Poland: A Novel

by James A. Michener

  This is how things stood on the right bank of the Vistula, with almost everyone accounted for: Auntie Bukowska and the grand Countess Lubonska, nee Zamoyska, both dead and sorely missed; Count Lubonski endeavoring to forge a union of three such disparate nations as Poland, Lithuania and the Ukraine; Pani Marjorie Bukowska entertaining famous artists in her palace; Jadwiga and Janko Buk improving their fields with the help of their sons; the spinster Miroslawa Bukowska looking after the housekeeping at the Bukowski palace and dreaming about the future of Poland; and the young priest Father Barski watching over everything with his cautious Catholic eye. And Wiktor Bukowski—what of him? He led the relaxed, aimless life of the Polish country gentleman, tramping his estate, kicking a clod of earth now and then, and accomplishing nothing. Even though Poland had regained nationhood, he had only the vaguest understanding of who was ruling the country or what was happening in the surrounding countries. Deprived of the newspapers he used to enjoy at Landtmann’s coffeehouse, and no longer involved in the governance of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he sometimes felt that the world was slipping away from him and wondered what he might do to catch up.

  Having turned over the management of his estate to a factotum from Warsaw, he rarely saw any of his peasants in the fields, and the palace itself was run most elegantly by Marjorie and Miroslawa. He did spend time at his stables, but even there, most decisions were made by the six grooms who tended the Arabians and the elegant carriages. He enjoyed most of all riding one of his spirited steeds up the riverbank to Castle Gorka, where he chatted with Count Lubonski if he was in residence, but he admitted he could not follow the tedious divagations of Lithuanian and Ukrainian politics. He doubted that common sense could ever be knocked into those heads and he suspected that it didn’t make much difference one way or another.

  Since those heady days in Vienna when he first listened seriously to the music of Chopin, he had remained devoted to the works of this great Pole, but he could never become excited by his wife’s constant importation of actors and actresses for her theater. Nevertheless, he did indulge her passion and went out of his way to be polite to her theater people, who sometimes remained at the palace for a week or more after their performances. When they did, he took them for rides in his black carriages and, in recent years, in his two Packard cars imported from America. Unlike some of the magnates, he did not like to drive automobiles and was content when a guest volunteered to do so.

  He did, however, enjoy arranging excursions to places like the old Lubomirski palace at Lancut or the Austrian fortress at Przemysl, for then he could show his visitors other aspects of Polish history. He loved his country and was proud of its achievements, and was pleased when occasion came for any visit to Warsaw, for then he and his wife ensconced themselves in the charming little Palais Princesse on Miodowa Street to entertain the grand families of the new Poland.

  With the dissolution of the Austrian Empire, the Lubonskis and the Bukowskis, like other Polish officials, found no further reason to spend the better part of each year in Vienna, so the families had sold their holdings in that city, and the evening galas in Annagasse were no more. Wiktor missed Vienna, sometimes most desperately, but Marjorie did not. ‘I’ve become a Pole, and Warsaw is twice as interesting to me as Vienna ever was. Anyway,’ she explained to her new friends, ‘the victors in the last war have made it a capital without a country, and who wants to waste time in such a place?’

  What Wiktor really did was follow his wife around Poland, around Europe and around the United States. Like all Poles, he loved Paris, for it symbolized the civilized aspects of man’s nature, and it also reminded him of Krystyna Szprot, the little pianist who had burst into his life with such incandescent power a quarter of a century ago. Through the journals he had followed her career; ‘The Voice of Poland’ they called her, and once, in New York, he and Marjorie had attended one of her concerts; at that time she was still championing Chopin and Polish nationalism and was still forbidden by the Russians to enter Poland.

  He was reserved in his judgments of the United States, and as a Polish nobleman, was offended by the Poles he was forced to meet in Chicago and Detroit: ‘They’re nothing but Galician peasants transported across the Atlantic. Some of them can’t read.’ He felt that they would all be better off if they went back home, returned to their villages, and allowed the Polish gentry to look after them as in times past. He was not a believer in democracy and feared that America must run into difficulty if it persisted in its undisciplined ways.

