One evening, I asked myself the following question: “Aren’t twenty years of life enough for me? Do I really need to live longer?” And after a very brief moment, I replied to myself with vigour: “No I do not!”
I have, after all, very little hope that my state of nervousness and leg aches will ever subside, and if I am finally able to be happier with myself and more helpful to people than I’ve been. I would therefore be a fool if I were to stubbornly uphold my existence by continuing to overeat every day rather than stop at what I’ve already swallowed, chewed and digested.
Think of the all the benefits I will reap by prematurely taking leave of this world! Death will indeed liberate me from all my different faults, since I am unable to do that myself. I will finally experience blissful peace from my own conscience, and I’ve been longing for such peace for a long time.
No longer will my conscience blame me for filling my life with frivolous entertainment and trivial, albeit seemingly sincere, chats with other dawdlers. No longer will the awkwardness of my mind and goodwill pester me nor anybody else.
By drowning myself, I will reasonably avoid my many foolish wrongdoings and the issue of dissatisfaction with myself. No longer will I taint my life with humbuggery, boastfulness or outbursts of rage. No longer will I fear that somebody could tell me something that is not terribly flattering or even quite derogatory. In addition, I will no longer play the self-denying philosopher, I will not need to taunt myself every hour for being a boastful hypocrite. I will no longer annoy people with my sentimental garrulousness, nobody will listen to my often clumsy little jokes or rather uninteresting and simple observations! Death will render the poor prankster and boilerplate thinker in me harmless. It will therefore make a highly beneficial contribution, and may it be praised for that!
Death will liberate all those around me from having to look at my overly mundane countenance, at times excessively good-natured, at others haughty or scowling. After all, only an unfussy person may find it to be insightful, good or subtle. A vast array of people have been contemplating my face for too long already, so it is high time for it to disappear from their sight forever!
And I won’t even think of grieving over my own premature death! I’ll let my peers lead their lives full of boredom and suffering, while I’ll be the clever one, preferring to hide in the soil from life’s distress and disappointments. Nobody will wound my heart with curtness or ingratitude there! No longer will my teeth, my long-time tormentors, abuse me! No more will I have to have them filled or pulled! And when I think that the end of my life is ever more nigh, how much easier it is for me to bear my current worries as short-lived, as being the last!
I can also relish in the assumption that in about three to four weeks, many of my debtors will cheerfully think: “My creditor has died! I will no longer need to return his money! But I will attend his funeral; let him benefit from the fact that he lent me a few pennies and then proceeded to wait long and in vain for me to return them!”
Therefore, my resolve was irrevocable: I shall throw myself into the water tomorrow!
And suddenly I became very merry. This was perhaps due to the fact that I began to enjoy life precisely because it was supposed to end quite soon. And for this same reason, I even desired to prolong these last few days of my life on Earth (not for too long, naturally!) to avoid parting ways with this world too hastily and to make sure that these grand moments of my farewell with life weren’t too short after all (especially since life has been at times very agreeable to me!). May I therefore have a nice tête-à-tête or two with some of my charming friends before my demise! May they hear a few lovely words and a few jokes pass through my lips, if I am to take leave of them once and for all any time now!
Whenever I would suffer from a prolonged toothache, foot ache or insomnia and did not expect imminent recovery, I would see myself on my deathbed, pale and nearly lifeless, yet with a victorious smile on my face. That is why with time, I became ever more acquainted with the thought of my prompt, more-than-certain death – and it thus became less frightful to me.
Finally, my future death was less and less terrifying to me, as it seemed to be less of a mysterious and poetic event, but a rather plain circumstance, because it was so easy to achieve.
For this very reason, I even stopped longing for death, and what’s more, I attempted to avoid situations that would threaten my life, as I had no intention of letting fate force upon me a type of death that I had not chosen myself. So I would, for example, refrain from getting into a car with a tipsy driver behind the wheel, who was returning from a country wedding. And at times, I would try to prove to myself: Why would I crave death, like some cry-baby or ne’er-do-well, afraid of suffering and life’s hardships? After all, struggling with a variety of problems has often provided me with no end of emotion and moral satisfaction! I therefore prefer to live for as long as I possibly can; may death rather push me into my grave one day only against my will!
Yet when I was unable to fall asleep one night, I reminisced on all the woes that had been thrust upon me as of late and in great abundance, and so I thought: I have already delivered seemingly irrevocable death sentences upon myself several times, subjecting myself to the caring hands of gravediggers, yet I continue to live and grant myself pardon every single time. Therefore, I will no longer make a fool of myself every so often, playing the role of my killer and executioner, only to generously spare my own life a few minutes later. I shall approach the task of taking my life jauntily and in earnest!
I was quite content with my decision, as this time around I made the decision with all my resolve. It would be nonsense to doubt the fact that I am no longer joking and I will finally see to it that I do away with myself.
I was already bearing some resemblance to a corpse. I would consider myself as being dead, though blood was still flowing swiftly through my veins, and my heart did not cease to beat. My mood was even improving ever more and I would tell myself: I am so happy that the moments left in my life are rather precisely counted, that I am able to keep the promise made and will never feel contempt for myself as a person who is weak and incapable of converting his great life plans into actions.
This time, matters will not amount to mere words! I shall not remain among the living for more than a month! I shall not beg myself for mercy as if I were a young boy! I will certainly not relent in my sternness towards myself; I refuse to void the verdict delivered upon myself!
Enough times already, I had been overly forgiving with myself. Enough times already, I had promised myself that I would make my life more worthy of prolonging it. I would perhaps act even more reasonably if I would find myself shelter on the bottom of the river yet today.
The water would liberate me of all my distress, of the attacks of my silly rage, of nervousness, excessive sentimentalism, sleepless nights, as well as my poor pronunciation.
I should take my final bath in a river full of eddies. Anyway, ever since I was a child, I held great sentiment to water, because I felt that perhaps the water, my great benefactor, would rescue me from all my troubles and that it would change me, a worried terrestrial creature, into a carefree aquatic animal diving along the river bottom!
Yet I can no longer bask in the thought of my reliable river healing and I will not, despite everything, escape to the water from my worries. Because after all, as a blue or half-purple floater, I would terrify anybody who would look at me. Even my closest friends would turn their gaze away from me with pity and disgust. And besides, I frequently change my plans, so now, for example, I shall decide to stay on as a thinking, longing and laughing person, rather than a soulless meld of meat and bones!
Therefore, my huge feeling of self-satisfaction has led me to want to feel it for as long as possible. Life has after all began to hold a smile for me once more, since I was so certain that I could get rid of it whenever I wanted. That is why I have finally decided as follows: I will despite all odds remain among the living for the moment, because I am once again beginning to feel quite well in this world!
I have thus saved my life once more. I have in a way stopped my own execution, overruled my death sentence, forced the revolver from my own hand and cut off the rope much like a branch, which was flirtatiously and fondly whispering to me: “Lean on me, hang yourself on me, my dear boy!” I heaved a sigh of relief and thought that I would have been a fool to trample myself too hastily.
I felt like a resurrected man. After all, I had been facing death from my very own hands. I laughed out loud at my recent plans to promptly cut my life short.
In the end, these plans luckily turned out to be harmless to me, and even proved very useful. Finally, they only amused me and made me laugh, so it was worth weaving them once in a while.
Only individuals who are ordinary and lack any sense of humour probably never experience suicidal thoughts and never manoeuvre between a fierce urge to die, to jump from a bridge or a cliff, and the desire to prolong their lives for all eternity.
Text from the archives, (no. 1182/1967)
Translated from the Polish by Mark Ordon
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