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Eliza Orzeszkowa – 5 Novels
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Five novels
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Mr. Graba
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Mirrors, Echoes, Dialogues

Mirrors, Echoes, Dialogues
Agnieszka Bąbel and Agata Grabowska-Kuniczuk

Mirrors, Echoes, Dialogues
Agnieszka Bąbel and Agata Grabowska-Kuniczuk

Autobiographical themes in the novel

When presenting the idea for Pan Graba to one of its first readers, editor Józef Sikorski, Eliza Orzeszkowa wrote in her letter:

I wanted it to be a satire on a certain aspect of the customs of a certain part of the men of my time; everything you find in the first part of my novel is a complete and faithful reproduction of the truth – to the extent that the characters are copies of real and familiar ones, and the facts took place before my eyes.[1]

This argument was probably intended primarily to excuse the young author from tackling sensitive topics (the dangers of gambling, the work’s demoralized protagonist, the noble heroine, yet striving for a “divorce”), as well as to clear her of the accusation of excessive fantasy (since the characters and the course of action were supposed to be the result of meticulous observation of the reality of a provincial town). “Representing the truth” thus guaranteed the credibility of the story told and the plausibility of the characters portrayed.

Attempts to treat this early work as a source of autobiographical information or as a roman à clef seem as tempting as they are risky, and have already been undertaken by critics and scholars. According to Ludwik Brunon Świderski, there was even a specific prototype for Kalikst Graba, a “well-known” card player and schemer in the Grodno region, January Mikulski[2]. This inspiration, however, would be understandable only to a narrow geographic and social audience, and therefore does not meet the requirement of broad recognition of the real-life characters or situations, which precludes treating Pan Graba as a typical roman à clef. Moreover, the writer’s desire to address socially significant issues meant that (like the overwhelming majority of authors of her generation) she did not use this creative method, or if she did, she used it in a limited and specific way.[3] It is also doubtful that she introduced even to her early works undisguised and artistically unprocessed experiences of her own or those of an ill-matched marriage, as Irena Krzywicka suggested in her essay Młoda Orzeszkowa [Young Orzeszkowa].[4] Orzeszkowa’s enigmatic remark about working on the novel, from her letter to Sikorski from late 1868: “I decided to rewrite it myself from beginning to end and I think I will arrange it so as not to cover myself with anonymity, which is contrary to my principles of authorial courage and private openness,”[5] was commented on by Iwona Wiśniewska:

Perhaps [Orzeszkowa – A. B. and A. G.-K.] intended to include scenes describing her real-life experiences with the consistory lawyer. It is impossible to assume that she intended to give the character her surname.[6]

Contrary to the anecdotes of Orzeszkowa’s contemporaries, we should not see Mr. Grab today as a realistic portrait of real people, nor should we treat this novel as a disguised autobiography of the writer. However, the author certainly drew on material from her observations of the world around her, the places she visited, and the books she read to build her early works. In them, she also touched on issues that deeply concerned her,[7] for example, the relationship problems of a married couple, the situation of a wife in an unsuccessful relationship, the issue of women’s financial independence or difficulties in obtaining a declaration of invalidity of marriage, which the writer experienced in the Vilnius consistory while working on the novel.

Both in Pan Graba and in her private correspondence, the writer used the popular, though imprecise, terms “divorce” or “annulment of marriage” (canon law only permitted the declaration of the nullity of a marriage, dispensation from a non-consummated marriage, and separation). The thirteen grounds (so-called canonical impediments to marriage) listed by the novel’s lawyer are consistent with the legal status of the time (but do not exhaust the entire list, which also includes defects in marital consent and deficiencies in canonical form[8]). The process of seeking a declaration of the nullity of a marriage was lengthy and burdensome, not only psychologically but also financially: in Orzeszkowa’s case, it lasted nearly two years (1867–1869), took place in two instances of the Vilnius consistory (without the need to appeal to the Tribunal of the Roman Rota), and cost her approximately six thousand rubles.[9] Recounting her trials and tribulations, she admitted honestly in a private letter: “I begged some, paid and even threatened others, and finally I got my way.”[10] For Pan Graba’s character, as for the author, “none of the canonical reasons can serve.” Kamilla G. has “nothing” (she lacks money, support from family and friends), so all she can do is wait for death to separate her from her unloved husband.[11]

