The Jews' quarter seemed more hopeless and wretched than ever. On the Kazimir were the same haggling crowds in the same small stores, and the same shambling Jews in black, greasy cloaks. In front of the Jesuit church stood the same twelve apostles, and I regret to say that they were just as shabby-looking as their unbaptized brethren. Cracow, the freest portion of divided Poland, is certainly as wretched looking as Warsaw, where liberty dare not lift her head, and it cannot compare with any of the cities of German-Poland where the Prussian gendarme is trying, at the point of the bayonet, to cram German speech down the unwilling throats of Polish children. Why, I asked myself, should this shabbiness, this negligence, this "run-down-at-the-heel" appearance prevail in all the Slavic cities from Belgrade to St. Petersburg, and from Cracow to Irkutsk? Why should this be so of every place, except where the German has stepped in with his iron heel or where the Magyar or the Jew is trying to make of the Slav what he is not and does not care to be? I was tempted to take the first train out of Cracow, so painful to me was this condition of affairs; for I admire the Slavs, although I think I know their weaknesses. But the first train did not go until midnight, and I had nearly eight long hours on my hands. Then I remembered my letter of introduction. I found it with my passport and letter of credit, and looked at it again, to assure myself that it was right. Yes, it was addressed to the Countess So & So, and all the way to the house, I pictured to myself my friend's mother-in-law. She would be rather rotund, for Slavic women incline that way, especially during the full moon of life. She would have gray hair, dark complexion, and a rather pronounced down on the upper lip. That seems to be the tendency of the Polish woman as she grows older; perhaps because of her great vitality. Beneath the portal of a so-called palace, which was pervaded by an incredibly strong smell of whitewash, I presented my card to the porter, who looked somewhat contemptuously at the German name it bore. After long waiting I was guided to the very top story of the house, through clouds of falling mortar and showers of broken brick. The building seemed to be in the possession of masons and plasterers, and the noise they were making was as confusing as the dirt and dust their destructive hands were creating.