Pagina 598 van 788

"The Muscovites showed by acts of violence that they regarded me

as one of their partisans: they gave the Soplicas a considerable

part of the dead man's estates; later the Targowica confederates

wished to bestow an office upon me.176 If I had then consented to

turn Muscovite!-Satan counselled it-I was already influential and

rich; but if I had become a Muscovite?-The foremost magnates

would have sought my favour; even my brother gentlemen-even the

mob, which is so ready to disparage those of its own number, is

prone to forgive those happier men who serve the Muscovites! I

knew this, and yet-I could not.

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"I fled from my country! Where have I not been! what have I not

suffered!

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"At last God deigned to reveal to me the one true remedy: I must

reform myself and repair as much as possible what--

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