Part 2

There is some talk of a change of relations that has been attempted with the aid of the French ally through the Vatican, so as to array Poland against Protestant Prussia and to reconcile it to orthodox Russia. Indeed, the Russian government has found it necessary to allow religious instructions in secondary schools to be given in the Polish mother-tongue, just at the time when the German government had on its hands the Wreschen trials. In fact, the more Prussian narrowness insults and provokes the Poles the greater are the Russian efforts to win them over. This, however, is only a political move, an attempt at bribery that the Poles let pass because it suits them, though one, perhaps, that the real go-betweens, the Jesuits, take in earnest, but the success of which, after all, would be contrary to all known facts of history and civilization, for it would be opposed to the national sentiment. In Russia dwells the marrow of the Polish nation; in Russia dwell the Polish aristocracy and that industrial middle class which has become rich and Polish in spirit in so far as it was of foreign origin; and yet in this homogeneous land of Poland the Polish language is interdicted, so to speak, and tolerated everywhere only as a local dialect. University, gymnasiums, courts, and administration are all Russian--a Gessler hat, placed in the Russian sign of every store, on which the Latin-Polish inscription may appear only in a secondary position--a proceeding to which no self-respecting people will submit, and need not submit, especially from a master whose so-called civilization is of far more recent origin than its own. The German in America becomes Americanized voluntarily and irresistibly, because the English language is recognized as a more useful medium than his own, as the world-language. The Pole will never become Russianized as long as he remains on Polish soil; and no matter how significantly the "Ausgleichspolen" (Polish compromise party) flirt with the Russian régime, such an attitude hides a sense of annoyance and is not caused by real fellow-feeling. For the Pole, Germanization is an ill-fitting garment that only binds; Russianization is a thorn in the flesh, producing pus and throwing the entire system into a fever.

III

WARSAW--_CONTINUED_

Political reflections force themselves on you in this subjugated but by no means pacified country. It is in vain you tell yourself that the constant factors of climate, soil, race, and religion are of greater importance for the true understanding of a country, city, or people than passing political incidents and systems. You cannot emancipate yourself from politics in Poland. This is not a country like German Alsace, where, according to Moltke, a guard must be kept for fifty years, after which, like the German country it originally was, it will again become and remain German. Poland is a country forcibly subjected and conquered, and you feel it when walking the streets and in the fashionable hotel, where the national sorrow is generously moistened with champagne at the tables of the aristocracy even at the early breakfast hour.

However, it is not necessary for us to be more passionately patriotic and political than these champagne counts, and we must attempt to secure something of the street scenes without becoming involved too deeply in political problems.

Whenever I come to a town I ask myself, Why was it built here and not elsewhere? With the help of a little imagination one can understand even to-day how Warsaw came into existence. It was at the head of a bridge. The word "Warsaw" is believed to be derived from the word "Warszain" (on the height). So the city lies at a height of about forty metres on the bank of the Vistula, fully half a kilometre wide at this place. An elevation of forty metres on the immediate bank of a broad stream offered, at the time of its foundation in the twelfth century, a natural fortification, and the merchants who came up from the sea to sell their wares to the semi-barbarous inhabitants of the plain may have found perhaps on this height a frequent protection from the attacks of the plainsmen. Later the fort became a city and culture and luxury made their appearance, offering to the tamed dwellers of the plains and to the landed proprietors from far and near the opportunity to squander the proceeds of their crops. The numerous churches did not fare badly in the days of penitence then.

To-day, Warsaw is still a fine city of broad streets paved with wooden blocks, with rows of stores on both sides, prominent among which are the richly equipped jewelry establishments. Carriage traffic is considerable, even though it cannot compare with that in St. Petersburg. Just now the main artery of the city, the Vistula, is closed. The stream is frozen almost over its entire width and ravens croak on the snowy shoals. But within the city there pass unceasingly modestly neat cabriolets, fashionable cabs, and splendid private turnouts with Russian harness and servants. The buildings are of little interest. A few attempts in the Russian style, a few Polish shadings of quite modern secession architecture strike the foreigner, but the deepest impression is created by the feverish life on the streets and not by its ornamental frame-work. From this should be excepted the pleasure Villa Lazienki and its quaint park situated at the end of the avenue. Even snow and ice cannot banish the spirits that possess one in these gardens. It is a miniature Versailles. Here is a little castle within which is a picture-gallery of aristocratic beauties, statues, and portraits of King Stanislas Poniatowski represented mythologically as King Solomon entering Jerusalem; without are enchanting villas scattered throughout the park, in the centre of which is a little natural theatre built in the open of stone, and arranged like an amphitheatre, the stage separated from the rest by an arena of the wide lake, and constructed of Corinthian columns and palisade of bushes. Plays were given here in the times when the court and the "beauties" of the picture-gallery enjoyed nature and art together. The moon in the sky was one of the requisites, and fireworks were burned for the relaxation of the high and most high lords. Meanwhile the kingdom hastened to its ruin; for a witty, pleasure-loving court and an immoral oligarchy together are beyond the endurance of one people, especially when it is surrounded by covetous neighbors. One hundred years of slavery and three ruthlessly suppressed revolutions are the historical penalty for the pleasures of Castle Lazienki. There and on the broad election plane the "Pole Elekcji Krolow," in the southern part of the town, where the "schlachtzitz" (lordling) could deposit his "liberum veto" for a couple of rubles or thalers, the kingdom was destroyed, and its resurrection is a pious wish the fulfilment of which even our grandchildren will not live to see.

