Poland -- History -- Stanislaus II Augustus, 1764-1795 -- Fiction
In vain Miss Beaufort protested; in vain she declared herself
ignorant of possessing any power over even one wish of Constantine's.
Euphemia thought it monstrous pretty to be the injured friend and
forsaken mistress; and all along the Park, and up Constitution-hill,
until they arrived at Lady Dundas's carriage, which was waiting
opposite Devonshire wall, she affected to weep. When seated, she
continued her invectives. She called Miss Beaufort ungenerous,
perfidious, traitor to friendship, and every romantic and disloyal
name which her inflamed fancy could devise; till the sight of Harley
Street checked her transports, and relieved her patient hearer from a
load of impertinence and reproach.
During this short interview, Thaddeus had received an impulse to his
affections which hurried them forward with a force that neither time
nor succeeding sorrows could stop nor stem.
Mary's heavenly-beaming eyes seemed to have encircled his head with
love's purest halo. The command, "Preserve yourself for others
besides your dying friend," yet throbbed at his heart; and with ten
thousand rapturous visions flitting before his sight, he trod in air,
until the humble door of his melancholy home presenting itself, at
once wrecked the illusion, and offered sad reality in the person of
his emaciated friend.
On the count's entrance to the sick chamber, Doctor Cavendish gave
him a few directions to pursue when the general should awake from the
sleep into which he had been sunk for so many hours. With a heart the
more depressed from its late unusual exaltation, Thaddeus sat down at
the side of the invalid's bed for the remainder of the day.
At five in the afternoon, General Butzou awoke. Seeing the count, he
stretched out his withered hand, and as the doctor predicted,
accosted him rationally.
"Come, dear Sobieski! Come nearer, my dear master."
Thaddeus rose, and throwing himself on his knees, took the offered
hand with apparent composure. It was a hard struggle to restrain the
emotions which were roused by this awful contemplation the return of
reason to the soul on the instant she was summoned into the presence
of her Maker!
"My kind, my beloved lord!" added Butzou, "to me you have indeed
performed a Christian's part; you have clothed, sheltered and
preserved me in your bosom. Blessed son of my most honored master!"
The good old man put the hand of Thaddeus to his lips. Thaddeus could
not speak.
"I am going, dear Sobieski," continued the general, in a lower voice,
"where I shall meet your noble grandfather, your mother, and my brave
countrymen; and if Heaven grants me power, I will tell them by whose
labor I have lived, on whose breast I have expired."
Thaddeus could no longer restrain his tears.
"Dear, dear general!" exclaimed he, grasping his hand; "my
grandfather, my mother, my country! I lose them all again in thee! O!
would that the same summons took me hence!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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