NEW POLISH WRITING
507
ment.
If
you don't want to be afraid, do not make any agreements
with the functionaries.
You feel no hate for the functionaries, only pity. You know how
often they suffer from mental illnesses. You know they will feel
shame in front of their own children. You know that the sentence of
national oblivion will be passed on them.
You remember the history of your nation. You remember that
within that history a declaration of loyalty made in prison was
always a disgrace; remaining faithful to yourself and to the national
tradition was a virtue. You remember people tortured and impris–
oned for years who did not sign such a declaration. And there are
others who wander among your memories: those who lost the battle
of dignity in prison. You see with the eyes of your soul Andrzej M.,
an excellent literary critic , your friend, who while in prison wrote a
brilliant informer's essay, testimony to a moral death. You remem–
ber Zygmunt D., a charming friend, an intelligent boy, who broke
down once and for years thereafter continued to inform on his col–
leagues . So you think with horror of these human shreds, of these
people broken to bits by the police machine, and you see your future
is still an open slate. The choice is yours. But your memory com–
mands you to repeat: you can become like that; no one is born an
informer; every day you forge out your fate at the cost of your own
life.
You have not yet heard the declaration of loyalty on the radio,
nor the vile interrogations, nor the shameful statements. You do not
yet know how Marian K. from Nowa Huta was tricked. He was a
brave and intelligent Solidarity activist; in his statement he wanted
to render unto Caeser what is Caeser's, and unto God what is
God's, and he rendered everything unto the police, for he did not
stop to think that there are situations where ambiguity ceases to be
ambiguous, and where the half-truth becomes a lie.
But you know that all this is nothing new, that you will not
want to explain to these functionaries waving the order of release in
front of your nose that it is they who are slaves, and no order of
release will free them from that bondage. You will not explain to
them that those people swarming in crowded corridors, recently torn
from their homes, those worker activists, professors and writers, stu–
dents and artists, friends and strangers, tha t those are the people
who constitute human and national freedom, and that for this, war
has been declared upon them . You will not want to explain to this