  He had the same apprehensions about Poland, for he saw that with the breakup of the feudal estates and the minimizing of the gentry, the nation was losing its direction: ‘A man like Count Lubonski knew how to hold his estates together, and I didn’t do too poorly. Now? Anyone with fifty zlotys considers himself a leader, and where will it get us?’

  In 1919, Wiktor Bukowski had no occupation, no burning interests, no commitment to anything in Poland or Europe, and no continuing concern except that payments would arrive regularly from the bankers in Chicago who handled the Trilling fortune. The old ambassador had seen to it in his will that the money could not be alienated from the United States or fall into the hands of his son-in-law, ‘that Polish fellow.’

  So Wiktor drifted amiably along, an avatar of the eighteenth-century Polish nobleman, happiest when he was with his horses, most impressive when dressed in national costume and riding some handsome beast across the plains of eastern Europe.

  Who was not accounted for in this review of the Vistula settlement? The two most important members of the two leading families.

  Walerian Lubonski, aged thirty-one and heir to the title and estates of Castle Gorka, was in London perfecting his English and his understanding of the British system of government. Since it was assumed by members of his father’s group that Polish democracy would incorporate the best aspects of British self-rule, mastery of English was obligatory, and young Lubonski was proving an able student, both of the language and the politics. For him the old count had great hopes.

  Ludwik Bukowski, on the other hand, at the age of nineteen showed no specific aptitude for anything except self-indulgence. At the beginning of the war his mother had wanted to whisk him off to Chicago, where her relatives could oversee his education at the University of Chicago, or preferably to Yale, but Wiktor had put his foot down: ‘I refuse to have a son of mine attend some second-rate institution with no sense of history or culture.’ So Wiktor had employed tutors from Vienna to teach the lad French, which had always been the preferred language of the Polish nobility, and when peace came in 1918, he had slipped his son into Paris, where he was now supposed to be attending the Sorbonne. Actually, he was drifting casually into various ateliers where he dabbled in the appreciation of art; for politics he had no curiosity whatever, listening with equal inattention to republicans, royalists and revolutionaries without developing the skimpiest understanding of their competing strengths and weaknesses.

  These two were symbolic of the young men who would determine the future of Poland, but for the present cycle they would not be on the scene; as always, the history of this strange and marvelous land would be determined in large part by what happened outside its borders.

  The two were alike in most respects; each was clean-shaven, handsome, wealthy, arrogant and of greater than average intelligence; each was emotionally supportive of things Polish and proud of that inheritance; each was eager to assume leadership, Lubonski in politics, Bukowski as a social luminary, and each had the capacity to do so. But there was one salient difference. Lubonski, like his ancestors, was a man of stern character; Bukowski was not—so that each month the future count spent in London intensified his character, while Bukowski’s dawdling in Paris weakened his.

  In the decades ahead—the 1940s, for example—Poland would be governed by this combination of historic strength and inherited weakness.

  * * *

  One day toward the close of 1919, when all the world seemed to be in flux
as it tested its new boundaries, Marjorie Bukowska announced that she had succeeded in arranging a true gala of Polish music: ‘I’ve invited many guests from Krakow and Lwow and two artists you won’t believe.’ When Wiktor pestered her for details, she refused to divulge her plans, and even when visitors began to arrive from the two southern cities, she still refused to share her secret.

  The Bukowski palace had thirty-one guest bedrooms, but in her enthusiasm for this exceptional affair, Marjorie had invited more people than could be accommodated, so she arranged for the overflow to be housed at the Lubonski castle, and the count considered this fortunate because he was at that moment entertaining two distinguished visitors who would profit from meeting a wide selection of Polish citizens.

  Witold Jurgela, a clever professor from Wilno, was head of the Lithuanian delegation with whom Lubonski was negotiating regarding the future of eastern Europe, and Taras Vondrachuk, a wealthy farmer from near Kiev, was leader of the Ukrainians. The three men had agreed to meet privately at Castle Gorka to unravel various proposals, and Pani Bukowska’s musical gala would be a welcome diversion from their difficult haggling over boundary lines and innate rights.

