not feel like it. Therefore the release of Torrentius from prison, even on the conditions proposed by the prince, seemed neither necessary nor just. Such an unmerited act of clemency would be interpreted by the majority of healthy public opinion as undermining the principles of justice, and it would encourage some toward similarly scandalous crimes. Also, one could not exclude a wave of protests and disturbances, because citizens expect the protection of laws, good manners, and religion from the authorities. Besides, a justified fear existed that even in his place of isolation Torrentius would continue to be what he was until now—that is, a scandalizer and blasphemer.

  The only positive result of the intervention of the regent was that the prison regime was made less severe. More frequent visits by the painter’s friends were allowed, his wife could spend fourteen days in his cell, every day he was permitted to buy a pitcher of wine exempt from the city tax—O what magnanimity—also a special commission of experts was convened, headed by Frans Hals, to examine whether one could perform art under prison conditions. It is deplorable that the report on this important and,
unfortunately, still contemporary question has not survived to our times.

  Everything indicated that Torrentius’s fate was sealed, that he would never see the light of freedom.

  But suddenly matters took an unexpected turn, expanding in an amazingly wide circle. For behold, the Prince of Orange received a letter from the King of England, Charles I. The document is dated May 30, 1630:

  “Mon cousin”—wrote the English monarch—“having learned that a certain Torrentius, painter by profession, has been confined for several years in the municipal prison of Haarlem by virtue of a verdict decreed against him for scandalous behavior and profanation of religion, we want to assure you it is not our intention to undermine the justness of the aforementioned verdict nor to request that the punishment be shortened or alleviated because as we believe it justly fell upon him for such great crimes….” Here ends a convoluted introduction intended to dispel any suspicion that the king might intervene “in internal Dutch affairs,” and we reach the conclusion. Charles I asks that out of consideration for his great talent, Torrentius be released and sent to England “près de nous”—that is, to the court. There he will devote himself entirely to painting, and attentive eyes will watch that he does not fall into his old habits and inclinations.