Memoirs of the Countess Potocka (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1900. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VI MYSTERIES 1803 Return To Town--The Seer--A Trap Set--An Evening At The French Theatre, Warsaw--Mysterious Drive --The Soothsayer's Den--Consultation--The Black Curtain Rises An Apparition The Supper Key To The Riddle--Prince Radziwill--An Annoying MothEr-in-law--Birth Of An Heir--Natoline. Winter took us back to town. My husband's parents were already settled there, and we went to live at their house. Soon after my mother moved into hers, to be present at my confinement. I believe I have already made it plain that I had a taste for the marvellous, and that my imagination delighted in uncommon things. Knowing that my father-in-law was a freemason, and that he was a frequenter of the Grand Oriental, a very well known lodge then existing in Warsaw, I was seized with a violent desire to penetrate mysteries of whose importance I entertained exaggerated notions. I would burn with curiosity, while trembling with fear, when I was told of the shadows and flames through which you had to beat a path, of the windows from which you were forced to leap into the abyss, of the nails on which you were obliged to walk I had vainly tried to make my father-in-law gossip; he laughed me in the face, and remained inscrutable, which threw me into despair. All of a sudden I thought I observed how he, usually so talkative and communicative, had moments of preoccupation. Often dinner was delayed for him, he arrived late, appeared abstracted, sometimes he even did not come at all. My mother-in-law evidently knew what the reason was of these absences, for they did not seem to trouble her; but she kept silence. I questioned my husband, who confirmed his father's preoccupation, but asserted not to know its reason. Things remained at that for some time, while my curiosity only grew...