398
PARTISAN REVIEW
PROFESSOR LESZCZYNSKI, who had a soft, delicate voice that broke eas–
ily, specialized in epistemology. He lectured on Descartes, Berkeley,
Hume, and Kant. He was frail, short, hunched, and meek, with a face
so thin that it seemed to be made from plywood, and not from an ordi–
nary, spheroid human body. He was so quiet and mild-mannered he
seemed to be living only half a life; he was barely there. He always wore
a loden green overcoat, always: in the winter and the summer, for spring
and fall, on the street and in the well-heated lecture hall.
It
didn't mat–
ter if a violet-hued Siberian frost had struck, the ruthless frost of Stalin
and Beria, or an extravagant, Sicilian heat wave, incapacitating even the
greatest athletes-Professor Leszczynski never removed his green over–
coat. Students, who see and know everything about their teachers, had
an explanation for this phenomenon: Professor Leszczynski had spent
some time in Auschwitz and had developed a rare condition there. His
inner thermostat had stopped working. Others said no, it hadn't
stopped working, it was just that he was always freezing, even in
August. But here we bump up against a metaphysical argument: was he
freezing, or was he just insensitive to changes in temperature?
BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND, when
I
return in my thoughts to Dluga Street
now, after so many years,
I
come to the conclusion that those two ordi–
nary, ugly, aging women, leading the most commonplace, trivial exis–
tence, an existence governed by the sluggish rhythm of the seasons, the
long, gloomy winter, the frantic spring, the weekly hunt for ham at the
butcher's, for carp before the holidays, for stockings in the department
store on Market Square, grudging every penny, hating each other at
moments-but never actually going as far as murderl-these two
women were more important to the world than
I
was. They were a bet–
ter investment for the world, its concern for them bore a higher rate of
return than it would ever get from some hotheaded young student. My
sudden revelations, my obsession with ancient and modern forms of
spirituality were nothing more than a fuse that was already smoldering
and might, under the right conditions, set off a bomb!
I
was potentially
one of those fanatics who dream up treacherous utopias, and even if they
can't realize them, they're at the very least eager to sign a petition-with
both hands!-demanding absolute perfection from the world. And
they're convinced that they're right! Those two women, full of anger,
