Primeval and Other Times

THE TIME OF THE BAD MAN

The Bad Man appeared in the forests of Primeval before the war, though there may have been someone like him living in those woods forever.

First, in spring they found the half decomposed body of Bronek Malak in Wodenica, whom everyone thought had gone to America. The police came from Taszów, examined the site and took the body away on a cart. The policemen came to Primeval several times more, but nothing happened as a result. No murderer was found. Then someone dropped a hint that he had seen a stranger in the forest. He was naked, and hairy like a monkey, flitting among the trees. Then others remembered that they had found strange tracks and marks in the forest too – a footprint on a sandy path, a hole dug in the ground, discarded animal carcasses. Someone had heard howling in the forest, a half-human, half-animal wail.

So people began to tell stories of where the Bad Man came from. They said that before the Bad Man became the Bad Man, he was an ordinary peasant who committed a terrible crime, though no one knew exactly what.

Regardless of what the crime was about, his conscience gnawed at him and wouldn’t allow him a moment’s rest, and so, tormented by its voice, he ran away from himself, until he found solace in the woods. He trudged about the forest and finally lost his way. He thought he saw the sun dancing in the sky, and that was what made him lose direction. He reckoned the road north would definitely take him somewhere. But then he lost faith in the road north and headed east, believing that to the east the forest would finally end. But as he was going east, he was overcome by doubts again. He stopped in confusion, unsure of his direction. So he changed his plan and decided to go south, but he lost faith in the road south too, and duly headed west. Then it turned out he had returned to the spot he had started from – at the very centre of the great forest. So on the fourth day he lost faith in all the points of the compass. On the fifth day he stopped trusting his own reason. On the sixth day he forgot where he had come from and why he had come to the forest, and on the seventh day he forgot his own name.

And ever since he had become like the animals in the forest. He lived on berries and mushrooms, then started hunting small animals. Each successive day wiped larger and larger pieces from his memory – the Bad Man’s mind was becoming smoother and smoother. He forgot words, because he didn’t use them. He forgot how he was to pray each evening. He forgot how to kindle a fire and how to make use of it. How to do up the buttons on his coat and how to lace his boots. He forgot the songs he had known since childhood, and then his entire childhood. He forgot the faces of the people dearest to him, his mother, wife and children, he forgot the taste of cheese, roast meat, potatoes and potato soup.

This forgetting went on for many years, and finally the Bad Man was nothing like the man who had come to the forest any more. The Bad Man was not himself, and had forgotten what it meant to be himself. Hair started growing on his body, and from eating raw meat his teeth became strong and white, like an animal’s teeth. Now his throat emitted hoarse noises and grunts.

One day the Bad Man saw an old fellow in the forest gathering brushwood and felt the human being was alien to him, revolting even, so he ran up to the old man and killed him. Another time he attacked a peasant driving a carthorse. He killed him and the horse. He devoured the horse, but didn’t touch the man – a dead person was even more repulsive than a live one. Then he killed Bronek Malak.

One time the Bad Man accidentally reached the edge of the forest and got a view of Primeval. The sight of the houses stirred a sort of vague emotion in him, which included regret and rage. Just then a terrible wail was heard in the village, like the howling of a wolf. The Bad Man stood at the edge of the forest for a while, then turned around and tentatively leaned his hands against the ground. To his amazement he discovered that this way of moving about was much more comfortable and much faster. His eyes, now closer to the ground, could see more and better. His as yet weak sense of smell could pick up the odours of the ground better. One single forest was better than all the villages, all the roads and bridges, cities and towers. So the Bad Man went back into the forest forever.