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

by Various

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.