Friendly Solicitude.--Raddom.--Symptoms of a Difficulty.--A Court of
Inquisition.--Showing a proper Spirit.--Troubles
thickening.--Approaching the Climax.--Woman's Influence.--The
Finale.--Utility of the Classics.--Another Latinist.--A Lucky
Accident.--Arrival at Cracow.
AT about eight o'clock we stopped to feed, and at the feeding-place met
a German wagoner, who had lived in Hamburgh, and spoke English. He
seemed much distressed at my not understanding the language of the
country. He was a stout, burly fellow, eating and drinking all the time,
and his great anxiety was lest I should starve on the road. He insisted
upon my providing against such a fatality, and had a couple of fowls
roasted for me, and wrapped in a piece of coarse brown paper; and, at
parting, backed by a group of friends, to whom he had told my story, he
drank schnaps (at my expense) to my safe arrival at Cracow.
At eleven o'clock we reached Raddom. There was a large swinging gate at
the barrier of the town, and the soldier opening it demanded my passport
to be _vised_ by the police; he got into the caleche with me, and we
drove into the town, stopped in the public square, and went to the
bureau together. He left me in an antechamber, and went within,
promising, by his manner, to expedite the business, and intimating an
expectation of schnaps on his return. In a few minutes he returned, and
barely opening the door for me to enter, hurried off, apparently with
some misgivings about his schnaps. I entered, and found three or four
men, who took no notice of me. I waited a few moments, and seeing my
passport on a table before one of them, went up, and, certainly without
intending anything offensive, took up the passport with a view of
calling his attention to it; he jerked it out of my hand, and looking at
me with an imperious and impertinent air, at the same time saying
something I have no doubt in character with the expression of his face,
he slapped it down on the table. Two or three officers coming in, looked
at it, and laid it down again, until at length one man, the head of that
department, I suppose, took it up, wrote a note, and giving the note and
the passport to a soldier, directed me to follow him. The soldier
conducted me to the bureau of the government, the largest building, and
occupying a central position in the town, and left me in an antechamber
with the usual retinue of soldiers and officers. In about a quarter of
an hour he came out without the passport, and pulled me by the sleeve to
follow him. I shook my head, asked for the passport, and, in fact, moved
toward the door he had left. He seemed a good-hearted fellow, and,
anxious to save me from any imprudence, pulled me back, held up his
fingers, and pointing to the clock, told me to return at one; and
touching his hat respectfully, with probably the only French words he
knew, "Adieu, seigneur," and a look of real interest, hurried away.
I strolled about the town, dropped in at a kukiernia, went to the
square, and saw my peasant friend feeding his horses, apparently in some
trouble and perplexity. I went back at one, and was ordered to come
again at four. I would have remonstrated, but, besides that I could not
make myself understood, when I attempted to speak they turned rudely
away from me. I was vexed by the loss of the day, as I had agreed to pay
a high price for the sake of going through a day sooner, and this might
spoil my plan; and I was particularly vexed by the rough manner in which
I was treated. I returned at four, and was conducted into a large
chamber, in which were perhaps twenty or thirty clerks and inferior
officers in the uniform of the government. As soon as I entered there
was a general commotion. They had sent for a young man who spoke a
little French to act as interpreter. The passport was put into his
hands, and the first question he asked me was how I, an American,
happened to be travelling under a Russian passport. I answered that it
was not from any wish of mine, but in obedience to their own laws, and
added the fact that this passport had been made out by the Russian
ambassador at Constantinople; that under it I had been admitted into
Russia, and travelled from the Black Sea to St. Petersburgh, and from
there down to Warsaw, as he might see from the paper itself, the _vises_
of the proper authorities, down to that of the Governor of Warsaw, being
regularly endorsed.
