On the morning of Sept. 18, 1939, a man and a woman walked into a woodland that was then in eastern Poland. They took a cocktail of drugs. When the woman woke up several hours later, the man was dead. He was buried the next day not far away.
Such was the ignominious end to the life of Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz, playwright, novelist, artist and philosopher.
Known popularly in Poland as Witkacy (a name, pronounced "Veetkatsy," created from elements of his last and middle names), he is now regarded as that country's leading 20th-century playwright.