  Most of the guests had arrived at either the Bukowski palace or the Lubonski castle by Friday noon, and lavish luncheons along with the best wines were offered, and small string ensembles played local airs. But at three it was announced that a chauffeured car from Rzeszow would reach Bukowo within the half-hour and Pani Bukowska hoped that all her guests would be in attendance; another car would arrive from Krakow toward five, and it, too, would contain a surprise. So it was with increasing excitement that everyone began to cluster about the looped driveway that gave entrance to the Bukowski palace.

  ‘I have no more idea than you,’ Wiktor told the guests. ‘This is an American plot,’ and he was as stimulated as the others by the mystery.

  At half after three one of the black Packards was seen passing the castle ruins and approaching the palace; a few moments later it entered the long driveway leading to the pillared entrance, and when it drew to a halt the people began to clap, for out stepped a man of handsome appearance and great international distinction. It was Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the famous pianist who had been chosen to serve as prime minister of the new nation, a man of fifty-nine with all the honors the nations of the world could provide.

  Although he normally avoided such private parties as beneath the dignity of a prime minister, he had in this case made a concession to Marjorie because of the repeated hospitalities she had accorded him during his arduous years of politicking for Poland in America and Europe. He cherished the Bukowskis as loyal Poles, ‘the wife more than the husband,’ he teased, and in the waning days of his leadership of the nation he was pleased to be with them.

  When Marjorie stood proudly beside him she announced, ‘During the next three days the Maestro will play for us occasionally,’ whereupon everyone cheered, but the reception was somewhat dampened by the premature arrival of the second Packard. It brought from Krakow another pianist of distinction, who on seeing the great Paderewski, dashed across the lawn ignoring everyone to plant a kiss upon his forehead.

  It was Krystyna Szprot, herself a well-known spokesman for Poland in the various capitals of Europe. Her reputation as a patriot was unblemished: exile by the czars, arrests by the secret police of both Russian and Austrian Poland, attacks from apologists in the pay of all three occupying powers, and wherever she went, unflinching testimony to the ultimate freedom of Poland.

  She was forty-nine now, a short, dynamic woman with graying hair and a little more weight about her middle than when Wiktor Bukowski had first met her that winter in Vienna. She had never played in concert with Paderewski and was considered several levels below him in reputation, but the old hero was delighted to hoist her in the air and give her three mustachioed kisses, for he recognized her as a great patriot who had reinforced the work he had done in the days when Poland fought for her liberation.

  At seven those staying at Castle Gorka arrived, along with Count Lubonski and his two distinguished political visitors, and there came a gracious moment when Prime Minister Paderewski stepped forward to greet them. At the introduction Lubonski remembered that whereas his guest was certainly Witold Jurgela, his first name took quite a different form in Lithuanian, for it was that of his country’s outstanding hero. So Lubonski said: ‘This is Vytautas Jurgela, of Wilno,’ and Paderewski replied instantly: ‘A descendant, I see, of the great Vytautas who led the fight against the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald.’ Then he turned to the Ukrainian Vondrachuk and said: ‘And this huge fellow, I’m sure he’s one of Mazepa’s hetmen.’

  When the laughter subsided he said: ‘It would be quite improper for me as prime minister to intrude upon your political discussions. I’m here only as a pianist, and as a friend of the dear lady who is going to insist that I play for you. I hope you like banging on the piano.’

  As the four men stood together in that felicitous moment, Marjorie thought: How handsome these Slavs can be! What a noble race! The Ukrainian standing there like a great mountain of gold. Paderewski slight but with the power of volcanoes about to erupt, what a strong face he has. And dear old Lubonski, tall and straight as a Roman senator, a man of rectitude. And I like that Lithuanian professor. He could be teaching at Yale or Chicago.

  Then, perforce, she looked past the four prominent men to where her husband stood, chatting with Krystyna Szprot, and she had to contrast the great men’s dignity of mind and bearing with Wiktor’s boulevard charm: the London suit just a little too tight so as to display his build, the mustache a little too waxed, the smile much too forced, the gallantry quite proper for 1880 but not for 1919. How I wish that man of mine would do something significant, that dear, lovable, wasted man. Now, as she stared at him, he was charming the ladies, and doing it in his best Viennese manner.