He then asked what my business was in Poland, and what had induced me
to come there. I answered, the same that had carried me into Russia,
merely the curiosity of a traveller; and he then inquired what in
particular I wanted to see in Poland. If I had consulted merely my
feelings, I should have told him that, besides being attracted by the
interest of her heroic history, I wished to see with my own eyes the
pressure of a colossal foot upon the necks of a conquered people; that
this very system of inquisition and _espionage_ was one of the things I
expected to see; but I, of course, forbore this, and answered only in
general terms, and my answer was not satisfactory. He then began a more
particular examination; asked my age, my height, the colour of my eyes,
&c. At first I did not see the absurdity of this examination, and
answered honestly according to the fact, as I believed it; but, all at
once, it struck me that, as I did not remember the particulars of the
description of my person in the passport, my own impromptu might very
easily differ from it, and, catching an insulting expression on his
face, I told him that he had the passport in his hands, and might
himself compare my person with the description there given of me. He
then read aloud the entire description; height, so many feet; eyes, such
a colour, &c., &c.; scanned me from head to foot; peered into my eyes,
stopping after each article to look at me and compare me with the
description. By this time every man in the room had left his business
and gathered round looking at me, and, after the reading of each article
and the subsequent examination, there was a general shaking of heads and
a contemptuous smile.
At the time I remembered, what had before suggested itself to me rather
as a good thing, that, before embarking for Europe, I had written on to
the department of state for a passport, with a description of my person
made out at the moment by a friend, not very flattering, and, perhaps,
not very true, but good enough for the Continent, which I expected to be
the extent of my tour; and I felt conscious that, on a severe
examination, my nose might be longer, or my eyes grayer, or in some
other point different from the description. This, added to their close
and critical examination, at first embarrassed me considerably, but the
supercilious and insulting manner in which the examination was conducted
roused my indignation and restored my self-possession. I saw, from the
informal way in which the thing was done, that this was a mere
preliminary inquisition, and not the court to sit in judgment; and I had
noticed from the beginning that most of these men were Poles, who had
sold themselves to Russia for petty place and pay in her offices,
traitors in their hearts and lives, apostates from every honourable
feeling, and breathing a more infernal spirit against their enslaved
country than the Russians themselves; and I told the interpreter, as
coolly as the nature of the case would admit, to accept for himself, and
to convey to his associates, the assurance that I should remember their
little town as long as I lived; that I had then travelled from England
through France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Russia, and had nowhere met
such wanton rudeness and insult as from them; that I did not think it
possible that in any European government twenty of its officers would
laugh and sneer at the embarrassment of a stranger without a single one
stepping forward to assist him; that I deeply regretted the occurrence
of such a circumstance in Poland; that I felt convinced that there was
not a truehearted Pole among them, or my character as an American would
have saved me from insult.
The interpreter seemed a little abashed, but I could see in the
vindictive faces of the rest that they were greatly irritated. The
examination was cut short, and I was directed to come again at half past
five, when the commandant, who had been sent for, would be there. By
this time there was some excitement in the streets, and, as I afterward
learned, it was noised through the little town that an American was
detained on suspicion of travelling under a false passport. My caleche
had been standing in the public square all day. I had been noticed going
to and from the offices with a soldier at my heels, and my poor Pole had
been wandering up and down the streets, telling everybody his fears and
interest in me, and particularly his anxiety about ten rubles I had
promised him. As I passed along, people turned round and looked at me. I
went to a kukiernia, where the dame had been very smiling and attentive,
and could not get even a look from her. I went to another; several men
were earnestly talking, who became silent the moment I entered. A small
matter created an excitement in that little place. It was a rare thing
for a traveller to pass through it; the Russian government threw every
impediment in the way, and had made the road so vexatious that it was
almost broken up. The French or the citizens of a free country like
America were always suspected of being political emissaries to stir up
the Poles to revolution, and it seemed as if, under that despotic
government, to be suspected was to be guilty. The Poles were in the
habit of seeing slight offences visited with terrible punishments, and
probably half the little town looked on me as a doomed man. I went back
to the square and took a seat on my caleche; my poor Pole sat on the box
looking at me; he had followed me all over, and, like the rest, seemed
to regard me as lost. I had probably treated him with more kindness than
he was accustomed to receive, though, for every new kindness, he vexed
me anew by stooping down and kissing my foot.
