Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/212

184 divided; my father, my kindred and friends, perhaps as ignorant of my fate as I was of theirs, were present to my mind, such reflections plunged me into melancholy, and often wrung tears from my eyes. One night, when abandoned to my own thoughts, I was sitting up longer than usual, I heard from afar sounds of wind instruments. I supposed, at first, that it was a mere illusion; but by degrees those sounds seemed to approach and to become more distinct; I heard, at last, the serenade from Don Juan, the opera which was so often performed at Warsaw; then I heard again the sounds at a distance, then they died away entirely, and every thing fell again into silence. It may be imagined what recollections this music awoke, what sensations it excited in a prisoner who had scarcely heard a human voice for two years.

My health, before my imprisonment pretty robust, was much affected by want of air and exercise, and by the sorrows I had experienced. I had attacks of weakness and giddiness, with continual qualms, profuse