Mirrors, Echoes, Dialogues

Major literary inspirations of Pan Graba – Zachariasiewicz’s Po ślubie and Kraszewski’s Dziwadła 

Orzeszkowa included the postulate of literature that reflects real life problems, also in the psychological and emotional sphere, in a work earlier than Pan Graba, with a meaningful title Początek powieści [The Beginning of the Novel] in which she wrote that 

the essential, universal life to which everyone is subject, and in which, in the current social state, the most drama and learning can be found, is not the short journey from a meeting to the altar, but the long journey from the altar to the grave. So today, the description of a man and woman coming together is not yet a novel, it is only the beginning of a novel.

The writer picks up on a theme touched upon by Jan Zachariasiewicz in his novel Po ślubie. Z zapisków kobiety [After the Wedding. From a Woman’s Notes] in which the main character’s uncle quips against the fallacies of fictional literature, which only lead a couple in love to the altar, and shows the tragic impact of this popular image on readers:

And so, our entire upbringing was shaped by this literary endeavour. Men and women learn from a young age only that they need to stand on the steps of the altar as best as possible. All our learning, our passions, our relationships, and our lives are directed towards this one goal. This is our great, showpiece role, for which we sacrifice everything. Of the treasures of life, reason, and experience, we take with us nothing more than what an actor needs on stage. A bit of rouge and whitewash, a graceful, characterful appearance, a paper collar, chic glitter, and shoes made of varnished paper. And when the fifth act is over, then we order a bowl of water to be brought and together we wash ourselves of the charms borrowed from art.

This quote indicates that Orzeszkowa’s inspiration with Zachariasiewicz’s text goes deeper than just a general similarity in subject matter. The characteristic metaphor of a theatrical role and make-up (which returns in the character’s despair upon discovering that her husband married her only for the dowry: “I mistook the actor for a real hero and instead of a face, I kissed the rouge and the whitewash…”) will be used and developed by the writer in the dramatic scene of the triumphant protagonist “shedding his physical and moral mask” on his wedding morning. Orzeszkowa must have known Zachariasiewicz’s novel already in its first press edition, as it was published at the same time as “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” published the writer’s literary debut Obrazek z lat głodowych [A Picture from the Famine Years] – and it can be assumed that the aspiring author carefully and regularly reviewed the issues of the magazine to which she decided to submit her text, hoping for publication. However, the young writer remains much more pessimistic in the picture of the relationship she paints than her predecessor. The method recommended to the despondent “idealist” by the author of Po ślubie to “reverse misfortune” is not divorce or a convent, but rather winning over her indifferent husband with love, boundless trust, and generosity, followed by forgiving his betrayals and fulfilling his whims, and patiently ignoring his jealousy, even his attempted separation. This requires self-denial and is paid for with tears for the character, but it is supposed to bring reliable results. Meanwhile, a mature man, aware of his actions, and deeply demoralized by selfishness, like the titular character of Pan Graba, cannot be saved either by the boundless love of his first wife (who, after all, adheres to all of Zachariasiewicz’s recommendations in the novel to the very end), or by the friendship offered by his second wife. The protagonist inevitably heads toward disaster, dragging down with him those he most influenced.

