Page:Brandes - Poland, a Study of the Land, People, and Literature.djvu/98

86 Almost all articles in which anything is really said are therefore not intended to be understood at the first reading. The language is abstract, vague, of doubtful meaning. The whole public is taught to read between the lines. Almost all the feuilletons are allegories; they say one thing and express another. Since words such as "freedom" or "fatherland" are always prohibited, it is natural that circumlocutions should be used.

At four o'clock the proofs are returned to the offices of the newspapers. The matter erased has to be replaced by articles in reserve, which have been through the censorship in season and are lying ready for use to fill the gaps.

In another place again all foreign books are examined to see whether they ought to be offered for sale in the bookshops or not. They allow a variety of natural science—Darwin, Haeckel—even in translations; on the other hand, little history. The extremely conservative Polish historian, Szujski, is wholly forbidden, even in German, because he writes on Polish topics.

Of course all books published in the country itself are scrutinised with the greatest strictness. Even the classics of antiquity are examined. It has happened that the Roman verse nec timeo censores futuros has been struck out because it was translated: I do not fear the censors of the future (the meaning is, the judgment of the future). In a play dealing with the past of Poland they struck out before Jagiello the word King of Poland, and substituted Duke, although there never have been dukes of Poland. Nay, even the cookery books are subjected to the censorship, and are corrected with such puerility that lately the words "to be boiled over a free fire" were erased because the word free was used.

Manuscripts for public lectures, the texts for recitations, the songs for concerts, are examined in another place. Even if a song belongs to a collection of poems, which has passed the censor ten times in different editions, it cannot be sung at an evening entertainment without having been examined anew.

It happened this winter that an actress, who, recalled