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Updated: June 9, 2025
One evening the sentinels were more than usually kind and forbearing, and poor Oroboni and I conversed without in the least suppressing our voices. Maroncelli, in his subterraneous abode, caught the sound, and climbing up to the window, listened and distinguished my voice. He could not restrain his joy; but sung out my name, with a hearty welcome.
The two became as devoted to each other as Silvio Pellico and Count Oroboni; but it soon became evident to Valerian Vasilowitch that, unless Zaluski was released, he would soon succumb to the terrible restrictions of prison life. "Keep up your heart, my friend," he used to say. "I have borne it three years, and am still alive to tell the tale."
And, assuming a broad grin, he set to work with his long, lean, spindle shanks, which he worked about like two huge stilts, till I thought I should have died with laughing. I laughed and almost cried at the same time. One evening Count Oroboni and I were standing at our windows complaining of the low diet to which we were subjected.
Upon the morning of his death he also said, as he pressed a crucifix, which Kral brought him, to his lips; "Thou, Lord, who wert Divine, hadst also a horror of death, and didst say, IF IT BE POSSIBLE, LET THIS CUP PASS FREE ME, oh, pardon if I too say it; but I will repeat also with Thee, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou willest it!" After the death of Oroboni, I was again taken ill.
"And if by any unexpected accident," observed Oroboni, "we should be restored to society, should we be so mean-spirited as to shrink from confessing our faith in the Gospel? Should we stand firm if accused of having changed our sentiments in consequence of prison discipline?" "Your question, my dear Oroboni," I replied, "acquaints me with the nature of your reply; it is also mine.
A very few months after this parting, his dungeon was empty, and Oroboni lay at rest in the cemetery, on which I looked out from my window! From the moment we had met, it seemed as if the tie which bound us were drawn closer round our hearts; and we were become still more necessary to each other. He was a fine young man, with a noble countenance, but pale, and in poor health.
My guards pressed forward in order to close my friend's door, but I was too quick for them; I darted into the room, and the next moment found myself in the arms of Count Oroboni. Schiller was in dismay, and cried out "Der Teufel! der Teufel!" most vigorously, at the same time raising his finger in a threatening attitude.
I placed my bed exactly in the same spot where Oroboni had died, and derived a mournful pleasure from thus approaching my friend, as it were, as nearly as possible. It appeared as if his spirit still hovered round me, and consoled me with manifestations of more than earthly love.
I had pledged my honour to Julian never to reveal, by mention of his real name, the correspondence which had passed between us. I informed poor Oroboni of it all, observing that "it never should escape my lips in any other place; but here we are immured as in a tomb; and even should you get free, I know I can confide in you as in myself." My excellent friend returned no answer.
Still, I could not help grieving over the fate of Oroboni while, at the same time, I indulged the soothing reflection that he was freed from all his sufferings, that they were rewarded with a better world, and that in the midst of the enjoyments he had won, he must have that of beholding me with a friend no less attached to me than he had been himself.
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