Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “He did not make the least difficulty. I am curious to know what she will say. I care nothing about him!”

  “Oh, they have fallen each into the arms of the other, are weeping from emotion, are blessing your highness, and are carried away by your kindness and beauty.”

  “I don’t know that they are by my beauty; for in some way I look wretched. I am all the time out of health, and I am afraid that yesterday’s numbness will come again.”

  “No; you will take something warm.”

  The prince was already before the mirror.

  “It is blue under my eyes. And that fool, Fouret, darkened my eyebrows crooked. See if they are not crooked! I’ll give orders to thumbscrew him, and make a monkey my body-servant. Why does the old man not come? I should like to go to the lady now, for she will permit me to kiss her before the marriage. How quickly it grows dark to-day! If Plaska flinches, we must put pincers into the fire.”

  “Plaska will not flinch. He is a scoundrel from under a dark star.”

  “And he will perform the marriage in scoundrel fashion?”

  “A scoundrel will perform the marriage for a scoundrel in scoundrel fashion.”

  The prince fell into good humor, and said, —

  “When there is a pander for best man, there cannot be another kind of marriage.”

  For a while they were silent; then both began to laugh. But their laughter sounded with marvellous ill-omen through the dark room. Night fell deeper and deeper.

  The prince began to walk through the room, striking audibly with his hammer-staff, on which he leaned heavily, for his feet did not serve him well after the last numbness.

  Now the servants brought in candelabra with candles, and went out; but the rush of air bent the flames of the candles, so that for a long time they did not burn straight upward, melting meanwhile much wax.

  “See how the caudles are burning!” said the prince. “What do you prophesy from that?”

  “That one virtue will melt to-day like wax.”

  “It is wonderful how long that talk lasts.”

  “Maybe the spirit of old Billevich is flying over the flames.”

  “You are a fool!” answered Boguslav, abruptly. “You have chosen a time to talk of spirits!”

  Silence followed.

  “They say in England,” said the prince, “that when there is a spirit in the room every light burns blue; but see, now they are burning yellow, as usual.”

  “Trash!” answered Sakovich. “There are people in Moscow—”

  “But be still!” interrupted Boguslav. “The sword-bearer is coming. No! that is the wind moving the shutters. The devils have brought that old maid of an aunt, Kulvyets-Hippocentaurus! Has any one ever heard of the like? And she looks like a chimera.”

  “If you wish, your highness, I’ll marry her; then she will not be in the way, Plaska will solder us while you are waiting.”

  “Well, I will give her a maple spade as a marriage present, and you a lantern, so as to have something to light her way.”

  “I will not be your uncle — Bogus.”

  “Remember Castor,” answered the prince.

  “Do not stroke Castor, my Pollux, against the grain, for he can bite.”

  Further conversation was interrupted by the sword-bearer and Panna Kulvyets. The prince stepped up to him quickly, leaning on his hammer. Sakovich rose.

  “Well, what? May I go to Olenka?” asked the prince.

  The sword-bearer spread out his arms and dropped his head on his breast.

  “Your highness, my niece says that Colonel Billevich’s will forbids her to decide her own fate; and even if it did not forbid, she would not marry your highness, not having the heart to do so.”

  “Sakovich, do you hear?” said Boguslav, with a terrible voice.

  “I too knew of that will,” continued the sword-bearer, “but at the first moment I did not think it an invincible impediment.”

  “I jeer at the wills of you nobles,” said the prince; “I spit on your wills! Do you understand?”

  “But we do not jeer at them,” said the aroused Pan Tomash; “and according to the will the maiden is free to enter the cloister or marry Kmita.”

  “Whom, you sorry fellow? Kmita? I’ll show you Kmita! I’ll teach you!”

  “Whom do you call sorry fellow, — a Billevich?”

  And the sword-bearer caught at his side in the greatest fury; but Boguslav, in one moment, struck him on the breast with his hammer, so that Billevich groaned and fell to the floor. The prince then kicked him aside, to open a way to the door, and rushed from the room without a hat.

  “Jesus! Mary! Joseph!” cried Panna Kulvyets.

