Stanisława Przybyszewska on psychoanalyzing Robespierre

[elwen-rhiannon.livejournal.com]

(A letter to half-sister Iwi Bennet, sent from Gdańsk, dated June 23rd-24th [19]28; translation to English, with shortenings marked, based on German to Polish translation provided by Antoni Weiland in third volume of Przybyszewska's letters, edited in Gdańsk in 1985)

I find this passage interesting and slightly relevant to my last entry, as well as Andrzej Wajda's idea of Robespierre and Saint-Just being, ehm, involved...

"Nowadays, when Freud's awful discovery serves as a toy for all kinds of idiots, it has become fashionable to explain everything that is not average as a sexual deviation (...) Revolutionaries are a true Klondike for those prying sexuologists making psychoanalysis a journalistic sensation, never having the slightest idea neither about revolution, nor about sociology. I had to read three treatises where these mediocrities were "psychoanalyzing" Robespierre. These bastards find it ambiguous when a man living only for one unearthly great ideal is forced to work 24 hours a day, coming home exhausted to the point of mental stupor - if such a man, having a strong conviction that he'll not live past the age of 35 years - does not set up home and does not have a cosy family life. Robespierre did what others in his situation used to: he resigned from all human and private relations, satisfying himself, when needed, with street girls. Not everyone has time, will and money for Casanova-like intrigues. And yes, this abstinence is the key to his life wnd work. Some people, who have read something from Michelet or Auluard, and only the passages mentioning his name - explain everything about Robespierre with his impotence (which is just a proof of their ignorance about the memoires of the period). Others, trying to be more noble and insightful - with homosexuality. They don't have to trouble themselves a lot here, with Robespierre's delicacy and elegance, his contralto voice, his almost tragic attachment to a likable blockhead Desmoulins and - basic thing - his attitude towards this wonderful man, St.-Just.
Yes, as you know, I do have a certain faible for homosexuals, if they are masculine and not feminine (I call this pure form of male homosexuality - a Platonic love, to rehabilitate this term). But I am sure - only pretenses here - that there were nothing of sexual kind between R[obespierre] and St.-Just. Yes, with Desmoulins - perhaps, especially from Desmoulins' side - he was a creature after Wilde's fashion - his attachment to a stronger friend from school, political leader later and opponent at the end - shows all signs of passion. But Saint-Just -?
An inconceivable relationship,inconceivable people."