He turned around. Jarzebowski was running toward him, his overcoat unbuttoned, his hair flying in the wind.
“Well?” he shouted from a distance. “Well, how about it?”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know? Our glee club. You’re gifted, you know; there’s no doubt that you have a real talent …”
Franciszek smiled and walked away. He stared at the crumbling wet sidewalks, thinking: “Aren’t they right? They don’t trust me and they don’t want me — it’s simple.” At this moment he was proud of his party, of the men who had expelled him; he was proud of their logic, inflexibility, purity; he was proud of his son, Mikołaj. And he thought happily that had he been in their place he would have acted as they did. Stand up and fight, return to them pure, and deserving to be trusted — that was what he had to do.
The sidewalk ended suddenly at a long red wall; he was walking across an empty square, full of mud. Somewhere at the end of it a group of people had gathered, murmuring joyfully; he could also hear the barking of a dog — undoubtedly a very big dog. He walked up to them without thinking, and elbowed his way through the ring of bystanders. The object of their curiosity was a man in a fencing mask and gauntlets, who was pulling a beautiful dog by a chain, addressing it with horrible curses. It was obvious that the beautiful dog was quite unimpressed by the curses. Franciszek thought at first that the strangely dressed man was some sort of trainer, and was about to turn away, when the man suddenly removed his mask with a tired gesture, and Franciszek saw before him the frantic eyes of Comrade Nowak.
“Nowak,” he cried in surprise. “What the devil are you doing here?”
Nowak wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Ah, it’s you,” he said in a wooden voice. “Have you got a cigarette? I’m exhausted …”
“What are you doing with that dog?”
“The dog?” asked Nowak, staring vacantly. He had a bitter smile. “True, for you it may be only a dog, but for me …” He suddenly raised his fists to the sky, and howled: “For me it’s worse than a hyena, worse than leprosy.” He jerked the chain, but the dog did not even budge. “Red, you damn’ beast,” Nowak cried, “stand up! Stand up, I say!”
The crowd around them laughed happily. The beautiful dog sat motionless, staring haughtily out of its bronze-colored eyes.
“Red,” Nowak whispered. He lurched as he raised his right hand in a dramatic gesture. “Red, I implore you … Red, my precious, stand up, please …”
“For God’s sake,” said Franciszek angrily, “what do you want of this dog?”
“What do you mean?” Nowak asked. “You yourselves ordered me to change his name!” He moved closer to Franciszek. “He used to be called Sambo, and everything was fine,” he whispered passionately. “A real jewel, not a dog: he brought me the newspaper in his mouth; he loved the children; he walked my little girl home from school; he looked after a blind old man from across the street; and so on … But ever since the party secretary ordered me to call him Red — you remember, don’t you? — his character has changed. He attacks everybody; he snaps; my wife is leaving me; she can’t get along with him. She’s already seen a lawyer …” He sighed. “All because of the dog. Of course, this won’t be mentioned in court; we mustn’t compromise the party …” He gritted his teeth. “We’ve decided she will say I didn’t satisfy her sexually, and that she believes in free love. Of course, we’ll keep seeing each other somehow. But we can’t do it any other way without compromising the party; we can’t. There’s no other way, really there isn’t. I’ve thought it over very carefully.”
“But can’t you get rid of the dog?”
“Get rid of him?” Nowak repeated, suddenly amused, and looked at Franciszek as if he were a kind of imbecile. “Get rid of him? I tried to drown him; I gave him a pound of rat poison a day; I turned on the radio full blast and left my family for three days; I took him a hundred miles from Warsaw, and he came back. But I can’t sell him with the name Sambo — that would be like giving arms to the enemy. No, I can’t get rid of him: the Michurin-Pavlov Society would get after me in a second— What have you done with your dog? Why do you mistreat animals? Don’t you realize what a dog can do for a man, particularly for a party comrade?…” He resolutely put on his mask. “Excuse me,” he said, “but I’ve got to get to work. This is my party assignment; for this purpose I was released from participation in the city-to-village campaign.” He jerked the chain desperately. “Come on, Red,” he cried. “Stand up!”
The dog pricked up one ear, then lay down on its belly, stretching out its two aristocratic forelegs: he looked like a fur rug. Jerks, curses, caresses, promises — nothing helped. Nowak toiled and sweated, the crowd roared happily, and amid this commotion only the dog remained noble and calm.
“What’s going on here?” a brisk voice cried suddenly. A young policeman forced his way through the crowd. “What’s this?” He turned to the nearest spectator and looked him sternly in the eyes. “Is there something you don’t like? Now tell the truth: you don’t like the regime?”
“Mr. Authority,” said the other. “I’m leaving. I’ve already left. I’ve never been here.”
He tipped his hat, and vanished. Reluctantly the crowd began to disperse. Only Franciszek, Nowak, the policeman, and the dog, who was exquisitely licking his paw, remained on the square.
“What are you up to?” the policeman asked Nowak. “What’s the matter with you? Is it a joke or what? I see you don’t like it here. If so, better say so, right away.”
“I’m training a dog,” Nowak replied haughtily. He removed his mask and fanned his flushed face. “If you don’t believe me, there”—he pointed—“there’s my factory, and you can find out all about me. I’m training the dog on the secretary’s orders.”
They stared at each other.
“What are you teaching it?” the policeman asked.
“Attitude,” Nowak said dryly. “An attitude befitting a dog.”
Again they exchanged stares.
“If that’s the case,” the policeman said, “everything is in order.” He turned violently to Franciszek. “And what are you doing here, Citizen?” he asked sharply. “Maybe you …”
“I like it here,” Franciszek said. “Everything is just as it should be.” Nowak had gone away dragging his dog as a tow-man pulls his barge; Franciszek and the policeman looked at each other in silence. Suddenly Franciszek smiled. “Do you remember me?” he asked. “Surely you remember me.”
The policeman moved a step forward, and his face lit up. “Why of course,” he cried in a happy clear voice. “Of course I remember. I hooked you, didn’t I, for disturbing the peace …” He was as happy as a child who has just been given a beautiful toy, and patted Franciszek on the arm. “Yes, yes,” he repeated, his eyes sparkling, “It was you who disturbed the peace.”
“Well,” said Franciszek, smiling gloomily, “you might call it that.”
“Why?” said the policeman, and his face suddenly clouded. “Don’t you like the name?”
“Nonsense; I haven’t said anything of the kind.”
“And you’re very pleased about it, aren’t you?”
“What am I pleased about?”
“The fact that you haven’t said anything of the kind. Admit it.”
They were walking slowly across the deserted square. “Ah, my friend,” Franciszek said, “if you had gone through what I have, you’d realize that that isn’t enough: you like it, you don’t like it. I raised my hand against things which neither conscience nor reason can grasp, which are beyond human understanding. I know, I know it perfectly; I told you then that there were no such things. I told you — it’s a fact, I know I told you — that everything described as beyond human understanding is at bottom an absurdity and a lie, and a crime as well, and that it is not beyond man, but against man. That’s what I said, yes. I said that every human action can be measured only by a man’s endurance and life, and by the amount of happiness it gives him — however little. Yes, that’s what I said. What of it? Like everybody else, I had my moments of doubt. My dear man: the more moments of doubt that can be mastered by reason, the stronger the faith.”