He was deeply attached to the poor Polish girl, as men shipwrecked upon
desert islands grow fond of persons upon whom they could have bestowed no
thought in ordinary life. He had grown well accustomed to his poor
existence, and in the surroundings in which he found himself, Vjera was
the one being in whom, besides sympathy for his misfortune, he discovered
a sensibility rarer than common, and the unconscious development of a
natural refinement. There are strange elements to be found in all great
cities among the colonies of strangers who make their dwellings therein.
Brought together by trouble, they live in tolerance among themselves, and
none asks the other the fundamental question of upper society, "Whence art
thou?"--nor does any make of his neighbour the inquiry which rises first
to the lips of the man of action, "Whither goest thou?" They meet as the
seaweed meets on the crest of the wave, of many colours from many distant
depths, to intermingle for a time in the motion of the waters, to part
company under the driving of the north wind, to be drifted at last,
forgetful of each other, by tides and currents which wash the opposite
ends of the earth. This is the life of the emigrant, of the exile, of the
wanderer among men; the incongruous elements meet, have brief acquaintance
and part, not to meet again. Who shall count the faces that the exile has
known, the voices that have been familiar in his ear, the hands that have
pressed his? In every land and in every city, he has met and talked with a
score, with scores, with hundreds of men and women all leading the more or
less mysterious and uncertain life which has become his own by necessity
or by choice.
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