“There are only two kinds of listeners in Warsaw, sympathizers and spies. Those who sympathize draw close; those who spy had better move away.”
“I am a foreigner.”
“There are spies of all nationalities.”
“I am no spy, but I’ll take your advice;” and we moved on.
Almost every street corner had its cluster of men, and always the talk was the same. If the workmen of St. Petersburg were massacred, what could those of Warsaw expect? Were they to go on suffering like sheep? Which was the better, to be slaves for the master’s gain, or to be men and resist?
Two or three times the anger of the strikers took violent form. Men were caught making notes of the names of the talkers, the cry of “spy” was raised, and in a moment fifty hands were outstretched, fifty oaths leapt from wrathful lips, and the victims were hustled, battered, kicked, and sent sprawling into the gutters.
“And Ladislas believed there would be no violence,” I said to Volna as we hurried on after one of these episodes.
“Poor Ladislas! But I am frightened for what will happen to-morrow. I have never seen this temper among the people before. How will it affect my mother’s case? If there should be any popular outbreak, the difficulty of helping her will be infinitely increased. The friends on whom we could rely at any other time will then be helpless. They are all Poles.”
“There is another way to look at it. Bremenhof’s powers will be much greater and he can more safely hold back the evidence against your mother which you said he had. Is he really such a brute?”
“He boasted to me one day, when my mother and I were at his house, that he had it in a private safe, and that it rested with me whether it should ever leave there.”