554
PARTISAN REVIEW
a tour of several provincial Polish towns, he laughingly recounted
an incident that had occurred in Silesia. Someone had spread the
report that a delegation of foreigners from the West had arrived.
The journalist (whose round belly and honest expression were in–
ducive to such effusive manifestations of confidence) was seized and
embraced on the street by a man crying "The English have come!"
"That's just how it was in the Ukraine in 1919" was
his
comment
on the incident. This recurrence of sterile hopes amused him and he
was flattered to be the representative of a country ruled according
to infallible predictions; for nation after nation had indeed become
part of its Empire, according to schedule. I am not sure that there
wasn't in
his
smile something of the compassionate
superiority
that
a housewife feels for a mouse caught in her trap.
The "post-crisis" writer may well expect one day to be sent
on a similar journalistic mission to some newly acquired western
country. Such a prospect is not altogether distasteful. To observe
people who know nothing, who still have everything to learn, must
undoubtedly afford moments of unadulterated sweetness. The
master knows that the trap in which the mouse has been caught is
not an entirely agreeable place
in
which to live. For the moment,
however, the citizens of these newly converted countries will under–
stand little of their new situation. They will be exhilarated at first
by the flutter of national banners, the blare of marching bands, and
the proclamations of long-awaited reforms. Only he, the observer,
will see into the future like a god, and know it to be hard, necessarily
hard, for such are the laws of History.
In the epilogue of Witkiewicz's novel, his heroes, who have
gone over to the service of Murti-Bing, become schizophrenics. The
events of today bear out his vision, even in this detail. One can
survive the "crisis" and function perfectly, writing or painting as
one must; but the old moral and aesthetic standards continue to
exist on some deep inner plane. Out of this arises a split within
the individual that makes for many difficulties in the daily life of pop–
ular democracies. It facilitates the task of ferreting out heretical
thoughts and inclinations; for, thanks to it, the Murti-Bingist can
feel himself into
his
opponent with great acuteness.
The new phase
and the old phase
are co-existent in him; and together they render
him
an experienced psychologist, a keeper of his brother's conscience.
