Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXI, No. 1, July 1842

THE POLISH MOTHER.

It was a gorgeous bridal. The old hall of the palace was lit up with a thousand lights, and crowded with all the wealth, beauty and rank of Poland. The apartment blazed with the jewels of its occupants. Princes with their proud dames, high officers of state, nobles whose domains vied in extent with kingdoms, and lordly beauties beneath whose gaze all bent in adoration, had gathered at that magnificent festival to do honor to the bridal of the fair daughter of their host. And loveliest among the lovely was the bride. Tall and majestic in every movement, with a queenly brow, and a face such as might have been that of the mother of the gods, she moved through the splendid apartment the theme of every admiring tongue. Nor less remarkable was her husband. Warsaw beheld no noble tread her palaces more lordly in his bearing than the Count Restchifky. The fire of a hundred warrior ancestors burned in his eye. The fame of his high lineage, of his extended possessions, of his feats in arms, followed his footsteps wherever he went. In manly beauty the court of Poland had no rival to the count, in majestic loveliness the realm furnished no equal to his bride. And now, as they stood together in that proud old hall, surrounded by all that was noble and beautiful in the land, the peerless beauty of the countess and the princely bearing of her husband shone pre-eminent.

Never had Warsaw seen such a festival. All that the most boundless wealth and all that a taste the most fastidious could do to add to the splendor of the occasion had been done, and the guests, one and all, bore testimony to the success of the princely entertainer. The air was laden with incense, flowers bloomed around, unseen music filled the hall with harmony, and statues and carvings of rare device met the eye at every turn. If Aladdin had been there he would not have asked that his enchanted palace should excel in magnificence the one before him. No visionary, in his wildest dream, could imagine aught more beautiful. And through this unrivalled ball the count and his bride moved, conscious that all this splendor was evoked for their honor, feeling that not a heart in all the vast assembly but envied their exalted lot. At every step congratulations met them until they turned away sick with adulation. What wonder that the rose grew still deeper on the cheek of the bride, that her eyes flashed with brighter brilliancy, or that her step became more queenly? Could aught mortal wholly resist the intoxication of that hour?

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Years had elapsed. That fair young bride had become a mother; but time had passed over her without destroying one lineament of her majestic beauty. But the scene had changed from that through which she moved on her bridal night. There were no longer around her wealth and splendor and beauty, the flattery of the proud, the envy of the fair. She sat alone—alone with her two children, one a lovely girl of sixteen, and the other a smiling boy whose birth three years before had thrilled her husband’s heart with ecstasy, filled a province with rejoicings. But now that husband was away from her side, that province lay smoking around her. Her own proud home, where since her marriage she had spent the happiest hours of her life, had been sacked and given to the flames, and she now sat leaning against a shattered parapet, with her face buried in her hands, and the bitter tear of a mother’s anguish rolling down her cheeks. At her feet, leaning on her for succor, and clasping her hand, sat her daughter; while her boy, too young as yet to be conscious of the misery around him, smiled as he played with the jewelled cross depending from his mother’s neck. A broken sword, a dismounted cannon, the shattered staff of a lance, at the feet of the group, betokened that the vassals of the count had not yielded up her house to rapine without a deadly struggle; and indeed, of the hundreds of hearts which beat there, but the day before, only those of the mother and her two children had escaped captivity or death. Part of the palace was yet in flames, while, on the plain beyond, a village threw its lurid conflagration across the sky. Desolation and despair sat enthroned around. Who that had seen that mother on her bridal night, could have foretold that her after life would reveal a scene like this?

The Polish war for independence had broken out. Among the foremost of the patriotic band which perilled all for their country, was the Count Restchifky. His sword had been unsheathed at the outbreak of the conflict, his fortune had been poured the first into the coffers of the state. From his own estates he had raised and equipped as gallant a band as ever followed lord to the tented field. And for a short space the war seemed to prosper. But then came the reverse. From every quarter the haughty Catharine poured her countless legions, headed by the fierce Suwarrow, into Poland, and smoking fields and slaughtered armies soon told that the day of hope for that ill-fated land was over. Yet a few noble spirits, among whom the count was foremost, still held out for their country, fighting every foot of ground, and though retreating before the overwhelming forces of the foe, compelling him to purchase every rood of land he gained by the lives of hundreds of his venal followers. It was at this period, and while the count was far from his home, that his palace had been attacked, and given to the flames. Afar from succor, unconscious whether or not her husband yet lived, and trembling for the lives of her offspring amid the desolation which surrounded them, what wonder that even the proud heart of the countess gave way, and that she wept in utter agony over her ruined country and her dismantled home!

