The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  A careful plan to break the dikes and dams was worked out. The Dutch system of canals resembled a labyrinth of water, and woe to those who dared cross its frontiers. The decision to drown large tracts of arable fields and pastures was dramatic; consolation was found in folk wisdom, and in an old peasant proverb that said that in such extreme situations it is better to make soil barren than lose it forever.

  In the shipyards of Rotterdam and other ports, feverish labor was in full swing. The giddy speed of building ships to take part in the operation of liberating Leyden is worthy of admiration, even for us who live in a technological era. The entire flotilla was composed of two hundred galleys with a shallow draught; moved by the force of the wind or oars, they were equipped with cannons and all the necessary equipment for war.

  Everything now depended on one unpredictable factor—the weather. At first an unfavorable Nord was blowing; soon, however, the longed-for southwestern wind began to blow, and, through openings in the dikes, pushed masses of water toward Leyden. The offensive of the element preceded the offensive of the armed forces.

  The adversary was completely taken aback. The Spaniards tried to control the situation, hurriedly repairing the broken dikes, but the Dutch galleys stormed through, firing with all their cannons. In places where the water was not sufficiently deep, the crews jumped from the ships and pushed them in the direction of the enemy’s entrenchments. Here was a great subject for a baroque painting: If Rubens had painted this battle he would probably have represented it as a struggle of Neptune with the chthonic deities.

  The Spanish Army was unable to take advantage of its numerical superiority or tactical abilities. A land army that stands up to its knees in water fighting against a navy is a pure absurdity. There was only one way out—a quick raising of the siege and inglorious retreat. On the third of September 1574, at eight in the morning, Admiral Louis Boisot, commander of the Dutch soldiers who came with relief, entered the gates of the city to an enthusiastic welcome.

  What remains in today’s Leyden of these days of suffering and glory? A statue of the brave mayor, Pieter Adriaansz van der Werff, in the shade of old plane trees. His coat is thrown over his shoulders as if he were on his way to an ordinary city council meeting; only the rapier at his side indicates that the matters decided at the time were of life and death.

  In the park there is also an old tower with a huge piece of wall chipped off by Spanish cannons during the last night of siege. A nice house decorated with images of birds recalls those times, and has been preserved. Three brothers lived there, Jan, Ulrich, and Willem, city musicians by profession whose hobby was breeding carrier pigeons. During the siege they happened to play a particularly important role. They almost became an institution, in a dual way—a postal ministry because they maintained the only possible contact with the external world during the siege, and an office of propaganda because the pigeons were tireless ambassadors of hope, promising quick relief to the defenders.

  In the Leids Museum there is a large tapestry representing the attack of the Dutch flotilla against the Spanish entrenchments. Seen with the eye of a cartographer it is a huge green plain cut by the blue lines of rivers and canals, people small as insects busily moving between them. History from the perspective of God.

  In the same museum we find neither cannons nor enemy standards, neither chipped swords nor cleft helmets. In a word, none of the esteemed bric-a-brac that one finds in other European collections devoted to great events of the past. On the other hand, a peculiar war trophy hangs in the place of honor: a large copper cauldron, used to cook food for soldiers, left by the Spaniards in their flight. A cauldron as a symbol of the return to normalcy, or if someone prefers, a symbol of victory.

  DURING THE EIGHTY YEARS of fighting for independence the Dutch gave countless proofs of courage, perseverance, and determination. But this long war was not like any other that took place in Europe. It was a clash of two different ideals of life, two systems of values, and, one might say with a certain exaggeration, two diametrically different civilizations: the military aristocracy of the Spaniards, and the bourgeois-peasant world of the Netherlanders.

  It is worthwhile to mention a characteristic detail. The chronicler of the Leyden defense says with evident satisfaction that during the assault, when the dikes in the direct neighborhood of the city were destroyed, only five or six men were killed. Such a negligible number of victims would not have attracted the attention of other European historians.