At half past five o'clock I was again at the door of the palace. On the
staircase I met the young man who had acted as interpreter; he would
have avoided me, but I stopped him and asked him to return with me. I
held on to him, asking him if the commandant spoke French; begged him,
as he would hope himself to find kindness in a strange country, to go
back and act as a medium of explanation; but he tore rudely away, and
hurried down stairs. A soldier opened the door and led me into the same
apartment as before. The clerks were all at their desks writing; all
looked up as I entered, but not one offered me a seat, nor any the
slightest act of civility. I waited a moment, and they seemed studiously
to take no notice of me. I felt outrageous at their rudeness. I had no
apprehensions of any serious consequences beyond, perhaps, that of a
detention until I could write to Mr. Wilkins, our ambassador at St.
Petersburgh, and resolved not to be trampled upon by the understrappers.
I walked up to the door of the commandant's chamber, when one man, who
had been particularly insulting during the reading of the passport,
rudely intercepted me, and leaning his back against the door, flourished
his hands before him to keep me from entering. Fortunately, I fell back
in time to prevent even the tip end of his fingers touching me. My blood
flashed through me like lightning, and even now I consider myself a
miracle of forbearance that I did not strike him.
In a few moments the door opened, and a soldier beckoned me to enter.
Directly in front, at the other end of the room, behind a table, sat the
commandant, a grim, gaunt-looking figure about fifty, his military coat
buttoned tight up in his throat, his cap and sword on the table by his
side, and in his hands my unlucky passport. As I walked toward him he
looked from the passport to me, and from me to the passport; and when I
stopped at the table he read over again the whole description, at every
clause looking at me; shook his head with a grim smile of incredulity,
and laid it down, as if perfectly satisfied. I felt that my face was
flushed with indignation, and, perhaps, to a certain extent, so
distorted with passion that it would have been difficult to recognise me
as the person described. I suggested to him that the rude treatment I
had met with in the other room had no doubt altered the whole character
of my face, but he waved his hand for me to be silent; and, taking up a
sheet of paper, wrote a letter or order, or something which I did not
understand, and gave it to a soldier, who took it off to one corner and
stamped it. The commandant then folded up the passport, enclosed it in
the letter, and handed it again to the soldier, who carried it off and
affixed to it an enormous wax seal, which looked very ominous and
Siberian-like. I was determined not to suffer from the want of any
effort on my part, and pulled out my old American passport, under which
I had travelled in France and Italy, and also a new one which Commodore
Porter had given me in Constantinople. He looked at them without any
comment and without understanding them; and, when the soldier returned
with the paper and the big seal, he rose, and, without moving a muscle,
waved with his hand for me to follow the soldier. I would have resisted
if I had dared. I was indignant enough to do some rash thing, but at
every step was a soldier; I saw the folly of it, and, grinding my teeth
with vexation and rage, I did as I was ordered.
