Page:Julian Niemcewicz - Notes of my Captivity in Russia.djvu/60

32 before me an expiring friend, suffering from my own wound, shivering from cold, which began to be very severe, broken-hearted, with the mind overpowered by a thousand reflections on that unfortunate day, and its consequences so fatal to my unhappy country,—it was in the midst of all these torments, I repeat, that I spent the most miserable night that it could fall to the lot of mortal to endure. The dawn dissipated, at last, the horrible darkness. General Kosciuszko awoke like a man who had been in a profound lethargy, and seeing me wounded at his side, asked me what was the matter, and where we were. “Alas!” said I, “We are prisoners of the Russians. I am with you and will never leave you.” “How happy am I to have such a friend in misfortune!” answered he, with tears in his eyes. I soon convinced myself that he was not so dangerously wounded as I had believed. The arrival of Russian officers did not allow us to converse further with each other; and if the joy of victory, the trouble, and the arrangements