“Oh! mother,” said the daughter, “if we only knew where father was, or if he yet lived, we might still be happy. Wealth is nothing to us, for will we not still love each other? Dry your tears, dear mother, for something tells me that father lives and will yet rejoin us.”

At these words of comfort, more soothing because coming from a quarter so unexpected, the mother looked up, and, drawing her daughter to her bosom, kissed her, saying,

“You are right, my child. We will hope for the best. And if your father has indeed fallen, and we are alone in the world, I will remember that I have you to comfort me, and strive—to—be happy,” and, in despite of her effort to be calm, the tears gushed into her eyes at the bare thought of the possible loss of her husband.

“But see, mother,” suddenly exclaimed the daughter, “see the cloud of dust across the plain—can it betoken the return of the foe?” and she drew close to her mother’s side.

The mother gazed with eager eyes across the plain, and her cheek paled as she thought she distinguished the banner of Russia borne in the advance.

“It is, it is as I feared,” said the daughter, “they come to carry us into captivity. Oh! let us hide from their sight—there are secret recesses in the ruins yet where we might defy scrutiny.”

“No,” said the mother, all the spirit of her race rising in her at this crisis, “no, my daughter, it would not become us, like base-born churls, thus to fly from a foe. The wife and children of Count Restchifky will meet his enemies on his own hearth-stone, all dismantled though it be.”

With these words she clasped her babe closer to her bosom, and sat down again behind the parapet to await, as the daughter of a hundred princes should await, the approach of her murderers; and although perhaps her cheek was a hue paler, the lofty glance of her eye quailed not. Her daughter sank to her feet and buried her face in her mother’s robe. But after a few minutes she regained courage, and looked timidly out across the plain. At the first glance she started and said eagerly,

“But see, mother, can they really be enemies? They wave their banners as if to us—they increase their speed—surely, surely that gallant horseman in the advance is my own dear father.”

A moment the mother gazed eagerly on the approaching horseman, but a moment only. The eye of the wife saw that her husband was indeed there, and, with a glad cry, she clasped her children in her arms and burst into a flood of joyful tears. She was still weeping when the count, dismounting from his charger, rushed forward and clasped her in his arms.

“Thank God!” he ejaculated, “you at least are left to me. I had feared to find you no more. May the lightning of heaven blast the cravens who could thus desolate the home of a woman.”

“My husband, oh! my husband!” was all that the wife could say.

“Father, dear father, you are safe—oh! we shall yet be happy,” said the daughter as she clung to her restored parent.

The father kissed and re-kissed them all, and for once his stern nature was moved to tears, but they were tears of joy.

His story was soon told. Finding that all hope of saving his country was over, and eager to learn the fate of those he had left at home, he had cut his way through the enemy with a few gallant followers. As he drew near the vicinity of his palace, he had heard strange rumors of the sacking of his home, and on every side his own eyes beheld the ravages of the foe. Torn with a thousand fears respecting the fate of those he loved better than life, he had pressed madly on, and when the blackened and smoking walls of his palace had risen before him in the distance he had almost given way to despair. But, at length, his eager eye caught sight of a group amid the ruins, and his heart told him that those he loved remained yet to cheer his ruined fortunes.

No pen can do justice to the feelings of gratitude which throbbed in the bosom of that father as he pressed his wife and children successively to his heart. His plans were soon laid. He had, by remittances to England on the outbreak of the war, provided his family against want, and thither they now bent their steps. Over his ruined country he shed many a tear, but, at such times, the smiles of his wife and children were ever ready to cheer his despondency; and as he gazed on his lovely family he felt that there was much yet in this world to bid him be happy.