reet may in reality divide them. Different interests, different
hopes, aspirations, and desires are to be found within a few yards, and
neighbors are as far apart as if a frontier line or the curse of Babel
stood between them.

Cartoner and Deulin, riding through the Jewish quarter, were as safe
from recognition as if they were in a country lane at Wilanow; for
the men hurrying along the pavements were wrapped each in his own keen
thought of gain, and if they glanced up at the horsemen at all, merely
looked in order to appraise the value of their clothes and saddles--as
if there were nothing beyond. For them, it would seem there is no
beyond; nothing but the dumb waiting for the removal of that curse which
has lasted nineteen hundred years, and instead of wearing itself out,
seems to gain in strength as the world grows older.

"We will go by the back ways," said Cartoner, "and need never see any of
our world in Warsaw at all."

The streets were crowded by men, for the women live an in-door life in
an atmosphere that seems to bleach and fatten. The roads were little
used for wheel traffic; for the commerce by which these people live
is of so retail a nature that it seems to pass from hand to hand in
mysterious cloth bundles and black stuff bags. The two horsemen were
obliged to go slowly through the groups, who never raised their heads,
or seemed to speak above a whisper.

"What do they talk of--what do they think--all day?" said Cartoner. And,
indeed, the quiet of the streets had a suggestion of surreptitiousness.
Even the children are sad, and stand about in melancholy solitude.

"I would sooner be a dog," answered Deulin, with a shake of the
shoulders, as if Care had climbed into the saddle behind him. "Sooner a
dog."

By these ways they reached the station, and there found a messenger to
take the horses to their stable. All through the streets they had passed
men in one uniform or another, who looked stout and well-fed, who strode
in the middle of the pavement, while the Poles, whose clothes were poor
and threadbare, shuffled aside in their patched and shambling boots to
make way for the conqueror. Sometimes they would turn and look back at
some sword-bearer who was more offensive than usual, with reflective
eyes as if marking him in order to know him at a future time. As
is always the case, it was the smaller officials who were the most
offensive--the little Jacks-in-office from the postal administration,
the