A light shone in Ivas' eyes, but he repressed the transports of his soul.
"I thank you," replied he at last, with a sad smile on his lips, "but it will first be necessary to return to Poland. Our country is on the eve of important events. Impatience devours me."
"Me, also," said Jacob. "Yet I do not share your presentiments. There are some events that I would rather avoid than hasten. We will speak of this later."
The next day they continued their journey. Restlessness incited them. At Spezia they took the diligence and gained a railway station. They travelled quickly through Italy and Austria, and soon arrived at the frontier of what is called the Russian Empire.
It is to-day the only European State, if one can call it thus, where there exists no security for any one. If one goes on foot, one is exposed at the caprice of an administration, on the least suspicion, or from a false accusation, if not to death, to imprisonment of long duration, spoliation, or torture. It is better to fall into the hands of Calabria than into those of the functionaries of the Russian government. A country where, with the exception of the rights of the strongest, there are no rights; where reigns a band of beings, a little polished but not civilized; where the insatiable tools of brute force do not make any account of man, of his dignity, of his age, of his merits, of his sufferings; is it not rather an immense and frightful dungeon? The unfortunates who have escaped from its prison doors become the sport of the towns and villages. Before entering, a man was a man. He is now no more than the subject, the slave, not of a single autocrat, but of some hundreds of ferocious despots, each individual a greedy representation of the unlimited power of the Czar. On its Russian barriers one can read the inscription of Dante: "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." "Who enters here leaves hope behind."
CHAPTER VIII.
[THE SABBATH.]
A small hamlet near Warsaw. A spacious, empty market-place, on one side of which is a modest church and long cemetery wall; on the other a row of old and new houses of wood and brick, inhabited chiefly by Israelites. One of these, more conspicuous, rises above the others with a certain arrogance. On the ground floor, a grocery. On the front two lions, recalling by their sculpture Assyrian art. In their paws a vase of flowers and the figures 1860, no doubt the date of the restoration of the house. An eating-house with an open door is at the side.
Almost all the business of the village centred about this dwelling, a sufficient proof that the proprietor was an important person. It was a Friday evening; on the upper floors preparations were being made to celebrate the day consecrated to God in the Old Testament.
Provisions of all kinds covered the kitchen table. Women kept watch over a roast goose, a baked fish, while pastry and other dishes were cooking in the blazing oven. The chambers were being set in order, brooms flourished everywhere, and the candlesticks were filled with candles.