Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/133



peaceful quiet that reigns here is of the kind possible only to those who live miles from railway stations and towns. Never a sound breaks the silence of the night, with the exception of the watchman's horn, which every quarter of an hour announces that he is awake. But as for me, I never hear it after having gone to bed. We sleep calmly in this stillness, and therefore I am always awake when in the morning Wladislaw brings my clothes and opens the shutters and windows. Wladislaw is from Lithuania, thirty years old, and he it is who, among the servants of the house, has been placed at my disposal. He is a jewel of a man—small, slender, and strong, full of the Polish flexibility in every limb, and particularly intelligent. He speaks French and Italian very well, having passed five years in Florence with Count Guybowsky, and two years with Franciszek in Paris. He does not always express himself correctly in French, but his locutions are always extremely picturesque. For instance, he says: "Il mouche fort aujourd'hui;" this is to be interpreted: "There are a great many flies to-day." He speaks Polish as his native tongue; understands Lithuanian and Russian. I am an ignorant fellow in comparison with him. To be sure, I know German; but he knows how to shave. I know a little English; but he can carry my tub with a straight arm. In Paris he might become an interpreter, a hairdresser, or a waiter as it might happen; were he a little less good-natured, he would be the typical Figaro.

It does one good to open one's eyes on beautiful lawns and trees. The more one has been condemned to live in a town the more one is sensible of living with nature. When