Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/26

 20 "Dante" in the first part of "The Unfinished Poem" or "Fragment."

Constantine was greatly enraged at the decision of the Polish Senators, tortured Lukasinski in prison, and sent Krzyzanowski to Siberia. The Polish revolution broke out in 1830, November 29th. Flying with the Russian army from Poland, Constantine, cruel to the last, caused the unfortunate Lukasinski to be chained to a cannon and dragged with the flying troops.

There is but little doubt that the iron entered deeply into the soul of the brilliant and enthusiastic boy at the epoch of the mortifying scene above described. The struggle must have been terrible in the heart of this devoted son, this enthusiastic patriot. It was probably at that time he made the double resolve which filled his entire life with conflict. He piously determined to do all in his power to contribute to the happiness of the father who idolized him, never to desert him, and yet to make his whole life a silent expiation for the crime of that father; to live only for the moral elevation of the wronged country; to devote all his powers to her resurrection; never to yield to the seductions of ambition; never to permit himself to wear the laurel crown with which his unhappy country would so gladly have wreathed his brow of genius. Is there in the whole range of literature a cry more full of heart-rending pathos to be found than in the sole allusion he ever suffered himself to make to his father, in the appeal to his country, found on the last page of his weird tale, "Temptation"?

From the time he quitted the university, his life was but an unbroken chain of wanderings in search of health. Always delicate, the shock he had received told sadly upon him, and, as he grew older, his sufferings assumed many depressing and severe forms. Henceforth the reader must expect little but dates, reading the history of his mind and soul in the original works marking the times and places of his pilgrimage.

On quitting the university, he went first to Geneva, where he wrote for the journals; among such articles, were some written in French for the "Revue Encyclopédique." Falling ill, his physician advised him to seek