ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
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young people of leftist leanings, whose parents made a revolution–
let's say in China. This is a separate subject. I have a lot of warm
feelings for them - people like Kuron or Modzelewski - while I have
none for ... let's call him J ozio.
JT:
When you speak about "young people" do you mean those who
were seventeen to twenty years old in 1949-1950?
ZH:
That's right.
JT:
If
we set these people apart, we are talking here in the first place
about those whose childhood ended during the war, or those who
started publishing even before the war, and were really old boys
when the war ended.
ZH:
I'll settle my accounts with the old boys later. But the wartime
generation ... what name shall we give it? Jozio?
JT:
Maybe Kazio?
ZH:
No, Kazio is an old boy . Let's call him Tadzio. He is not from a
leftist or a communist family. His father did not revolutionize
China. He was not in the French Communist Party. Tadzio was a
member of the Home Army ... let's say in Vilno. I would like to
hear Tadzio's confession.
It
would be a tale in the socialist realist
style: rough, simplistic and vulgar- and everybody would be of–
fended. Let us assume then, that I visit Tadzio many years later,
and ask him: "Tadzio, why did you do all that?" And Tadzio says:
"Well, you know , I was in the underground, then I left the under–
ground and - I'm sure you'll understand - I was terribly afraid."
Well, that's true. I was afraid, too . To be afraid is human. But what
does one do with fear? Does fear sharpen intelligence?
It
turned out
that in many cases it annihilated intelligence . But let us return to
Tadzio. Tadzio continues: "So, you know, I was afraid. Joziek was
arrested, Wladek was arrested . People were being sent to Siberia,
thrown into jail . During interrogations they demanded to know who
was your commander, what were the pseudonyms. But during that
terror there were wonderful people who wrote books. So I wrote a
poem in which I said that I had been betrayed, and I took it to
Odrodzenie .
And just imagine - a week later I bought
Odrodzenie,
and
there it was - my poem on the third page! Later I received an invita–
tion to visit the weekly . They asked me whether I had been writing
before the war. The conversation was very pleasant. The editor was
a real gentleman. We had coffee together." And thus Kazio started
to be a little bit less afraid, at least some progress . The editors told
him to remember them, if he had anything new. They did not sug–
gest any subjects. It could be lyrical poetry, whatever. They were in-