At the door of the palace we found a large crowd, who, knowing my
appointment for this hour, were waiting to hear the result. A line of
people was formed along the walk, who, seeing me under the charge of a
soldier, turned round and looked at me with ominous silence. We passed
under the walls of the prison, and the prisoners thrust their arms
through the bars and hailed me, and seemed to claim me as a companion,
and to promise me a welcome among them. For a moment I was infected with
some apprehensions. In my utter ignorance as to what it all meant, I ran
over in my mind the stories I had heard of the exercise of despotic
authority, and for one moment thought of my German host at Moscow and a
journey to Siberia by mistake. I did not know where the soldier was
taking me, but felt relieved when we had got out of the reach of the
voices of the prisoners, and more so when we stopped before a large
house, which I remarked at once as a private dwelling, though a guard of
honour before the door indicated it as the residence of an officer of
high rank. We entered, and were ushered into the presence of the
governor and commander-in-chief. He was, of course, a Russian, a man
about sixty, in the uniform of a general officer, and attended by an
aiddecamp about thirty. I waited till the soldier had delivered his
message; and, before the governor had broken the seal, I carried the war
into the enemy's country by complaining of the rude treatment I had
received, interrupted in my journey under a passport which had carried
me all over Russia, and laughed at and insulted by the officers of the
government, at the same time congratulating myself that I had at last
met those who could at least tell me why I was detained, and would give
me an opportunity of explaining anything apparently wrong. I found the
governor, as everywhere else in Russia where I could get access to the
principal man, a gentleman in his bearing and feelings. He requested me
to be seated, while he retired into another apartment to examine the
passport. The aiddecamp remained, and I entertained him with my chapter
of grievances; he put the whole burden of the incivility upon the Poles,
who, as he said, filled all the inferior offices of government, but told
me, too, that the country was in such an unsettled state that it was
necessary to be very particular in examining all strangers; and
particularly as at that time several French emissaries were suspected to
be secretly wandering in Poland, trying to stir up revolution. The
governor stayed so long that I began to fear there was some technical
irregularity which might subject me to detention, and I was in no small
degree relieved when he sent for me, and telling me that he regretted
the necessity for giving such annoyance and vexation to travellers,
handed me back the passport, with a direction to the proper officer to
make the necessary _vise_ and let me go. I was so pleased with the
result that I did not stop to ask any questions, and to this day I do
not know particularly why I was detained.
By this time it was nine o'clock, and when we returned the bureau was
closed. The soldier stated the case to the loungers about the door, and
now all, including some of the scoundrels who had been so rude to me in
the morning, were anxious to serve me. One of them conducted me to an
apartment near, where I was ushered into the presence of an elderly lady
and her two daughters, both of whom spoke French. I apologized for my
intrusion; told them my extreme anxiety to go on that night, and begged
them to procure some one to take the governor's order to the commandant;
in fact, I had become nervous, and did not consider myself safe till out
of the place. They called in a younger brother, who started with
alacrity on the errand, and I sat down to wait his return. There must be
a witchery about Polish ladies. I was almost savage against all mankind;
I had been kept up to the extremest point of indignation without any
opportunity of exploding all day, and it would have been a great favour
for some one to knock me down; but in a few minutes all my bitterness
and malevolence melted away, and before tea was over I forgot that I had
been bandied all day from pillar to post, and even forgave the boors who
had mocked me, in consideration of their being the countrymen of the
ladies who were showing me such kindness. Even with them I began with
the chafed spirit that had been goading me on all day; but when I
listened to the calm and sad manner in which they replied; that it was
annoying, but it was light, very light, compared with the scenes through
which they and all their friends had passed, I was ashamed of my
petulance. A few words convinced me that they were the Poles of my
imagination and heart. A widowed mother and orphan children, their staff
and protector had died in battle, and a gallant brother was then
wandering an exile in France. I believe it is my recollection of Polish
ladies that gives me a leaning toward rebels. I never met a Polish lady
who was not a rebel, and I could but think, as long as the startling
notes of revolution continue to fall like music from their pretty lips,
so long the Russian will sleep on an unquiet pillow in Poland.
It was more than an hour before the brother returned, and I was sorry
when he came; for, after my professions of haste, I had no excuse for
remaining longer. I was the first American they had ever seen; and if
they do not remember me for anything else, I am happy to have disabused
them of one prejudice against my country, for they believed the
Americans were all black. At parting, and at my request, the eldest
daughter wrote her name in my memorandum-book, and I bade them farewell.
