I, too, have now packed my things, and in just a few days I shall lead Jacob and his company to Warsaw, where I hope to meet with you at once in order to go over our operations in detail. Thank you, too, for the generous honorarium for my work that you were able to collect for me from those among your acquaintances who are in a position to support us. As I understand it, the most generous among them has been the good Count Jab?onowski. I have a great deal of respect for him, as well as gratitude, altho’ I am not quite convinced by the idea of a Buskian Paraguay. For your wards, my dear cousin, are hardly so gentle as the Indians of Paraguay. And they possess a religion older than our own, along with writings and customs. With all due respect, Prince Jab?onowski should have come to Ivanie or ought to spend some time with them now in the Halickie Przedmie?cie.
I will not undertake to describe to you the whole of it, for it depresses me o’ermuch. After the death of the daughter of Nahman (now Piotr Jakubowski), one of the first victims of the epidemic, people started at once their talk of how this was yet another Jewish curse upon the infidels. It kills with unheard-of rapidity. All the water escapes the victim, and the body seems to collapse on itself. The skin wrinkles, and the features get sharp as a wolf’s. Over just a couple of days, the person weakens and dies. Nahman-Jakubowski, completely broken, has thrown himself into his Kabbalah, counting and recounting something or other, hoping he might find an explanation for his terrible misfortune.
It is getting cold, and there is no means to help those camping out on the streets, or the ailing. More funds, more clothing, and more food would be helpful, particularly given that Father Mikulski, who has been overseeing this whole enterprise, can no longer keep up.
The doctors have begun to demand that newcomers to the city provide evidence that they are not coming from plagueafflicted regions, that those who are suspected of coming from such regions be “aired out” away from the city for six weeks, and also that plagueafflicted regions have a sufficient number of doctors, medics, and dedicated assistants, porters, and gravediggers. They are also calling for those having contact with the plague-ridden to wear distinguishing insignia, for instance, white crosses over their chests and backs. A store of funds is needed as well, for food and medicine for the impoverished, and the dogs and cats that run from home to home should be removed, and every incident of pestilence should be tracked; a quantity of little wooden houses needs to be built outside town for the ill and those suspected of illness, along with sheds in which to air out suspect goods. And yet, Poland being Poland, all those demands seem to have blown over somehow, leaving not a trace.
You, my dear, enlightened Cousin, will know what to do to make these people comfortable. Many of them, in preparing for their baptism, have sold off their modest belongings and can do nothing but await our mercy.
In which Katarzyna Kossakowska dares to disturb the powerful of this world
To Jan Klemens Branicki, Hetman of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, written on the 14th of December, 1759
I am so grateful to you, my good Sir, for the Hospitality you bestowed upon me recently, while I was once again on the Road. Mo?ciska was lovely and comfortable, I shall remember it for a long Time. And since you professed yourself at my Disposition when it came to my good Works, I now turn to you for your Consideration of the Situation I have mentioned to you. By collective Action, we the highest-born who are so closely allied, and well acquainted with that French Expression noblesse oblige, might provide Aid and Assistance to those poor Neophytes, those Puritans of whom there is such an Abundance here in Podolia. You have no Doubt heard that they are now inclined to Warsaw, where they shall request an Audience with the King (which I very much doubt they shall receive), as well as some sort of Territory on the royal Lands to settle. Our Idea is to take them in upon our own Estates, which would be showing Christian Mercy, and the new Souls would arrive to us in this Way.
In a separate Letter, sent through Kalicki, I have already informed you, my good Sir, as to what has been happening in the Sejmik . . .
To Eustachy Potocki, my dear Brother and Artillery General of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, written on the 14th of December, 1759
With this Post I had the Obligation of sending you a Portrait of our Father, a Responsibility I would gladly discharge were there any Guarantee about the Arrival of the Package; however, when it comes to the Post, there can never be such Certainty.
I also reiterate my Question from my last Correspondence: Have you had a Chance to consider the Question of Land for the Neophytes?
You know me and have known me all my Life, and you know perfectly well that I have never cared too much about any Persons’ Fates, being rather hard, and I am quite convinced that even searching through Eyeglasses for one good and worthy, I would not find him. And yet in this Instance I see it as our Duty to help these People: they have been placed in the worst of all possible Situations; worse off than our Peasants, for they are like those Beggars we call Dziady, driven out by their own Kind, often stripped of their Property and without any Place to call their own, furthermore not particularly knowing the Language, and in many Cases finding themselves completely helpless. This is why they insist on sticking together. Were they to be parceled out to different holdings of ours, they could live in the Christian Fashion, taking up Trades or Crafts and offending no one, and it would be our sacred Act to make them into our likeness and accept them under the Wing of our holy Church.
To Pelagia Potocka, Wife of the Lwów Castellan, written on the 17th of December, 1759
I am loath to bother Her Nobly Virtuous Ladyship with such old-fashioned—nay, such ancient—Notions, and to pester Her Ladyship with outmoded Wishes that would not interest Her in the slightest, such as neighborly love and mutual goodwill. But as I do not wish to be fashionable—only reliable and sincere—I breathe a sigh to our God who comes into our World to bestow Health and long Years, and I ask for more still: Her Ladyship’s good Fortune, but this I really cannot help.
You have no doubt heard of this new Cause, which is not a fashionable one so much as a righteous one, namely, to take in neophyte Girls, once Jewish, now Christian. Starosta ?ab?cki’s Wife has taken in one such little Girl. Were I not so actively involved in orchestrating all of this, I would consider it, as well. Such an Act gives them Hope for a better Life, and a proper Education. Mrs. ?ab?cka’s Girl is very clever; with the help of a Tutor, she is studying Polish and French simultaneously. Mrs. ?ab?cki has been invigorated by it, and so the Benefit is mutual . . .
Of the trampling of coins and using a knife to make a V formation of cranes make a U-turn