The Collected Prose

by Zbigniew Herbert

  The development of historical studies in the age of Enlightenment and the nineteenth century was connected to the conviction that history can be understood and directed in a rational manner, that it falls into a transparent pattern clear to the mind, that it proceeds along a rising arc of progress. Today not many of us share that optimistic belief.

  It seems that contemporary history, happening before our eyes, compromises history in general, which judging by our experience, was, is, and will continue to be a play of forces, full of lies, crimes, violence, and unleashed irrationalism. Across a significant part of our planet human rights are consistently and brutally violated. The history of the world—as the philosopher says—ist eine Strasse, die der Teufel pflastert mit zerstörten Werten2. So is it worthwhile to study that sad and bitter knowledge? The only practical conclusion that seems to flow from it is that we must be prepared for the very worst.

  Looking for an exit from this vicious circle, let us turn for advice, for the light of knowledge, to the professionals, to contemporary historians. But they answer unwillingly or not at all the question of the meaning of history (which is almost equivalent to the meaning of life). They refer the naïve ones demanding an answer to historiosophists, who have the same bad reputation as astrologers in the eyes of astronomers.

  It is difficult to reproach contemporary historians for sharpening their methodological tools and chiseling away at details. They are guided by a wise scientific caution, skepticism, and minimalism. They frown on hasty generalizations and strive to cleanse history of the assaults of ideology, politics, and prejudices that have grown up over the ages. They are aware of how often history has been used by the strong against the weak, how often the explication of the past has had as its aim the fortification, sanction, and expiation of power.

  Honest historians of the present don’t want to commit this error bordering on a crime. It does them credit. In the end it is better than being fed on half-truths or plain lies. But the need for a book on the history of the world is still urgent and alive. The need for an objective history, inclined to reflection, not to making fists and uttering shrill cries. A history written not from the point of view of races, nations, or subversive organizations. But to this day there has never been such a history. The attempts by Wells, Spengler, and Toynbee met with great interest on the part of readers, but also with the virtually universal condemnation of professionals. We may have to reconcile ourselves to the thought that until the end of human history we will not have a complete picture of the physical world, nor will we know the meaning and aim of our strivings here on earth.

  How happy the historians must have been for whom the history of humanity was a struggle between good and evil in which good, guaranteed by divine providence, had to win. The mechanism was simple, as well as pedagogically effective. It offered examples of heroes, kings, saints worthy of imitation.

  I admit that I mourn that old history, which was colorful, narrative, and moralizing. Even if it was a simplified and not very scientific history, it had the great virtue that it constituted, created values.

  Those who during the centuries past fought for various ideals, for freedom, human dignity, and most often lost those battles, had the hope that they would be given the proper recognition by future generations, that they would find a cherished spot in human memory and that the future chronicler would weigh their sacrifice. In their last words they appealed directly to the high tribunal of history. Today it is as if that consolation and pathos have been stifled. A sober historian will not make moral judgments on persons or events. In the best case he lays bare mechanisms, registers facts. He does not lodge appeals. What happened had to happen.

  I am nearing the end of these divigations. And I feel the need to strike a positive note.

  It seems to me that even in the prison of history where I dwell, it is possible to behave in a dignified or in a less dignified manner. And it also seems to me that in spite of all the reservations, doubts, and problems I’ve raised and which history procures, we can’t just set it aside or say we’ll pay attention to it at a better, more suitable moment.

  We can’t do this, if only because the problems of the past that our minds cast off, as well as the injuries or crimes passed over in silence, can easily be put to use by demagogues. We know very well what the consequences of that can be.

  In my introduction I mentioned historical consciousness, and I think humankind should not abandon it for the cheap gain of pragmatic political successes.

  We have to accept the bitter legacy of history with humility, without looking for the easy justifications, saying that one way or the other we’re doomed, determined.

  Historical consciousness is the mental and moral attitude that accepts the past as the vast field of human experience—errors, crimes, but also examples of courage and wisdom—and that presumes that our actions here and now will find continuation in the future.

  Such a historical consciousness is connected with the unfashionable concept of conscience, which should be integral, indivisible, independent of our national or political sympathies. If we rush to the aid of victims of natural disasters and feel compassion for them no matter where they occur, we should behave similarly toward victims of historical catastrophes, wherever they occurred or will occur, in Prague or Santiago de Chile, Moscow or New York, Berlin or Warsaw.

  All of these are of course pious wishes. I truly do not know that a humanity liberated from history would not be happy. Perhaps we will be able to build cities without monuments and replace history with sociology, social engineering, or something along those lines. And create—horrible dictu—a new man worthy of new times. A new Adam who will sit under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—naked, innocent, and without a navel.

  1975?

  QUALITY AND NULLITY IN MASS CULTURE1

  OVER A YEAR ago changes were introduced into Polish radio consisting mainly of new limits on literary programming, radio plays, serious discussion programs, and features. Channel 1, which has the greatest reach and is listened to by our compatriots abroad, has become almost exclusively the domain of sound—not of the best quality.