It was eleven o'clock when I left the house, and at the first transition
from their presence the night seemed of pitchy darkness. I groped my way
into the square, and found my caleche gone. I stood for a moment on the
spot where I had left it, ruminating what I should do. Perhaps my poor
Pole had given me up as lost, and taken out letters of administration
upon my carpet-bag. Directly before me, intersecting the range of houses
on the opposite side of the square, was a street leading out of the
town. I knew that he was a man to go straight ahead, turning neither to
the right hand nor the left. I walked on to the opening, followed it a
little way, and saw on the right a gate opening to a shed for stabling.
I went in, and found him with his horses unharnessed, feeding them,
whipping them, and talking at them in furious Polish. As soon as he saw
me he left them and came at me in the same tone, throwing up both his
hands, and almost flourishing them in my face; then went back to his
horses, began pitching on the harness, and, snatching up the meal-bag,
came back again toward me, all the time talking and gesticulating like a
Bedlamite. I was almost in despair. What have I done now? Even my poor
peasant turns against me; this morning he kissed my foot, now he is
ready to brain me with a meal-bag. Roused by the uproar, the old woman,
proprietor of the shed, came out, accompanied by her daughter, a pretty
little girl about twelve years old, carrying a lantern. I looked at them
without expecting any help. My peasant moved between them and me and the
horses, flourishing his meal-bag, and seeming every moment to become
more and more enraged with me. I looked on in dismay, when the little
girl came up, and dropping a courtesy before me, in the prettiest French
I ever heard, asked me, "Que voulez vous, monsieur?" I could have taken
her up in my arms and kissed her. I have had a fair share of the
perplexity which befalls every man from the sex, but I hold many old
accounts cancelled by the relief twice afforded me this day. Before
coming to a parley with my Pole, I took her by the hand, and, sitting
down on the tongue of a wagon, learned from her that she had been taken
into the house of a rich seigneur to be educated as a companion for his
daughter, and was then at home on a visit to her mother; after which she
explained the meaning of my postillion's outcry. Besides his
apprehensions for me personally, he had been tormented with the no less
powerful one of losing the promised ten rubles upon his arrival at a
fixed time at Michoof, and all his earnestness was to hurry me off at
once, in order to give him a chance of still arriving within the time.
This was exactly the humour in which I wanted to find him, for I had
expected great difficulty in making him go on that night; so I told him
to hitch on his horses, and at parting did give the little girl a kiss,
and the only other thing I could give her without impoverishing myself
was a silk purse as a memento. I lighted my pipe, and, worn out with the
perplexities of the day, in a short time forgot police and passports,
rude Russians and dastardly Poles, and even the Polish ladies and the
little girl.
I woke the next morning under a shed, horses harnessed, postillion on
the box whipping, and a Jew at their head holding them, and the two
bipeds quarrelling furiously about the stabling. I threw the Jew a
florin, and he let go his hold, though my peasant shook his whip, and
roared back at him long after we were out of sight and hearing. At a few
miles' distance we came to a stopping-place, where we found a large
caleche with four handsome horses, and the postillion in the costume of
a peasant of Cracow, a little square red cap with a red feather, a long
white frock somewhat like a shooting-jacket, bordered with red, a belt
covered with pieces of brass like scales lapping over each other, and a
horn slung over his right shoulder. It belonged to a Polish seigneur,
who, though disaffected toward government, had succeeded in retaining
his property, and was the proprietor of many villages. He was
accompanied by a young man about thirty, who spoke a very little French;
less than any man whom I ever heard attempt to speak it at all. They had
with them their own servants and cooking apparatus, and abundance of
provisions. The seigneur superintended the cooking, and I did them the
honour to breakfast with them. While we were breakfasting a troop of
wagoners or vagabonds were under the shed dancing the mazurka. The
better class of Poles are noble, high-spirited men, warm and social in
their feelings, and to them, living on their estates in the interior of
their almost untrodden country, a stranger is a curiosity and a
treasure. The old seigneur was exceedingly kind and hospitable, and the
young man and I soon became on excellent terms. I was anxious to have a
friend in case of a new passport difficulty, and at starting gladly
embraced his offer to ride with me. As soon as we took our seats in the
caleche we lighted our pipes and shook hands as a bargain of
good fellowship. Our perfect flow of confidence, however, was much
broken by the up-hill work of making ourselves understood. I was no
great scholar myself, but his French was execrable; he had studied it
when a boy, but for more than ten years had not spoken a word. At one
time, finding it impossible to express himself, he said, "Parlatis
Latinum?" "Can you speak Latin?" I at first thought it was some dialect
of the country, and could not believe that he meant the veritable stuff
that had been whipped into me at school, and which, to me, was most
emphatically a dead language; but necessity develops all that a man has,
and for three hours we kept up an uninterrupted stream of talk in bad
Latin and worse French.
