‘“God be praised!” exclaimed Constance, falling on her knees. “Théodore, we shall be united, for thou canst still love me. I shall be thy guide; yes, I shall be to thee as I was in the first moments of our love, and thou shalt be able to love me still.”
‘Shortly after that they were married. Never was there a couple so deserving of happiness more really happy than they. The comtesse takes her husband everywhere, never leaving his side for a moment. He is the object of her most delicate attentions; her love for him seems increased by his terrible affliction. She does not wear that veil to hide her scarred features, but because she is afraid that the remarks of the crowd on her vanished beauty may sadden the heart of the husband whom she worships.
‘The young comte’s passion for music appears to have increased since he lost his sight. He regularly attends every concert; and his faithful companion, who appears only to live for him, is always at his side.’
The concert came to an end just as the comte finished his touching story. Then the windows were opened and magnificent fireworks let off on the lake. The sheaves of fire crossing each other and being reflected in the water; the numerous craft, illuminated and streaming with bunting; the masses of light standing in relief against the sombre background of the forest; the sound of the horns mingling with the shells and fusees—all this combined produced a truly magical effect.
Finally, after this well-spent day we began to think of getting back to Vienna, probably to recommence next morning the pursuit of the apparently inexhaustible round of pleasure.
The next day, however, I had promised to spend with the Prince de Ligne at his house on the Kalemberg. When I got there, I found the prince in company with M. Nowosilitzoff, a Russian statesman of great ability and a trusty adviser of Emperor Alexander, who, it was said at the time, was deeply interested in the future of Poland. The constitution of that country, its organisation and its institutions, which were to reinstate her in her former rank among the European nations—in short, her destiny—was one of the gravest questions submitted to the deliberations of the Congress. A most confidential councillor of the czar and a member of the provisional government of Warsaw, M. Nowosilitzoff was at that period engaged in drawing up the constitution intended by the czar for his new kingdom.
The Prince de Ligne professed an ardent sympathy for Poland. He admired her chivalrous and hospitable customs, and above all that frankness which forms the chief trait of the Polish character. Added to this admiration was his gratitude to a nation which had formerly admitted him among the ranks of its nobility. Consequently, he sat listening attentively to the projects of Alexander, projects which just then inspired a certain belief. As for me, the subject appealed to me like everything connected with the country in which I spent some of the best years of my youth.
‘After so many unprecedented efforts, after so many disappointed hopes and useless sacrifices, Poland bids fair to breathe at last,’ said M. Nowosilitzoff. ‘Deceived for many years by the man who had the misfortune to consider his will as a ruling principle, his power as a proof of his statesmanship, and his success as a reason for it, the Poles were not altogether unjustified in believing in promises tending to reinstate them as a nation.’
‘There is no nation on the face of the earth who would not have made the same sacrifices for so noble an illusion,’ remarked the prince.
‘No doubt, but constantly letting their thoughts run back, as they do, to the brilliant periods of their history, they would fain see their country assume the proud and independent attitude it adopted under the Bathoris, the Sigismunds, and the Sobieskis; and in this beautiful dream of the past, and, moreover, deceived by the actual state of politics in Europe, they will not stop their ambition at the point imposed by their geographical position. They will only find a country in the strictest sense through us and with us,’ the councillor went on. ‘Poland, completely independent and organised on the very risky basis of its erewhile constitutions, would only secure an ephemeral existence; she would carry her own germ of destruction. Is she to form a permanent camp in the centre of pacified Europe, or shall she arm all her nomadic sons like the Sarmatians of old, in order to make up by living ramparts for the natural frontiers and fortresses she lacks? She must have a support in order to insure her independence. Truth, I know, can only triumph slowly over the power of prejudice; but what is there to oppose the fact which henceforth is only too palpable? The hope of a better future, a hope which can only be indulged by unthinking creatures whom the disasters of their country have failed to restore to reason and coolness of mind.’