did not foresee it."

Samuel crossed his hands on his knee; then he continued: "May my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth, may my blood cease to flow in my veins,
may the marrow dry up in my bones, if ever I forget to be grateful for
what I owe to you, Abel Larinski, or cease to remember the forlorn hovel
in which we passed the first night of our journey! You were attacked by
suffocation. You had only time to call and wake me. I hastened to you.
You gave me, in a dying voice, your last instructions. You delivered
into my hands your last fifty florins, which were as acceptable as an
orange would have been to the shipwrecked passengers of the Medusa. Then
you pointed with your finger to a box, in which were inclosed family
relics, letters, your journal, and papers. You said: 'Destroy all that;
Poland is dead, let no one remember that I have lived!' After that you
breathed your last. Well! I confess that I did not fulfil your orders.
I kept your mother's portrait, the papers, all; and, in announcing your
decease to the police, I made them believe that the man who was dead was
named Samuel Brohl, and that Count Larinski still lived. What would you
have me do? The temptation was too great. Samuel Brohl had disgraceful
antecedents, he was base-born, he had been sold; there was a stain
on his past that never could be wiped away, and, as he had had the
misfortune to read the poets, it had come about that he often despised
himself. It was, indeed, time that he should be thrown into the shade,
and my joy was extreme to know that he was dead, and to feel that I was
alive. As soon as I succeeded in persuading myself that I was indeed
Count Abel Larinski, I was as happy as a child whose parents have
dressed him in new clothes, and who struts about to show them. With
your name I acquired a noble past; in thought, I roamed through it with
delight; I visited its every nook and corner, as a poor devil would make
the circuit of a park that he has just come to inherit. You bequeathed
me your relations, your adventures, your exploits. When you fought
for your country, I was there; when you received a gun-shot-wound near
Dubrod, it was into my flesh that the bullet penetrated. Of what do you
complain? Between friends is not everything in common? I left my own
skin, I entered yours; I was satisfied there, and desired to remain.
To-day I resemble you in everything; I assure you that if we were seen
together it would be difficult to tell u