Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/161

Rh the one, and the point in the heart of the other,—how can they pursue together the same path in life? Wretched beings, only riveted to one another by this mortal blade! How can they break together every day the same bread, even until death,—then a blessing,—comes to separate them? I tried to force my own will,—'twas all in vain! I cried to God! He would not hear! He must have despised me!"

Ralapsing [sic] into silence, she again stood erect and immovable, pale, and white as alabaster!

And when the Seer again adjured her, she replied, with broken sobs: "Nay, I will not answer to God Himself upon the Day of Judgment! I alone know it! I alone remember it!

"I still see the Palace, the long avenue of flowering lindens, and the sun setting behind the perfumed branches. I see myself still under them; still feel myself walking about as if in a magnetic sleep! Had it not been said during the last few days that something mysterious was preparing in my country? An indefinable presentiment floated in the air, saddening the perfume of the new-mown hay, as if the plague were about to breathe upon us, or as if men were preparing to rise and combat where they must inevitably perish by thousands! My husband, delicate, white, and slight as a woman, also walked about and seemed to expect something, some one! Ah! he waited with a smile which I can never, never forget!

"Men then began to glide into the garden from all sides. I knew this one, that one, another, I knew them all! They were relations, friends, neighbors! He grasps their hands, he promises them, he swears faith! The sun sets. He begs them to lay aside their arms, sit down, and enter for the last time into consultation. They obey, and seat themselves upon the turf. But he! He claps his hands, gives a signal,—his hissing is like that of a serpent! Soldiers! . . . soldiers! . . . everywhere soldiers ! . ..

"Ask me nothing,—I have borne the name of that man; . . . I have sworn to be faithful to him even to the grave! I will not give him up to you, as he has given his brothers up to the enemy! . ..