  For the Dutch, war was not a beautiful craft, an adventure of youth, or the crowning of a man’s life. They undertook it without exaltation but also without protest, as one enters a struggle with an element. According to such a code of behavior, there was no room for displays of heroic bravery or spectacular death on the field of glory. On the contrary, what was most important was to save: to protect, to spare, and carry from the storm a sane head and one’s belongings.

  The brutal force of the Spanish army of occupation was thus counteracted with intelligence, a strict merchant’s calculation, organizational talents, and finally a stratagem. True, these were not knightly virtues. If the Dutch modeled themselves on the heroes of the great epics, surely Odysseus was closer to them than Achilles.

  But there is no need to reach for mythology. The character and structure of Dutch society explain a lot; the men of war in Holland did not form a separate social class surrounded by a nimbus of fame or enjoying special prestige. The nobility, which in the rest of Europe formed an officer corps with centuries-old traditions, did not play a great role in the Republic. A young man who enlisted in the army as a soldier did not carry in his backpack a staff of office (if one may use such an anachronism), but the bitter bread of the poor, with no prospects that fortune would ever smile on him. When sick or wounded, he usually died in a shabby field hospital where epidemics were raging. Veterans begged in the city streets.

  Holland did not have a fixed number of soldiers. The army was not a school to mold the spirit of its citizens, as with the Romans; the prestige of the state consisted in something entirely different. Hence a purely functional attitude toward the armed forces: during war the land army numbered a little more than a hundred thousand soldiers; during peace it fell to twenty thousand.

  In the army of the Republic most of the land forces were foreign mercenaries; only the navy was “purely” Dutch. The sons of Mars were simply bought. At the siege of ’s-Hertogenbosch, during the decisive phase of the battle for freedom, the army commanded by Vice Regent Frederick Henry was composed of three Dutch regiments (they were not at all volunteers), and fifteen regiments of Fresians, Walloons, Germans, French, Scotch, and English. In addition, this medley did not wear uniforms. A helmet, armor plate, sometimes a sash with the colors of the detachment—all of this was very gray in comparison with the feathered splendor of the French or Italian warriors. There was nothing to paint.

  Memories of wars paled quickly. The one who ordered a painting—ship captain, peasant, merchant, or artisan—wanted above all to see himself and the world that surrounded him: the house interior where the family gathered for the occasion of a baptism or wedding, a country road lined with trees and the glow of the afternoon sun falling on them, or a native town on a big plain.

  Therefore it was not a very patriotic art, if by the word patriotism we understand the fierce hatred of all old, present, and even potential enemies. The Dutch did not leave us a single painting where a defeated adversary is dragged behind a victor’s chariot in the dust of spite.

  Yet they painted sea battles with such delight. The classical example of this genre is the work of Hendrik Vroom6, “Battle at Gibraltar on April 25, 1607.” In the foreground a Dutch warship pierces the hull of a Spanish flagship with its prow. The painting is small, and to speak in a not very tactful way, full of delightful details: red and yellow braids of explosions, people, remnants of masts flying into the air and drowning in the sea, thousands of small touches rendered with a miniature painter’s precision. And
all this seen as if through a telescope, from a distant perspective that dissolves horror and passion. A battle changed into a ballet, a colorful spectacle.

  In one of his letters to Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant enthusiastically speaks of Holland’s history, so different from that of other European countries: “This brave nation never declared war on its neighbors, never invaded, never devastated or plundered their lands.” (Constant passes in discreet silence over the colonial conquests, he speaks only about neighbors.) This remark of a French writer puts an essential feature of the Dutch character into relief. Someone said: “La Hollande est de religion d’Erasme7.” It would not be a great exaggeration to say that the spirit of the philosopher from Rotterdam, who valued the virtues of moderation and gentleness above everything else, took power over this small nation.

  ONE WINTER MORNING DURING a stroll in Berlin’s Grunewald, I dropped by the Hunter’s Castle. I knew for a long time that it housed a collection of Flemish and Dutch paintings. I entered partly out of duty, not expecting any revelations. I felt I would see one more mediocre collection (O the monotony of the second-rate painters of Great Schools!): portraits, hunting scenes, still lifes that hang on the walls of so many aristocratic residences. This is indeed what happened.

