The Tartar again interrupts me: “What! were not you both confined in an apartment below ground, and was not this lady in a tower? What was the reason of that? I will lay any wager, continues he with a smile, that you have taken this female from that old wretch, (pointing to Dourlinski), and you are in the right; for he is a dotard, and she is beautiful! Come—inform me of every thing.”
I now discover my own name to Titsikan, that of Lodoiska’s father, and every particular that had occurred to me until that moment. It belongs to Lodoiska, I observe in conclusion, to make us acquainted with what she has been obliged to suffer from the infamous Dourlinski, ever since she has been in his castle!
“You know,” replies Lodoiska, “that my father me to leave Warsaw, on the day that the diet was opened. He first conducted me to the territories of the Palatine of ————, at only twenty leagues distance from the capital, to which he returned, on purpose to assist at the meeting of the states.
“On that very day when M. de P——— was proclaimed king, Pulaski took me from the castle of the palatine, and conducted me here, thinking that I should be better concealed. He charged Dourlinski to guard me with extraordinary strictness; and, above all things, to take especial care to prevent Lovzinski from discovering the place of my retreat. He then left me, as he informed me, on purpose to assemble and encourage the good citizens to defend his country, and to punish traitors. Alas! these important avocations have made him forget his daughter, for I have never seen him since.
“A few days after his departure, I began to perceive that the visits of Dourlinski had become more frequent than usual; in a short time, he hardly ever quitted the apartment assigned me for a prison. He deprived me, under some trifling pretext, of the only female attendant whom my father had left me; and to prevent any person (as he said) from knowing that I was in his castle, he himself brought me the food necessary for my subsistence, and passed whole days along with me. You cannot conceive, my dear Lovzinski, how much I suffered from the continual presence of a man who was odious to me, and whose infamous designs I was suspicious of: he even dared to explain himself to me one day: but I assured him that my hate should always be the price of his tenderness, and that his unworthy conduct had drawn upon him my sovereign contempt.
“He answered me coldly, that in time I should accustom myself to see him, and to suffer his assiduities; nay, he did not in the least alter his usual conduct, for he entered my chamber in the morning, and never retired until night. Separated from all I loved, I had not even the feeble consolation of being able to enjoy the sweet recollection of past happiness. A witness to my misfortunes, Dourlinski took pleasure in augmenting them.
“‘Pulaski,’ says he to me, ‘commands a body of Polish troops; Lovzinski betraying his country, which he does not love, and a woman concerning whom he is indifferent, serves in the Russian army, where he will be cut off during some bloody engagement: besides, if he survives, it is evident that nothing can ever reconcile your father to him.’
“A few days after, he came on purpose to announce to me, that Pulaski, during the night, had attacked the Russians in their camp; and that, amidst the confusion that ensued, my lover had fallen by the hand of my father. The cruel Palatine even made me read a narrative of this event, drawn up with every appearance of truth, in a kind of public gazette, which doubtless he had procured to be printed expressly for the purpose: besides, on perceiving the barbarous joy which he affected on this occasion, I thought the news but too true.
“Pitiless tyrant! cried I, you enjoy my tears and my despair; but cease to persecute me, or you will soon see that the daughter of Pulaski is herself able to avenge her own injuries!