The Vampire. Trauerspiel

“The Vampire”, the plot of which takes place in nineteenth-century London, is described as a Masonic novel. It illustrates the process of initiation of a beginner into the arcane of secret knowledge.

The foggy, unfriendly capital of the British Empire is synonymous with progressing secularization of the world and disintegration of the current order. The eccentric protagonists who live there experience inner emptiness and meaninglessness of existence. They feel constant mourning for what may never have been their experience. The old symbols and myths revitalize in the hope of restoring the anticipated fullness of life. A young poet - Zenon - gets into the orbit of their actions. After escaping from Poland, he tries to re-establish his life with his beloved Betsy. Under the influence of spiritual initiation, he loses his identity and finds himself in the flickering area between life and death.

"The Vampire" is a semi-autobiographical record of Władysław Reymont. In the figure of Zenon one can find echoes of less known facts from the writer's life: a young-age acting career in a travelling theatre in the Łódź region, as well as fascination with spiritualism and occultism. Reymont was not the only one who succumbed to the ghostly fever at the end of the 19th century, but as one of the few he was considered a medium and his supernormal abilities were presented at screenings in Germany. During his journey to London, he also took part in the meetings of a new religious group founded by Helena Bławatska, the Theosophical Society, which laid the philosophical foundations for the 20th-century New Age trend.