Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/112

 100 often difficult to draw a strict line between Russians and Poles. Even if the Russians are not received into society, it is almost impossible to exclude individual Poles who are either really subservient, or are suspected to be so. The Poles who have taken office sometimes become mere officials, loyal officials. Of many an one who would like to pass for a Polish patriot, it is said that he has been unsuccessful in his attempts to obtain the title of imperial flunkey. Sometimes in one family the father has Polish tendencies, the son is politically indifferent, even has almost Russian tendencies. Now and then one whose son fell as a hero of the rebellion, is, like the President of the theatre, Gudowski, one of the supporters of the throne.

There are also boundaries which passive resistance cannot pass. As the theatre is the last place in which Polish is still spoken, the dread of Russian plays on the national stage is very great. It seems then simple enough, when a Russian company comes, not only for all the Poles to remain at home, but for the Polish press not to notice the performances. Yet it is not so simple. Free tickets are given to all the Polish students and officials, and they are compelled to go. Notices of these performances are demanded by the censorship, and if they are not given—on the plea, for instance, that no one on the editorial staff understands Russian—then great obstacles are put in the way of the newspaper by the censors; the erasures become so relentless that they must give way. The opposition the press might offer is immediately broken down.

A dread continually broods over Russian Poland, that the government will some fine day close the theatre in Warsaw, and that the government will order the newspapers to appear with double text, Russian and Polish. Then they must soon surrender, and the language will die out.

So weak has unhappy Poland become that it accounts itself happy when it finds itself not wholly forgotten. Poles are delighted when a Polish tenor like Mierczewinski attracts attention—then, at least, the name of Poland is mentioned. They are happy when a man with the Polish name Rogoszynski (comically enough his real name is Schulze)