An intriguing similarity can also be found in the ending of the novel – the “port” in the city of M., designed for several single women, which is supposed to provide them with a safe shelter and a modest living, is also a place of residence, a boarding school for several students and a glove factory (part 3, chapters 10 and 12). In the autumn of 1869, Orzeszkowa, like her characters, exchanged the countryside for the city and, out of necessity, significantly reduced her expenses: she moved from Milkowszczyzna to Grodno, where she lived in Zaułek Sienny in much more modest conditions (in three rooms and with only one maid).[12] The writer enthusiastically explained in detail the plans, hatched for several months among friends, for a company with a share capital of three thousand rubles, which were to be used to bring machines, materials, and three skilled workers from Warsaw as teachers for local female workers. The writer enthusiastically explained to Józef Sikorski,[13] who was intrigued by the note about opening of a plant “under the name of Eliza Orzeszkowa and Company” published in “Gazeta Warszawska” [Warsaw Gazette] (No. 264 of November 30, 1869). Unfortunately, the project for a lucrative “glove factory,” which, according to the author’s optimistic calculations, Pan Graba could generate up to twelve thousand rubles in Grodno annually, despite the interest of potential employees, never came to fruition.[14]

Strona: 1234567

Przypisy

  1. Letter from Eliza Orzeszkowa to Józef Sikorski from August 7 (19) [1868], [in:] E. Orzeszkowa, Listy zebrane [Collected Letters], ed. E. Jankowski, Wrocław 1954, vol. 1, p. 38 (hereinafter: Lz 1).
  2. Świderski writes: “One of Orzeszkowa’s first novels, Pan Graba, made a great stir. Everyone knew that the author portrayed the well-known landowner {+schemer and card player}, January Mikulski, married to Miss Kiniewiczówna” in the character of the novel work. (L.B. Świderski, Orzeszkowa w anegdocie [Orzeszkowa in an Anecdote], typescript with corrections signed “/elbeś/”, AEO 1157, p. 1). This information is cited by Iwona Wiśniewska (Kalendarium 1, p. 181)
    That this could have been a common phenomenon of later searching for prototypes of literary characters of popular works is evidenced by the next anecdote cited by Świderski, related to Pan Graba and the Mikulski family, with characteristic corrections. It clearly refers to the novel’s protagonist’s first marriage (the theft of the beautiful heiress Józefa L. from her home), and most likely began circulating after the publication of Orzeszkowa’s work: “One of the local sly ones (perhaps Czesław Ławrynowicz, whom Orzeszkowa writes about in her letters to Jeż) decided to capitalize on this interest and published a publishing prospectus announcing a new novel written especially for him by the author of Pan Graba, set against the backdrop of a new {+notorious scandal} that had occurred {+again} in the Mikulski family. In this novel, Orzeszkowa was to describe the romantic story of Miss Szemiotówna being stolen from her parents’ home and dragged to the altar by Józef Mikulski, cousin of «Mr. Graba». The names were, of course, changed.” (L.B. Świderski, op. cit.). Added words are marked in curly brackets, deleted words are crossed out.
  3. Henryk Markiewicz states: “Outstanding writers of the positivist era, striving for realistic typification, generally did not employ the key technique. At most, Eliza Orzeszkowa introduced into her works authentic characters from the lower classes or people known only within her private circle (the prototype of engineer Zygmunt from the novel Z życia realisty [From the Life of a Realist] was Orzeszkowa’s fleeting crush, Stanisław Sikorski). The novel Ad astra (1904) is a specific case: the co-authors – Orzeszkowa and the philosopher-naturalist Tadeusz Garbowski (under the pseudonym Juliusz Romski) – undoubtedly gave some of their own characteristics to the protagonists of the work: Seweryna Zdrojowska and Tadeusz Rodowski.” (H. Markiewicz, O polskiej literaturze z kluczem [On Polish Literature à Clef], [in:] idem, Zabawy literackie [Literary Games], 2nd extended ed., Kraków 1998, p. 100). Ludwik Brunon Świderski found “clear echoes of the romance” of the young writer with the doctor Zygmunt Święcicki in two of her novels from different stages of her career: Ostatnia miłość [The Last Love] and Dwa bieguny [Two Poles] (idem, Dzieje jednej powieści [The Story of One Novel], parts 1 and 2, “Kurier Literacko-Naukowy” [Literary and Scientific Courier], supplement to “Ilustrowany Kurier Codzienny” [Illustrated Daily Courier] 1938, no. 51 and 1939, no. 1; see Kalendarium 1, p. 145).
  4. I. Krzywicka, Młoda Orzeszkowa, “Wiadomości Literackie” 1936, no. 53/54, p. 17 (see also Recepcja utworu [Reception of the Novel] in this volume).
  5. Letter from Eliza Orzeszkowa to Józef Sikorski from 10 (22) November 1868, Lz 1, p. 40.
  6. Kalendarium 1, p. 171.
