A measure of Reymont. Unusual suspension points in The Peasants

Abstract

In The Peasants Reymont uses unusual suspension points, which run across the whole length of a line. His precision in applying them reveals that this particular punctuation mark plays an important part in the book’s structure. Reymont inserts these long suspension points at moments when his characters pray, or when they stare at the sky, awaiting the reviving rays of the sun (invigorating also for the soul); he often puts them to mark the boundaries between the light (dawn) and the dark (night) – the visible and invisible worlds; he uses them to end scenes laden with the narrative and emotional climax. Reymont also writes his suspension points when his characters suffer poignantly (Hanka, Jagna). They accompany Kuba and later old Boryna as they pass away. Reymont’s suspension points do not merely function as a separating device in the novel’s narrative, but above all they point to the close ties between man and a space distinct from the temporal realm. They allow him to transcend the earthly time. An analysis of the existing manuscript fragments of The Peasants (1901 and 1902) demonstrates that Reymont valued these suspension points from the artistic perspective: they appear only in the second draft of the autograph text. Published editions of the texts ought, therefore, to respect Reymont’s editorial conventions. By neglecting this feature of the text, especially at the very beginning of the novel, the editors of The Peasants (from the Gebethner and Wolff original to the recent Ossolineum edition) deprive it of a meaningful compositional characteristic and can even lead to a wrong interpretation of The Peasants.