From President to Prison/Chapter 20
PRISON "EL DORADO"
THE temporary political prison in Harbin was, by comparison with other places of incarceration, a veritable "El Dorado." The quarters were large and clean and well lighted by the big windows. Nowakowski and I were assigned to one cell, where we settled ourselves for the long term ahead of us.
"After all, I am to live here eighteen months," thought I, "and consequently, I must arrange everything as agreeably as possible, in order that this period of inactivity and restraint may not leave its undesirable marks upon me."
First I had brought from my house my books and the scientific notes which I had made during various excursions throughout the Russian Far East and in the laboratories at Vladivostok and Harbin. For whole days and nights I worked without ceasing. During the first three months I wrote almost constantly and, with the permission of Prosecutor Miller, sent off to Warsaw to the monthly magazine, The Polish Chemist, and to The Journal of the Society of Chemistry and Physics in St. Petersburg a number of articles on the chemistry of coal, petroleum and gold, as well as some chemico-technical studies of several East Asiatic products such as vegetable oils, commercial fertilizers, seaweeds containing iodine, Chinese and Japanese bronzes, etc. The former Minister of Education in Poland, Dr. B. Miklaszewski, who had also been a political prisoner in Russia, was then the editor of The Polish Chemist and, in printing my articles, placed under my signature the rather unusual address of "Political Prison, Harbin." It is just possible that I am the only scientist in the world who has had scientific works published with such an address.
I read much during this time and, among other volumes, I carefully studied two of the works of the remarkable self-made scholar, N. A. Morozoff, who attained to great learning after having spent twenty-four years in a solitary cell of the political prison at Schlusselburg and who quitted the prison in 1905, taking with him only a single bundle, containing three thick manuscripts, The New Explanation of the Periodical Law of Chemical Elements, The Astronomical Basis of the Apocalypse and a collection of verses full of hope and the bright joy of life. These volumes were very interesting and thrilling, not only from a scientific but also from a psychological standpoint, as the works of a man absolutely cut off from the turmoil of life, immersed in his own thoughts and in a sort of mystic, prophetic ecstasy.
Very soon I came to understand the meaning of solitude to this man. I can now myself compare two kinds of isolation which I have learned to know through actual experience. In 1920 I spent four long winter months in the unbroken solitude of a Siberian forest, hiding from the Bolsheviks and lying in wait for the spring under the roots of a great tree overturned by a storm. In those surroundings, left alone with nothing but my own moral and physical forces, I felt strongly the quick recrudescence of the primitive man—hunter, fisherman and warrior—whose every nerve responds to the power and beauty of Nature and who, at the same time, sees at every step the proofs of the all-pervading presence of the Wisdom of God, the Creator, whose invisible hand directs and guides the life of the smallest living thing.
During these months in the forest I observed in myself unquestionable changes, the resurrection in my soul of primitive mysticism and of something more, something disconcerting and almost fear-inspiring for a civilized man trained in the principles of modern science, though it was beautiful at the same time—the return of telepathic sensibilities, which have been almost completely lost by men of to-day but which are a very definite element in the equipment of the wild beings around us.
In the prison cell at Harbin in 1906 I came to know that other solitude of isolation in the very midst of one's own kind. Having as my companion the silent Nowakowski, immersed in the study of Holy Writ, and afterwards living quite alone in the cell, I felt other spiritual changes coming over me. I acquired the ability to understand the whole spiritual process preceding a crystallized thought. As I read the works of Morozoff and of other scholars and writers, I saw before me these men in person and the surroundings in which they created their work; sensed the psychic evolutions of their minds and souls; felt and thought as they had, straining toward the same goals they had sought to reach, travelling with them their roads of logic, tortured by their despondencies and kindled by their interior spiritual fires.
Some years later I had the opportunity to review these experiences, when talking with Morozoff and also with the well-known Belgian poet, Verhaeren, whose works gave me during my prison days many unforgotten moments. I had then the impression that I had unwittingly seen the future fate of these persons, whose souls had burned before my eyes, so that I could study them as though they were my own. During those days in the silent prison cell I did not, however, realize fully nor register definitely these impressions, these intangible movements of the soul, impossible to lay hold upon, these shadows of things not yet existing which glided before my eyes. But, when Verhaeren, aflame with the fires of new creation, was killed in the street, leaving after him the bitterness of the cruel injustice of Fate and of injury perpetrated by blind accident, then I remembered the vision of those black, hope-enshrouding clouds, veiling the pale dead face of the great poet, which started from my soul as a gruesome spectre and tortured me for days in my cell, where often for long, unbroken periods I heard nothing other than the monotonous cries of the guard:
"Take care! T-a-k-e c-a-r-e!"
At this time, when the prison walls separated me from life with all its noise and struggle, when I felt myself absolutely alone, I was surrounded by unknown, invisible beings rising up out of the unexplored recesses of my soul, who spoke with me, advising and instructing me. I realized then what extraordinary, invisible powers are lodged within the transient human body, what treasury might be obtained from these powers, were they not lulled to sleep by the opiate of modern life. I could call up the figures of all whom I knew with such vivid distinctness that they appeared before me and whispered to me in almost real voices. I felt the warmth of their bodies, I even heard their breathing and the sounds of their movements. It was a state strange and terrifying, but at the same time waking a thrill of bliss. I had the impression that I was in another world, in which my body and soul were changed, making of me a higher, more nearly perfect and non-terrestrial being.
