



Produced by Andrew Leader of www.polishwriting.net




An Obscure Apostle

A Dramatic Story

TRANSLATED BY C.S. DE SOISSONS FROM THE ORIGINAL POLISH OF

MME. ORZESZKO

LONDON

GREENING & CO., LTD.

20 CECIL COURT, CHARING CROSS ROAD

1899

Printed by Cowan & Co., Limited Perth.




PREFACE

ELIZA ORZESZKO

In Lord Palmerston's days, the English public naturally heard a great
deal about Poland, for there were a goodly number of Poles, noblemen
and others, residing in London, exiles after the unsuccessful
revolution, who, believing that England would help them to recover
their lost liberty, made every possible effort to that end through
Count Vladislas Zamoyski, the prime minister's personal friend. But
even in those times, when the English press was writing much about the
political situation in Poland, little was said about that which
constitutes the greatest glory of a nation, namely, its literature and
art, which alone can be secure of immortality. Only lately, in fact,
has any public attention been paid by English people to Polish
literature. However, among the authors who have attracted considerable
attention of late, is the writer of "By Fire and Sword," whose "Quo
Vadis," has met with a phenomenal reception. Henryk Sienkiewicz has by
his popularity proved that in unfortunate, almost forgotten, Poland,
there is an abundance of literary talent and an important output of
works of which few English readers have any conception. For instance,
who has ever heard, in Great Britain, of Adam Michiewicz the great
Polish poet, who, critics declare, can be placed in the same category
with Homer, Virgil, Dante, Tasso, Klopstock, Camoens, and Milton?
Joseph Kraszewski as a novel writer occupies in Poland as high a
position as Maurice Jokai does in Hungarian literature, while Mme.
Eliza Orzeszko is considered to be the Polish Georges Sand, even by the
Germans, who are in many respects the rivals of Slavs in politics and
literature.

Henryk Sienkiewicz, asked by an interviewer what he thought about the
contemporary Polish literary talents, replied: "At the head of all
stand Waclaw Sieroszewski and Stefan Zeromski; they are young, and very
promising writers. But Eliza Orzeszko still holds the sceptre as a
novelist."

When the "Revue des Deux Mondes" asked the authors of different
nationalities to furnish an essay on women of their respective
countries, Mme. Orzeszko was chosen among the Polish writers to write
about the Polish women. It may be stated that translations of her
novels appeared in the same magazine more than twenty years ago. She is
not only a talented but also a prolific writer. She has suffered much
in her life, and her sufferings have brought out those sterling
qualities of soul and heart, which make her books so intensely human,
and characterise all her works, and place her high above contemporary
Polish writers. The present volume may stand as a proof of her
all-embracing talent.

C.S. DE SOISSONS.




AN OBSCURE APOSTLE

INTRODUCTION

On the summits of civilisation the various branches of the great tree
of humanity are united and harmonised. Education is the best apostle
of universal brotherhood. It polishes the roughness without and cuts
the overgrowth within; it permits of the development, side by side
and with mutual respect, of the natural characteristics of different
individuals; it prunes even religious beliefs produced by the needs
of the time, and reduces them to their simplest expression, the
result being that people can live without antipathies.

Quite a different state of affairs exists in the social valley
unlighted by the sun of knowledge. There people are the same to-day
as they were in the remote centuries. Time, while making tombs for
the dead people, has not buried with them the forms which, being
continually regenerated, create among amazed societies unintelligible
anachronisms. Here exist distinctions which, with sharp edges, push
back everything which belongs not to them; here are crawling moral
and physical miseries which are unknown, even by name, to those who
have reached the summits; here is a gathering of dark figures,
standing out against the background of the world, resembling vague
outlines of sphinxes keeping guard over the graveyards; here are
widely-spread petrifications of faiths, sentiment and customs,
testifying by their presence that geniuses of many centuries can
simultaneously rule the world. Patricians and plebeians changed their
formal parts. The first became defenders and propagators of equality;
the second stubbornly hold to distinctions. And if in times of yore
oppression was directed by those who stood high against those who, in
dust and humility, swarmed in the depths, in our times, from the
depths arise unhealthy exhalations, which poison life and make the
roads of civilisation difficult to the chosen ones.

Such unfortunate valleys, rendering many people unhappy, separating
the rest of the world by a chain of high mountains, exist in
Israelitic society, as well as in the society of other nations, and
there they are even more numerous than elsewhere. Their too long
existence is the result of many historical causes and characteristics
of the