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Within a few days of the election, Wyszynski had another chance to stave off disaster. A group of students in a college near Warsaw decided to stage a march on the Russian embassy, gathering support as they went along. It was 2 a.m. when the cardinal awoke to find a young student standing by his bed. The student explained the plan, and warned: "They are going to march at 4." Wyszynski leapt from his bed and sped to the college, where he roused the students and announced that he would say Mass. The would-be demonstrators thought that he was blessing their cause, and when Mass was over, they listened eagerly as he rose to preach. Quietly the cardinal told them what he has often repeated all over Poland: "You dreamt that this would be your dawn of heroism, and, I tell you, it is indeed your dawn of heroism. You are not heroes on the newsstands for having caused incalculable bloodshed, but heroes in truth because you have, in modest obscurity, renounced a hero's dream, clothed in the attractive gay mantle of glory. You are heroes in truth, and despite all distortions, hypocrisies, illusions and falsehood, truth is still true in this winter of 1957."
In Touch with the World. "Modest obscurity" is a phrase that might also describe Wyszynski's life in his own unpalatial episcopal palace in Warsaw at No. 17 Miodowa, unmarked by any emblem except a faded Polish flag. In the two-story, double-winged building, Wyszynski lives austerely with his hale-looking, greyheaded father (in his '80s), his private chaplain, and his secretary. Visitors from outside Poland are welcome (Americans are plied with questions about the speed of U.S. cars and the wonders of television). Wyszynski sees everyone who wants to see him, except reporters. He keeps in touch with the outside world mostly by means of a single radio and through a steady stream of clergy, nuns, officials and plain citizens in his waiting rooms. There has been no evidence of any direct contact with Gomulka; Education Minister Wladyslaw Bienkowski is usually mentioned as the go-between. Two members of the Polish hierarchy closest to him—they accompanied him to Rome—are Bishop Zygmut Choromanski, Secretary of the Episcopate and the sharpest brain and bargainer in the Polish church, and Auxiliary Bishop Antoni Baraniak of Wyszynski's own see of Gniezno, who was imprisoned just before the cardinal and is considered perhaps his closest friend.
Wherever Wyszynski goes, he makes it a practice to remain until the crowds that inevitably lie in wait for him have dispersed—so as to prevent demonstrations. When he says Mass, he usually emerges from the parish house about an hour after the service. Women kiss his ring, children cling to his robes, people grab at his hands. "Good souls, go home, please," he will say, "or I'll put a tax on you for the rebuilding of the church."