  But Sakovich, seizing her by the shoulder, put a dagger to her breast, and said, —

  “Quiet, my little jewel, quiet, dearest dove, or I will cut thy sweet throat, like that of a lame hen. Sit here quietly, and go not upstairs to thy niece’s wedding.”

  But in Panna Kulvyets there was knightly blood too; therefore she had barely heard the words of Sakovich, when straightway her terror passed into despair and frenzy.

  “Ruffian! bandit! pagan!” cried she; “slay me, for I will shout to the whole Commonwealth. The brother killed, the niece disgraced, I do not wish to live! Strike, slay, robber! People, come see!”

  Sakovich stifled further words by putting his powerful hand over her month.

  “Quiet, crooked distaff, dried rue!” said he; “I will not cut thy throat, for why should I give the Devil that which is his anyhow? But lest thou scream like a peacock before roosting, I will tie up thy pretty mouth with thy kerchief, and take a lute and play to thee of ‘sighs.’ It cannot be but thou wilt love me.”

  So saying, the starosta of Oshmiana, with the dexterity of a genuine pickpocket, encircled the head of Panna Kulvyets with her handkerchief, tied her hands in the twinkle of an eye, and threw her on the sofa; then he sat by her, and stretching himself out comfortably, asked her as calmly as though he had begun an ordinary conversation, —

  “Well, what do you think? I suppose Bogus will get on as easily as I have.”

  With that he sprang to his feet, for the door opened, and in it appeared Panna Aleksandra. Her face was as white as chalk, her hair was somewhat dishevelled, her brows were frowning, and threat was in her eyes. Seeing her uncle on the floor, she knelt near him and passed her hand over his head and breast.

  The sword-bearer drew a deep breath, opened his eyes, half raised himself, and began to look around in the room, as if roused from sleep; then resting his hand on the floor, he tried to rise, which he did after a while with the help of the lady; then he came with tottering step to a chair, into which he threw himself. Only now did Olenka see Panna Kulvyets lying on the sofa.

  “Have you murdered her?” asked she of Sakovich.

  “God preserve me!” answered the starosta of Oshmiana.

  “I command you to unbind her!”

  There was such power in that voice that Sakovich said not a word, as if the command had come from Princess Radzivill herself, and began to unbind the unconscious Panna Kulvyets.

  “And now,” said the lady, “go to your master, who is lying up there.”

  “What has happened?” cried Sakovich, coming to himself. “You will answer for him!”

  “Not to thee, serving-man! Be off!”

  Sakovich sprang out of the chamber as if possessed.

  CHAPTER XLIV.

  Sakovich did not leave Boguslav’s bedside for two days, the second paroxysm being worse than the first. The prince’s jaws closed so firmly that attendants had to open them with a knife to pour medicine into his mouth. He regained consciousness immediately after; but he trembled, quivered, floundered in the bed, and stretched himself like a wild beast mortally wounded. When that had passed, a wonderful weakness came; he gazed all night at the ceiling without saying a word. Next day, after he had taken drugs, he fell into a sound sleep, and about midday woke covered with abundant perspiration.

&nb
sp; “How does your highness feel?” asked Sakovich.

  “I am better. Have any letters come?”

  “Letters from the elector and Steinbock are lying on the table; but the reading must be put off till later, for you have not strength enough yet.”

  “Give them at once! — do you hear?”

  Sakovich brought the letters, and Boguslav read them twice; then he thought awhile and said, —

  “We will move for Podlyasye to-morrow.”

  “You will be in bed to-morrow, as you are to-day.”

  “I will be on horseback as well as you. Be silent, no interference!”

  The starosta ceased, and for a while silence continued, broken only by the tick-tick of the Dantzig clock.

  “The advice was stupid, the idea was stupid, and I too was stupid to listen.”

  “I knew that if it did not succeed the blame would fall on me,” answered Sakovich.

  “For you blundered.”

  “The counsel was clever; but if there is some devil at their service who gives warning of everything, I am not to blame.”

  The prince rose in the bed. “Do you think that they employ a devil?” asked he, looking quickly at Sakovich.

