Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/108

80 were full of nobleness and sensibility, and his look shewed great sympathy for us. He was a long time silent; then being unable to restrain his grief, he ran to us, melting into tears, when the merciless Major appeared with his whip, and the old man had scarcely time to escape.

We passed the following night at Szklow, a commercial town, which Prince Czartoryski was obliged to sell, with the neighbouring estates, to the Empress, for her favourite Zoritz. This ex-favourite of Catherine resides there, oppresses the Jews and the Christians, and lives with matchless ostentation. He has established there a little corps of cadets, keeps an Italian theatre, receives a great deal of people, drinks, eats, plays, lives in a continual ennui, and is perhaps the most unhappy man in the world. The Empress adored him, and, puffed up with his good luck, he was imprudent enough to quarrel with Potemkin, to draw his sword against him, and to pursue him in the presence of the Empress herself. The ascendancy which