In the verses I have cited, Pushkin reproaches the
Polish poet, inasmuch that his affection for his Mus-

' L. Mickiewicz, Life of Adam Miekiewie%, * Op, at,

44



IMPRISONMENT AND RUSSIAN EXILE

covite friends changed with the course of years to
open hatred. This accusation is indignantly refuted
by Polevoi.' Mickiewicz, whose ardent and generous
soul was roused to a fire of anger at the sight of
unworthy and ignoble deeds^ could not by the nature
of things endure the thought of those Russians who
had contributed to the sufferings of his nation, or
who^ like Pushkin, had turned against the Poland with
whom they had once professed to sympathise.' But
even the terrible years following the Rising of 1830 —
those years when the very name of Russian must
have held unspeakable bitterness to the Polish heart —
were powerless to stamp out Mickiewicz's tender
memories of the companions among whom he had
lived in his earliest exile. He never forgot them : and,
when his life in Russia lay far behind him, he turns
on his road to hail them once again in the beautiful
and mournful poem entitled To My Russian Friends.
These lines may appropriately be quoted here : —

^ Do you remember me \ As often as I think upon the
death, imprisonment, and exile of my friends, I think of you.
