ZAGAJEWSKI
409
POETS DON'T PARTICULARLY FEAR the onslaughts of Puritan propagan–
dists or the ferocious attacks that emerge from beneath the pens of their
fiction-writing brethren. The ill will of Jansenists, the wrath of philoso–
phers who accuse them of following too flighty a muse: neither can do
them much harm. The boundless indifference of ardent TV viewers and
fellow passengers on commuter trains is far more dangerous. It's far worse
when no one even bothers to denounce them.
THE ALTE PINAKOTHEK in Munich holds a portrait by the young
Spaniard Velazquez; I once spent half an hour in front of that picture.
I felt as though I'd just regained my vision; I could see again. I suddenly
saw a man who lived in the seventeenth century. A man with a promi–
nent nose (it cast a shadow on his cheek). Enormous eyes. Gloves on
both hands, dark garments that bring his face into relief. His face, deep
in thought, is neither ugly nor handsome. At a certain point I realized
that this young nobleman might really be the devil, hence his excep–
tional charm (a penitent devil, a devil seized by fleeting doubts ... ).
ONE OF REMBRANDT'S earliest self-portraits also hangs there. It's very
small (only
15.5
centimeters by
12.7),
and reveals the sensuous face of
a young man who already knows who he is, although he hasn't yet
accepted it (in this he resembles Rimbaud-another brilliant boy from
northern Europe).
MOMENTS OF REVELATION are like boundary stones, separated by sev–
eral hundred yards of no-man's-land. The poet experiences an
epiphany in setting down the key line of his latest poem. But days,
weeks, even months of shadow stretch between these moments of
majestic clarity. And here the poet plays the historian's role, sharing
not just his ecstatic humanity with his readers but his dull, dreary,
doubting humanity as well.
