The STRANGER: A Study and Note About Maria Kuncewicz

THE STRANGER: A Study and Note about Maria Kuncewicz
Author(s): MARY C. SMITH

Source: The Polish Review , Winter, 1972, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Winter, 1972), pp. 77-86
Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of the Polish Institute of Arts &
Sciences of America
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25777030
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MARY C SMITH
THE STRANGER: A Study

and Note about Maria Kuncewicz
Modern Polish literature can boast of an unusually high proportion

of women writers of first-rank talent. A tally of names prominent in
prose alone would include Eliza Orzeszkowa, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka,
Zofia Nalkowska and Maria D^browska, as well as the novelist, es
sayist and short-story writer Maria Kuncewicz, whose novel Cudzo
ziemka (The Stranger), is discussed in this paper. Madame Kuncewicz
shares the realistic approach of her feminine compatriots, a trait which
has led scholars to link their names with the European tradition of
George Eliot and George Sand. On the other hand, her fascination with
psychology, also a favorite domain of Zofia Nalkowska (1885-1954),
reminds one of the masterful portrayals of frustrated and despairing
women of Flaubert and Tolstoy.
Madame Kuncewicz was born in Russia in 1899, but returned very
young to the land of her exiled parents' origin. She later studied music
at the Warsaw Conservatory, a sequence of events which closely parallel
the early years of Rose's life in The Stranger. Well-known in Poland
for her first works {Przymierze z dzieckiem (Alliance with a Child,
1926), Twarz mqzczyzny (Face of a Man, 1927) and Dwa ksiqzyce
(Two Moons, 1933)] before the war, she was forced to escape abroad
during World War II. From 1940-1955 she lived in Great Britain,
then resided in the United States, where she was active in literary
emigre circles and continued to write.
Not too busy to share her talents, she was Visiting Professor of Pol
ish Literature at the University of Chicago, after which period she
returned to picturesque Kazimierz on the Vistula, where she had lived
before the war. In this small town near Lublin, she is now working on
her latest book, a vie romancee of the leading novelist, dramatist and
theoretician of the "Young Poland" movement, Stanistaw Przybyszewski.
The Stranger attracted critical attention when L. B. Fischer published
77

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78 The Polish Review
it in a translation by B.W.A. Massey in 1945. The New Yorker con

sidered it a subtle study of an egocentric woman. Its value as character
analysis was also cited by N. G. Rausch (Library Journal, August, 1945)
and Orville Prescott in the Yale Review (Autumn, 1945), although the
latter viewed the novel as rather too coldly clinical. Kirkus (July 1,
1945) agrees that the novel is "ably executed?but not pleasant read
ing." Robert Pick in The Saturday Review of Literature (August 4,
1945) dismisses The Stranger as an only partially successful reworking
of a theme familiar from the French literature of the 1890's, whereas
the "introspective technique stems from Proust." Ruth Page in The
New York Times Book Review (August 5, 1945) and Virgilia Sapieha
New York Herald Tribune, August 5, 1945) concur on the book's high
quality. Taylor Caldwell also reviewed it in Book Week of September
16th of the same year.
Other of Madame Kuncewicz's books reviewed widely in the United
States are Zmowa nieohecnych (Conspiracy of the Absent), Lesnik
(The Forester), and Gaj oliwny (The Olive Grove), all works of fiction,
and an anthology of prose by writers currently living in Poland, The
Modern Polish Mind, which she edited in 1962.
The Stranger: A Study
The Stranger by Maria Kuncewicz is the story of a woman who, be

