CZESLAW MILOSZ
469
although I caused her much suffering. And perhaps it was from fear of
the dark tide of irresponsibility and madness that I imposed so much dis–
cipline on myself, was so accurate, precise, punctual that I could almost
be taken for a model baker, scientist, or businessman.
In
California at the end of the twentieth century,
I,
with my knowl–
edge of the hells of Europe, am like Mr. Sammler from Saul Bellow's
novel. Also with a certain skepticism toward the privilege that American
poets appropriate for themselves, the privilege of being certified madmen.
Alcoholism, drugs, stays in psychiatric hospitals, suicide - these are sup–
posed to be the signs of exceptionally talented individuals. America has
been thrusting them into this since the time of Edgar Allan Poe. This is
possible, but it is also possible that the Romantic myth that identifies
greatness with deviance received a new stimulus in the shape of the per–
missive society and now engenders real, not imagined, results. Whenever
Robert Lowell landed in a clinic I couldn't help thinking that if some–
one would only give him fifteen lashes with a belt on his bare behind,
he'd recover immediately. I admit, that was envy speaking through me.
If
I cannot indulge myself, why should he be free to indulge himself? ...
Septel11ber
15, 1987. I read two reviews of Andrzej Walicki's book,
Encollllters with Milosz,
in
Arka [The Ark]
and Walicki's response. He is
right to raise questions about the debates on the Stalin era by people
who have no recollection of that period but judge it according
to
their
later experiences. For example, Michnik and his
History oj Honor in
Polarld.
Why be surprised at foreigners' incomprehension when even
people who grew up in Poland are unable to appreciate the intensity of
the terror in those days?
It
was not just fear. Those attacks on
The
Captive Milld
implying that I had dreamed up some kind of abyss, while
what was really involved was simply fear for my own hide, are way off
the mark.
It
was a terror born of the unexpected awareness that the
worldwide triumph of Communism was on its way, and that dreams of
an independent Poland would have to be placed in a museum. Is that in–
significant? And that is why, looking back, I am mistrustful of the noble
pronouncements in Jacek Trznadel's
Domestic Disgrace.
Certainly, if there
should be a return to Poland-the-martyred-nation, the one from one
hundred or two hundred years ago, then such distinctions (here, purity;
there, ignominy) would be well founded. I myself have compared Walesa
to Kosciuszko . The emotional tracks are worn quite smooth. But to do
this soberly? Objectively? One would have to prove that the Stalinist pe–
riod was only a deviation, followed by a return to our normal condi–
tion - but what is the meaning of "normal" in our part of Europe?
