Original subtitles

What's going on here?

This young officer has disobeyed his orders.

He paid the soldiers and they rose

in defiance of the coming armies.

But they say

there's been no resistance anywhere. They say the parliament

has rubber-stamped the partition of the country.

I've never touched the human body before.

Who are you?

I have orders to escort the political prisoners

held in this convent to Warsaw.

- There are only two. - I know, I know.

They are not under guard any more, poor men.

- The servants have fled. - Yes.

- Hurry! They are coming shortly. - Yes.

The sisters will show you the way.

I must go back there!

Are you Jacob sentenced to death

- for attempted regicide? - No, no.

So you are Jacob,

Shut up. We have to run, before the hell breaks loose.

Help me.

He is very weak. He had a fit.

Tomas. I am really sorry

I cannot take you along, but neither can I leave you here.

I'm going to take you out of here.

You have killed...

Come on.

All I want from you is to go back home. Remember.

Promise that you will. Go back home!

Take her to take care of you and be your comfort.

She's a poor orphan.

Freedom in return for that one promise. Understand?

Just one promise, remember.

Don't you recognise me?

It was me who saved you from that bloodbath.

Don't be a fool. I saved your life.

Here is the witness.

- And Thomas? - Well, he didn't make it.

I saw him die.

But I went out of my way to save you.

- And what happened here? - They are soldiers

- of the last war. - Was it lost?

Yes. The parliament has endorsed the partition of Poland.

- I have to go to Warsaw. - No!

Nobody has to do anything now. Remember?

You promised to go back home.

- What do you want? - Nothing.

Treat me as if I was a... clergyman.

I care that you won't go astray.

All of your friends are back and awaiting you at home.

Ride!

Is it true that Thomas is dead?

Do you have a place to go?

Don't say a word, sir, or you'll invite evil.

He is sick.

Do you need help, sir?

You're afraid...

Stay with us, young lord. We accept everyone.

I am Hertz, the owner of the royal theatres.

It's not always that I roam these forests

with that gang of fugitives.

And you are a beauty, young lord. None of our boys is your match.

Even though you don't know tricks and cannot act,

we'll cast you in a tableau vivant,

- we'll strip you naked, we'll show... - No, I will not...

You are a fool. I would not coax you,

but how can we protect ourselves?

By being at the play?

Join us, lord.

We have tightrope walkers, actors,

we move places, we produce shows.

You'll be all right with us, if your mind is confused.

None of them has been a tightrope walker nor an actor before.

But one can learn anything, lord. I am insisting.

We have Turkish girl from afar, brought all the way from Bosporus.

She knows many tricks and she's keen on it.

Come on, I'll show you what she can do.

Maybe you'll lose your mind for her.

Want her?

I am giving her to you, for free.

You are so pale and, Perhaps, very young

under that dirt and beard.

I've been away for years. I must go home.

I'll let you go, but take off your clothes first. Let us wash you,

so that we can watch you longer.

Don't be stubborn, cadet.

Now everybody is free to do anything.

Now everybody runs far from everything.

From the royal chambers, too.

We have not met in a sweeter life.

Do you know me?

The cadet I knew has long since been dead.

And he died, no doubt,

or else we would not have been going to play

at the wedding party for his fianc�e.

- What are you saying? - It was you who said that the king

enthroned by a woman

and enamoured of women's allurements

is the source of the whole decline.

But the king did treat you like children.

So what is a decline, cadet,

a weakness to evil, or evil faced with a weakness?

Let him go,

or else we would quarrel over his attraction.

Wait here. I'll be back right away!

You have come right in time.

All the time I had to shuttle here between you and this...

shame of a company! You can't imagine how tiring it is.

- It hurts. - Tell me,

why you secured my release, if you've been following me all along?

- You don't even let me come... - I? It's a misunderstanding.

Stop thinking of me. I am not here.

I am nothing, like thin air.

While you've been away for so many years, a lot has changed here.

Calm down. It's all my fault.

I am the worst of men, a louse.

Why am I showing it to you? For what purpose?

What for?

Look, these are the voguish patriotic dances

on the grave of an independent homeland.

They are my friends,

my childhood friends.

