A Polish moustache, though, is not about length. I don’t
know what it is all about, exactly,
and size—let no one kid you—does matter, but I’m beginning to suspect that
there isn’t so much an ideal Polish moustache as there has been a very real Slavic
attitude about them, moustaches, an attention to them, a reverence for them, perhaps
even a fetish. How a Pole dresses his upper lip, or undresses it, signals
something. As if a small signboard existed under your nose, and Poles, Polish
men anyway, especially, read there clues to your character, associations,
alliances. Do you live up to its implications, or are you all and only
moustache?
Case in point: Rereading
the foundational text, the Polish national epic Pan
Tadeusz by Adam Mickiewicz, and reviewing the movie version by Andrzej
Wajda, I follow the moustache motif with heightened sensitivity to subtle
rewards and insights. The main character—though not the title character—Jacek
Soplica, in his early maturity, “only had a little land/[but] A sword and a
moustache from ear to ear.” [“Choć sam nic nie posiadał prócz
kawałka roli/Szabli i wielkich wąsów
od ucha do ucha.” (72)] (I must confess to delight in being able to actually
read this, however haltingly, in the original, note the grammatical niceties, and the liberties
that the translator took in rendering these lines comparably but not
literally.) That is to say, that Jacek Soplica, though noble and martial and
spirited and masculine and worthy, in spite of his many and manly gifts,
represented by his ample moustaches, will prove too poor to wed the daughter of
the magnatial Horeszkos, a girl who was, in fact, in love with him. Wherefore
art thou impoverished.
Among Jacek’s gifts, tragically, was first-rate
marksmanship, and he invariably shoots the Horeszko patriarch, earning himself
exile and the implacable enmity of Horeszko’s warden, Gerwazy, who identifies
the murderer thus, “It was Soplica, and I knew ‘twas he by his moustache and
height/His villainy.” (76) Twenty-something years later, the son of Jacek
Soplica, Tadeusz, the title character, moustacheless and unproven, though
promising, has joined in a hunting party organized by his uncle, the Judge;
Gerwazy is a member of that hunting party as well, along with the last of the
Horeszko line, the Count, likewise clean-shaven. They’re after bear, niedżwiedz,
the symbol also of Russian imperialism. The great beast rambles, then rampages
into their midst, threatening both Tadeusz and the Count. A fusillade ensues,
but those hunters who don’t actually blanch in the face of the ferocious target
miss the shot, except for the priest, Robak, cowled and shaven. Gerwazy
celebrates the feat at length,
“My friends, I have lived long and only one
Man have I seen so clever with a gun:
One who was famed for duels, and whose use
It was to shoot the heels from women’s shoes.
That famous scoundrel in an age of fame.
Mustachio Jacek—I’ll not say his name.
No hunting bears for him! He lies below
In hell right up to his mustachio.
Praise to the monk who saved the lives of two,
Perhaps three. I will not boast—but it is true
That if the last Horeszko had met death
By the beast’s jaws, I should not now draw breath.
And these old bones had given the bear a feast.
So let us drink his reverence the priest.” (194)
But does he, Jacek, lie below? Robak, of course, is revealed
to be Jacek Soplica, “Mustachio Jacek,” who now long shorn in contrition, goes
unrecognized by his mortal enemy, Gerwazy, and his only surviving brother, the
Judge—though in the Judge’s defense, he was quite young when Jacek fled the
country. The point cannot be lost: In what other country does a man assume the
perfect disguise by shaving his moustache?