cause of betrayal by her lover and her failure to become a great concert
violinist, makes life perdition both for herself and for those around
her. The presentation is psychologically sound and dramatically com
pact. In fact, the entire framework of the novel, into which are crammed
the lives of two generations, is a single day; we meet Rose in mid
morning and by the time she dies, shortly after sunset the same day, a
series of flashbacks have shown us her childhood, early career, marriage
and tortured motherhood. Virtually nothing happens during the day
described; these flashbacks provide all the action of the narrative. On
arriving at her daughter's home, Rose recalls her youth, each recol
lection prompted by an object in the room where she waits for Marta.
The garment she removes is occasion to remember a spat with her
daughter over its purchase, a mirror the author's chance to relate in
what way Rose first became aware of her physical beauty as a young
girl. The introduction of these flashbacks is awkward at times. It seems
that the author herself realized that by inserting them in the manner
of Faulkner, by free association, she would aggravate the ambiguity of
her structure, a problem which she did not altogether solve. Therefore,
she has arranged her flashbacks quite strictly. While Rose is alone

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Maria Kuncewicz's "The Stranger" 79
in the house, the first set relates to her childhood, to her first love and
betrayal, to her departure from Taganrog1 to Warsaw. This chain of
memories is broken by the doorbell, the harbinger of another phase
of the book?Adam's section. The relationship between Rose and. her
estranged husband can hardly be said to be explained in this section;
it will grow clearer as the life they led with the children is brought
to light. But we do learn that Adam's passionate yet at times embittered
love for Rose has survived years of mutually inflicted suffering. Living
with another woman, Adam obeys Rose's summons to come immediately,
becomes enraged at her almost to the point of physical violence, but
melts into pathetically eager and tender kindness when Rose needs his
help.
Again the doorbell, and again the entrance of another character in
troduces a new set of flashbacks?this time those associated with her
son Wladys and his wife. The process is repeated with the arrival of
Marta. The members of the family enter in the order in which they
appeared in Rose's life, so that the combined recollections about them,
taken by themselves, are in chronological order and confusion is kept
to a minimum. However, many of the passages recounting Rose's
earlier life are quite long and the author often finds it necessary to
return to the present action with a sentence which reorients the reader
to the setting?reminding him of the position of Rose, of her last
words, or of a conversation which had prompted the digression.
This structural pattern is not an easy one to use successfully. How
ever, Madame Kuncewicz did remarkably well with it. But why
did she limit herself by choosing such a demanding form for her book?
I believe that she felt that the dramatic intensity of her characters would
be best served by this structural compactness. After all the plot itself
is thin; the value of the book lies in its rapid and incisive portrayal of an
unhappy woman. To weaken this thin material further by stretching it
to cover years of her life presented chronologically would be inviting a
loss of the book's power. By using the flashback method, she avoids
the need to link telling episodes by narrative bridges; the present state
of Rose's mind is mortar enough and by providing this base, the author
can flash on revealing scenes from Rose's past like lantern slides, taking
only the barest essentials for illustration of her heroine's life.
To increase the unified impression created by her novel, the author
supplies two or three motifs which tie Rose's present agitation in her
daughter's living room to the events of her past. The most obvious
1 Taganrog: a city in the Rostov area of Russia, on the sea of Azov. An in
dustrial city and port with a number of institutions of higher learning, it is the birth
place of Anton Chekhov. The south-central Russian plain was also the site of many
settlements of deported Poles in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

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one is music That she is sensitive to music is immediately apparen

