IT WAS with a sorry heart that I bade farewell to my Vienna friends, my
musical comrades, the Legation hospitalities, and my faithful little
Israelite. But the colt frisks over the pasture from sheer superfluity
of energy; and between one’s second and third decades instinctive
restlessness—spontaneous movement—is the law of one’s being. ’Tis then
that ‘Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy.’ The enjoyment we
abandon is never so sweet as that we seek. ‘Pleasure never is at home.’
Happiness means action for its own sake, change, incessant change.
I sought and found it in Bavaria, Bohemia, Russia, all over Germany, and
dropped anchor one day in Cracow; a week afterwards in Warsaw. These
were out-of-the-way places then; there were no tourists in those days; I
did not meet a single compatriot either in the Polish or Russian town.
At Warsaw I had an adventure not unlike that which befell me at Vienna.
The whole of Europe, remember, was in a state of political ferment.
Poland was at least as ready to rise against its oppressor then as now;
and the police was proportionately strict and arbitrary. An army corps
was encamped on the right bank of the Vistula, ready for expected
emergencies. Under these circumstances, passports, as may be supposed,
were carefully inspected; except in those of British subjects, the person
of the bearer was described—his height, the colour of his hair (if he had
any), or any mark that distinguished him.
In my passport, after my name, was added ‘_et son domestique_.’ The
inspector who examined it at the frontier pointed to this, and, in
indifferent German, asked me where that individual was. I replied that I
had sent him with my baggage to Dresden, to await my arrival there. A
consultation thereupon took place with another official, in a language I
did not understand; and to my dismay I was informed that I was—in
custody. The small portmanteau I had with me, together with my
despatch-box, was seized; the latter contained a quantity of letters and
my journal. Money only was I permitted to retain.
Quite by the way, but adding greatly to my discomfort, was the fact that
since leaving Prague, where I had relinquished everything I could
dispense with, I had had much night travelling amongst native passengers,
who so valued cleanliness that they economised it with religious care.
By the time I reached Warsaw, I may say, without metonymy, that I was
itching (all over) for a bath and a change of linen. My irritation,
indeed, was at its height. But there was no appeal; and on my arrival I
was haled before the authorities.
Again, their head was a general officer, though not the least like my
portly friend at Vienna. His business was to sit in judgment upon
delinquents such as I. He was a spare, austere man, surrounded by a
sharp-looking aide-de-camp, several clerks in uniform, and two or three
men in mufti, whom I took to be detectives. The inspector who arrested
me was present with my open despatch-box and journal. The journal he
handed to the aide, who began at once to look it through while his chief
was disposing of another case.
To be suspected and dragged before this tribunal was, for the time being
(as I afterwards learnt) almost tantamount to condemnation. As soon as
the General had sentenced my predecessor, I was accosted as a
self-convicted criminal. Fortunately he spoke French like a Frenchman;
and, as it presently appeared, a few words of English.
‘What country do you belong to?’ he asked, as if the question was but a
matter of form, put for decency’s sake—a mere prelude to committal.
‘England, of course; you can see that by my passport.’ I was determined
to fence him with his own weapons. Indeed, in those innocent days of my
youth, I enjoyed a genuine British contempt for foreigners—in the
lump—which, after all, is about as impartial a sentiment as its converse,
that one’s own country is always in the wrong.
‘Where did you get it?’ (with a face of stone).
_Prisoner_ (_naïvely_): ‘Where did I get it? I do not follow you.’
(Don’t forget, please, that said prisoner’s apparel was unvaleted, his
hands unwashed, his linen unchanged, his hair unkempt, and his face
unshaven).
_General_ (stonily): ‘“Where did you get it?” was my question.’
_Prisoner_ (quietly): ‘From Lord Palmerston.’
_General_ (glancing at that Minister’s signature): ‘It says here, “et son
domestique”—you have no domestique.’
_Prisoner_ (calmly): ‘Pardon me, I have a domestic.’
_General_ (with severity), ‘Where is he?’
_Prisoner_: ‘At Dresden by this time, I hope.’
_General_ (receiving journal from aide-de-camp, who points to a certain
page): ‘You state here you were caught by the Austrians in a pretended
escape from the Viennese insurgents; and add, “They evidently took me for
a spy” [returning journal to aide]. What is your explanation of this?’
_Prisoner_ (shrugging shoulders disdainfully): ‘In the first place, the
word “pretended” is not in my journal. In the second, although of course
it does not follow, if one takes another person for a man of sagacity or
a gentleman—it does not follow that he is either—still, when—’
_General_ (with signs of impatience): ‘I have here a _Passierschein_,
found amongst your papers and signed by the rebels. They would not have
given you this, had you not been on friendly terms with them. You will
be detained until I have further particulars.’
_Prisoner_ (angrily): ‘I will assist you, through Her Britannic Majesty’s
Consul, with whom I claim the right to communicate. I beg to inform you
that I am neither a spy nor a socialist, but the son of an English peer’
(heaven help the relevancy!). ‘An Englishman has yet to learn that Lord
Palmerston’s signature is to be set at naught and treated with
contumacy.’
