Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/80

68 and exalted courage of his countrymen that he attributes everything great to Poland and the Poles. "Is it possible that Columbus was not a Pole?" asked a little boy of his mother in my presence. On the other hand, as a rule everything which the child learns or experiences with regard to the Russians is unfavourable, or it receives an unfavourable interpretation. The Russian officers are unobtrusive in their bearing in public places; they are generally seen alone, seldom two and two. It is not the custom as it is in other armies for them to greet each other when they meet. Their behaviour is not in the least arrogant; they rather seem oppressed by their situation as the detested representatives of the ruling race. But the uniform is unpopular; the Poles do not give the officers credit for their modesty, they take it rather as proof of consciousness of intellectual inferiority. And a single little incident like this, that the carriage of the Russian general, on leaving a public ball, breaks the established row of carriages and goes ahead, arouses the bitter feeling of living in a land conquered by an enemy.

There is, of course, a Russian colony in Warsaw, but there is no real Russian society on account of the great disparities in rank among the Russians who live there. They cannot accept each other as equals. And here, as elsewhere, the Russian officials do not bear the highest characters. In addition to which, the better-class Russians think themselves too good to accept posts in Poland. They shrink from the odium attached to the calling.

A few years ago a Russian was appointed Professor of Zoology at the Warsaw University. He arrived, and was shown over the museum of stuffed animals. He noticed that the names on the labels were in Latin and Russian only. "Why not in Polish?" he asked. The Rector of the University explained to him that he had been sent to Warsaw not primarily to give instruction in zoology—it was comparatively unimportant whether the students learned much or little of the subject—but to carry on the Russian propaganda. The new Professor then inquired when the next train left for St. Petersburg, and departed incontinently.