Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/218

190 time destined for my sufferings, was enough to fill my heart with joy. Necessity is the mother of invention. Conscious that exercise was by all means indispensable to me, I fell upon the idea of making myself a ball for playing. I picked up, accordingly, all the hair which fell in handfuls from my head, added to it that of my beard, and my servant made me a ball of it; every morning I played with it for an hour, so as to be tired, and to perspire copiously over all my body; I then changed my linen and reposed. It is, perhaps, to this school-boy exercise that I am indebted, not for having borne my captivity with less difficulty, but even for having survived it.

The kindness with which I treated my guards, and the compassion I showed for their condition, which was almost as much to be pitied as my own, won me, at last, their confidence and affection. One of my sufferings in this prison was to see every day the cruel treatment to which these poor fellows were condemned. Paul Iwanowicz, their