第37章 CHAPTER XIV(2)

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.

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 GANSEBRUST, a garlicky WURST, and GERAUCHERTE 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 GANSEBRUST 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.