when the tune from the radio upstairs nearly reduces Rose to tears
Later we are able to recognize Brahms's allegro giocosofor his Con
certo in D for violin as a motif which reappears at times of particular
strain or ecstasy in Roses life)?always as a challenge for her, a violinist,
which, depending on her ability to execute the sixteenth notes and
double-stops at a given point in her life, casts her into despair at her
failure or raises her to heights of joy at her success.
Thus, the role of music is not simply a structural device but also an
emotional outlet for Rose. It is, for both her children, the only way
in which they can relate to their mother, and for Adam, Rose is in
accessible to him largely because he is unable to understand and ap
preciate her musical ambitions. Had they had this bond between them,
Michael could not have come between them as he did.
Another motif which occurs both in Rose's immediate present an
frequently in her past is that of her native land, Poland. Her patriotism
like her music, is at once one of the great drives and consequently on
of the great tragedies of her existence, most of which was spent i
Russia.
The death motif has a dual purpose in The Stranger. That Rose
is particularly absorbed with death this day is shown by many enig
matic hints to Adam and her children, but this is quite clearly not a
sudden obsession. Contradictory feelings about it have long plagued
her. Years before she had mourned the injustice and horror of death
for "one who had not lived"; again she spoke of death as welcome re
lief from guilt and responsibility. But death, as well as being a re
curring motif, is a device for foreshadowing. This acute awareness of
death increases the tension of the book. All the characters realize, to
gether with the reader, that this is an extraordinary day in Rose's life?
the excitement is of an ominous nature and can only be convincingly
climaxed with Rose's death, which indeed does occur in the late after
noon.
Not a novel of plot, The Stranger is essentially a portrait. How
this portrait drawn? By what techniques is Rose made to live??an
she does! No one technique creates Rose. Of course, the author,
an omniscient observer, simply narrates and describes at times. A
one point she differentiates between Rose's attitude toward childr
and that of Adam's. But most of the time we see events from Rose's
viewpoint, distorted though it may be. Her intense excitement when sh
first plays Brahms's concerto, her despair which nearly results in killin
her son, her temptation and desire for revenge when an overdose o
digitalis would eliminate the daughter who has "betrayed" her by bein

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Maria Kuncewicz's "The Stranger" 81
beloved of her father?these are seen refracted through Rose's psychotic
mind, and the more powerful for it.
Double characterization can be achieved by letting us see Rose through
others' eyes, and the author uses this technique frequently. When
Wladys watches his mother, his reactions are revelatory not only of her
but also of him. His horror at the rude and imperious performance
which his mother puts on at the opera proves that he is aware of her
cruelty as well as her charm.
Rose is, of course, the most fully developed and fascinating of the
book's characters. Her posture as the "stranger," the eternally alienated
individual, is a result of several elements in her psychological make-up.
The most basic and pervasive of these is frustration. Rose's frustration
arises from several causes. She loved Michael, but married Adam. She
hated his touch but bore his children. She dreamed of being a great
concert singer, but was forced into a career as a second-rate violinist.
She dreamed of Poland's greatness, but lived in victorious Russia most
of her life and spoke Polish with an accent. The hatred engendered by
all these disappointments found its victims in everyone with whom she
came into contact. Her sense of haughty superiority to other people, her
contempt expressed in rudeness even to passers-by on the street and to
ladies at the opera cause her rejection by others and exacerbate her
feeling of strangeness. With a vicious circle thus created, Rose
enjoys increasing her own loneliness and enjoys taking her frustration
out on her husband and children. They shall pay for the wrongs life
has done her. Doubly delicious was the game, in her early married years,
of casual flirtations, which reduced not only her admirer but also her
helpless, adoring spouse to speechless bewilderment She employed her
beauty and charm to revenge herself on men, an outlet which she later
transposed into male terms by revelling in the amorous successes of her
son. How soothing it was to see her handsome Wladys leaving in his
wake a trail of pining, lovesick maidens!
If Rose's life was motivated by hate?for men, for her maestro,
for her Aunt Louise?it was not devoid of beauty. In fact, beauty was
the one positive value that Rose recognized in people and things. What
do we hear of Michael? He was handsome and had beautiful hands.
Certainly redeeming features in one who, we must confess, strikes us
as a rather ordinary, pleasure-seeking young man, an opinion only
further supported by events in St. Petersburg. (He had to leave Rose in
order to marry a girl whom he had seduced.) Nature is only appreciated
by Rose when the weather is fair; otherwise it depresses her. Her
grandchildren please her only because they are pretty. Had they not
been, we must assume she would have been even less attentive to them

