Book Description:
Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: TARTAR CAPTIVITY. FRAGMENTS FROM THE CHRONICLE OF A NOBLE, ALEXIS ZDANOBARSKI. CHAPTER I. MY attendant, riding in advance, or following, thrummed on his teorban, while sorrow and longing for Marysia pressed my heart; and the farther I went the more ardently I loved her. Then came to my mind the words, post equitcm sedet alra euro, (behind the horseman sits dark care). But if in the great decrease of my fortune I had spoken with his serene great mightiness, Pan Tvoryanski, I dared not mention my feelings. Nothing was left me but to win a fortune with my sword, and when I had adorned myself with military glory to stand before him. Neither God nor my Marysia could take it ill of me that I did not make the confession to Pan Tvoryanski. If Marysia had commanded me to spring into fire, or into water, or simply to shed my blood, Thou, O Jesus Christ, who lookest into my heart, seest that I would have done so. There was one thing, however, which I could not sacrifice, even for my charming maiden, and that was the honor of a noble. My fortune was nothing; but the dignity of blood is great, and from my ancestors I had received a command, sacred as a last will, to remember ever that my lifewas my own, that I might expose it to peril, but integra rodu l dignitas was an inheritance from my ancestors, which I was bound to hand down as I had received it, that is, integram. 0 God, grant eternal rest to my ancestors, and may eternal light shine on them for the ages of ages ! Even had his serene great mightiness, Tvory anski, consented to give me his daughter, I had no place to which I might conduct her. If, considering the scantiness of my fortune, he, in his pride, had called me a pauper, or simply a homespun, I, knowing the excellence of my family, should have been insulted and forced ...
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