The Dark Domain (19 page)

Eventually he reduced the doubts which tormented him to this dilemma: Either there is something ‘unusual’ beyond me, something fundamentally different from that reality which I know as a human being – or else there is nothing, a complete emptiness.

If someone were to ask him which of these two possibilities he would have preferred to meet on the other side, Odonicz wouldn’t have been able to give a definite answer.

Unquestionably, nothingness – absolute, boundless emptiness – would be a horrible thing; on the other hand, maybe nothingness would be better than some frightful reality of another order. For who can know what that other reality really is? And if it is something monstrous, isn’t non-existence preferable?

And so a battle started between these two extremes, these two contrary tendencies. On one side he was choked by the iron claws of fear before the unknown, and on the other side he was propelled by a tragic curiosity into the arms of the daily-growing mystery. Some kind of wary, wise voice warned him against making a dangerous decision, but Odonicz dismissed this advice with an indulgent smile. The enticing daemon lured him ever closer with its siren promises … .

Until finally he succumbed … .

One autumn evening, sitting before an open book, he suddenly sensed behind his shoulders the presence of that mystery. Something was happening behind him: secret wings were parting, curtains were being lifted up, drapes were being drawn apart … .

And then a crazy desire arose within him – to turn around and glance at what was behind him, just this time, this one and only time. It would be enough to turn his head without giving the usual warning, so that he could surprise it before it got a chance to run away – one cast of the eye would be enough, one short, momentary glance … .

Odonicz dared this glance. With a movement as quick as lightning, he spun around to see what was behind him. And then from his lips came an inhuman cry of boundless alarm and terror; he convulsively grabbed at his heart and, as if struck by a thunderbolt, fell lifeless to the bare floor.

A young girl lies in bed drawing in a notebook she has been given. She is ill and her mind is over-active. She draws a house and puts herself in one of the upper rooms. Every day she adds on a little more, rougly and crookedly drawn, a child's first attempts. An innocent pastime. But at night the house comes back to haunt her in dreams. The house and grounds are changed into a nightmare world from which she can't escape. The drawings she has created from a tortured imagination become objects of a terrifying propensity. The most frightening aspect of the whole situation becomes evident – she cannot escape from her own mind.

This scenario is drawn from a modem children's book. We turn back a hundred years to Grabinski's ‘The Area.' The writer Wrzesmian stops writing, completely stops. His hitherto ‘original, insanely strange works' cease to be produced. Now begins the process of withdrawal from the world, one which is a natural consequence of being a writer but one which Wrzesmian makes complete and absolute. For him, the artist's constant struggle between solitude and living in society has been fought and decided. From now on his own mind is his only inspiration, his weird imaginings the impetus he needs for the creation of his art.

Writing, however, is no longer the ultimate aim. He craves a freedom of expression that extends beyond the written word, the limitations of language. He desires to go further than any artist has been before, to change fiction into reality, to give his thoughts and dreams an actual substance which has been hitherto denied them.

Like the girl in the story, Wrzesmian's frustrated longings become focused on a house. This house, although situated across the street from him, is as much a product of his mind as the child's pencil drawing. It is described in a wealth of gloomy and sensuous detail, casting a spell as if it has been sleeping for one hundred years – ‘At the end of a black double row of cypresses, their two lines containing a stone pathway, appeared a several stepped terrace where a weighty, stylized double door let. to the interior – Only two eternal fountains quietly wept, shedding water from marble basins onto clusters of rich, red roses'. The house and gardens are dormant but ominous and waiting. Like Wrzesmian's mind, which critics and the public have dismissed as spent and prematurely depleted, they are ostensibly inactive but underneath are seething with unimaginable horror.

Only ‘unimaginable', however, in the context of the reality which we encounter every day. The mind however contains horrors and thoughts which are rarely articulated and seldom brought to light. But, ‘From underneath the garden, treacherously concealed humidity crawled out here and there with dark oozing' and very soon Wrzesmian begins to see the face of a man at the window which seizes him with ‘a vague dread'. The house is becoming active, given life by Wrzesmian's own mind.

The horror of having one's innermost imaginings turned into a form of reality becomes increasingly obvious as the drama draws to its inevitable and terrifying conclusion. Like the child, Wrzesmian discovers that it is impossible to escape the horror because this horror is within him and yet now also external. The terror which grips him is our terror at having our own worst thoughts brought to light and acting upon us. They are unstoppable because they are propelled by the force of the mind and they are intolerable because they are a product of the darkest part of ourselves.

This is perhaps the secret of popularity of horror books and films. We can explore the inner recesses of the mind and yet can walk away from it. Most recently, Clive Barker in his ‘Hellraiser' films has also used this ‘Grabinski' technique – just twist the box and your most dread thoughts become reality, you might think you can control them but they are now independent of your mind, the pain and torture you only vaguely imagined are now standing before you. Like Wrzesmian, the only possible end is annihilation because the self cannot be divided. The mind is now all powerful and cannot be denied -

‘We want full life! You confined us to this house, you wretch! We want to go out into the world; we want to be released from this place to live in freedom! Your blood will fortify us, your blood will give us strength! Strangle him! Strangle him!'

For Grabinski, it is the mind which is his main concern. His perception of the force and inner recesses of the mind dominates his work. The inner thoughts take substance and become the outer reality, often with horrifying consequences. It is this which makes his stories so disturbing because they are a journey into our own ‘Dark Domain'.

Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited,

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ISBN printed book 978 1 903517 41 3

ISBN e-book 978 1 907650 66 6

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Publishing History

First published in Poland in 1918/22

First published by Dedalus in 1993, reprinted in 2005

First ebook edition in 2012

Translation and introduction copyright
©
Miroslaw Lipinski 1993

Afterword copyright
©
Madeleine Johnson

The right of Miroslaw Lipinski to be identified as the translator of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Printed in Finland by W. S. Bookwell

Typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.