150 LUDmagnates were outpaced by the new German and Jewish bourgeoisie - by the
Fraenkels, Epsteins, Rosens, Bergsons, Steinkellers, and Kronenburgs. Perhaps
because poverty and despair were so common, Warsaw was marked by the strug-
gling, grasping, ambitious men who were determined at all costs to exploit the
opportunities which an expanding and overcrowded city afforded. Its streets were
coloured no less by the beaux, the bohemians, and the businessmen than by the
beggars, whores, soldiers, and Russian ice-cream sellers with whom they jostled.
Its frenetic tensions and ambitions retailed in the popular literature of the day,
were well satirized by Cyprian Norwid in his Recipe for a Warsaw novel:
Three landlords, stupid ones: cut each in two;
That makes six. Add stewards, Jews, and water,
Enough to give full measure. Whip the brew
With one pen; flagellate your puny jotter.
Warm, if there's time, with kisses; that's the cue
For putting in your blushing, gushing, daughter,
Red as a radish. Tighten up, and add cash,
A sack of cold roubles; mix well, and mash.^15
Within the rapid growth of Warsaw's population as a whole, the growth of
the Jewish community was particularly outstanding. From some 5,000 in 1781,
Jewish numbers rose to 15,000 in 1810, 98,968 in 1876, and to 219,141 at the
imperial Census of 1897. These figures represented respectively 4.5 per cent, 18.1
per cent, 23.8 per cent, and 33.9 percent of the city's inhabitants. They can be
explained partly by an extraordinary upsurge in the natural increase and partly
by the influx of Jewish immigrants from the more easterly regions of the Pale.
Overcrowding was intense. Unemployment, and unemployment, were rampant.
Social tensions were unavoidable. Warsaw was steadily being judaized, and
invaded by people unable to support themselves. Escape from the ghetto,
though perfectly legal, was difficult. Conditions aroused widespread comment,
especially among observers of the Left whose social conscience they affronted.
Stefan Zeromski, for example, in the novel Ludzie bezdomni (Homeless People,
1900), painted the realities in compelling detail:... Threading his way through the narrow alleys, and among the kiosks, stalls, and cor-
ner shops, Judym entered Krochmalna Street. This gutter, in the guise of a public thor-
oughfare, was flooded with stifling sunshine. A fetid smell, as from a graveyard, spread
from the narrow gap between the street and the little square. Here, as always, the Jewish
ant-hill seethed. An old Jewess was sitting on the pavement as she always did, selling
beans, peas, and pumpkin seeds. Soda-water sellers were wandering about, with canis-
ters at their sides and glasses in their hands. The mere sight of such a glass which that
filthy pauper was clutching in his hand, smeared with congealed syrup, was enough to
give one contortions. One of the sellers, a girl, was standing beneath the wall. She was
dishevelled to the point of undress. Her face was jaundiced and lifeless. She waited in the
sun, since passers-by on the sunny side were more likely to be thirsty. She was holding
two bottles filled with some sort of red fluid. Her grey lips mumbled constantly, repeat-
ing perhaps some frightened curses on the sun and on life in general...