Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/143

Rh to endeavour to write with my left hand, and to scribble crooked and often illegible letters by the faint light of a wretched candle, and in the presence of a sergeant, sitting opposite and watching, lest I should use the pen to write on some other piece of paper. I spent the whole night in performing this difficult task; when, about six o'clock in the morning, the sergeant, seeing with what difficulty I was advancing in my labour, for the first time opened his mouth, and said to me; “You must make haste, for at eight o'clock Alexander-Nikolaiewicz is to lay your work before the Empress.” “I will finish it as soon as I am able,” said I, but my answers were not ready before nine o'clock, and were nearly as follow:–

“The Poles, and especially those who had escaped from the partition twice repeated by our neighbours, as long as they had one single province left them, as long as the name of their country was not annihilated, and in spite of their weakness and misfortunes, considered themselves still as a free and