The General beckoned to the inspector to put an end to the proceedings.
But the aide, who had been studying the journal, again placed it in his
chief’s hands. A colloquy ensued, in which I overheard the name of Lord
Ponsonby. The enemy seemed to waver, so I charged with a renewed request
to see the English Consul. A pause; then some remarks in Russian from
the aide; then the _General_ (in suaver tones): ‘The English Consul, I
find, is absent on a month’s leave. If what you state is true, you acted
unadvisedly in not having your passport altered and _revisé_ when you
parted with your servant. How long do you wish to remain here?’
Said I, ‘Vous avez bien raison, Monsieur. Je suis évidemment dans mon
tort. Ma visite à Varsovie était une aberration. As to my stay, je suis
déjà tout ce qu’il y a de plus ennuyé. I have seen enough of Warsaw to
last for the rest of my days.’
Eventually my portmanteau and despatch-box were restored to me; and I
took up my quarters in the filthiest inn (there was no better, I believe)
that it was ever my misfortune to lodge at. It was ancient, dark, dirty,
and dismal. My sitting-room (I had a cupboard besides to sleep in) had
but one window, looking into a gloomy courtyard. The furniture consisted
of two wooden chairs and a spavined horsehair sofa. The ceiling was low
and lamp-blacked; the stained paper fell in strips from the sweating
walls; fortunately there was no carpet; but if anything could have added
to the occupier’s depression it was the sight of his own distorted
features in a shattered glass, which seemed to watch him like a detective
and take notes of his movements—a real Russian mirror.
But the resources of one-and-twenty are not easily daunted, even by the
presence of the _cimex lectularius_ or the _pulex irritans_. I inquired
for a _laquais de place_,—some human being to consort with was the most
pressing of immediate wants. As luck would have it, the very article was
in the dreary courtyard, lurking spider-like for the innocent traveller
just arrived. Elective affinity brought us at once to friendly
intercourse. He was of the Hebrew race, as the larger half of the Warsaw
population still are. He was a typical Jew (all Jews are typical),
though all are not so thin as was Beninsky. His eyes were sunk in
sockets deepened by the sharpness of his bird-of-prey beak; a single
corkscrew ringlet dropped tearfully down each cheek; and his one front
tooth seemed sometimes in his upper, sometimes in his lower jaw. His
skull-cap and his gabardine might have been heirlooms from the Patriarch
Jacob; and his poor hands seemed made for clawing. But there was a
humble and contrite spirit in his sad eyes. The history of his race was
written in them; but it was modern history that one read in their
hopeless and appealing look.
His cringing manner and his soft voice (we conversed in German) touched
my heart. I have always had a liking for the Jews. Who shall reckon how
much some of us owe them! They have always interested me as a peculiar
people—admitting sometimes, as in poor Beninsky’s case, of purifying, no
doubt; yet, if occasionally zealous (and who is not?) of interested
works—cent. per cent. works, often—yes, more often than we
Christians—zealous of good works, of open-handed, large-hearted
munificence, of charity in its democratic and noblest sense. Shame upon
the nations which despise and persecute them for faults which they, the
persecutors, have begotten! Shame on those who have extorted both their
money and their teeth! I think if I were a Jew I should chuckle to see
my shekels furnish all the wars in which Christians cut one another’s
Christian weasands.
And who has not a tenderness for the ‘beautiful and well-favoured’
Rachels, and the ‘tender-eyed’ Leahs, and the tricksy little Zilpahs, and
the Rebekahs, from the wife of Isaac of Gerar to the daughter of Isaac of
York? Who would not love to sit with Jessica where moonlight sleeps, and
watch the patines of bright gold reflected in her heavenly orbs? I once
knew a Jessica, a Polish Jessica, who—but that was in Vienna, more than
half a century ago.
Beninsky’s orbs brightened visibly when I bade him break his fast at my
high tea. I ordered everything they had in the house I think,—a cold
Pomeranian _Gänsebrust_, a garlicky _Wurst_, and _geräucherte Lachs_. I
had a packet of my own Fortnum and Mason’s Souchong; and when the stove
gave out its glow, and the samovar its music, Beninsky’s gratitude and
his hunger passed the limits of restraint. Late into the night we smoked
our meerschaums.
When I spoke of the Russians, he got up nervously to see the door was
shut, and whispered with bated breath. What a relief it was to him to
meet a man to whom he could pour out his griefs, his double griefs, as
Pole and Israelite. Before we parted I made him put the remains of the
sausage (!) and the goose-breast under his petticoats. I bade him come
to me in the morning and show me all that was worth seeing in Warsaw.
When he left, with tears in his eyes, I was consoled to think that for
one night at any rate he and his _Gänsebrust_ and sausage would rest
peacefully in Abraham’s bosom. What Abraham would say to the sausage I
did not ask; nor perhaps did my poor Beninsky.