  It doesn’t come easily to me to talk about television, because I think the medium is not and (unlike radio) will probably never be very appealing to those working in the “creative arts.” In my view theater, poetry, music, painting, and even film shown on a small screen bear the same relation to their originals as does a shoddy reproduction, a reproduction falsifying the original.

  I think the greatest achievement of Polish television was the great monologue of General Berling2. It was not only the moving confession of a wise and experienced man, but something with the weight of a historical document. It’s a pity, however, that such rarities are drowned in a flood of mediocrity.

  The proper sphere of television is catching reality on the fly, and that’s why I like sports coverage most (I suspect that many television owners pay their fees for four years just to watch the next Olympics), but also authentic “live” reportage. I also predict a great future for programs like High Stakes or On the Record, on the condition that the objects of their ruthless analysis and revelations of fraudulence and mendacity are not only writers, department store managers, and the directors of electric companies.

  A separate problem, which the questionnaire does not address, is the matter of the strange language used on television. For a number of years now many people appearing on television not once but regularly, abuse our mother tongue with impunity. If a well-known journalist with a big personality makes excruciating mistakes we should consider whether it might be best to replace him with someone less accomplished, lower down on the ladder, who nevertheless respects the rules of grammar. This is a question of enormous social consequence. Millions of people watch and listen to television. Only a few hundred people voluntarily take up the Handbook of Style. I am not talking about any exaggerated purism. It would be absurd to demand a commentator on a soccer game to speak the language of F
ather Skarga3 (he wouldn’t be able to keep up with the game), but he should make a special effort not to do worse than a kid who’s been through elementary school—or let’s say secondary school.

  Mass culture in Poland is a major question—everyone probably agrees on that—but we don’t know what to do about it. It should therefore be a subject of discussion—exhaustive, concrete discussion, in which we leave aside the interesting and clever analyses of American theorists (for we live in societies that don’t bear much comparison). We should talk about what can and should be done here and now, about concrete proposals, means, people. And also try to answer a fundamental question: how can we give mass culture—which homogenizes, fragments, and diminishes culture and mixes the hopelessly small with the great—a little order, humanism, and a few consciously chosen values?

  There is a dangerous tendency to “play off” mass culture against culture in the strict sense, demonstrating the social insignificance of a book of poetry, a serious play, or a difficult piece of music compared to the overwhelming demand for a hummable tune, cheap entertainment, kitsch—which it is said the masses adore. This antagonism exists and has always existed (Seneca “lost” in a contest with gladiatorial spectacles), but I for the life of me can’t understand why we would want to deepen the antagonism.

  I am too good a student of Stefan Kisielewski4 to succumb to delusions of a paradise of aesthetes, and I reject the vision of a society listening (under duress) to Dante, Beethoven, and Norwid from dawn to dusk. However, I also know that striving for higher values, in the aesthetic sphere as well, is not the aristocratic privilege of a chosen few but can be shared by many, on the condition that they make the effort to acquire independence, to refine their tastes and minds, and reject what is easy.

  The cardinal error of those creating mass culture in Poland is the desire to program and plan, instead of trying to understand the authentic desires, needs, aspirations people have. Those who put together and perform the programs on Polish radio and television could use some humility and an awareness that the people watching them and listening to them are adult, critical, and severe in their judgment.

  I realize that to some my remarks may seem onesided and tendentious. I haven’t mentioned the role of television as the Great Soporific for people worn out by hard work. Or the Great Soporific of boisterous children.

  1976

  VOICE

  …che sola agli occhi miei fu lume e speglio

  GOOD OLD GUIDO Noia had sent another letter. Petrarch had maintained that strange friendship, formed in the distant past when both of them were studying law in Bologna, but for a long time now they had had nothing to say to each other. Ah, Guido was no Atticus1! He remained faithful, devoted, and desperately banal; he wrote lengthy letters without any regard for style, reported in detail on his worries with his numerous family, on his modest professional successes, trials won, appeals granted, and what was worse, probably to make himself worthy of his great correspondent, he often quoted ancient authors, mercilessly distorting their immortal lines and maxims. Poor Guido—Petrarch often thought—he had made the worst use of his law studies: he had become a lawyer.

  However, this time the letter lying in front of him put him in a state of anxiety and emotional chaos. Guido informed him:

  “Two weeks ago our unforgettable preceptress Donna Novella passed away. I write this cum lacrimis2. I’m sure you will remember her lectures. She always spoke from behind a curtain because her extraordinary beauty—it was universally claimed—might distract the attention of her audience. It’s funny: no one saw her but everyone, including you, Francesco, fell madly in love with her. We were prepared to do battle on behalf of that bodiless creature and die with her sweet name on our lips. I think we were mad, Francesco, but I wouldn’t give up that madness of youth for anything!

  I can still hear her voice today—melodious, sonorous, like music, with a range that seemed to span the whole scale. A voice at times low, resolute, almost masculine, and at times very feminine and seductive, especially when she said, or reminded us, that law is ars boni et aequi3. She uttered that ‘aequi’ like a declaration of love.