Shut up. I have not waited for you for so long

only to watch how they murder you.

Is it the way you remembered her?

No.

How do you remember her?

Without that...

Without that fruit of her sinful love?

- I have the right to show up. - No,

you mustn't be such an egoist.

Look at her. She's happy!

If you intrude, you will complicate her life.

- What is more, you could become... - What?

Dangerous for her.

Don't you believe?

Come and see.

In the name of the Father and the Son, an the Holy Martyrs.

I bless you all, who have come here with the godly aim

of saving the miserable, fallen homeland.

To seal this alliance with the sacrament,

approach and witness this marriage ceremony

which today symbolises the vows that shall wed you

to the miserable motherland.

I thee wed...

to cleave to you

and be faithful to you...

In weal and woe...

In wealth and in poverty...

Just as I wed...

The fate and the rescue of my homeland...

until the last drop of blood.

Until I breathe my last.

Witness the national church

and the supreme Being.

Amen.

She has almost seen you!

You can appear before her in a short while.

I am sorry. It's an excess of emotion.

It was a ghost, understand? It was ghost.

- Ghosts don't exist. They don't exist. - No, no!

Just a ghost, a ghost, a ghost.

It was a ghost, you see?

A ghost...

I hate what I am doing to you.

I shouldn't.

It's hideous,

damn hideous.

You sacrificed yourself for them and they

are copulating right in front of you, like rabbits.

I loathe it, Jacob, I loathe it.

They are animals.

And you, between them, like...

Jesus.

You have a fiery sword to demand.

Why hit me? Why?

I am sick!

You should pity me!

You are like me.

I surrender to you.

Before the fit, I feel like God in His youth,

omniscient.

Father!

Your father, young lord, is dead, is dead.

Dead for two weeks already.

A bullet blew the top of his skull.

He took his life.

The dead father, dead!

You had a home, castaway, you had a fianc�e.

You raised your hand against the king,

the Lord's anointed.

Be cursed!

Angels... They are coming.

This is my fianc�e�s room.

You'll get some rest here.

Why is Father lying naked and how dare you wear his clothes!?

Sir, somebody had to, or everything would unravel.

The father set it on fire himself.

- And who are you? - Ezekiel.

Do you know me?

I am from the east, from the confederates.

I had been warned you would come perhaps.

Who are you waiting for?

Your sister.

Jacob,

They told me you went to study, you were beaten up, you were dead.

Where have you been, sister? To the ballroom?

Only for a short while.

You won't beat me?

I've learned to draw a pleasure from being beaten.

What about our father?

Jacob, your father went became insane.

He said you had left for England. What he did to his girl?! Ask!

Who are you?

I am the one who is to marry her.

Calm down and listen...

If you hit the very bottom,

you rebound and you come up to the surface purged.

For what's the use of redemption, if there is no sin.

How else would you face the Lord if not by telling him:

Give me a place in the Paradise of Heaven

for I have knew hell on earth.

Come, we must bury father.

This odour poisons the rooms in the entire house.

I beseech you.

Take her. She won't let me go.

He used to sit under this tree, reading fairy-tales for me.

My father died a long time ago in the same place where I was born.

They rose under huge banners with the picture of The holy Virgin

to expel foreign troops from Poland,

rout the heretics and eradicate what was not Polish.

My father used to say he was the citizen of a free world

in which violence and any revolution

are the work of criminals

who sully goodness to which man should aspire.

You father believed himself to be the citizen of a free world,

but the world is not free Jacob. The world is enslaved.

The weak are enslaved by the strong,

the wise are enslaved by the criminals,

the poor are enslaved by the fools.

And all of us, dwarfs among the dwarfs

are in the captivity of God.

So your father was weak.

Why have you not buried him so far?

I wished to keep your home intact

and prevent our sister from ruin.

Our sister?

I am your brother, Jacob.

I am another son of your mother.

Mother? I have no mother.

My mother has never been with us, you understand?

She has never wanted to be my mother.

She left us when I was a child. And later on...

She is back. I have come with her.

- She has raised me to be a patriot. - What?

According to your father

our sister's body is the same as our mother's,

so she is in our sister...

