By STEFAN ŻEROMSKI
Dr. Paweł Obarecki returned home in rather a bad temper from a whist-party, where he had been paying his respects to the priest, in company with the chemist, the postmaster and the magistrate, for sixteen successive hours, beginning the previous evening. He carefully locked the door of his study so that no one, not even his housekeeper, aged twenty-four, should disturb him. He sat down at the table, glared angrily at the window without knowing why, and drummed on the table with his fingers. He realized that he was in for another fit of his "metaphysics."
It is a well-established fact that a man of culture who has been cast out by the irresistible force of poverty from the centres of intellectual life into a small provincial town succumbs in time to the deadening effects of wet autumn, lack of means of communication, and the absolute impossibility of sensible conversation for days together. He develops into a carnivorous and vegetable-eating animal, drinks an excessive quantity of bottled beer, and becomes subject to fits of weariness resembling the weakness that precedes physical sickness. He swallows the boredom of a small town unconsciously, as a dog swallows dirt with his food. The actual process of decay begins at the moment when the thought "Nothing matters" takes hold of the organism. This was the case with Dr. Obarecki of Obrzydłówek. At the period of his life when this story begins, he had already come to the end of the resources of Obrzydłówek as regards his brain, his heart, and his energy.
He had an unconquerable horror of intellectual effort, could walk up and down his study for hours together, or lie on the couch with an unlighted cigar in his mouth, straining his ear to catch a sound which would foretell an interruption of the oppressive silence, anxiously longing for something to happen: if only someone would come and say something, or even turn somersaults! The autumn usually oppressed him specially; there was something painful in the silence brooding over Obrzydłówek from end to end on a late autumn afternoon—something despairing that roused one to an inward cry for help. As though a fine cobweb were being spun across it, his brain elaborated ideas which were sometimes coarse and occasionally positively absurd.
His only diversion was whistling and his conversations with his housekeeper. They turned on the remarkable superiority of roast pork stuffed with buckwheat to pork with any other kind of stuffing; but at times they became very improper.
The sky was frequently half covered by a cloud resembling enormous bays and promontories; unable to disperse, it would lie motionless, threatening to burst suddenly over Obrzydłówek and the distant lonely fields. The fine snow from this cloud would fasten in crystals on the window-panes, while the wind made weird penetrating sounds like an exhausted baby crying out its last sobs close by at a corner of the house. Stripped of their leaves and lashed by the driving snow, wild pear trees swayed their branches over the distant field paths.... There was something of a catarrhal melancholy in this landscape, which unconsciously induced sadness and restless fear. The same chronic melancholy lasted in a diminishing degree through the spring and summer. Without any tangible cause, a malignant sadness had settled in the doctor's heart. He had fallen into a fatal state of idleness, so that it had even become too much effort to read Alexis' novels.
Dr. Paweł's "metaphysics," with which he was seized from time to time, consisted in a few hours' severe self-examination. This was followed by a violent inflowing of memories, a hasty amassing of shreds of knowledge, and a furious struggle of all his nobler instincts against the stifling inactivity; he indulged in reflections, outbursts of bitterness, firm resolutions, and projects. Naturally all this led to nothing, and passed in time like any other more or less acute illness. A good sleep would cure him of "metaphysics" as of a headache, and enable him to wake up fresh the next morning, with more energy to meet the tedium of daily life, and with a greater mental capacity for the invention of the most savoury dishes. This endemia of "metaphysics" made the doctor realize, however, when his mind was filled with the philosophy of strong common sense, that beneath his existence as a well-fed animal there was a hidden wound, incurable and unspeakably painful, like that of a diseased bone.
Dr. Obarecki had come to Obrzydłówek six years before, directly after completing his medical training, with a few exceptionally useful ideas in his mind and a few roubles in his pocket. There had been a great deal of talk at that time of the necessity of finding enlightened people who would settle in God-forsaken backwood places like Obrzydłówek. He had listened to the apostles of these schemes. Young, high-minded and reckless, he had within a month of settling in the town declared war against the local chemist and barbers, who encroached upon the medical profession. It was twenty-five miles to the nearest larger town, so the local chemist had exploited the situation. Those who wished to profit by his medicaments had to pay a high price for them. He and the barbers, who got a percentage on the business, played into each others' hands. Consequently they were able to build themselves fine houses and wear "kacalyas" trimmed with bearskin. They went about with an air of dignity like "supporters"[22] at the Corpus Christi procession. When gentle hints and heated arguments had broken against the chemist's resistance, who declared the doctor's point of view to be a youthful Utopia, he scraped together a small sum and bought a travelling medicine-chest, which he carried with him on his rounds. He made up the medicines on the spot, sold them at a nominal price or gave them away, taught hygiene, made experiments, and worked perseveringly and with the utmost enthusiasm, giving himself no time for proper rest and sleep. It was a foregone conclusion that when the news of his portable chemist's shop, his giving his services to the people free of charge, and other things illustrating his point of view, became known, his windows were smashed. As Baruch Pokoik, the only glazier in Obrzydłówek, was busy at the time celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles, the doctor was obliged to paste up the window-panes with paper, and keep watch at night, revolver in hand. The windows were, in fact, broken periodically, until wooden shutters were procured for them. Rumours were spread among the common people that the doctor had intercourse with evil spirits, while the better educated were told that he was ignorant of his profession. Patients who wished to consult him were kept away by threats and noisy demonstrations outside the house.
The young doctor paid no attention to all this, and relied on the ultimate triumph of truth. But truth did not triumph—it is difficult to say why not. By the end of the year his energy was slowly ebbing away. Close contact with the ignorant masses had disillusioned him more than words can say. His lectures on hygiene, entreaties and arguments had fallen like the seed on rocky ground. He had done all that was in his power—and it had been in vain.
To speak candidly, people can hardly be expected to restore their neglected health by simple laws of hygiene when they have to go without boots in winter, dig up rotten potatoes from other people's fields in March to get themselves a meal, and grind alderbark to powder so as to mix it with a very slender supply of pilfered rye flour.