  But I did not regret the visit, because I discovered what I had sought in so many representative galleries and museums for a long time. The painting was not a masterpiece at all, but its subject drew my attention: “Allegory of the Dutch Republic.” It was painted by Jakob Adriaensz Backer8, and for his work he received the not trifling sum of 300 guldens from the hands of Frederick Henry, Vice Regent of the United Provinces. Therefore, it was something like an official work.

  The painting represents a young girl dressed in draperies of intense colors: red, blue, and a luminous pearly white. The model has a country look: the pink cheeks of a shepherdess, round shoulders, monumental legs firmly resting on the ground. Upon this personification of simplicity, freedom, and innocence the artist has imposed the heavy attributes of war: a helmet with a thick black plume, a shield in one hand and an operatic spear in the other. This is precisely what is most attractive in the painting: the contradiction between the elevated subject and its modest expression, as if a historical drama was played by a country troupe at a fair. The heroine of the scene does not resemble at all “Freedom leading people onto the barricades.” Soon she will leave the boring task of posing and go to her everyday, nonpathetic occupations in a stable or on a haystack.

  Freedom—so many treatises were written about it that it became a pale, abstract concept. But for the Dutch it was something as simple as breathing, looking, and touching objects. It did not need to be defined or beautified. This is why there is no division in their art between what is great and what is small, what is important and unimportant, elevated and ordinary. They painted apples and the portraits of fabric shopkeepers, pewter plates and tulips, with such patience and such love that the images of other worlds and noisy tales about earthly triumphs fade in comparison.

  APOCRYPHAS

  THE MERCY OF THE EXECUTIONER

  AMONG THE MANY portraits of Jan van Olden Barneveldt1 I like most the one painted by an unknown master. The Great Pensionary is shown as an old man. Even the paint’s substance carries the marks of disintegration, of mold, dust, and cobweb. Though not a beautiful face, it is full of expression and noble strength: a very high forehead, a large, meaty, not very shapely nose, a patriarchal beard, and under bushy eyebrows intelligent eyes where the desperate energy of someone trapped is glowing.

  No historian denies that Barneveldt was one of the most meritorious founders of the new Republic. He was called Holland’s defender. This first great politician, who came from the middle classes and represented their interests, knew how to defend the rights of the young state better than anyone else. He negotiated with the powerful monarchs of Spain, France, and England, prepared advantageous armistices, peace treaties, and alliances, and during the forty years of his life worked faithfully and untiringly for his country. But with the approach of old age his political sense began to fail. Barneveldt made crucial mistakes, and the culmination of these was a “sharp resolution” allowing towns to recruit mercenaries not subject to orders from the Prince of Orange, the true commander of the Republic’s army. The country was on the threshold of civil war.

  Barneveldt not only lost all sense of judgment in the situation, but his instinct of self-preservation abandoned him as well. He did not understand, or did not want to understand, that his handful of supporters was melting away and everyone was against him—the governor, the Estates General, and the towns. Returning home from his office, he stepped with indifference over leaflets written against him. He did not listen to the advice of friends, who insisted that he resign and go abroad. He was like a large, old turtle dying on the sand, sinking deeper and deeper.

  The finale was easy to guess, and surprising only to Barneveldt himself. Arrested after a months-long investigation, he stood before a special tribunal composed mostly of his enemies. Deprived of a lawyer, he furiously defended his honor rather than his life.

  The time of the action: May 13, 1619. Place: The Hague, Binnenhof—a brick Gothic and Renaissance decoration of the drama. In the courtyard a wooden scaffold was hastily erected and sand strewn about. It was late afternoon. The fiery carriage of Helios—as rhetorical poets write—rolled westward. When they brought in the condemned man, the crowd fell silent. Barneveldt was hurrying toward death: “What you must do, do it fast,” he urged the executors of the verdict.

  Then something happened that went far beyond the ritual of execution, beyond the procedure of any known execution. The executioner led the condemned man to a spot where sunlight was falling and said, “Here, Your Honor, you will have sun on your face.”