Younger and not so much dying of debauchery and lasciviousness.

Did you intend to kill me,

or the Mother of God whom you've killed in yourself?

Ask him.

Answer me!

Nations may rot and fall, but one thing never changes:

Traitors, cowards and killers always are all right.

I can show you the way.

The future belongs to the foreseeing ones.

That is why you must gain the awareness.

It is only against this awareness

that the national cause begins to shine, becomes what it is,

like distant northern lights.

You see? That's the whole truth.

I am at your service, spare my time for you,

but you assail me and leave me helpless behind in the forest.

- Mother, mother, mother... - I've heard of her a little.

Only she has climbed ahead.

How?

In a reasonable way.

You know how?

By harlotry.

Do you want to see her?

Here is the plan and a horse. You cannot stray.

What a surprise!

A visit from a handsome young man.

Oh, the young man is dishevelled, unhappy,

going through a storm of feelings.

Or maybe he is infatuated with one of my girls.

With you.

- With me? - Yes.

I am the least attractive and the oldest.

You must not fall in love with me.

Please.

Go away, girls.

You have come to make fun of me?

Are you bringing me a letter, orders, money?

No.

- Are you really fond of me? - Yes.

This is expensive. The biggest fortune-holders in this country

- used to go bankrupt for me. - Certainly.

There were some who paid

for the permission to brag that they had spent a night with me.

- Will you tell as well? - No.

Who are you?

Why are you watching me like this?

You are beautiful.

Come, then, come.

Come.

Do me good.

Please,

Mother! Mother!

We practice here. This is our school, you see?

Those are animals

and this, this is a man,

an instrument, a plaything.

I need money, so what's your choice?

Either you'll watch me with him, or I'll do it with you.

Your pleasure will be a hundred times greater than with that old hag.

All she has in there is one huge wound.

Save your hands.

Where are you?

Don't leave me alone now!

Where are you? I need you.

No, no. I don't know.

- Were you looking for me? - Yes.

Give me your hand.

Perhaps I'll find my peace in you.

Perhaps all will be as before.

It is too late, Jacob.

They call you mad Jacob

or Jacob from the madhouse,

Jacob sick in the head.

Will you catch me, Jacob, like you used to?

I am sorry.

Did you know that mother now lives not far from us?

I knew, I knew.

Do you wish to see her?

Father took me...

for her shortly before he died.

There were people from the castle, they asked questions.

I didn't know what to tell them.

They said somebody attempted to kill the count last night.

You are bloodstained.

Yes,

I can still smell this odour.

Now, tell me how father really died.

Your father set the house on fire

and shot himself in the head with a silver bullet

which he unscrewed from you know what?

From the sugar bowl.

So why don't you kill me and end my torture?

I can't, Jacob.

You are my bother.

You are sacrosanct, Jacob, a symbol.

One day generations will shed tears over your name.

What have I done that thou dar'st wag thy tongue.

In noise so rude against me? Such an act.

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty.

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose.

From the fair forehead of an innocent love,

And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

- As false as dicers' oaths... - Ay me, what act,

- That roars so loud? - Mother... have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave to feed,

And batten on this moor?

O shame! Where is thy blush?

Rebellious hell, If thou cast mutiny

in a matron's bones...

These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet.

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire.

A king of shreds and patches.

Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,

You heavenly guards.

What would your gracious figure?

- Alas, he's mad! - Do you not come your tardy son to chide.

That, lapsed in time and passion, let go

by the important acting of your dread command?

Do not forget. This visitation.

Is but to whet they almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

O, step between her and her fighting soul.

Speak to her, Hamlet.

How is it with you, lady?

Alas, how is' t with you,

That you do bend your eye on vacancy,

And with the incorporeal air do hold discourse?

Your spirits widely peep...

your bedded hair...

- I come to take you home. - You don't need to.

Now I am rich, Jacob.

I'll be able to pay you back for what you did for me.

You don't understand. I beseech you.

I want to take you home.

I can't, I must tell you something.

When they took you away and sentenced to death,

father went to Warsaw to intercede for you

and in return he gave me to those who had influence at the court.

Finally he gave me to the king himself.