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than she is. And Adam's chief fault, the one aspect of him which
drives Rose to repulsion and sobs, is his gracelessness, his lack of looks.
Even in religion, which can hardly be said to be a keystone of Rose's
life, she finds attraction if it is presented artistically. Konrad Witz's
crucifixion can stir in her heart a feeling of piety which no minister,
no matter how persuasive, could evoke.
Guilt plays a role in Rose's outlook; she transfers it to others and
everyone feels guilty in her presence, but it originates in her and
seems to spring from two sources, one sexual and one moral. Even as
a girl, even under the touch of Michael's beautiful hands, Rose dis
covered her own body "with horror." Her children were conceived
"in the dead of night" and she viciously accuses Adam of getting
Marta on her by force. One finds it hard to dismiss the thought that a
normal attitude in this area implies a willingness to please, to sub
mit, to consider another's feelings, of which Rose, totally self-centered
and proud, is utterly incapable. This pride precludes religion as well,
since the kind of humility she views in Witz's faces is inaccessible to
her. If Rose bestowed her hand on Adam as a favor, so she could rule
over him, how could she submit to God?
The other source of guilt requires no explanation. In her better
moments Rose is appalled by the recollection that more than once
she came within an inch of killing one of her children.
Her alienation, her strangeness, finds its roots in all these traits.
In her life there is no harmony as she sees it in the music of Brahms.
She is totally estranged from love, from music, from God, from Poland
?In a word, from life, since she will not allow it to touch her.
Incidentally, this does not mean that she is unable to deal with peo
ple when she wants to. She is a brilliant psychologist?charming when
need be, trenchantly sarcastic and scathing when she wants. She re
duces her victims with her sharp tongue, then laughs at their confusion,
leaving them bewildered and totally defenseless. She always uses the
most appropriate weapon. Instead of stiffening her resistance to her
son's marriage, she crushes his fiancee with exaggerated politeness, then
virtually seduces her son away from the unpretentious, plain girl with her
own beauty and charm.
Adam, Rose's unfortunate husband, is a Romantic idealist. The
force engendered by his wife's bitterness fascinated him from his first
acquaintance with her. She despises him for weakness, for what she
calls "saintliness," for his submission. Had he been more forceful,
nasty even, he could have won his wife's respect, but such weapons are
not in Adam's arsenal. Only in his old age does he rise up to strike
her, and it opens her eyes to his worth. He had always wanted to be

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Maria Kuncewiczs "The Stranger" 83
a comfort to her in her unhappiness, had encouraged the children to
be patient with their unhappy mother, but he could not compete with
Michael and music. The fascination turned into tortured apprehension,
and he spent his life in dread of Rose's next unexpected scene or whim.
Wiadys had the dubious good fortune to become the object of Rose's
love transferred from Michael. This love had bypassed her husband al
together and had found its home in her son who filled the bill perfect
ly. He was handsome, loved music and could serve as a weapon against
women. He understood his mother and could adapt his face and mood
to pacify her. It was not so easy and natural as it had been for little
Kazio, but it worked. Nevertheless, he was not always in control; in
fact, more frequently he, like everyone else, fell under Rose's spell.
The power over Wiadys, which permitted Rose to prevent his first
marriage, diminished with time, but even in the last day of her lif
the remnant, still potent, is visible. Wiadys had been the victim of his
mother's own marital unhappiness, and he suffered from her jealousy of
any woman who could love him. Although Wiadys had sufficient
strength to defy Rose and marry Jadwiga, he bears no grudge?his
make-up does not share his mother's capacity for hate?-and she as
well as his wife is indispensable to his well-being.
Jadwiga is the complete antithesis of Rose. Warm, natural, even-tem
pered, she is convinced that love should dominate her home; anything
that interferes with it, that creates tension and unpleasantness, is avoided.
Rose's arrival in her peaceful domain destroys this atmosphere and
drives calm Jadwiga to near-madness. But she too understands Rose
and craves her approval. Nothing pleases her so as her mother-in
law's praise.
The daughter, Marta, has long served as a pawn between her parents
and had betrayed her own desires, and those of her adored father, to
satisfy her mother's passionate wish that she become a musician. When
we meet her, she is dangerously far along the path travelled by her
mother, whom her fascination makes her wish to emulate. Rose had
made her a singer, had caused her to lose her real love, had convinced
her to marry Paul, who, in his attitude towards a career versus family
life, is a male counterpart of Rose. Even Rose sees the potential tragedy
of Marta's life and before her death urges her daughter to turn back
onto the way she would have gone had her mother not interfered,
that is, Adam and Jadwiga's way.
From all of this the resulting impression is that Rose is a virago,
a heartless, cold and cruel goddess. But if this be so, the relationship of
thfcse people are difficult to explain. For all her whims and egoism,
all these people sincerely love Rose. Her "estranged" husband comes