  One might ask the question whether the executioner who cut off the head of the Great Pensionary was a good executioner. The goodness of the executioner depends on his ability to carry out his task quickly, efficiently, and in an impersonal way. Who more than he deserves to be called the executor of fate, or the soundless lightning of destiny? His virtues should be silence and cool restraint. He should administer the blow without hatred, without compassion, without any kind of emotion.

  Barneveldt’s executioner broke the rules of the game, left his role, and, what is more, violated the principles of professional ethics. Why did he do it? Certainly it was an impulse of the heart. But didn’t the condemned man, who was stripped of all earthly glory, perceive derision in it? After all, it is indifferent to those who are leaving forever whether they die in the sun, in shadow, or the darkness of night. The executioner, artisan of death, became an ambiguous figure filled with potential meaning when to the condemned man—in his last moment—he threw a crumb of helpless goodness.

  THE CAPTAIN

  ON DECEMBER 28TH, 1618, the sailboat New Horn left port on Texel Island, setting out on the long, dangerous journey to East India. The cargo was barrels of gunpowder. The ship’s captain, William Ysbrantz Bontekoe1, has described the history of this peculiar navigation.

  His simple, severe, and at the same time naive narrative should be considered reliable. The only doubt comes from the way he presented an important episode of the expedition, especially because three different versions of the event have reached us that contradict one another.

  Gales, lulls at sea, storms lasting several days, tropical downpours recalling the biblical deluge and sicknesses afflicting the crew, skirmishes with Spaniards—all this was daily bread for the sailors and contained within the limits of what was considered normal. This norm was over-stepped on the nineteenth of November 1619, in open sea and far from the goal of the journey.

  That day Captain Bontekoe must have been in good humor; he ordered a double portion of aqua vitae to be given to the crew with its evening meal. Plunging into the darkness of the hold with a tallow candle’s brightness, the mate in charge of food supplies pours alcohol from a barrel into a bucket. Th
e weather is stormy. A sudden list of the ship, the candle falls straight into the open barrel of spirit. A moment of liberation of elemental force—then everything happens according to the logic of catastrophes. An avalanche of events rapidly succeeds each other until the culminating point, the powerful explosion annihilating the ship.

  A small part of the crew is saved in a lifeboat and wanders over the ocean under a sail made of shirts. They have neither water nor food, drink their own urine, eat the raw meat of flying fish. The pitiless sun of the tropics consumes the mind, giving birth to a barbarian desire to kill a ship’s boy and feed on his flesh and blood.

  Captain Bontekoe sits at the back of the boat. With his arms he shades his head from the heat. He has a high fever and is delirious. But what happens now in front of his eyes is not delirium but reality. With his left hand the sailor called Red Joost grabs the hair of a ship’s boy, who screams as if he were insane—armed with a knife, Joost’s right hand rises in the air. Let us freeze this image.

  According to the first version, Captain Bontekoe rose and delivered a long speech full of biblical citations. He spoke of Isaac’s sacrifice, which as we know God rejected, about the Ten Commandments, the duty to love one’s brother, and so on and so on. A surrealistic picture presents itself: a black pulpit hovering over the endless expanse of salty waters. In fact the boat, left to the mercy of the waves, was not the stony nave of a cathedral, and the handful of mad, shipwrecked sailors in no way recalled well-fed, festively bedecked burghers gathered for a Sunday service. The moment did not lend itself at all to displays of pious rhetoric. In order to prevent murder, one had to act quickly, decidedly, and violently.

  The second report says that Bontekoe managed to convince Joost and restrain him from executing his criminal plan. They made a pact: If they did not manage to reach solid land in three days, the boy would be killed. That three-day deadline (the magic number three) was not based on any rational premises, because no one even vaguely knew the position of the boat. Besides, if the captain settled the matter this way, it was equivalent to consent to murder, and in fact meant only deferral of the sentence. Bontekoe took the side of the murderers; in a way he accepted their arguments.