Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/176

 to me was to snatch them up instantly into the mountains to a Polish health resort of great repute—which I did (at the rate of one hundred miles in eleven hours) by the last civilian train permitted to leave Cracow for the next three weeks.

And there we remained amongst the Poles from all parts of Poland, not officially interned, but simply unable to obtain permission to travel by train or road. It was a wonderful, a poignant two months. This is not the time, and perhaps not the place, to enlarge upon the tragic character of the situation; a whole people seeing the culmination of its misfortunes in a final catastrophe, unable to trust any one, to appeal to any one, to look for help from any quarter; deprived of all hope, and even of its last illusions, and unable in the trouble of minds and the unrest of consciences to take refuge in stoical acceptance. I have seen all this. And I am glad I have not so many years left me to remember that appalling feeling of inexorable Fate, tangible, palpable, come after so many cruel years, a figure of dread, murmuring with iron lips the final words: “Ruin—and Extinction.”

But enough of this. For our little band there was the awful anguish of incertitude as to the real nature of events in the West. It is difficult to give an idea how ugly and dangerous things looked to us over there. Belgium knocked down and trampled out of existence, France giving in under repeated blows, a military collapse like that of 1870, and England involved in that disastrous alliance, her army sacrificed, her people in a panic! Polish papers, of course, had no other than German sources of information. Naturally, we did not believe all we heard, but it was sometimes excessively difficult to react with sufficient firmness. We used to shut our door, and there, away from everybody, we sat weighing the news, hunting up discrepancies, scenting lies, finding reasons for hopefulness, and generally cheering each other up. But it was a beastly time.

People used to come to me with very serious news and ask, “What do you think of it?” And my invariable answer was, “Whatever has happened or is going to happen, whoever wants to make peace, you may