Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/124

112 steal everything that can be stolen, from poultry to garden tools; they fell the trees in the wood, and steal so much the more passionately that Mrs. Jozefa brings no charge against them. "What of that?" she says; "they are so poor, they must be excused."

The weather is warm, but not too hot, and the bathing arrangements are excellent; only the flies and mosquitoes are rather disagreeable. However, we are well protected by an ingenious contrivance; the inner windows consist of fine wire netting, so that no insect can make its way into the room, and we can sit with open windows and enjoy the fresh air.

Never even in Holland have I seen such cleanliness as reigns here. This, indeed, marks one of the sharpest contrasts between the higher classes and the common people in Poland. The whole house is cleaned every day, nay, even a couple of times a day; three or four servants at a time are sent to clean a room, so that everything is in order in fifteen minutes.

Very often we have guests: yesterday came a couple of Polish painters who are living in Munich; they brought a breath of ale and of art with them from the big art village. To-day came the editor of one of the great papers of Warsaw.

Russian power has developed in an astounding manner since last I was here. Then it was possible to have papers by book post without their passing the censorship, if they were written in a language not known by the officials. Now r all is sent to St. Petersburg to be examined if it is not understood here. We get the Figaro a week late, and, in every number, large pieces are blackened over. Even a clerical and conservative paper like the Figaro is often confiscated. In La Vie Parisienne the improper parts are blackened over, and much is considered improper.

At present there is an exhibition of Polish industry and art at Lemberg. The government has ordered that no one in Russian Poland shall exhibit. (In several cases it has been done, nevertheless.) But then the question arose whether the papers might write about the exhibition. The first month it was absolutely forbidden even to mention it.