I have no faith in a Polish kingdom. There may be a Polish revolution to-morrow, perhaps, when the Russians shall meet defeat in eastern Asia, as the Russian patriots hope, but a Polish kingdom there will never be. It is quite apparent how the influence of the times is changing the entire social structure of the people. No nation can maintain itself without a middle class, and Poland still has no middle class. The material for such a class, the strong Jewish population, has been so ground down that a half-century would not be sufficient for its restoration and the Russian régime of to-day is disposed to anything rather than to the uplifting and the education of the Polish Jewry. It is stated that there are in Warsaw a quarter of a million Jews, a few well-to-do people among them, who have hastened, for the most part, to transform themselves into "Poles of the Mosaic faith," without disarming thereby the clerical anti-Semitism of the Polish people, and innumerable beggars or half-beggars, who are designated in western Europe as "schnorrer." And of these there are in Warsaw an unknown number. It is hard to draw the line between the "schnorrer" and the "Luftmensch" (a man without any certain source of income), who has not yet resigned himself to beggary, and yet cannot tell in the morning whence he is to draw his sustenance at noon. These include artisans, sweat-shop workers, agents, and go-betweens, a city proletariat of the very worst kind. I have seen no such shocking misery in the Jewish quarters on the Moldau as I encountered in the brilliant capital Warsaw. The Polish Jew, everywhere despised and unwelcome, is the wandering poverty-witness of Polish mismanagement. A system that succeeds in depraving the sober, pious, and sexually disciplined orthodox Jew to the extent observed in a portion of the Jewish Polish proletariat should be accorded recognition as the most useless system on the face of the earth. In the last analysis it was the Polish "schlachtzitz," and the Polish clerical going hand-in-hand with him, that constituted the prime cause of all the miseries of the nineteenth century.

And yet, to be just, one should compare this cheerless Polish-Jewish proletariat with its immediate environment--the Polish peasants and the common people. Here one would still find a plus of virtues on the Jewish side. The wretched Polish peasant is not more cleanly than the Jew. On the contrary, he lives in the same room with his pig, and no ritual requirement compels him to wash his body at least once a week. The Jew, under his patched garment, is for the most part comparatively clean, only hopelessly stunted and emaciated. The Jew does not drink, while his "master," the Pole, has a kindly disposition towards all sorts of spirituous liquors. Also, the modesty of the Jewish women has yielded but lately to the pressure of endless misery or the temptations of the cities, while of the higher classes of Polish and Russian society but little of an exemplary character has been told. And finally:

"Deutsche Redlichkeit suchst Du in allen Winkeln vergebens."

Goethe's verse applies not only to the Italians, for whom it was intended; it applies also to Poland and Russia, where less faith is attached to statements than is customary with us, and it applies, above all, to the merchant classes of all nations who are wont to make their living by overreaching their neighbors. There is a wide gulf between the development of commercial ethics, as they are understood with us and in England, and the tricks and devices of petty trade no matter of what nation. But the Jew in Poland and in Russia has been and still is being driven, in great measure, into a class of wretched petty traders; and the law of the land forces back into the pale of settlement by drastic regulations him who would escape from its cage and from an occupation of dubious ethics.

The Jewish section is the "partie Hortense" of the beautiful Polish capital; the Jewish misery is a shameful stain on Polish rule and its Nemesis. All the five continents must have their misery and toil, and they need a firm, all-embracing humanity to relieve them of this contagious wretchedness, this residue of centuries of depravity. But for Poland and Russia the humane solution of the Jewish question is simply a life-question.

IV

ST. PETERSBURG

A hymn of praise to the Russian railroad! The Russian tracks begin at Warsaw to have a considerably broader bed. This for a strategical purpose, to render difficult the invasion by European armies. It is also a benefit to the traveller, for the Russian coaches are wider and more comfortable than the European, and the side-passages along the coupé are very convenient for little walks during the journey. A separate heating compartment and buffet, with the indispensable samovar, where one may secure a glass of tea at any time, are situated in the centre of the long car. The trains do not jolt, although they are almost as fast as ours. The smoke and soot do not drive through the tightly closed double windows. A twenty-four hour trip here tires one less than a six-hour trip with us. Certainly there is more need of preparation for a comfortable journey in Russia than in the West. The distances are immense, a twenty-four hour journey creating no comments. The Warsaw-Petersburg train was as well filled as the ordinary express-train between Frankfort and Cologne.

