Without Dogma | Page 5

them rent his very soul; he left
Ploszow under the care of his sister, my aunt, and betook himself in the
year 1848 to Rome, which, during thirty-odd years, he never left once,
so as to be near my mother's tomb. I forgot to mention that he brought
her remains to Rome, and buried her on the Campo Santo.
We have our own house on the Babuino, called Casa Osoria, from our
coat of arms. It looks more like a museum than anything else, as my
father possesses no mean collections, especially from the early
Christian times. In these collections his whole life is now absorbed. As
a young man, he was very brilliant in appearance as well as in mind;
his wealth and name added to this, all roads were open to him, and
consequently great things were expected from him. I know this from
his fellow-students at Berlin. He was deeply absorbed in the study of
philosophy, and it was generally believed his name would rank with
such as Cieszkowski, Libelt, and others. Society, and his being a
favorite in female circles, diverted him somewhat from scientific
studies. In society he was known by the nickname of "Leon
l'Invincible." In spite of his social success he did not neglect his
philosophical researches, and everybody expected that some day he
would electrify the world with a great work, and make his name

illustrious. They were disappointed in their expectations.
Of the once so beautiful appearance there still remains up to this day
one of the finest and noblest heads. Artists are of the same opinion, and
not long ago one of them remarked that it would be difficult to find a
more perfect type of a patrician head. As to his scientific career, my
father is and remains a cultured and gifted nobleman-dilettante. I
almost believe dilettantism to be the fate of all Ploszowskis, to which I
will refer later on, when I come to write about myself. As to my father,
there is in his desk a yellow manuscript about Triplicity in Nature. I
perused it, and it did not interest me. I only remember a comparison
between the transcendental belief of Christianity in the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, and the natural triplicity of oxygen, hydrogen, and
ozone, with many other analogous triplicities from absolute truth,
goodness, and beauty, to the syllogism of the minor premise, the major
premise, and the conclusion,--a quaint mixture of Hegel and
Hoene-Wronski, and utterly useless. I am quite convinced that my
father did not intend to have it published, if only for the reason that
speculative philosophy had failed in him even before it was set aside by
the world. The reason for this failure was the death of my mother. My
father, who in spite of his nickname, "Leon l'Invincible," and reputation
of conqueror of hearts, was a man of deep feelings and simply
worshipped my mother, put many terrible questions to his philosophy,
and not obtaining either answer or comfort, recognized its utter
emptiness in the presence of a great sorrow. This must have been an
awful tragedy of his life, since it almost shattered its foundations,--the
brain and heart. His mind became affected, as I said before, and when
he recovered he went back to his religious convictions. I was told that
at one time he prayed night and day, knelt down in the street when he
passed a church, and was carried away by his religious fervor to such
an extent that he was looked upon by some as a madman, by others as a
saint. It was evident he found more consolation in this than in his
philosophical triplicities, for he gradually calmed down and began to
lead a more rational life. His heart, with all his power for affection,
turned towards me, and his aesthetic bent found employment in the
study of early Christianity. The lofty, restless mind wanted
nourishment. After his first year in Rome he took up archaeology, and
by dint of hard study acquired a thorough knowledge of the antique.

Father Calvi, my first tutor and at the same time a great judge of
Roman antiquities, gave him the final impulse towards investigation of
the Eternal City. Some fifteen years ago my father became acquainted
and subsequently on terms of friendship with the great Rossi, in whose
company he spent whole days in the catacombs. Thanks to his
extraordinary gifts he soon acquired such consummate knowledge of
Rome as to astonish Rossi himself. Several times he began writing
treatises on the subject, but never finished what he had begun. Maybe
the completion of his collections took up too much of his time, but
most likely the reason he will not leave anything behind him except his
collections is that he did not