| You think you’re going to experience something, and you may even actually experience it, but then suddenly you realize that you didn’t experience anything, and it doesn’t bother you at all. It doesn’t bother you that you can’t remember anything about what you didn’t experience and what you experienced. It doesn’t (...)
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| | Down Garwolińska to the end, then hang a right onto Makowska along the railroad tracks toward Olszynka. Sometimes all the way to the roundhouse. The street looked like a village road; on hot days it would be lined with guys sitting and drinking. Branches of fruit trees reached over the fences. (...)
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Jerzy AndrzejewskiDarknesses Cover the Earth
In this story the author analyzes the moral drama of people who have built a totalitarian system and who use it as a means of terror. In fact, he describes the modus operandi of the Spanish Inquisition at the end of the fifteenth century, but for any Polish reader it is immediately clear that this book is about Stalinism. The main plot involves the fate of a young, doubt-ridden monk who is appointed secretary to the Grand Inquisitor. This noble cause produces both belief and doubts in the young man. But the doubts finally vanish when refined methods of self-examination and pressure from above lead him to betray his best friend. At the end of the novel, the Grand Inquisitor, now on his death bed, racked with contrition, threatens to dismantle the Inquisition and make amends to those who had been wronged; but the secretary shuts him up and continues the system.
The book was published in 1957, during the "thaw." In that same year, the well-known director Kazimierz Dejmek staged a theatrical adaptation in Lodz. Later, the situation in Poland following this short period of freedom kept further editions of Darknesses Cover the Earth from being published. It was not until 1973 that it appeared again, in the book Three Novels, along with two other excellent works by Andrzejewski: The Gates of Paradise and Skipping Through the Mountains.
The atrocities of Stalinism, which is the true subject of Darknesses Cover the Earth, are still present in the memories of many people. Andrzejewski's book has current relevance, too, inasmusch as the Vatican is at the moment compiling documents on the Inquisition and persecution of heretics, which are to be published in 2000.
Likewise, the book itself is an important document of its time. It recalls the phenomenon of censorship in the People's Republic, and bears witness to the adeptness of great writers like Andrzejewski in bypassing the obstacles attached to their existence.
Darknesses Cover the Earth
One of the old Spanish chronicles notes that the Grand Inquisitor arrived in the small town of Villa-Real in La Mancha on a late afternoon in the middle of September 1485. The Reverend Father was accompanied by several dozen familiars mounted and on foot - those companions of the Holy Inquisition who were also known as the Militia of Christ. The scrupulous chronicler adds that the streets of Villa-Real were empty. The stalls of the Jewish merchants had disappeared. No buzz of conversation came from the inns or the wine-shops, and the windows of most of the houses were shuttered. The sweltering heat of the day had eased somewhat, but the dry, hot southerly wind continued to blow from the Sierra Morena.
The column of heavy armored cavalry, preceded by a detachment of archers, had just passed through the Puerta de Toledo and was barely inside the city walls when the ponderous bell of the collegiate church of San Pedro broke the prevailing silence. It was joined by the bells of the San Domingo cloisters and the churches of Santa Cruz, Santa Maria la Blanca, and San Tomas. A moment later, the bells of all the numerous churches and monasteries in Villa-Real were ringing.
Two monks walking in the cloister gallery of the Dominican friary paused. One of them was middle aged and robust, with heavy peasant shoulders. The other was young, short and slender, with a dark face that still looked boyish.
"He's here," said Fray Mateo.
"Mateo, Mateo!" replied Fray Diego, "If I could pray for that man, I would ask the Lord to call him from among the living."
Fray Mateo stood with his head down, fingering his rosary. From far away, above the sound of the nearby bells, they heard the high, clear tones of the ave-bell at the suburban hermitage of the Carmelite sisters.
"Diego," he said softly, "you did not say that, and I did not hear you."
"Are you afraid? You? Can it be that you feel as I do?"
"One should not always utter one's thoughts."
"I know."
"You are young and hot-tempered."
"Would you prefer me to be like a stone?"
"No. But today, even the stones have ears and tongues. Watch yourself. If Father Torquemada thought it fitting to leave the royal court and travel here, then terrible things are going to start happening in Villa-Real."
"Oh, Mateo, I do not think that I shall see things more terrible than those I have already seen."
"Don't delude yourself," said Fray Mateo. "It is not a characteristic of events, but a result of the order in which they occur." Diego was deep in his own thoughts.
"Great and merciful Lord! I have preserved my faith unsullied. But my heart, Mateo, my heart is wounded and my conscience muddied. One day on the Quamadero in Seville, I saw a hundred people being burned at the stake. Along with the other brothers, I sang the hymn Exurge Domine et iudica causam Tuam, but even through all that singing, I could not help but hear the groans and screams of the dying. Another day..."
"Hush, Diego. The wounds of the heart can heal only in silence."
"For me, there is no silence! You said that one should not always utter one's thoughts. What does that mean? Don't you trust me? Are you afraid of me? You - my friend, my teacher?"
Fray Mateo looked up. Diego was standing a step away, pale and trembling, with a dark fire burning in his eyes.
"Brother Diego, if the conscience objects to acknowledged injustice, it is not other people, but oneself, that a man must fear most."
"Oneself?"
"Do you know where objections of conscience can lead you? Doesn't your rebellion terrify you?"
"No! I do not want any terror or dread, or anything that is fearful. I want to do something."
"Pray," said Fray Mateo.
Translated by William Brand
Jerzy ANDRZEJEWSKI (1909-1983) - Romanschriftsteller, Verfasser von Erzählungen und Essays, nahm aktiv am politischen und kulturellen Leben nach 1945 teil. Die Thematik seiner Werke entwickelte sich von moralischen Fragen - Lad serca (Ordnung des Herzens), 1938 - über politische Themen - Popiol i diament (Asche und Diamant), 1948 - hin zu einer Revision der Ideen und Visionen der Gegenwartskultur - Ciemnosci kryja ziemie (Finsternis bedeckt die Erde),1957, Bramy raju (Die Pforten des Paradieses),1960, Miazga (Brei), als Untergrundausgabe 1979 erschienen.
Polish edition by Wydawnictwo OSSOLINEUM
German edition by Langen-Müller: München 1989
Jerzy Andrzejewski Ciemnosci kryja ziemie
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