Like every Pole whom I met, except the employes in the public offices,
from the bottom of his heart he detested a Russian. He had been a
soldier during the revolution, and lay on his back crippled with wounds
when it was crushed by the capture of Warsaw. I showed him the coin
which had accidentally come into my hands, and when we came to the point
where our roads separated, he said that he was ashamed to do so, but
could not help begging from me that coin; to me it was merely a
curiosity, to him it was a trophy of the brilliant but shortlived
independence of his country. I was loath to part with it, and would
rather have given him every button on my coat; but I appreciated his
patriotic feeling, and could not refuse. I got out, and he threw his
arms around me, kissed me on both cheeks, called me his friend and
brother, and mounted the kibitka with the old seigneur. The latter
invited me to go with him to his chateau, about a day's journey distant,
and if I had expected to write a book I should certainly have done so.
I went on again alone. At about twelve o'clock we arrived at the town of
Kielse. I felt nervous as we approached the barrier. I threw myself back
in the caleche, and drew my cap over my eyes in grand seigneur style,
the soldier touched his hat as he opened the gate, and we drove into the
public square unmolested. I breathed more freely, but almost hesitated
to leave the caleche while the horses fed. I smiled, however, at
thinking that any effort to avoid observation was the very way to
attract it, and went to a kukernia, where I drank coffee, ate bread
encrusted with sugar, and smoked a pipe until my Pole came in and kissed
my foot as an intimation that the horses were ready.
No questions were asked at the barrier; and we rode on quietly till nine
o'clock, when we drove under the shed of a caravanserai. Fifteen or
twenty wagoners were eating off a bench, and, as they finished,
stretched themselves on the floor for sleep. It was a beautiful
moonlight night, and I strolled out for a walk. The whole country was an
immense plain. I could see for a great distance, and the old shed was
the only roof in sight. It was the last night of a long journey through
wild and unsettled countries. I went back to the time when, on a night
like that, I had embarked on the Adriatic for Greece; thought of the
many scenes I had passed through since, and bidding farewell to the
plains of Poland, returned to my caleche, drew my cloak around me, and
was soon asleep.
At nine o'clock we stopped at a feeding-place, where a horde of dirty
Jews were at a long table eating. I brushed off one corner, and sat down
to some bread and milk. Opposite me was a beggar woman dividing with a
child about ten years old a small piece of dry black bread. I gave them
some bread and a jar of milk, and I thought, from the lighting up of the
boy's face, that it was long since he had had such a meal.