  7. In several of Orzeszkowa’s novels, written in the years 1867–1870, one can find not only similar themes to Pan Graba (an ill-suited relationship, divorce, bad upbringing, the value of work and the need to train in it from childhood – Ostatnia miłość, Na prowincji [In the Back Country], Cnotliwi [The Virtuous]), motifs (a mask – W klatce [In the Cage], Na prowincji; the heroine’s maturation through motherhood – Na prowincji; the distinction between physical and spiritual love – Na prowincji, Cnotliwi; the role of music, observing lighted windows, reading facial expressions by a physiognomist – Cnotliwi) and characters (the clever servant Michałek, a phlegmatic admirer of English horses, an Anglomaniac – Ostatnia miłość, Cnotliwi; the episodic character of a foolish and slovenly Jewish woman – W klatce; a doting mother who spoils her son, a golden young boy who loses money on taxes, a young wife dying of consumption who, at the moment of her death, forgives her unworthy husband; a “decent sinner,” i.e. the character’s corruption resulting from weakness, inertia and idleness – Na prowincji). What is more, there are analogous elements of the presented world (Niesiecki’s armorial, Moleschott’s work, “Mane, Tekel, Pheres” opposed to “Veni, vidi, vici” – W klatce; the novel The Mysteries of Paris, a family favourite – a Bonanza dog or an English pointer, a game of billiards – Na prowincji; a Bedouin, a mansard, a drawing pinned to a drawing board, a doctor’s recommendation to take fresh air, a window behind green blinds, a bronze clock, a lamp with an umber curtain – Cnotliwi), but also ways of describing scenes or characters (a handsome young man like the page Cherubino from The Marriage of Figaro – Ostatnia miłość; a ball scene in an enfilade, described like a painting in a portier frame – Na prowincji; Werther and the Epicurean – W klatce; players with cards in trembling hands, an angelic woman playing the piano, an innocent maiden in a white muslin negligee showing “strangely shaped shoulders,” “phosphoric, yellowish gleam of eyes” as a sign of base passion, a young mother with golden curls and a playfully upturned nose, and a pale and bored rich gentleman-seducer – Cnotliwi), and even sayings and phrases used by the characters (above all in Na prowincji: “widmo nieszczęścia” (“spectre of misfortune”), “jegomość do lasa, a jejmość do sasa” (“the gentleman to the forest [las – abbreviation from King Leszczyński], and the lady to the Saxon”), “zaręczyny pajęczyny” (“the betrothal of a spider’s web”), “a reszta, według słów poety, «utonie w zapomnienia fali»“ (“and the rest, in the poet’s words, ‘will drown in the wave of oblivion’”, “z łoskotem nos sobie utarł” (“he rubbed his nose with a clatter”), “ja bym tego młokosa […] jako szlachcica, na kobiercu położył, i…” (“I would lay that young man […] on the carpet as a nobleman, and…”).
  8. Canonical impediments to marriage included age (16 for men, 14 for women – according to other sources, 12, and according to civil law, 16), sexual incapacity, prior marital status, higher orders, solemn religious profession, dissent, abduction, consanguinity (up to the third degree, even among illegitimate relatives), affinity, or public decency. Defects in marital consent included misunderstanding the essence of marriage (mental illness), error regarding the person, feigning marital consent, exclusion of essential purposes of marriage (e.g., fidelity, having children, indissolubility of the union), coercion and fear, and a condition (concerning the future). Deficiencies in canonical form consisted of failure to fulfil the circumstances of the marriage: before a clergyman as a church official and two witnesses, expressed in the sacramental formula in words or signs. (The authors would like to thank Reverend Professor Janusz Gręźlikowski from the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw for consultations on canon law issues).
  9. Letter from Eliza Orzeszkowa to Józef Sikorski from 1 (13) September 1869, Lz 1, p. 56. It is possible that, apart from Piotr Orzeszkowa’s recklessness in managing the estate and the contributions imposed by the tsarist government after the uprising, these expenses (related to bribing church hierarchs who issued decisions in the consistory in Vilnius, about which there were rumours – about the “Murawiew prelate” Piotr Żyliński, who was then in charge of the Vilnius diocese, and the Archbishop of Mogilev Józef Maksymilian Staniewski, see Kalendarium 1, pp. 152–153) also contributed to the deterioration of the writer’s finances.
  10. Letter from Eliza Orzeszkowa to Józef Sikorski from September 1 (13), 1869, Lz 1, p. 56.
  11. Iwona Wiśniewska states: “The difficulties that arise on the manner of the separating spouses will be one of the ironically and bitterly treated themes of the novel Pan Graba” (Kalendarium 1, p. 153).
  12. Ibidem, p. 187.
  13. It is not known why Orzeszkowa failed to implement this very specific plan she had in mind while writing the novel (see the letter from Eliza Orzeszkowa to Józef Sikorski of December 10, 1869, Lz 1, pp. 59–61).
  14. Kalendarium 1, pp. 188–189.