Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1868-02-06
CHAPTER VII.
LEON JANKowsKI.

| IAS'O.otiohios hopuiuSt huu uurc Vi ltSs
ambitious, but full of the spirit of self sacri
flee, careless of material things. and ready
to credit all the men of his own party with
the same noble qualities that he himself
possessed He was the son of a refugee,
and knew Poland only by Imagination. He
had studied 1t in the pages of the Polish
poets, and believed all his countrymen to be
heroes and all his countrywomen saints.
Every insurgent who persisted, either on the
scaffold or on the field Of battle, was, in
Jankowski's eyes, martyr, whose blood
was destined to fertilize the land, from which
fresh martyrs, martyrs innumerable, would
spring, until at last the cause for which so
many had suffered would triumph. Regard
ing Poland as land of angels, it was only
natural that he should look upon the Russian
regiments quartered there as legions of
| devils sent to torment them for the sins
which even Poles, at some period of their
history, must be supposed to have committed.
He was pale, clear complexioned, light
haired, blue-eyed young man; lively, as
even Polish prisoner will be except when
actually under torture, but more inclined to
pensiveness than the great majority of his
countrymen. He was deeply religious, be-
lleved, like Miekiewicz, that the prayers of
Christendom, if Christendom prayed in earn
est, would suffice to liberate his country;
and looked upon Stanislas Ferrari with a
sort OF awe; but also with infinite pity, as a
man who was suffering divine punishment
for the sins of his father.
Jankowski was decidedly an impractical
man. But there was nothing ridiculous in
his want of practically. He thought above
all OF the end, and scarcely troubled himself
about the means. But an insurrection in
just cause, even if it failed, was in his eyes
successful, in SO far that it was protest, in
striking and memorable form, of right
against might; and though it might be the
allotted portion Of his countrymen to suffer,
he would not admit that it was their duty to
suffer without protesting.
With man like that there is no arguing.
You tell him that the enterprise he is about
to engage in cannot succeed he replies that
it cannot do anything else. You are looking
at the matter from one point of view, he
from another.
Jankowskis rooms were decorated with
various characteristic emblems; an hereditary
Polish sabre a piece of silk from flag
which his father had carried in the insurrec-
ton of 1890; the decoration of the Legion
of Honor, given to his grandfather by Ma
poleon during the capaign of 1912; cross
of black wood inlaid with Siberian stones,
which his brother (exiled at the age of six
teen, for cutting out Z" Poland is not lost !"
on desk at schooD had sent him from
lrkutsk; bust OF the poet Mickiewiez a
gigantic silver goblet of ancient Polish fash
ion and Turkish pistol brought back by
one OF his ancestors from the battle o
Vienna.
He had an engraving, too, representing
the battle of Vienna, in which the said an
cestor is seen, with lance three times his
own height, taking orders from Sobieski,
who points to the grand vizier's tent, and
tells him to charge to that point and plant
his lance in the ground.
Sand after that?" asks the impetuous ofli-
Ger Of lancers.
"After that" replies Sobicski. .syou will
do what you like. The battle will be at an
end
There was another engraving of which
the subject was the death of the Hetman
Zolkiewski, who, before expiring from his
wounds, had his war-horse brought to his
bedside, threw his arms round the faithful
animals neck, and embraced it.
Of course, too, there was portrait of
Koscziusko.
Stanislas Ferrari had met Jankowski in
the library of the British Museum-that
great resort of students, book-makers, and
men without sitting-rooms. They had
dined together, too, at various restaurants
each paying for his own dinner, after the
unsociable manner of those who can neith-
er afford to give nor to accept favours But
this was the first time that Ferrari had en-
tered Jankowski's apartments. He came
there by appointment, and for the express
purpose, it will be remembered, of accom-
panying Jankowski to the house of Siegfricd
the revolutionist-
Paul was much interested by the various
Polish objects which adorned the walls of
his friends room.
"They are my household gods," said
Jankowski. 81 brought them here from
Paris, and before went to Paris had them
with me at Metz. take them with me
everywhere"
Leon Jankowski had been pupil at the
military school of Metz, where certain
number of Poles are admitted by special fa-
vor, and where he had pursued his studies
with the direct object of qualifying himself
to serve his country in the first insurrection
that might break out.
The only country in which you would
not be allowed to have them, then" said
Ferrari, g is Poland ITSELF"
C hope to take the flag there before very
long" said Jankowski; land above all the
sabre"
"What is this goblet?" asked Ferrari,
taking it up and examining it.
sit does not accorl, perhaps. very well
Win tuS ulucI leliCs, duSWtTeu JdHhOW-
ski 'but it is one of the loving cups of our
ancestors feasts You know that every
guest was expected to empty it as it was
passed round. 1t is a legend in our family
that this immeanse cup was once empticd
so neatly and so rapidly that my great
grandfather, to whom it belonged, compli-
mcnted the performer of the feat ON his
skill and prowess."
II was afraid l should not be able to
manage it" said the guest shut practsed
with a goblet of the same size just before l
came in"
'sThere is very little of that sort of thing
going on in Poland now, observed Ferrari.
"Our foreiathers, under those sensual Saxon
kings, seem to have drunk their own share
of wine and ours also."
Jankowski had noticed before that Ferrari
spoke of himself as Pole, which, through