  The fifty-seven chairs of the little theater were quickly occupied when the two pianists indicated that they would be pleased to play several short numbers before dinner, and Miroslawa Bukowska supervised the placing of extra chairs along the walls, then showed the remaining guests where they might stand. The theater had a small balcony seating sixteen, and here she took her place inconspicuously, indicating with an almost imperceptible shrug of her right shoulder where the peasant Seweryn Buk might hide himself behind some statuary; she had deemed it important to his education that the young man hear the great music about to be played.

  From the apron of the stage containing the two Steinways which the Bukowskis had imported from America, Marjorie announced: ‘Maestro Paderewski has agreed to honor us with a rendition of what we all consider his major composition, Variations and Fugue in E flat minor, Opus 23. The Maestro wrote this in …’ She hesitated, looked at Paderewski, who was adjusting himself to the Steinway, and asked, ‘When did you write it, Maestro?’ and Paderewski shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Nineteen hundred three,’ volunteered a voice from the audience, and Paderewski said in French: ‘That’s as good a year as any other,’ and the audience laughed.

  The piece, which was indeed Paderewski’s masterwork, started with a bold, bare sequence of seven notes that established the theme upon which twenty wildly differing variations would be constructed. It was not a congenial theme or one that could be whistled, and certainly it sounded nothing like Chopin, but it was strong and magisterial, like Poland itself, and as the enchanting variations progressed, now happy, now sad, now in a minor key, now in a major, but always surging with power, Marjorie thought: The great man placed the history of Poland into this composition. He knew what he was doing. And she wondered why these excellent variations had not won the approval of the public; the only time she had ever heard them played was when Paderewski himself had placed them hesitantly in one of his programs in Boston; then the audience sat quietly, listening respectfully while it waited for the real music of Chopin or Schumann or Liszt.

  Now Paderewski hunched his shoulders and launched int
o the grand fugue which ended the composition, and again Marjorie was astounded by the virtuosity of the piece; she wondered if there was any major piano music she loved as much as this, perhaps Liszt’s Sonata in B minor and maybe the Chopin sonata which contained the funeral march, but these variations of Paderewski would rank high, and she hoped that he would one day record them for the new talking machines.

  It was difficult to assess how the audience felt about the composition. Count Lubonski and his distinguished guests sat stony-faced; some of the music professors from Krakow and Lwow seemed to be following each note, but betrayed no reaction; and the general audience was, to use a word that had just crossed her mind, respectful. But as she turned to inspect the little balcony, she saw tucked in behind one of the white marble statues the surprising figure of the peasant Seweryn Buk, his eyes riveted upon the piano as though his ears were straining to hear every note. At first she supposed that Wiktor had invited the young man for what might well be one of Paderewski’s last concerts ever in these parts, but then she saw Miroslawa Bukowska sitting prim and impassive, hair pulled back, as she, too, followed each note. She must have invited him, she said to herself. Part of the education she insists upon giving him.

  Her attention left the balcony as Paderewski almost sprang into the furious yet controlled finale to his fugue, and as all the notes tumbled into position, creating a grand effect, she began to applaud, and even before the composition ended triumphantly, the audience was on its feet cheering. They loved this man. They were proud of his international honors. And they liked his bold way with music. But most of all they revered him for the persistence he had displayed in America in the years 1916, 1917 and 1918, when, on the strength of his own integrity, he was able to prevail upon President Woodrow Wilson to include in his famous Fourteen Points the memorable Paragraph Thirteen, which read: ‘An independent Poland with access to the sea and under international guarantee.’ As he stood beside the piano, bowing repeatedly, he was not only the prime minister of Poland but also its regenerator, and Marjorie had tears in her eyes as she reflected on the rumors now afloat that he would soon be deposed because of his inability to compromise with the various stubborn leaders of stubborn factions. It’s like old Poland, she told herself. The magnates tearing down the king, always unwilling to accept any sensible leadership.