Page:Ossendowski - From President to Prison.djvu/323

Rh death of my father, she struggled on and won for herself a definite position at the head of a college which she founded and maintained for the education of our youth.

Such was the hard life, often tragic and always filled with struggle, which formed the soul of my mother. She knew that she would endure everything and put this conviction into my heart and mind just as, since childhood, she had instilled into my soul an unshakable faith in the resurrection of my country, Poland!

At about ten o'clock my mother left the prison. She blessed me; she said good-bye with a quiet smile, full of an inner strength and a strong faith; and finally she went away, calm, proud and distant.

Without any suggestion coming from me, the Commandant of the Prison escorted her himself to the station and helped her to settle in the car for the twelve-day journey to St. Petersburg.

Oh, mother, why could you not there before God, where through this year you have prayed for your children, have read out these my memories of our meeting in the prison of the Tsar, this Tsar who killed your father and would have killed your son? With how divinely sympathetic a look would the Most Just Judge have graced you and have said:

"Behold a mother!"