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 common officers, the hundred obscure civil servants who wear a sword and uniform unworthily in any one of the three European empires. On the other hand, the men in real authority, and notably the officers of the better regiments, sought to conciliate by politeness and a careful retention of themselves in the background. But these well-intentioned efforts were of small avail; for racial things are stronger than human endeavor or the careful foresight of statesmen. Here in Warsaw the Muscovite, the Pole, the Jew--herding together in the same streets, under the same roof, obedient to one law, acknowledging one sovereign--were watching each other, hating each other. At the street corners the smart, quiet police took note of each foot-passenger, every carriage, every stranger passing in a hired droschki. Cartoner and Deulin could see from the passing glance beneath the flat, green cap that they were seen and recognized at every turn. On the steps of the station they were watched with a polite pretense of looking the other way by two of the higher officials of the Russian-speaking police.