OTHER AUSTRIAN SCENES

CRACOW[17]

BY MÉNIE MURIEL DOWIE

Cracow, old, tired and dispirited, speaks and thinks only of the ruinous
past. When you drive into Cracow from the station for the first time,
you are breathless, smiling, and tearful all at once; in the great
Ring-platz--a mass of old buildings--Cracow seems to hold out her arms
to you--those long sides that open from the corner where the cab drives
in. You do not have time to notice separately the row of small trees
down on one side, beneath which bright-colored women-figures control
their weekly market; you do not notice the sort of court-house in the
middle with its red roof, cream-colored galleries and shops beneath; you
do not notice the great tall church at one side of brick and stone most
perfectly time-reconciled, or the houses, or the crazed paving, or the
innocent little groups of cabs--you only see Cracow holding out her arms
to you, and you may lean down your head and weep from pure instinctive
sympathy. Suddenly a choir of trumpets breaks out into a chorale from
the big church tower; the melancholy of it I shall never forget--the
very melody seemed so old and tired, so worn and sweet and patient, like
Cracow. Those trumpet notes have mourned in that tower for hundreds of
years. It is the Hymn of Timeless Sorrow that they play, and the key
to which they are attuned in Cracow's long despair. Hush! That is her
voice, the old town's voice, high and sad--she is speaking to you.

Dear Cracow! Never again it seems to me, shall I come so near to the
deathless hidden sentiment of Poland as in those first moments. It would