  “But does not your highness know the Papists?”

  “I know, I know! And it has often come into my head that there might be enchantment. Since yesterday I am certain. You have struck my idea; therefore I asked if you really think so. But which of them could enter into company with unclean power? Not she, for she is too virtuous; not the sword-bearer, for he is too stupid.”

  “But suppose the aunt?”

  “That may be.”

  “To make certain I bound her yesterday, and put a dagger to her throat; and imagine, — I look to-day, the dagger is as if melted in fire.”

  “Show it.”

  “I threw it into the river, though there was a good turquoise in the hilt. I preferred not to touch it again.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what happened to me yesterday. I ran into her room as if mad. What I said I do not remember; but I know this, — that she cried, ‘I’ll throw myself into the fire first.’ You know what an enormous chimney there is there; she sprang right into it, I after her. I dragged her out on the floor. Her clothes were already on fire. I had to quench the fire and hold her at the same time. Meanwhile dizziness seized me, my jaws became fixed, — you would have said that some one had torn the veins in my neck; then it seemed to me that the sparks flying near us were turned into bees, were buzzing like bees. And this is as true as that you see me here.”

  “And what came later?”

  “I remember nothing, but such terror as if I were flying into an immense well, into some depth without bottom. What terror! I tell you what terror! Even now the hair is standing on my head. And not terror alone, but — how can I explain it? — an emptiness, a measureless weariness and torment beyond understanding. Luckily the powers of heaven were with me, or I should not be speaking with you this day.”

  “Your highness had a paroxysm. Sickness itself often brings visions before the eye; but for safety’s sake we may have a hole cut in the river ice, and let the old maid float down.”

  “Oh, devil take her! We will march to-morrow in any event, and afterward spring will come; there will soon be other stars, and the nights will be short, weakening every unclean power.”

  “If we must march to-morrow, then you would better let the girl go.”

  “Even if I wished not, I must. All desire has fallen away from me.”

  “Never mind them; let them go to the devil!”

  “Impossible!”

  “Why?”

  “The old man has confessed that he has a tremendous lot of money buried in Billeviche. If I let them alone, they will dig up the money and go to the forests. I prefer to keep them here, and take the money in requisition. There is war now, and this is permissible. Besides, he offered it himself. We shall give orders to dig up the whole garden, foot by foot; we must find the money. While Billevich is sitting here, at least, he will not make a noise and shout over all Lithuania that he is plundered. Rage seizes me when I think how much I have spent on those amusements and tournaments, — and all for nothing, for nothing!”

  “Rage against that maiden seized me long ago. And I tell your highness that when she came yesterday and said to me, as to the last camp follower, ‘Be off, serving-man! go up, for thy master is lying there!’ I came near twisting her head like a starling; for I thought that she had stabbed you with a knife or shot you from a pistol.”

  “You know that I do not like to have any one manage in my house like a gray goose. It is well that you did not do as you say, for I should have given orders to nip you with those pincers which were heated for Plaska. Keep away from her!”

  “I sent Plaska back. He was terribly astonished, not knowing why he was brought nor why he was sent home. He wanted something for his fatigue, ‘because this,’ said he, ’is loss in my trade;’ but I told him, ‘You bear home a sound skin as reward.’ Do we really march to-morrow for Podlyasye?”

  “As God is in heaven. Are the troops sent off according to my orders?”

  “The cavalry has gone already to Kyedani, whence it is to march to Kovno and wait there. Our Polish squadrons are here yet; I did not like to send them in advance. The men seem reliable; still they might meet the confederates. Glovbich will go with us; also the Cossacks under Vrotynski. Karlström marches with the Swedes in the vanguard. He has orders to exterminate rebels, and especially peasants on the way.”

  “That is well.”

  “Kyritz with infantry is to march slowly, so that we may have some one to fall back upon in difficulty. If we are to advance like a thunderbolt, — and our entire calculation lies in swiftness, — I do not know whether the Prussian and Swedish cavalry will be useful. It is a pity that the Polish squadrons are not reliable; for between us, there is nothing superior to Polish cavalry.”

  “Has the artillery gone?”