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to her immediately when she asks, gives her money; her son and daugh
ter-in-law invite her to their home frequently, and her daughter take
her shopping for clothes. If she had no redeeming qualities, we could
hardly justify this affection. Well, you say, these people are weak. Ar
they? True, Adam is hardly the domineering male type, but he h
sufficient spine to leave Rose and live with Pani Kwiatowska. Wladys
married against her will and circumscribes her influence in his home.
They may be weak, but they are not servile. They love her?of tha
there is no doubt. The deathbed scene is a demonstration of grief
that rings true. We are not surprised at these tears for we have seen
that real love existed all along. What do they love? They love Rose
strength, her charm, her moments of warm affection, her dynamism.
Adam had lectured the children long before that their mother must b
pitied and loved because she was unhappy. His plea was effective
They love her for what she was before?charming, talented, beaut
ful; and for what she is now?-strong, unhappy, disillusioned. Thei
love for her allows them to endure her fury, her cruel use of he
power. Rose adores creating confusion and concern, seeing in it
reflection of her own control and her family's adoration. Indeed, she
needs this constant reminder that at least in this sphere she has achieve
success and power.
This egoism, along with three other themes, is one of the mai
threads of the book. Rose's self-absorption is rooted in an almos
paranoid conviction that no one understands her and that life wrongs
her at every turn. Since this is true, any nasty revenge she can take is her
due. It is only when she meets someone who she thinks understands her
that is, Gerhardt, that she repents. The causes of Rose's frustration are
however, not inflicted by others but are largely a result of her ow
actions. It is true that Aunt Louise removed her from her home, that
God took Kazio, that Marta was not musical; but she made herself
stranger in Warsaw by her own behavior, destroying her homelif
with her ambitions, and frustrating the direction to which her daughte
talents would have led. Her marriage was not forced; she did it ou
of spite. Nor was her career cut off. However, she blames these situa
tions on others in order to have a reason for hatred.
A third thread, as previously mentioned, is guilt, both moral an
sexual. At times Rose is terribly ashamed of her desire to murder her
children. To kill Marta would have served both to avenge herself o
Adam for wanting a wife and home and to obliterate the living proof o
her defeat. Rose momentarily justified her urge to kill Wladys in the
warped belief that by destroying her last link with life and love, b
cutting out her vulnerable point, she could liberate herself.

