Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/75

Rh children, house and home, and allowed herself to be carried off to Paris under a forged passport. The young man was kind to her for about a week, then gradually sold all her articles of value and ornaments, locked her up when he went out to amuse himself with the money, and soon left her so completely in the lurch that, stripped of everything, she was compelled to write to her mother for aid. Her mother brought her home, and her husband declared that he was willing to take her back again on the condition that she first kneeled down at the threshold of the house and asked pardon of all, even of the servants, for the bad example she had given. She submitted, and he has never since said a reproachful word to her, or recalled the past by any allusion.

Just as the rascality in money matters which here manifests itself among the depraved Poles is extreme, so is the horror there is of any intermingling of monetary value in an expression of gratitude to superiors or equals among the better class.

An exiled Pole, who took part in the rebellion of 1863, and who has since earned his bread as a photographer in Christiania, sent back to Charles XV. an expensive pin which the latter had sent him in remembrance of an interview, and of a service he had rendered. Another little incident that occurred in Warsaw last year is even more significant and instructive. A young landed proprietor, Mankowski, won the prize offered for a comedy by a Polish private citizen. He sent a diamond ring as a thank-offering to a popular actor, who had given him great assistance with the stage effects, and had spent a good deal of time upon this. The actor refused to accept the ring. When this was told me, and I suggested: "Can he give his time without compensation?" I received the answer: "He does not need much, you see: he does not take that kind of pay; but also he himself does not pay. People know that he has not much, and therefore regard it as mean to dun him. For instance, he has now occupied a fine apartment for ten years. During this time he has never paid his rent; but when rent day comes, he pays a visit to the landlord in the morning; the