Page:Undivine Comedy - Zygmunt Krasiński, tr. Martha Walker Cook.djvu/62

56 path of patriotic duty, at least as the Nation then understood it. It was neither treachery nor treason, still less could the act be attributed to motives of personal interest; it was but the infirmity of a weak character, whose vanity had yielded to the subtle seductions of the ruler of Poland. But the public indignation was not lessened by such considerations, and it fell upon the son, then but seventeen; an insult was at that time inflicted upon him for which nothing could console the man of honor, the high-spirited gentleman. This was, however, but the commencement of trials far more severe; three years later, the unfortunate son was to find in his father a perjured traitor, overwhelmed alike by the curses of his country and the honors pouring upon him from the triumphant oppressor, the blood-stained conqueror of an outraged people.

A haughty soul would have found in such circumstances the pretext for an extreme decision; it would perhaps have sought in the unmerited insult and persecution an excuse for the acceptance of a situation which it had not created for itself, and toward which the animadversions of the conquered, and the splendid temptations of the conqueror, equally urged it. On the other hand, an unscrupulous spirit, yielding to the weakness of an age which proclaims the sovereignty of the end, and places our duties to a public cause above all family ties, would have seized this occasion to gain a popularity as easily won as