In Pan Graba one can see an even clearer reference, and at the same time a specific, consistent polemic, between Orzeszkowa and Józef Ignacy Kraszewski’s novel, Dziwadła, published twenty years earlier. The text by the editor of “Ateneum,” highly regarded by the writer, according to his own words in “Słówko autora” [A Word from the Author], was written in early 1848. It was then abandoned for a time, and Kraszewski only completed it at the request of the translator and writer Father Ignacy Hołowiński, a contributor to “Tygodnik Petersburski” [Petersburg Weekly]. The first volume and part of the second volume were “supposedly” published in that magazine, while the rights to the entire novel were ceded to August Robert Wolff from Warsaw, who published Dziwadła in 1853. Kraszewski included “Słówko autora” discussing these twists and turns of the text in the second edition of 1856, where he admitted to making changes and alterations, but not concerning the two titular “freaks” – Miss Irena and especially Mr. Hutor-Graba, in whom “they wanted to see a model of the man we need today, and he was chosen by the readers’ instinct as the hero of the novel, although other figures play a more prominent role.” Orzeszkowa must have been similarly fascinated, since years later, in a fragment of the column devoted to the writer, the only remembered character from this work turns out to be Mr. Graba. Maria Żmigrodzka drew attention to the similarity between the surnames of the cynical gambler and the idealized nobleman, stating that “Naming the villain of Orzeszkowa’s novel Graba had the flavour of a polemical allusion on the part of the writer, who believed that ‘novelistic figures bring with them into the world surnames that do not reflect their rights’.” Kraszewski’s anonymous Graba is an enlightened mentor, always ready to offer advice and assistance, an excellent farmer, a protector of peasants, and a believer in stoic philosophy and the ideal of self-restraint. In creating her protagonist, the author of Pan Graba seems to have constructed this character by reversing the physical and, above all, character traits of her predecessor’s character 180 degrees. The figure of a robust, middle-aged man (around fifty), with a soldierly bearing, and surprisingly fresh features in a Slavic “purely national” type, characterized by gentleness, reason, and kindness, with “blue” eyes and a thick moustache, is matched by the figure of Kalikst, whose age at the beginning of the story is difficult to determine, his beauty overly refined, and his riotous lifestyle leading to premature exhaustion and, over the course of the novel, transforming him into “the spectre of a once-beautiful man” (Pan Graba, part 3, chapter 12). Instead of a “Spartan” living in the Polesie countryside, for whom the only acceptable luxuries are a beautiful garden, a library, and a valuable collection of works of art, we see an Epicurean for whom life outside the city is impossible, cynically proclaiming his life motto, “use and fun.” The ardent opponent of cards is represented by a gambler, the moralizer and creator by a sewer of corruption, a rake and destroyer of domestic peace, and the caring father by the eternal prodigal son (it is worth noting here that the Graba couple in Orzeszkowa’s novel remain childless, and the character’s despised grave is mourned only by his once-abandoned mother). This principle of à rebours presentation also applies to certain plot situations – such as the story of a husband’s unrequited love for his wife, their separation, or a failed duel. Kraszewski’s Graba emerges victorious from all these adventures as a moral triumphant, while for Orzeszkowa’s character they become an opportunity for further, ever deeper embarrassment. As a sign of affection, the character of Dziwadła adds the maiden name of his wife, the beautiful and spoiled Teresa, the last heiress of the Hutor family, to his own surname. He attempts to educate and raise his wife, who is a dozen years younger than him, but is defeated by her wilfulness and heartless selfishness. Abandoned by his wife when he lies gravely ill, despite their separation, he continues to cherish her unwavering love and watches over her fate from afar, keeping their marital bedroom intact for years like a sanctuary. Kalikst Graba tries to convince Kamilla to his philosophy of life and to persuade her to become his partner – for this purpose he punishes his wife’s resistance and her attempts to obtain a divorce not only by resorting to physical violence, but above all, taking away subsequent memorabilia from her beloved parents (part 3, chapters 1 and 3). Challenged to a duel for his unpopular views on holding public office, Hutor-Graba manages to avoid it by publicly demonstrating his composure, unrivalled mastery of marksmanship, and enormous ethical advantage over his reckless opponent (to whom he calmly says, “Tell me now, would I have the conscience to agree to fight you?”), thereby earning the reluctant, yet sincere, respect of those around him. His refusal to defend Mr. Graba’s honour with a gun, caught cheating at cards, is tantamount to exposing his physical cowardice, hidden beneath his social graces and “unparalleled impudence,” and consequently marks the beginning of this chevalier d’industrie’s inevitable downfall in the eyes of the elegant world of the city of M. (part 3, chapter 6). Hutor-Graba preaches an evangelical social program based on love for one’s neighbour, rooted in combating vice with dedicated assistance to the wicked, that is, the unfortunate. This program would be ineffective against his literary successor – the doom of the ruthless egoist Kalikst Graba is already foretold by his predecessor’s harsh words: “Where selfishness exists, there is death.” Numerous gestures and words of the monolithic model of patriarchal virtues, created by Kraszewski, are precisely reversed in Orzeszkowa’s text, like a reflection in a dark, distorting mirror.

Both Mr. Grabas are separated by an entire generation in literary and biographical terms – if Orzeszkowa’s Kalikst Graba is to be considered a direct descendant of Mr. Hutor-Graba from Kraszewski’s once very popular Polesie novel, he is a spiritually stunted and degenerate son who wasted his life chances and undoubted abilities due to bad upbringing and monstrous egoism. This literary affinity illustrates the real threat of degeneration for an entire social class and further highlights the warning put by the author into the mouth of one of the characters: “Our fathers were quick to drink and indulge in merrymaking, but they used them in moderation, as a respite from brave deeds performed for the glory of God and the benefit of the country. Today’s youth, especially the wealthy ones, waste their entire lives in vain revelries, oblivious to the fact that they also bring ruin to the country.”