Fragment of Chapter 5 entitled "Roman and Julian"

That afternoon, the air around the tree was more fragrant than usual. I felt like I was on a meadow. In my mind’s eye, I saw how the meadow filled with flowers and butterflies and how green the grass was. I listened to the gentle whisper of the leaves of grass. I tried to make out their words as the wind rocked them, but I heard nothing, nothing at all. Was I deaf to their words, or were they deaf to my love? I wondered. I had recently discovered a poet—Walt Weirdman, Whiteman, Whitman?—who was privileged to be inspired by leaves of grass and wrote so poignantly about the human experience. Why wasn’t I able? Was I too young or too insensitive?

I shoved my thoughts away and listened:

Give me a thousand kisses, then a hundred,
        Then another thousand, then a second hundred,
        Then still another thousand, then a hundred,
        Then, when we’ve made many thousands,
        We’ll muddle them so as not to know.

I heard the leaves whisper. Ah, the leaves! I recall this poem! It’s Catullus. Am I worthy of his poetry? Does my love for Roman stand up to his love for the woman he addressed his poem to? I wondered.

I looked around; there was nobody to shower with kisses. There was a whiff of wind, a whisper, a cracked twig somewhere in the distance, but no Roman! Almost an hour had passed. I sat up on the grass and took out my Polish language notebook, where I had written down the time of our appointment. He had told me the time in a whisper the day before during our Polish class, so I knew I had written it down there, on the back cover. Yes, it was there, four o’clock. It was five already!

Maybe he had forgotten? But I remembered looking up and seeing him scribble something quickly in the back of his notebook after I myself wrote down the time. He would have had no reason to take his notes on the back cover.

Or perhaps I wanted too much from our relationship. In recent months, we had grown close to one another. We shared most of our free time together, doing homework, chatting, strolling. Maybe I was too much of an overwhelming presence in his life? Maybe I misunderstood his looks and gestures? Was he waiting for an opportunity to accidentally forget about our meeting and go out for a date with a girl?

I saw how Monika’s eyes shone radiantly when she spotted him in the hallway. I saw how her soft features became even softer when the back of his palm brushed against hers—accidentally? I saw how her face melted when he looked into her blue eyes for a bit longer than necessary—by chance? I thought I could hear her heart beating wildly when he vehemently agreed with her during Polish class, when we were discussing Romanticism and talking about Karpinski’s idyllic poem “Philon and Laura.”

In the poem, Laura was waiting for Philon under a sycamore tree. She had brought a basket of raspberries for the lovers to share and a wreath of roses she had made, to put on her lover’s head. It was getting dark, and Philon had not shown up. Laura became angry with herself for having naively believed Philon loved her and with Philon for playing with her feelings for him. In rage, she destroyed the raspberry basket and the wreath, and suddenly, Philon came out of the nearby bushes. He had been hiding there for over an hour, he said, to see what she would be saying about him; it was an innocent prank with unintended consequences. The lovers then filled the poem with words of love, faithfulness, and devotion to one another. They completely forgot about the basket and the wreath, their entire world suddenly narrowed down to include themselves alone. They parted only when the rooster announced the beginning of the new day, the time when their love would have to be kept secret, for they were not engaged yet.

I loved the poem and, having recently fallen in love for the first time myself, praised it ardently. I could feel Laura’s joyful excitement when she was rushing to the sycamore tree; I could smell the sweet and wild scent of crushed raspberries and roses infused with Laura’s rage; finally, I could imagine Philon’s (Roman’s) close presence, which was so precious, so unlike any other presence in my life!

During that same Polish class, Monika, a bit amused by my impassioned thoughts, which I eagerly shared with our classmates (except for mentioning Roman), said we should not forget that the poem was just a pastoral, that it was written by a nobleman who shared with other Romantic poets the idea of a refined and idyllic picture of the countryside and its inhabitants, and that the love of two peasants was idealized in the nobleman’s eyes and did not necessarily reflect reality. When Roman stood up and said firmly, “I agree,” Monika’s heart leaped—I knew it because I sat right in front of her, and I could hear her gasp for air, or was that just my own heartache making me hear things?

It was five-thirty now. “Monika,” I whispered in desperation, “you’ve stolen the love of my life! How cruel of you, Monika.” I began to shiver, and then, as much as it was against my nature, I cursed love and aimed a few curses at Monika in my thoughts too. I had had an only friend, a person who understood me so well, and now he had left me for her, without even having the courage to let me know that I was wasting his time. How cruel of him. I shivered some more.

“Monika?” a gentle voice next to my ear said. “I thought you were waiting for me.”