But it is interesting to find the same legend in Poland, with characteristic variations from the German conception, illustrative of the hospitality and chivalry and the dominant influence of woman which are such marked features in Polish history.  Twardowsky (the Doctor Faustus of Poland) lived in the sixteenth century, in the time of Sigismund Augustus.  He studied at the University of Cracow, rose to the rank of doctor, and devoted himself especially to chemistry and physics, having a secret laboratory in a vast cavern of Mount Krzemionki.  Science in those days was regarded as intimately associated with the black arts, and it was not surprising that Twardowsky’s contemporaries added the title of sorcerer to those of doctor and professor, supposed he had made an alliance with Satan, and fancied an army of demons always waiting to do his bidding.  All this did not prevent his enjoyment of the king’s favor.  Sigismund had married, against his mother’s wish, Barbara Radziwill, the beautiful daughter of a Polish magnate.  The nobles, probably influenced by Bona, the mother of the king, demanded that Barbara should be repudiated:  he indignantly refused, and shortly afterward she was poisoned.  The grief and rage of Sigismund were without bounds:  he exiled his mother, wore black all the rest of his life, and had the apartments of his palace hung with it.  His melancholy gave him new interest in the occult sciences, and he became more than ever intimate with Twardowsky, sometimes visiting him in his cavern, sometimes receiving him secretly in his palace.  At first, he was satisfied with the chemical experiments which the populace regarded as supernatural, but after a while he urgently desired Twardowsky to produce for him a vision of Barbara.  Twardowsky appointed a night for the exhibition of his skill, and after drawing a magic circle and pronouncing some mysterious words, he called Barbara thrice by name, and she appeared—­not as a spectre risen from the tomb, but in all the beauty and freshness which had been the king’s delight.  He fainted at the sight, and his regard for the magician increased greatly.  But one fatal evening he found the door of the cavern shut.  Twardowsky, not expecting him, was not there.  After some delay the door was opened by a beautiful young woman.  “Barbara!” exclaimed Sigismund.  “Barbara is my name, but I am alive, not dead,” was her reply.  Twardowsky’s device was now exposed.  He had created an illusion for the satisfaction of Sigismund by employing this substitute for his lost Barbara.  She was a girl named Barbara Gisemka, whom Twardowsky had rescued from the hands of a furious mob, had concealed in his cavern, and initiated into the sciences to which he devoted himself.  She became his adept and his mistress.  But the king, furious at the imposition which had been practiced upon him, and desirous of making this beautiful creature his own, had Twardowsky murdered, and gave out that the devil had carried him off.  Barbara Gisemka acquired immense influence over the mind of her royal lover, which lasted while he lived.  When he was ill she suffered no physician to approach him, and was with him when he died in 1572.