The run, which lasts from one morning to the next, is naturally not very entertaining. The broad expanse of snowy plain, relieved only by snow-breaks and frozen swamps, at every two miles a few wretched half-Asiatic huts, and occasionally the dark profile of a forest, no more to be seen, and a sea of unintelligible Slavic sounds, no more to be heard. The feeling of loneliness grows upon one, and the impression becomes constantly stronger that Russia is a world for itself.

But there is an end to everything, even to a railroad journey without books, without papers, and without conversation. At the dawn of the clear, wintry day one may already distinguish the signs of a great city. A station with magnificent buildings and a well-cared-for park stretching almost to the tracks claims our attention after the many unimpressive sights of the long road. We decipher the name "Gatschina," and understand why there is such a strong police force on the platform. This is the Winter Palace. Scarcely an hour later the gilded cupolas stand out bright above the snow; the brakes are put on; we are in St. Petersburg.

It cannot be said that the city appears in a favorable light when viewed from the railroad. The not over-elegant two-horse vehicle which takes us and our baggage rattles over miserable pavements, dirty from the melting snow, through broad, endless suburban streets. The houses on either side are of only one story, built mostly of wood, their poverty-stricken appearance being intensified here and there by three-storied barracks. Liquor-shops, little second-hand stores, wooden huts, with putrid garbage, follow one another in a variety by no means pleasing. The passers-by, ill-clad, with the inevitable rubber shoes, shuffle along the slushy sidewalks; trucks with two or sometimes three horses, their necks bent under the brightly painted Russian "duga" (wooden yoke), a truly Gorki atmosphere in its entirety. One can scarcely believe that he is entering one of the most brilliant cities of the continent. The endless rows of stores with their two-storied sheds, which one passes on the way to the centre of the city, but slightly improve one's first impression, for even they are far removed from the splendor of the capital.

We finally reach the hotel to which our mail has been addressed. It is an enormous structure, more than two hundred metres long. Yet it has no room for us. It is filled to overflowing. It is impossible to crowd in one more soul. We again take our carriage. We drive from one hotel to another, growing constantly more modest in our demands for lodging. But our efforts are vain. Everything is occupied to the very gables.

We were careless in coming to St. Petersburg in January. This is the time of congresses, of business, of carnivals. All the provincial officials are here to render their annual reports to their ministries. Naturally, they bring with them their families, who wish to make their important purchases here and to taste of the social season. Congresses and conferences are held here not in the summer and vacation months as with us, but shortly before the "butter-week," really a carnival, the pleasure of which one may wish to take this opportunity to test. Medical, teachers', and insurance congresses are held here at the same time. Foreign merchants come here to complete their transactions. But the great city of St. Petersburg is not adapted for foreign guests.

The instincts of self-defence awake at the time of need. We do not intend to camp to-night under the bridge arch. We make great efforts and by the evening have secured a room, in spite of the "absolute impossibility," in that large and only comfortable hotel in St. Petersburg, which we shared with a friendly mouse, but which was free from other objectionable tenants. Even the little mouse was deprived in a base manner of its life and liberty the very next night. Once provided with board and lodging, we decided to become acquainted with the better side of St. Petersburg. What does a stranger usually do in the evening when he visits a strange city? He goes to some theatre.

There are plenty of hotel porters and agents to provide for the wishes of the guests. "Hello, agent; get me tickets for the Imperial Theatre"--where a ballet of Tschaikowski's is to be presented to-night by first-class talent. The theatre programme, obligingly provided with a French translation, informs us that among others, Kscheschinska will do herself the honor to play the leading rôle. "But, honored sir, that is quite impossible; first, because this is the carnival time; second, because most of the seats are already subscribed for; and third, because Kscheschinska dances to-night"--a sly closing of the left eye accompanies the mention of the name--"and neither the Emperor nor the court will be absent from the theatre. Unless you pay twenty to thirty rubles to a speculator you will hardly get into the theatre."

Since my passion for the ballet or for Kscheschinska does not attain the proportions of a twenty-ruble investment, I find it preferable to devote the evening to the always interesting and fruitful hotel studies. What seething life in the numberless corridors, dining-halls, and vestibules of the fashionable St. Petersburg Hotel! Governors in generals' gold-braided uniforms, covered with so many orders and medals that it makes one curious to find out about all the deeds of heroism for which they were bestowed; chamberlains with refined elegance in their gala dress, hiding the "beau restes" of the one-sided Adonis; tall, agile, dark-eyed Circassians with the indispensable cartridge-pouch on the breast region of their long coats, with the dagger hanging in its massive gold sheath from the tightly drawn belt; Cossacks with fur caps a foot high, made of white or black Angora skins, placed on their bristly heads; a nimble Chinese man, or maid, servant, with long pigtail, whose sex it is impossible to distinguish; a whole troop of dark-eyed Khivanese squatting on their prayer-rugs before the apartment of their khan, passing the nargile from hand to hand, and exchanging witticisms about the passing Europeans; beardless Tatar waiters shuffling by in their flat-soled shoes--a mixture of Europe and Asia such as may hardly be seen at once in any other part of the world. The west European merchants and other travellers, who throng the hotel, are scarcely noted among the exotic appearances. In this hotel, as elsewhere throughout St. Petersburg, the European, the civilian, is seemingly merely tolerated. The city belongs to the functionaries, soldiers, officials, and chamberlains, to the Cossacks, Circassians, and, above all others, to the police. More intimate acquaintance reveals that a goodly portion of the uniformed persons in St. Petersburg are ordinary students, technologists, professors, etc., and that these uniformed persons do not equally represent the state. On the contrary, the fight of the state, or, to be more precise, of the police, against the free professions, would not be so bitter if the members of the latter were not entitled to wear uniforms. As it is, they also may appear to the common people as representatives of the Czar's authority.

We slept through the night. Kind fate had decreed for us snow and cold in succession to the disagreeable thaw, and we availed ourselves of the clear weather to become acquainted with the bright side of St. Petersburg. And, first of all, the snow! It changes the entire appearance of the city as if by a magic wand. The narrow, open carriages where two persons can accommodate themselves only with difficulty, especially when wrapped in fur coats, have disappeared. Their places have been taken by small, low sleighs without backs. The "izwozchik" (driver) in his blue, plaited Tatar fur coat and multicolored sash, with fur-trimmed plush cap on his head, sits almost in the passenger's lap. Yet there is compensation for the meagre dimensions of the sleigh. The small, rugged horses speed along like arrows through the straight streets, hastened on by the caressing words or the exclamations of the bearded driver. Horse, driver, and sleigh are very essential figures in the St. Petersburg street scenes. We at home cannot at all realize how much driving is done in St. Petersburg. The distances are enormous; streets five or six kilometres long are not unusual. There are almost no streetcar lines, thanks to the selfishness of the town representatives, composed of St. Petersburg house-owners, who do not care to see a reduction in rents in the central portion of the town. The average city inhabitant readily parts with the thirty, forty, or fifty kopeks demanded by the "izwozchik," and thus everything is rushed along in an unending race. The "pravo" (right) or "hei beregis!" (look out!), which the drivers bawl to one another or to the pedestrians, resounds through the streets, but they are not very effectual. One must open his eyes more than his ears if he wishes to escape injury in the streets of St. Petersburg. The constant racing often results in four or five rows of speeding conveyances attempting to pass one another. The drivers with their bearded, apostle faces, which appear lamblike when they good-naturedly invite you to enter their conveyances, are like wild men when they let loose. Their Cossack nature then asserts itself. On and always on, and let the poor pedestrian take care of his bones. And however much the little horse may pant and the flakes of foam may fly from its sides, "his excellency," "the count," "his highness" (the izwozchik is extremely generous with his titles), will surely add a few kopeks when the driver has been very smart; and so the little horse must run until the passenger, unaccustomed to such driving, loses his breath.

But the Russian barbarian conception of wealth and fashion is to have his driver race even when out for a pleasure drive, as if it were a question of life or death. The numberless private turnouts, distinguished by their greater elegance, their splendid horses, harness, liveries, and carriages, have no less speed than the hackney-coachman, but the reverse, at a still greater speed, thanks to the elasticity of their high-stepping Arab trotters. And now imagine twenty-five thousand such vehicles simultaneously in racing motion, with here and there a jingling "troika," its two outer horses galloping madly and the middle horse trotting furiously; imagine, at the same time, the bright colors of the four-cornered plush caps on the heads of the stylish drivers, the gay-colored rugs on the "troikas," the blue and green nets on the galloping horses of the private sleighs, the glitter of the gold and silver harness, the scarlet coats of the court coachmen and lackeys, everything rushing along on a crisp winter day, over the glimmering, freshly fallen snow, between the mighty façades of imposing structures, flanked by an almost unbroken chain of tall policeman and gendarmes, and you have the picture of the heart of St. Petersburg at the time of social activity. Splendor, riches, wildness are all caricatured into magnificence as if calculated to impress and to frighten. Woe to him here who is not of the masters!

V

ST. PETERSBURG--_CONTINUED_