  You, Francesco, are a poet; you commune with the great spirits of the past. I am a humble servant of the law, although recently I received a letter of praise from the podesta for my efforts to improve the health of our municipal finances—I won’t attempt to conceal what a great distinction it was—so I encounter evil and injustice in the course of practicing my profession, but believe me when I say that until now I had no idea how great, how disgraceful and how limitless is human iniquity. And that is what I wanted to write to you about.

  Before the burial Donna Novella, or rather her mortal remains, were laid out on a high candle-lit bier in the Church of Santo Lorenzo. The whole body was covered with a black cloth embroidered with silver lilies and the emblems of our university. Well now, just imagine: at night some scoundrel crept in there and uncovered the face of the departed. The next day the whole city knew of Donna Novella’s true countenance.

  Her face bore the marks of small-pox, which she must have had in childhood. Her skin was swarthy like the skin of a common peasant woman, and covered with a net of wrinkles. On the left side of her face she had a large scar running from her temple across her cheek down to her chin.

  Because she lived alone and died suddenly, no one had closed her eyelids. In the left eye that scoundrel—worse, that sacriligious rogue—observed leucoma. The lips which had dropped the sweet honey of knowledge into our hearts and minds so many years ago were open in a cry of terror. In addition, and this is the worst thing, it had been neglected, doubtless because of the haste, to cover her head with a bonnet—and just think, my dear friend—Donna Novella was completely bald.

  The whole city seethed with rumors. Everyone who could, joined in the contest of baseness, adding new details intended to witness to the monstrous ugliness of the departed. And only recently everyone had been praising her unearthly beauty to the skies.

  The funeral was carried out quickly, almost stealthily, without the proper respect due to that extraordinary being.

  Thus was our youth and love dishonored.

  I weep, Francesco, and you must weep with me.”

  Petrarch wrote back immediately, business-like and cool, making sure not to allow the haste of his reply to betray in any way his true emotions.

  “In your last letter, you informed me of the death of Donna Novella. It may surprise you, though it ought not to, that I do not remember her at all. Not her voice, nor even her name. The idea that I loved her, dear Guido, is the work of your fantasy. I have always considered you a levelheaded and sober man, so I truly do not understand whence come these notions and improper insinuations.

  You have probably confused me with someone else. Perhaps it was Agapito Collonna, Guido Settimo, or that charming madcap Tommaso Caloria, who fell prey to such boyish feelings? Or even my cherished brother Gerardo, who now lives in the hush of a monastery, beyond the reach of earthly things.

  As you know well, the study of the law, on which I embarked because my father desired it, was for me a torment beggaring description. I lost irretrievably seven precious years of my youth. Is that not sufficient reason for me to erase from memory everything that went on around me at that time? I seized every occasion to escape from those mortally dull lectures to my beloved authors—Cicero, Virgil, Horace. No earthly voice, not even the most intoxicating face of a woman, could alter my one, true passion and faithful attachment.

  Forgive me for the brevity of this letter. Yesterday I received, or rather, obtained under false pretenses from a certain monastery library, a codex containing a number of awkwardly bound and uninteresting writings, with among them one treasure: the Bucolics. A cursory reading led me to suspect that I have before me a text that is, of all the ones known to me, least marred by copying errors. I have immersed myself in work completely.”

  He did not return to reading Virgil. He was seized by panic, by a ho
rror that destroyed all thought and feeling. Guido’s letter was an attack, yet another attack on the sacred secret of his soul. Now—he was certain of it—the elaborate architecture of the beautiful fiction he had built patiently for years would crumble into dust.

  In fact, his whole life Petrarch had loved only one woman—Donna Novella—as only boys can love, with a great, absurdly lofty, bashful, tormented love. It was total abandon that did not demand reciprocity or reward, a feeling beyond place and time—and therefore eternal.

  He had invented Laura in Avignon and never met any young lady of that name, which lent itself like no other to erotic wordplay. The two radiant syllables expressed a multitude of things and their metamorphoses, objects and echoes of objects: fair hair, a gentle gust of wind, a flickering, breaths of air, laurel, a green and golden tree. “L’aura che’l verde lauro e l’aureo crine…4”

  The fine Sienese master then active in Avignon, Simone Martini, couldn’t understand why his young friend asked him with such insistent ardor to paint a portrait of Laura, whom he had never seen. How could he suspect he was being drawn into a conspiracy, that he was supposed to be the instrument of incarnation, that is, without his consent and knowledge, he had the mission thrust upon him to bring to earth a being without shape and to give her from among the thousands of different possibilities a unique, concrete, sensual form.

  He finally yielded to the pressure put on him and executed several sketches, from which Petrarch immediately picked one, saying with indescribable enthusiasm that the portrait conceived in the painter’s imagination accorded precisely with the original like the mirror reflection of a face; her very eyes with the sweetly heavy upper lids, exactly her bundle of fair hair, her small childlike mouth, sublime neck, her pious, gentle hands. Simone, showered with praise, promised he would put Laura in a fresco he was just then painting on the wall of the Papal Palace. And so he did.