At twelve o'clock we reached Michoof, the end of my journey with the
caleche. I considered my difficulties all ended, and showed at the
posthouse my letter from the Polish captain to the commissario. To my
great annoyance, he was not in the place. I had to procure a conveyance
to Cracow; and having parted with my poor Pole overwhelmed with
gratitude for my treatment on the road and my trifling gratuity at
parting, I stood at the door of the posthouse with my carpet-bag in my
hand, utterly at a loss what to do. A crowd of people gathered round,
all willing to assist me, but I could not tell them what I wanted. One
young man in particular seemed bent upon serving me; he accosted me in
Russian, Polish, and German. I answered him in English, French, and
Italian, and then both stopped. As a desperate resource, and almost
trembling at my own temerity, I asked him the question I had learned
from my yesterday's companion "Parlates Latinum?" and he answered me
with a fluency and volubility that again threw me into another
perplexity, caught my hand, congratulated me upon having found a
language both understood, praised the good old classic tongues, offered
his services to procure anything I wanted, &c., and all with such
rapidity of utterance that I was obliged to cry out with something like
the sailor's "vast heaving," and tell him that, if he went on at that
rate, it was all Russian to me. He stopped, and went on more moderately,
and with great help from him I gave him to understand that I wanted to
hire a wagon to take me to Cracow. "Venite cum me," said my friend, and
conducted me round the town until we found one. I then told him I wanted
my passport _vised_ for passing the frontier. "Venite cum me," again
said my friend, and took me with him and procured the _vise_; then that
I wanted a dinner; still he answered "Venite cum me," and took me to a
trattoria, and dined with me. At dinner my classical friend did a rather
unclassical thing. An enormous cucumber was swimming in a tureen of
vinegar. He asked me whether I did not want it; and, taking it up in his
fingers, ate it as a dessert, and drinking the vinegar out of the
tureen, smacked his lips, wiped his mustaches with the tablecloth, and
pronounced it "optimum." For three hours we talked constantly, and
talked nothing but Latin. It was easy enough for him, for, as he told
me, at school it had been the language of conversation. To me it was
like breaking myself into the treadmill; but, once fairly started, my
early preceptors would have been proud of my talk. At parting he kissed
me on both cheeks, rubbed me affectionately with his mustaches and,
after I had taken my seat, his last words were, "Semper me servate in
vestra memoria."
We had four and a half German, or about eighteen English, miles to
Cracow. We had a pair of miserable, ragged little horses, but I promised
my postillion two florins extra if he took me there in three hours, and
he started off so furiously that in less than an hour the horses broke
down, and we had to get out and walk. After breathing them a little they
began to recover, and we arrived on a gentle trot at the frontier town,
about half way to Cracow. My passport was all right, but here I had a
new difficulty in that I had no passport for my postillion. I had not
thought of this, and my classical friend had not suggested it. It was
exceedingly provoking, as to return would prevent my reaching Cracow
that night. After a parley with the commanding officer, a gentlemanly
man, who spoke French very well, he finally said that my postillion
might go on under charge of a soldier to the next posthouse, about a
mile beyond, where I could get another conveyance and send him back.
Just as I had thanked him for his courtesy, a young gentleman from
Cracow, in a barouche with four horses, drove up, and, hearing my
difficulty, politely offered to take me in with him. I gladly accepted
his offer, and arrived at Cracow at about dark, where, upon his
recommendation, I went to the Hotel de la Rose Blanche, and cannot well
describe the satisfaction with which I once more found myself on the
borders of civilized Europe, within reach of the ordinary public
conveyances, and among people whose language I could understand. "Shall
I not take mine ease in mine own inn?" Often, after a hard day's
journey, I have asked myself this question, but seldom with the same
self-complacency and the same determination to have mine ease as at
Cracow. I inquired about the means of getting to Vienna, which, at that
moment, I thought no more of than a journey to Boston. Though there was
no particular need of it, I had a fire built in my room for the
associations connected with a cheerful blaze. I put on my morning-gown
and slippers, and hauling up before the fire an old chintz-covered sofa,
sent for my landlord to come up and talk with me. My host was an
Italian, and an excellent fellow. Attached to his hotel was a large
restaurant, frequented by the first people at Cracow. During the evening
an old countess came there to sup; he mentioned to her the arrival of an
American, and I supped with her and her niece; neither of them, however,
so interesting as to have any effect upon my slumber.