  “It has.”

  “And Patterson too?”

  “No, Patterson is here; he is nursing Kettling, of whom he is very fond, and who wounded himself rather badly with his own sword. If I did not know Kettling to be a daring officer, I should think that he had cut himself of purpose to avoid the campaign.”

  “It will be needful to leave about a hundred men here, also in Rossyeni and in Kyedani. The Swedish garrisons are small, and De la Gardie, as it is, is asking men every day from Löwenhaupt. Besides, when we march out, the rebels, forgetting the defeat of Shavli, will raise their heads.”

  “They are growing strong as it is. I have heard again that the Swedes are cut down in Telshi.”

  “By nobles or peasants?”

  “By peasants under the leadership of a priest; but there are parties of nobles, particularly near Lauda.”

  “The Lauda men have gone out under Volodyovski.”

  “There is a multitude of youths and old men at home. These have taken arms, for they are warriors by blood.”

  “The rebellion can do nothing without money.”

  “But we shall get a supply of that in Billeviche.”

  “A man must be a genius like your highness to find means in everything.”

  “There is more esteem in this country,” said Boguslav, with a bitter smile, “for the man who can please the queen and the nobles. Neither genius nor virtue has value. It is lucky that I am also a prince of the Empire, and therefore they will not tie me by the legs to a pine-tree. If I could only have the revenues regularly from my estates, I should not care for the Commonwealth.”

  “But will they not confiscate these estates?”

  “We will first confiscate Podlyasye, if not all Lithuania. Now summon Patterson.”

  Sakovich went out, and returned soon with Patterson. At Boguslav’s bedside a council was held, at which it was determined to move before daylight next morning and go to Podlyasye by forced marches. The prince felt so much better in the evening that he feasted with the o
fficers and amused himself with jests till late, listening with pleasure to the neighing of horses and the clatter of arms in the squadrons preparing to march. At times he breathed deeply, and stretched himself in the chair.

  “I see that this campaign will bring back my health,” said he to the officers, “for amid all these negotiations and amusements I have neglected the field notably. But I hope in God that the confederates and our ex-cardinal (the king) in Poland will feel my hand.”

  To this Patterson made bold to answer: “It is lucky that Delilah did not clip Samson’s hair.”

  Boguslav looked at him for a while with a strange expression, from which the Scot was growing confused; but after a time the countenance of the prince grew bright with a threatening smile, and he said, —

  “If Sapyeha is my pillar, I will shake him so that the whole Commonwealth will fall on his head.”

  The conversation was carried on in German; therefore all the foreign officers understood it perfectly, and answered in chorus, —

  “Amen!”

  The column, with Boguslav at the head of it, marched before daybreak next morning. The Prussian nobles whom the brilliant court attracted, began at the same time to return to their homes. After them marched to Tyltsa those who in Taurogi had sought refuge from the terrors of war, and to whom now Tyltsa seemed safer. Only Billevich, Olenka, and Panna Kulvyets remained, not counting Kettling and the old officer Braun, who held command over the slender garrison.

  Billevich, after that blow of the hammer, lay for some days bleeding from the mouth at intervals; but since no bone was broken, he recovered by degrees and began to think of flight.

  Meanwhile an official came from Billeviche with a letter from Boguslav himself. The sword-bearer did not wish at first to read the letter, but soon changed his mind, following in this the advice of Olenka, who thought it better to know all the plans of the enemy.

  Very Gracious Pan Billevich! — Concordia res parvæ crescunt; discordia maximæ dillabuntar (By concord small things grow great; by discord the greatest are ruined)! The fates brought it about that we did not part in such harmony as my love for you and your charming niece demands, in which God knows I am not to blame, for you know yourself that you fed me with ingratitude in return for my sincere intentions. But for friendship’s sake what in done in anger should not be remembered; I think, therefore, that you will excuse my deeds of impulse, because of the injustice which I experienced at your hands. I, too, forgive you from my heart, as Christian charity enjoins, and I wish to return to a good understanding. To give you a proof that no offence has remained in my heart, I have not thought it proper to refuse the service which you have asked of me, and I accept your money.