You did all that for me?

- Jacob, you will have to explain. - What?

We mourned for you long ago.

I myself read the notice of your death.

Now you are back and haunt my wife.

Where is the essence of our vows, brothers in conspiracy:

Fidelity, courage and self-denial?

You are not answering me.

Nobody came out alive from the convent

where you and Thomas had been locked. How did you escape?

Why have you come here?

You've known all along that I am alive.

What can you set against me,

chief conspirer, a bastard and a whip?

I come only to take what belongs to me.

Alkar!

Take her away.

Rope him to the horse.

There is nothing wrong or mean in that.

People are weak.

You must understand. Life is not at a dead centre.

Here we swore to save Poland,

to do all in our power...

To kill the king, kidnap the ambassadors,

write down a new constitution. A just one.

Here we swore on your and Thomas's life.

- You betrayed us. - Never.

- They bit you, they broke your arms! - Never.

You won't get anything of what belongs to me.

I want that baby and I want her. You won't wrest her.

You are sick, Jacob, insane.

I can't give her back to you.

There is a new conspiracy.

There'll be a revolution, an uprising.

When your father changed so much,

I took her to my place, gave her a home

and the name,

Jacob.

I could have been in your shoes and you in mine.

You would have done the same.

You recognise it?

You want to kill me?

Before you spread more evil.

Listen, you must be under treatment. I cannot give her back now.

I'll give you money. You'll go abroad,

only give her up, for the sake of our friendship,

give her up for her sake.

That's exactly the truth about you.

I love her.

You haven't been with me lately.

You were getting on well by yourself.

- And now? - You are losing strength.

You don't believe what I'm showing you.

- And what are you showing me? - That you've been rejected.

- You sacrificed yourself in vain. - Not in vain.

Around you is a void circle, except for the stinking corpse,

betrayal, break of the vows, uselessness.

Speak.

What does a lumberjack do when tangled

boughs block his way in the forest?

He cuts.

You are correct.

This is the result, the essence of all morality, all laws.

When you kill, you leave only a trail behind.

Thus yours is the work of purgation. Purify.

I give it to you.

I give you possession of all sins around you.

What do you want in return?

I haven't much time left

and it takes a long time before you see everything, Jacob.

There are other matters I must address.

I settle them restless, arrange encounters to speed things up.

- We must make it in time. - Make it where?

Remember what happened at your mother's?

What?

- You did what should be done. - What?

You purged.

But, Jacob, I saved your life.

A bad boy.

Look,

How much time and health I lose because of you.

- You're waiting for me? - Yes.

Why?

You are insane.

- So what? - They call me insane, too.

Why are you telling me that?

Do you like me?

Yes.

- We, together? - Yes.

I cannot give you anything but myself.

- Do you want to try? - Aren't you afraid?

I want you.

Come.

It's my heart.

Drink from it.

Is it good?

I am cold.

What do you feel?

Neither fear nor repulsion.

How are you feeling?

Differently than so far.

Safe?

You are good to me.

Play,

play what you played in the castle.

"Peace! Sit your down

And let me wring your heart, for so I shall

If it be made of penetrable stuff,

If damned custom have not brazed it so

That is proof and bulwark against sense.

What have I done that thou

Dar'st wag thy tongue In noise so rude against me?

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent lobe,

And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

As false as dicers' oaths.

- Ay me, what act? - Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountains leave to feed,

And batten on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?

You cannot call it love, for at your age

The heyday in the blood is tame, it's humble,

And waits upon the judgement. But sure that sense...

This time I did everything as you wanted.

We wanted the highest glory for Poland,

control over the magnates, equality among people,

defence of the old frontiers.

That king was sinful, lacelike.

He kept the throne only as the lover of the tsarist empress.

- I had to do it. - The Turkish woman

followed you and so did our Hamlet!

- They were murdered. - Murdered?

Who killed them?

- Foreign troops. - You are all bloodstained.

Where have you been?

I killed them...

with this razor.

Ride on. Leave us alone.

You killed them?

Yes.

Come. I won't tell anyone.

Now I won't defend myself against anybody.

Don't defend yourself. Your beauty will defend you.

No!

