"Frankly, because Jacob wishes to go to Spezia, because Mathilde has gone that way, because Janus and Jacob are one and the same person. On his uncovered breast during his sleep I have seen a mourning ring suspended from a black ribbon."
"Even without that it was easy for you to pierce this mystery. Yes, that history is mine. Neither she nor I have any reason to blush. The relative who sent me to school was Mathilde's father."
"Then we will go to Pisa?"
"Yes, and I think we had better go on foot, if it is agreeable to you. The route is so beautiful that it deserves to be taken in detail. We will consign our baggage to the diligence, and we will take to the road like two wandering artists."
"An excellent idea. But let us depart before evening. I am anxious to get to my country. My homesickness becomes each day more violent. I foresee great events; impatience consumes me."
"Confess! You are a conspirator?"
"How could I be anything else? All Poland has conspired for two hundred years. Oppression drives us to it; generations of martyrs have excited us. Where life cannot expand in liberty, conspiracy is inevitable. It is the natural result of despotism."
"I understand you. Unhappily, however, for a country which is in such a situation, its inhabitants have lost confidence in themselves, and recognize their own weakness. I can only comprehend a conspiracy like ours, which has lasted two thousand years and which has led us to a regeneration. It has agglomerated our forces in a solid and vigorous union. Your conspiracies have something feverish about them that can end only in morbid decadence."
"Do not say so, I beg of you! You have not the same love for Poland as we, and you have not passed through such martyrdom."
"Excuse me for contradicting you. The country that has sheltered us, where in spite of continual persecutions we have increased by labour, has become for us a second country that we have chosen. You will think as I do some day before long. I feel myself at the same time Israelite and Pole."