ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
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should be able to demonstrate it through their own writing. Yet the
writing of that time shows no metaphysical experience at all, no
pyramids of questions, no tragedy-not to speak of simple truth.
ZH:
Because the life of artists was an idyll, although ridden with
fear. One could always fall into that terrible pit where the real so–
ciety lived. Clubs, resorts, high standard of living, the literary salon
of Madame Nalkowska, travels abroad. The gang of agents badly
needed the intelligentsia, the elite - a kind of cultural
nomenklatura.
What did the government have to offer? The divine status of a demi–
urge. Andrzejewski once told me that he was invited to visit by Ber–
man . His host paced nervously in his office. Finally he stopped in
front of the window and said,"This country is on the edge of a civil
war. Only a writer of your stature and talent could possibly . .. ."
Thus he suggested the subject of
Ashes and Diamonds .
They suddenly
felt that "the helm of history" rested also in their hands and that it
was worth lying a bit to the confused nation upon which they looked
with contempt. Did they know anything about the lives of the work–
ers? Did they care? They were concerned with a certain order, with
solt
instead of
sein,
to use Kant's terms. Not with what is, but with
what should be . Trying to write about the reality, they wrote about
something that was not. Later on they discovered that there was
something like the reality of their own writing. They created a closed
circle in which people reflected each other. There was also the
garden of earthly delights: miraculous metamorphoses, the spring of
eternal youth. Manes of hair grew on the heads of balding prose
writers: timid bourgeois esthetes suddenly spoke with borrowed yet
sonorous and powerful voices. A forgotten avant-garde poet was fol–
lowed by a retinue of promising young women poets . What a pity
that this gala was directed by an old Cheka agent. To this day some
fellows - recipients of this or that state award or medal- use the gov–
ernment hospitals, which have better medicine, although they are
now in the opposition.
It
is all very confusing. We agree that we can–
not demand much from the younger generation until the older one
decides to tell it all. I do not object to the fact that the accused wants
to defend himself. I expect him only to find some atonement. This is
not a Catholic confession , but if I have betrayed my friend, I should
at least visit him and express my sincere regret. But here we have
responsibility to the whole society - the future generation that is still
fed this socialist realist drivel.
JT:
Would you agree that the Polish fascist potential, which ger–
minated during the two interwar decades, came to fruition in the for-
