THE SAND-WORKERS
At the foot of the steep and narrow Bednarska—the street running down from the Cracow Faubourg to the river—there are always many workers. It is here that the bathing-houses and the boat-houses are. Here lie the steamers that ply slowly on the shallow river. Here, also, is a trade in timber where from time to time one of the smaller rafts that float from the Carpathians down to Dantzic is moored and broken up. Here, also, are loafers, who, like flies, congregate naturally near the water.
A few hundred yards higher up the river, between the Bednarska and the spacious Jerozolimska Alley, many carts and men work all day in the sand which the Vistula deposits along her low banks. The Jerozolimska starts hopefully from the higher parts of the city—the widest, the newest, the most Parisian street in the town, Warsaw's only boulevard—down the hill, as if it expected to find a bridge at the bottom. But there is no bridge there, and the fine street dwindles away to sandy ruts and a broken tow-path. Here horses struggle vainly to drag heavy sand-carts from the ruts, while their drivers swear at them and the sand-workers lean on their spades and watch. A cleaner sand is dredged from the middle or brought across in deep-laden punts from the many banks that render navigation next to impossible—a clean, hard sand, most excellent for building purposes.
It was the hour of the mid-day dinner—for Polish hours are the hours of the early Victorian meals. Horses and men were alike at rest. The horses nibbled at the thin grass, while the men sat by the water and ate their gray bread, which only tastes of dampness and carraway-seeds. It was late autumn, and the sun shone feebly through a yellow haze. The scene was not exhilarating. The Vistula, to put it plainly, is a dismal river. Poland is a dismal country. A witty Frenchman, who knew it well, once said that it is a country to die for, but not to live in.
It was only natural that the workmen should group together for their uninteresting meal. The sand-bank offered a comfortable seat. Their position was in a sense a strategetical one. They were in full view of the bridge and of the high land behind them, but no one could approach within half a mile unperceived.
“Yes,” one of the workmen was saying, “those who know say that there will inevitably be a kingdom of Poland again. Some day. And if some day, why not now? Why not this time?”
His hearers continued to eat in silence. Some were slightly built, oval-faced men—real Poles; others had the narrower look of the Lithuanian; while a third type possessed the broad and placid face that comes from Posen. Some were born to this hard work of the sand-hills; others had that look in the eyes, that carriage of the head, which betokens breeding and suggests an ancestral story.
“The third time, they say, is lucky,” answered a white-haired man, at length. He was a strong man, with the lines of hunger cut deeply in his face. The work was nothing to him. He had labored elsewhere. The others turned and looked at him, but he said no more. He glanced across the river towards the spires of Praga pointing above the brown trees. Perhaps he was thinking of those other times, which he must have seen fifty and twenty years ago. His father must have seen Praga paved with the dead bodies of its people. He must have seen the river run sluggish with the same burden. He may have seen the people shot down in the streets of Warsaw only twenty years before. His eyes had the dull look which nearly always betokens some grim vision never forgotten. He seemed a placid old man, and was known as an excellent worker, though cruel to his horses.
He who had first spoken—a boatman known as Kosmaroff—was a spare man, with a narrow face and a long, pointed chin, hidden by a neat beard. He was not more than thirty-five years old, and presented no outward appearance of having passed through hardships. His manner was quick and vivacious, and when he laughed, which was not infrequent, his mouth gave an odd twist to the left. The corner went upwards towards the eye. His smile was what the French call a pale smile. At times, but very rarely, a gleam of recklessness passed through his dark eyes. He had been a raftsman, and was reputed to be the most daring of those little-known watermen at flood-times and in the early thaw. He glanced towards the old man as if hoping that more was coming.
“Yes, it will be the third time,” he said, when the other had lapsed into a musing silence, “though few of us have seen it with our own eyes. But we have other means of remembering. We have also the experience of our forefathers to guide us—though we cannot say that our forefathers have told us—”