Help!

See? If I were not here, who else would help you?

Tell me, who else?

It's you who always push me into a blind alley.

Who are you? Who?

A lunatic, a madman?

To tell you the truth, I wanted to be a dancer.

My dear,

you must not behave like this.

You must be strong,

survive the worst.

Those were only jokes.

You won't succeed without a sense of humour.

Stay sober.

Remember, like a God in his Youth.

I am with you.

Now run home,

home!

Today there was another ball in the castle, Jacob.

He'll want to kill you.

I told him that I love you.

I am a great success with boys.

I could take another one home every day.

It's exciting, captivating!

Terrible,

Did you see mother?

What is she like?

- She is... - Her return killed father.

She came here only once, for a visit,

and then he shot himself, and besides...

- What? - I cannot tell you this.

That fool let you go twice.

I was told you hanged around the minstrels who brought us weapons.

You make secret visits to the castle, you roam the forest.

You were heard shouting there.

What do you want, Jacob? Where do you want to guide us?

- Me and him. - You've also been to mother's.

After you'd left, they found there a corpse of one of her girls.

How do you know this?

Mother brings us money and orders from Warsaw.

What did you do to her?

Can't you see, idiot, that I want to save her

- from hell, from fornication? - By flogging?

They flogged you, too, in the castle.

Yes, we deserve to be flogged.

Don't kill him.

I'll do anything you want.

I am illegitimate, Jacob, a farm-hand.

Nobody.

But I preserve goodness and virtue.

Meanwhile, you, the righteous, the hero,

shall perish under the carrion of the old world.

And I will build you a monument with these hands of mine.

And she...

will be lying at its feet instead of beauty.

Them. Who brought them here...

- Did you see? - I was sleeping.

I have erred terribly, terribly.

One needs not want anything, dream of anything.

It's best not to understand anything.

Come.

I should not have taken you along.

Go back where you came from.

Can't you see they are after me!

Go away,

Like a dog, like a dog!

If you want to be with me, you must be sinful just like I am.

It's grown long again.

How silly you are.

It's blackberries.

There are no blackberries here. It's winter.

Lots of blackberries.

- Aren't you hungry? - Hungry?

Not far from here is the castle where I used to play as a child.

We'll find it and we'll be safe.

- Shall I tell you how it was? - Yes.

When I was going to kill the king

I was in fever and I let them catch me.

I was not inured to killing.

I fainted on the doorstep of his bedroom. And now...

Now we are together.

Together?

For the killers and the insane, for those burning with anger,

who want to throw off their shoulders

the burden of injustice in the Universe,

for the proud ones and the humiliated ones,

for those causing bleeding,

for the weak and the defeated, for the helpless,

- for the killers, the criminals... - You blaspheme!

Who are you to accept all that?

Were you with him when he brought them into the room?

Away!

Wait...

It's a trap. Please don't go there.

At last.

I escaped once they'd stopped watching me closely.

You knew I would come here?

When they chase you,

when everybody is against you,

this is your only shelter.

Only we two remember this place.

We cannot stay here.

Now they are hunting both you and me.

They won't give us a chance.

Only here we go back in time to the pure beginning,

for this way one can cancel the evil that has been done.

How?

Gently,

I have made our old room ready. Carry me.

What's wrong with you?

What is it?

Come, you must help!

Jacob!

All sins must meet their punishment.

This will not be born, either.

Everything has worked out as you wanted.

My reasoning is boorish,

that is why it agrees with what is.

- You are wiser than me. - But I suffer like you.

I know all about you,

only because I agonise over it as if it happened to me.

Come,

I'll show you one more thing, come.

Go, please, go and see.

It's strange, but I can't be angry with you for long.

There is so much snow there.

I thought I would never find it.

Have you come to hurt me again?

No, lady,

tell me about you.

When a woman realises she has stuck in front of a wall,

she usually returns to the places where she was happy once,

particularly if they pay her for it.

- Who pays you, mother? - Somebody pays.

I earn a wealth of money...

and I can help you to avoid the persecution.

And where is the money you give to Exekiel from?

Come on, I'll show you who is really who.

This is Jacob,

the killer,

my son.