I remember in greatest detail how one of my friends came to see me on visitors' day and brought me the news that everything was ready for my escape from prison and for my safe despatch to Japan. Similar proposals were presented to the prisoners from Vladivostok, Dr. Lankowski and engineer Piotrowski, and to my Harbin associate on the Board of the Union, Dr. Czaki. These efforts were made on our behalf, as there existed reason for fearing that the St. Petersburg Government would not be satisfied with simply having us serve short sentences in prison but would invent some additional and special punishment for us, as we had been the most active workers and were Poles besides. Lankowski, Piotrowski[1] and Dr. Czaki profited by the opportunity and escaped to Japan, later going on to the Hawaiian Islands, from where Dr. Czaki went into the Argentine.
At this time I was so obsessed by the experiences which I have just described that I was afraid even to think that this unusual spiritual state might disappear, for I felt that it would have been a great loss to me. To the despair of my friends, I refused to flee. Before the score was fully settled, I had to pay a heavy price for this decision, but now I do not regret it, as it was only in this way that I earned the opportunity to see the bottomless pit of misery and the naked soul of man, which brings with it understanding, readiness to forgive and the calm of thought. After such experiences one does not say: "This is a bad man," or "This is a good man," but simply "This is a man carried along by a bad, or a good, current of life."
Unconsciously and without having yet read or heard the wisdom of Buddha Gautama, I arrived at the same conclusion as that which the great teacher formulated so poetically and wisely in the words:
"Man! you can rise higher than God Indra and fall lower than the worm crawling in the marsh."
And so I remained in my cell and, together with the silent, thinking Nowakowski, continued our strange, never-to-be-forgotten life. Although I did not interrogate him, I knew that he was living through similar experiences but that, being of an unimaginative and uncommunicative turn of mind, he did not dwell on them or speak of them.
Some weeks after having remarked these psychologic changes, I ceased to sleep, though this cannot be said to be a strictly accurate statement regarding my condition. Sleeplessness is a state of ill-health, when one feels tired and longs to sleep but cannot; whereas I felt no mental fatigue and did not wish to sleep, but usually read or wrote eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. My mind continued quite fresh and my imagination unusually active. Together with the loss of a desire to sleep, I also lost my appetite and could not eat either meat, fish or ordinary bread, so that I had to ask to have sent me from home tinned fruit and zwiebach of white bread, on which I lived for some time, with the addition of a morning and evening glass of strong tea. My usual daily ration fell to one tin of pears or peaches, four pieces of zwiebach and two glasses of tea.
Mentally and spiritually I felt quite normal but became physically weakened and thin, for a long period never going out for a walk and endeavouring to move as little as possible. I also gave up my morning exercises, a practice which I had kept up without interruption since my boyhood, even during the crowded conditions in Cell No. 11 before the trial. I do not know how my experience would have ended, if strange and very sudden changes in my physical condition and in my state of health had not forced me to call in a doctor. First of all, I was struck by the very rapid growth of hair on my head and face, which necessitated having my hair cut once a week and shaving twice a day. Even so, by late in the evening my face looked as though it had not felt a razor for days. This phenomenon lasted for a month; then I began to fatten, or, more correctly speaking, to bloat terribly. My face became waxlike and yellow and almost round, my lips bloodless, while my hands and feet were always cold and, from time to time, my heart seemed to contract in my breast, setting up an indefinable terror in me.
"Something is wrong with me," I finally decided. "I must consult the doctor, for I do not want to die in prison."
The doctor came this same day, overhauled me thoroughly and asked about my way of living.
"Do not work for two weeks, eat more, walk and exercise as much as possible. Otherwise no one will be able to help you—and there can be only one result."
Accepting my new campaign orders, I put books and notes in my trunk, closed my inkstand and went into the yard. It was already summer, the advent of which I had almost failed to remark in the seclusion of my cell. The prison enclosure was dirty and unattractive, full of refuse building material, which had been left there after the place had been remodelled into a prison for us. Having no liking for aimless work, aimless walks and aimless movements, I decided to turn the doctor's prescription for exercise to the good of the prison life. Summoning some of the young prisoners to help me, I began to clean up the yard and, when this was accomplished, to make some beds for gardening, in which I planted peas and tomatoes. Making use of my studies of commercial fertilizers, I secured through the warden and applied such materials which forced energetically our delinquent plantings and gave us very gratifying crops. In another bed we had flowers—asters, sweet peas and gillyflowers, which later provided me continuously with bouquets for my table.
Slowly, through careful dieting and living, I regained my appetite and the ability to sleep, and was soon able to begin some gymnastics, which gradually restored to my muscles their former elasticity and strength. This I often tested and proved in wrestling bouts with the strongest prisoners and even with some of the soldiers, while the Commandant of the Prison and the officer on duty had slipped off to the neighbouring restaurant for a glass of wine or a game of billiards. Finally this régime brought back to me my normal health.
References
- ↑ Piotrowski was killed in Poland in 1920 during the war with Soviet Russia.