"Memories, dreams and reflections from the Nobel Laureate"The ABC book is a polish genre-a loose form related to a hypertext novel-composed of short, alphabetically arranged entries. In Milosz's conception, the ABC book becomes a sort of autobiographical reference book, combining entries concerning characters from his earlier work with references to some of his memory poems. He also writes of real, historical figures like Camus who were particularly influential during his formative years, and of broader topics such as "The City," "Unhappiness," and "Money." Another fascinating entry in Milosz's bold opus, "Milosz's ABCs" is an engaging tribute to a brilliant mind.

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Chapter One

A

ABRAMOWICZ , Ludwik. Wilno always was a city verging on a fairy tale, although when I lived there I never noticed that aspect of it. Of course, there were those secret societies in the past (we knew about the Scoundrels' Society, the Masonic lodges, the Philomaths), but during my student years I didn't think of the then present time as equally picturesque, and it was only later that I reconstructed it, after learning various details.

Prior to World War I and well into the thirties, Ludwik Abramowicz published The Wilno Review at his own expense. This was a slender journal, far more significant than its modest appearance and circulation would indicate. He voiced the opinions of a select group of knowledgeable people, something like the élite circles of the Enlightenment. He was a Mason by conviction, which meant that he was faithful to those customs of our city which, in the twentieth century, too, favored the formation of exclusive groups in the name of noble slogans.

In 1822, when the Masonic lodges in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were ordered to disband, Wilno had ten such lodges, not counting the secret youth societies. Still, certain families preserved the Masonic traditions--the Romers, Puttkamers, Wereszczaks, Chreptowiczes. It was only in 1900, however, that the Societas Szubraviensis (the Scoundrels' Society) was resurrected and held its weekly meetings in the House Under the Sign of the Dogcatcher, in a building, that is, with a view of the statue of Muravyov the Hangman. This was not a lodge; at most, it was a discussion group, organized by Attorney Tadeusz Wróblewski, who was a legendary figure in Wilno and the founder of the Wróblewski Library.

I have no firsthand knowledge of these resurgent lodges, but I have heard and read about them. Circa 1905, the Lithuania and Tomasz Zan lodges were formed (Wróblewski was active in the former), and it seems the Zealous Lithuanian lodge, too, was reborn. The lodges (many university professors belonged to them) were active in the interwar period, as I learned from my former professor, Stanislaw Swianiewicz, who, even though he was a fervent Catholic, was on very friendly terms with the Masons. Without that particular milieu, in which social ties were almost indistinguishable from organizational ties, Wilno's soul would have been much poorer.

Ludwik Abramowicz was the spokesman for an ideology in which democratic thinking, multinationalism, and "localism" were united. Before World War I, not only Poles but also Lithuanians, and Belorussians, too, belonged to the Lithuania lodge. After the war, it split along ethnic lines; at the same time, the adherents of "localism" opposed the National Democrats (Endecja) and condemned discrimination against other languages. The best-known "localist" Masons (these concepts virtually overlapped) were Michal Romer, Attorney Bronislaw Krzyzanowski, and Jan Pilsudski (the Marshal's brother), but the localist orientation also had adherents in other semisecret groupings such as the Senior Vagabonds' Club. The Wilno Review was a publication of Polish-speaking Wilno, but it took a stand against the incorporation of Wilno into Poland and in favor of restoring the multiethnic Grand Duchy, with Wilno as its capital, and criticized Józef Pilsudski for renouncing the federal idea.

This was a completely utopian program, rejected alike by the majority of Poles and by Lithuanians and Belorussians. Abramowicz's close collaborator, Michal Romer, who had joined the Polish Legions in Krakow in 1914, cut the Gordian knot in his own way, breaking with Pilsudski on the issue of Wilno. He moved to Kaunas, where he taught law at the university, and was twice elected rector of Kaunas University. He left a multivolume diary, written in Polish.

I used to read The Wilno Review , and I think it had an influence on me. I cannot stop myself from imagining Abramowicz as the high priest Sarastro in Mozart's Magic Flute --a noble and somewhat naive reformer who believes in mankind's reasonableness.

ABRASZA . I first met Abrasza in Paris, when I was living in the Latin Quarter after breaking with the Warsaw government, so it would have been 1952. He was a Polish Jew; his surname was Zemsz. He was studying at the Sorbonne; to be more precise, he was an eternal student, or rather, he was one of those people who cling to a student's existence as an alibi, to avoid bearing the burden of a career, a salary, etc. He told me a few things about his past. He had served with the Polish armed forces in England where, according to him, he was tormented by anti-Semites. Then he fought against the English in Palestine. In Paris, he was very poor; he lived in a garret somewhere, and Jeanne Hersch and I made several attempts at helping him, but here my memory has gaps. I met him again in 1970, I think, after the student revolt of 1968. He had played a very active role in that uprising. Asked why, he responded: "For no reason; for the sake of a row."

The year 1968 was different in Berkeley than in Paris, with different causes and a different course. True, the Berkeley students tried to burn books, but they didn't destroy trees like the French students, who cut down the plane trees on Boulevard Saint-Michel in order to build barricades. Seeing the demagogues who were the leaders in Berkeley, I felt not the slightest temptation to join them; at the same time, I can understand Kot Jelenski, who approved of the Paris revolt, a more radically liberating universal revolution, and universal copulation. Unfortunately, one's assessment of those events depended on one's age, it seems. I was fifty-seven at the time, and I suspected that, at best, I envied the students.

Abrasza committed suicide, but I know neither the date nor the circumstances.

ACADEMY of Arts and Letters, American. It is modeled on the Académie Française, which also functioned as a codifier, heatedly condemning words considered too regional or specific to a profession (agriculture, fishing, hunting), standing guard, as it were, in defense of a unified "classical" French language. When Poland achieved independence in 1918 there were endless debates about a Polish Academy of Letters until finally it was called into existence, but not without some wild clashes. It established a Youth Prize, and when Stanislaw Pietak was awarded it in 1938, Boleslaw Micinski, who was in France at the time, wrote to his mother in the mock Russian he used when he wanted to be funny, "It vood hev bin bedder hed Milosz gut prize."

I myself would become an academician. America has two academies. The first, in Cambridge, is the Academy of Arts and Sciences, which mixes scientists from various fields with scholars of literature, music, and the fine arts. I was elected to it--as a professor, it seems. The other, in New York, led a dual existence for a long time as the Institute of Arts and Letters and as the Academy of Arts and Letters. I was elected a member of the Institute in 1982, and several years later we voted to merge into a single Academy. All the most famous creative people in the fields of literature, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting in America belong. Generous prizes from bequests by private individuals are distributed annually. The Academy has its own beautiful building in which parties and dinners are held so the élite can celebrate each other's honors. Living on the West Coast, I was able to participate in these celebrations only once or twice. Over many drinks in the garden, in the bright light of a May afternoon, I conversed with Dwight Macdonald for the last time; he died soon afterward. The old goat was fascinated by my companion, who really did have on a beautiful dress, and who looked beautiful, too.

The Academy is not made up solely of distinguished old men, and there are definitely names on its membership list which will last. Nonetheless, election to it is determined by fame as measured by the rumors and gossip of the New York establishment, which means that enduring value and momentary fame reside in the same house. One can see that in the roster of foreign honorary members of the Academy. The seven stars of our Eastern constellation were Bella Akhmadulina, Václav Havel, Zbigniew Herbert, Milan Kundera, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Voznesensky, and Evgeny Evtushenko. When the last was elected, Joseph Brodsky resigned from the Academy in protest.

(Continues...)