"I return thee, but bathed with tears, thy goodnight." He charges Tekla not to let her mother, who regarded Kościuszko with sincere affection, fret herself sick over what had happened. "Embrace her as fondly as she loves thee. ... Amuse and distract her so that her thoughts may incline her to sleep." He complains that Tekla does not tell him how she herself has weathered the storm: that he knows nothing of what is happening in her home. "I should be glad to be even in thy heart and enfold thee all within my heart. Each moment makes me uneasy for thee. ... As for me ... all my mind is confused. There is bitterness in my heart, and I feel fever tearing my inmost being. Go to bed, and sleep with pleasant thoughts, seeing thy mother better. ... I commend thee to that Providence who is beneficent to us all. Once more I embrace thee. I am going away, but in thought I am always present by thy side."[1]
To Tekla's mother he wrote:
[1] Ibid.
"I cannot, God knows, I cannot keep silence or send letters, for what I have heard and read has struck me like a thunderbolt. You do not bid me write again, my little mother"—here he uses one of the caressing untranslatable Polish diminutives. "I see that you have been prevailed upon by his [her husband's] persuasions. I see that I shall be parted from her for ever. ... I will always act according to the bidding of the mother who is mine and the mother of her who will always be in my heart. I will write no more and will not visit at her house, that the sight of her shall not be as poison to me. ... However, may the all High Providence bless you; and now I can write no more."[1]
He then went off to manoeuvres. But the lovers had by no means given up hope. They continued their correspondence, and Kościuszko, at Tekla's suggestion and subject to her approval, sent her a letter which he had drawn up for her father with a formal request for her hand.
The father returned an unmitigated refusal, repeating the absurd charge that Kościuszko had intended to abduct his daughter. To this Kościuszko replied with dignity and respect, ending with the words:
"If I cannot gain for myself your favour, if I do not win for myself the hope of gaining her I love, if I do not receive the title so honourable for me of your son and am not to be made happy, at least I look for the approbation of an honest man."[2]
[1] Letters of Kościuszko.
[2] Ibid.
Żurowski's answer was to remove his family to his Galician estate. Kościuszko wrote joint letters to the mother, whom he still fondly terms his "little mother," and to the daughter, assuring the former that his reply to her husband had been: