Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/20

8 special hand to St. Petersburg. Thus they reached their destination without any other delay than that caused by the round-about journey. Two copies were prepared and sent to the different censors, but after they had twice been read through in French, a day or two before my arrival in Warsaw a new difficulty arose. The well-known curator of the education department, Apuchtin—the same person who had his ears boxed by a student a year ago, which created a commotion and tumult in the whole city—at the last moment required that all three lectures should be sent in again in a Russian translation. This and the further examination naturally took time. Nevertheless, to the astonishment of many, not a line was struck out, although the lectures contained not a little which, as it appeared, excited emotion in the listeners. I was told also that the strictness of the censorship was sometimes neutralised by the carelessness or chivalrousness of the examiner; it seems as if the censor stationed in the hall did not always note very exactly if what is said is really identical with what the lecturer has handed in in his manuscript.

It appears here, as in innumerable other cases in Russia, that an order or prohibition in order to be absolutely effective requires a whole system of additional regulations. This is especially so when the prohibition against printing anything has a practical object. In January the celebrated old poet Odyniec died in Warsaw. He was the faithful friend and youthful travelling companion of Mickiewicz, politically a neutral, almost a conservative; but as his name was so intimately associated with memories of the revolt of 1830 and of the period of literary splendour, as, moreover, he had been so close a friend of Mickiewicz, the most celebrated enemy of the Russian authority, they endeavoured by means of the censor to prevent demonstrations at his funeral. Consequently it was forbidden to give any public notice of the time of his interment, not only in the newspapers, but by the placards which are commonly posted in the streets and before the churches. The prohibition was enforced, but in spite of it a procession of 50,000 persons followed Odyniec to his grave.