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Maria Kuncewiczs "The Stranger" 85
Thus Rose's alienation, her strangeness, is a self-imposed posture.
Her strength is directed towards spurning the world, toward divorcing
herself from life. She understands her own position and even treats
it quite ironically at times, but frequently enjoys it immensely. She
has created her own world, in music and in Michael, and has despised
anyone who attempts to interfere with it. Through music one could
ascend to this rarefied atmosphere, but Rose would not come down.
But in this case, her self-imposed posture has psychotic tinges. Who
can deny that she insults people out of a masochistic pleasure of their
subsequent rejection?
The action of the novel is conceived as a sequence of isolated clashes.
We tend to think of Rose in a setting?arrogantly serving tea to Halina,
swishing past gentlemen at the opera, furiously playing Brahms as
her amorous husband pursues her and her violin around the dining
room. These illuminating incidents are linked together with as little nar
rative as possible, a fact that gives the novel a rather dramatic character.
A screenplay would not be difficult to write for this novel. Structurally,
this concise approach is essential to so compact a work, but perhaps it
is also a result of Rose's nature. She is a mistress of the "scene." It is
sufficient for her to walk into a room and with a catalytic glance or
word to make everyone immediately uneasy and animated.
An inevitable corollary of this tightly-woven dramatic style is the
exorcism of nearly all lyrical or descriptive passages. Settings, indoor or
outdoor, are totally ignored. We see a tree only if it affects Rose's
mood; a table which evokes a memory is described. But the rooms in
which most scenes take place are hardly mentioned, let alone des
cribed. Indeed, there is no room for such digression, hardly germane
psychologically. And this is the sole criterion of relevance in this
work.
Humor has a dual source in The Stranger. Rose is not immune to
laughing at herself, as we have seen. Also her cruel and ironic laughter
serves as a cutting edge to demolish her opposition. One gets the im
pression that she also realizes that there is something humorous and
mildly ridiculous in her stance at times, as when she sits, sour and
pouting, in a corner watching the guests at her son's wedding?gay,
giddy and drunk. The author, too, treats Rose with a touch of gentleness
and tolerance. A certain humor is evident in the way Rose's family all
cater to her, but the author's laughter is not sardonic.
Is Rose believable? As she is presented, yes. We see a real woman
before us, capable of great extremes of good and evil. The weakness
of the book lies not in Rose's characterization, but in the motivation
of the two great changes in her life. The first, her betrayal by Michael,

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is described in one paragraph, nearly glossed over, and, as a traumatic

event capable of transforming a carefree, warm girl into the embittered,
cold beauty we meet, it is difficult to believe. We see so little of Rose's
goodness that, in order not to lose our sense of proportion, we must
remind ourselves that she had been a charming girl, that she was equal
to holding the love of her family. Had we seen more of her love for
Michael, her self-sacrifice, her happiness, (as we see Anna basking in
Vronsky's love or enchanted by the prattle of her little boy), we might
be more easily convinced of the reason for Rose's misery and subse
quently of her return to a state of grace. But the Tolstoyan balance is
missing. Rose's second metamorphosis also somewhat strains the reader's
belief. Her interview with Gerhardt presumably revives in her the
loving joy she experienced with Michael, but that side of Rose is so
unfamiliar to the reader that he must accept the author's word. No
one would deny that an unhappy love can destroy a person's life nor
that finding an understanding ear can restore equilibrium to a dis
traught mind. We know that these things can and do happen; the
problem in this case is that we do not ultimately feel that they have
indeed occurred.
Some critics at the time of the book's publication in this country
referred to it as a "tragic" work. Surely this can only be true in the
word's broadest sense, insofar as a ruined life is always "tragic." As
in so many modern works, we have in The Stranger an individual
defeated, at least temporarily, not by circumstances beyond her control,
(as is Antigone), or by social and moral law (as is Anna Karenina), but
by her own weakness. Consequently, the element of tragedy in its
classic sense is absent.
On the other hand, Ruth Page2 seemed to consider wit the predominant
trait of The Stranger. This is in my opinion, an overstatement. Humor
does exist, as we have seen, but the final impression of the novel is
in a very different vein.
The Stranger is worthwhile because of its searching and psychologic
ally sound account of a woman's unhappiness and its effect on the
people around her. So few fine portrayals of feminine protagonists
have appeared that we should value an author such as Maria Kuncewicz
all the more highly for her sympathetic yet realistic creation of Rose.
2 In a review in The New York Times, August 5, 1945.

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