Welcome, welcome...

You see.

See that one?

I had him with the ambassador of a foreign power.

He is sick in the head, but strong and beautiful.

I brought him from afar

to please wealthy ladies of the best stock and bring me profits.

Today in front of you

he will have the one of your choice and any manner you want it.

Take a vote.

Girls!

Now you see what I'm offering you.

You will perform in my circus, you will be safe here.

And if you happen to murder someone during your performance,

you will make that licentious company more than happy.

He is afraid of losing you.

- He isn't afraid of anything. - He is just a petty clerk.

They don't entrust him with serious business.

- He is waiting mother. - What for?

Purgation.

He gives you money to finance such plots?

- Money is no offence. - But why is it you, mother?

Because I am what matters, not the rest of the world.

A decline never means anything, mother.

Only the growth of powers

shows where the light that strikes us comes from.

Mama!

What for?

Never mind. Ride on and I'll trick the pursuers.

When it's all over,

come to meet me under our tree on the hill.

Then you'll hear what I want from you. Move!

Depravity comes

when people agree to live according to ideals which are not theirs.

The worst depravity is when one stops protesting.

In the final reckoning,

the worst depravity is the passive acquiescence.

That is why I've dug him up for you.

Look how beautiful he still is.

He will guard you.

He won't let you flounder in sin,

because you're afraid of him alone.

Only his love scares

the hell out of you and only in his cadaverous all-embracing love

can you find the reflection of what you yourself really are.

I shall not let you fall, sister.

We shall be rising to the light together, until you are cured.

Take arms! Brothers, compatriots.

Take arms! Long live!

Listen, Jacob,

a national uprising is in the offing.

We shall arm the peasantry,

give them land, we'll expel the occupier...

and found a church of National Fraternity.

A man should live nobly,

even if he sees no reason for it,

simply because amid this confusion of beauty and ugliness,

virtue and vice, where he is to find his own way,

he must want to remain on the side of noble-mindedness and good.

And the lumberjack?

What does he do when he wants to blaze a trail for himself

across the tangle of boughs?

He cuts.

You said that.

In the name of the father...

the son...

Why?

Killer, arsonist, spy!

I did let you go,

I did believe what you said, so why her?

She did love you, didn't she? She was as innocent as a flower.

Why?

I challenge you to a duel.

It's between you and me.

You said we are interchangeable.

I could be in yours and you could be in my place.

Lord, please, he killed the emissary.

The whole plan of this conspiracy is falling apart.

Ezekiel?

In the name of our old friendship,

in the name of the woman we both loved,

in the name of my sacrifice for you without hesitation,

please.

Let him go.

- It's suicide. - Pistols!

Please, don't.

- Why do you hate me so much? - Because you are so big.

Jacob,

my God,

the pursuit will be here anytime. They are following your traces.

Well,

come on.

I have prepared here the paper, pen and ink.

- What for? - I want you to give me the names.

What names?

The name of those you did not betray under torture.

But you know all of those names.

They are the names of those people you showed me in the ballroom.

I see.

Well,

I want you to confirm

that it was me who foiled the conspiracy

against the new authorities.

Sign it.

Come on.

Sign it!

What I want from you after all what I did for you

is just ridiculous.

Sign it.

Is my signature so important to you?

What's not written does not exist.

What else can I do for you?

Take care of her.

- Anything else? - Yes,

I want you to help me climb higher.

All right.

- Listen... - Yes?

Tell me. Does the world appear so ugly to me because I am sick,

or because it actually is such?

You asked me a hard question...

You see, the world is not hideous,

the world is beautiful.

You see, there are flowers,

gardens, fruits,

women.

I cannot tell you about it.

I must dance it out for you.

Away!

Change your tone.

You are very close to me.

We are the same.

- Go away!...no... - Good, but think

if you gave me these names if I asked for them

then, on the first day, in your cage.

What names? I haven't given you any names.

How sad it is when we are a plaything in somebody else's hands.

- What's your name, little one? - Theodor. Theodor.

Theodor, go back to God.

You behaved amorally.

You wrestled with him as if his soul was at stake.

But man has no soul, has he?

Soul,

what soul?