Episode 1.
- It seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream – making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation: that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible…
Often on some quiet night I would hear the tremor of far-off drums, sinking, swelling – sounds weird, appealing, suggestive, and wild and perhaps with as profound a meaning as the sound of bells in a Christian country.
And there was a river, a once great river. It resembled an immense snake uncoiled, with its head in the lake, its body curving over the whole town, and its tail lost somewhere in the depth…
Episode 2.
- When I was a little chap I had a passion for maps. I would look for hours at South America, or Africa, or Australia, and lose myself in all the glories of exploration. At that time there were many blank spaces on the earth. And when I saw a blank that looked particularly inviting I would put my finger on it and say: «When I grow up I will go there».
I remember one of such blanks was a strange piece in the very centre of the huge Earth. It was explained to me that it was a region reigned by the frost.
No, I wasn’t going to explore it and unintentionally shrank back from the map, as if the frost could break through the paper any minute, get out and bite my nose... But often life itself takes us by the finger and leads us to the place where we are being waited for by… the darkness…
Episode 3.
-Sometimes I see a warm light in my dreams. I think that it is a small piece of my childhood. Even now I close my eyes and see my mom. My dear mummy. She is in the living room. I feel her love and tenderness. She asks me not to disturb her and writes something in a hurry. I get into the corner and admire her with childish delight.
-Later I found out that my father, Apollo Korzeniowski, had been exiled to Russia for his active participation in the Polish liberation movement. The parents loved each other and corresponded with each other. My mom was full of determination to go to the far-off Russian Empire, to an unknown town called Vologda.
Матушка читает:
"There*s no future. No hope. It is death.
Blind and beaten by waves, mad exhaustion,-
Conrade*s captain will fight till the last of his breath,
Or he*ll master the Pacific Ocean.
I shall give the dialogues of Richard the Third
Their brilliancy almost unmatched
For this man in the sea. For his soul like a bird
Soaring up by the waves untouched
Joseph Conrade, God bless thy unfathamble tales
And England, thy second land
Will be heir of thy books, while thy soul soars and sails
Over sea storms and desert sands."
Episode 4.
-My father used to take me for walks with him. I was proud of him: he was big and strong. He spoke French and English fluently. He wrote plays that were on in the local theatres. The plays always had a full house. There was no end to the applause when a play was over.
Then my father would rise from his seat, turn his face to the audience and bow with much dignity. I didn’t understand a thing, but it made me feel so good to know that it was my father.
The Vologda of 1861. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. The trees are tall, the buildings are huge. But people remained in our memory.
There were eye-catching types of people: some wore glasses, wide-brimmed hats; others wore red shirts, long tight-fitting coats, lubricated boots, blue glasses, and shoulder-length hair. And in their hands they held an object of every boy’s envy – homemade truncheons.
The best truncheons were made of juniper obtained in the dense forests in the vicinity of Domshinskoye.
People came up to my father, greeted him, bowed, and called him Anton. I found it funny. I laughed and so did my father.
Once he quoted: …
"Вон из Москвы! сюда я больше не ездок.
Бегу, не оглянусь, пойду искать по свету,
Где оскорбленному есть чувству уголок! —
Карету мне, карету!"
His eyes were shining.
I couldn’t understand anything. But I liked the end. Especially much did I like this passionate «The coach, the coach». When I was a child I thought it was a magic coach, bright in colour, with joyful little bells. I believed my mother would recover and we would leave for the place where everybody would be okay…
Episode 5.
-The town had ceased to be a blank space of delightful mystery – a white patch making the boy dream of glory. It had become a place of darkness.
A narrow and deserted street in deep shadow, low houses, a dead silence, grass sprouting between the stones. The town was like a coffin devouring people’s lives.
Mummy was severely ill. Before going to bed I would get down on my knees and pray quietly. It seemed to me that if I was a good child God would hear me and mummy would recover.
«Через минуту я пойду спать,
И сейчас я за всё благодарю Тебя, Боже!
Прости меня за то, что я сделал плохого,
Мой любимый небесный Отец!
Отче наш… Радуйся, Мария…
Добрый Отец на небесах,
К Тебе возношу мою молитву.
За сегодняшний день, за Твои дары
От всего сердца Тебя благодарю.
А если грехом своим я Тебя оскорбил,
То на коленях прошу у Тебя прощения.
Пусть я усну с именем Твоим на устах,
С Твоей святой благодатью
И Твоим прощением.
Аминь.»
Episode 6.
-Somewhere about here my house used to stand. I feel no sorrow, no regret. I won’t walk around like a beggar searching for the fragments of my childhood.
I have “given myself to the sea”.
Most seamen lead a sedentary life. Their minds are of the stay-at-home order, their home is the ship, their country is the sea.
In the immutability of the surroundings, the foreign shores and the foreign faces glide past veiled not by a sense of mystery but by a slightly disdainful ignorance. There is nothing mysterious to a seaman unless it be the sea – the mistress of his existence.
A casual stroll on shore unfolds the secret of a whole continent, country or town. Finally the seaman finds the secret not worth knowing.
Human memory is like water. It brings amounts of sand enough to build a place of worship and then washes it all away as though nothing had actually ever been there.
Now the only thing left over from the monument to Joseph Conrad is a pit. Am I supposed to yell at this world with pain? God damn you!
It feels like the heavens are falling down on my head. But nothing happened.
The heavens do not fall for such a trifle.
Episode 7
The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway, leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky – seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.
There will be no apocalypse.
P.S. Снят игровой фильм.
Великолепный перевод на английский язык: Роман Воронин: https://vk.com/v_r_a