PRISONER (NAIVELY): '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 REVISE when you parted with
your servant. How long do you wish to remain here?'
Said I, 'Vous avez bien raison, Monsieur. Je suis evidemment
dans mon tort. Ma visite a Varsovie etait une aberration.
As to my stay, je suis deja tout ce qu'il y a de plus ennuye.
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.
