Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  “I am so sleepy that I may wake in the morning.”

  After these words the company separated at once; for the ladies were very weary from the journey, and were only waiting to have beds prepared. When Zagloba found himself at last alone with Pan Michael, he began first of all to wink significantly, then he covered the little knight with a shower of light fists. “Michael! what, Michael, hei? like turnips! Will you become a monk, what? That bilberry Krysia is a sweet one. And that rosy little haiduk, uh! What will you say of her, Michael?”

  “What? Nothing!” answered the little knight.

  “That little haiduk pleased me principally. I tell you that when I sat near her during supper I was as warm from her as from a stove.”

  “She is a kid yet; the other is ever so much more stately.”

  “Panna Krysia is a real Hungarian plum; but this one is a little nut! As God lives, if I had teeth! I wanted to say if I had such a daughter, I’d give her to no man but you. An almond, I say, an almond!”

  Volodyovski grew sad on a sudden, for he remembered the nicknames which Zagloba used to give Anusia. She stood as if living before him there in his mind and memory, — her form, her small face, her dark tresses, her joyfulness, her chattering, and ways of looking. Both these were younger, but still she was a hundred times dearer than all who were younger.

  The little knight covered his face with his palms, and sorrow carried him away the more because it was unexpected. Zagloba was astonished; for some time he was silent and looked unquietly, then he asked, “Michael, what is the matter? Speak, for God’s sake!”

  Volodyovski spoke, “So many are living, so many are walking through the world, but my lamb is no longer among them; never again shall I see her.” Then pain stifled his voice; he rested his forehead on the arm of the sofa and began to whisper through his set lips, “O God! O God! O God!”

  CHAPTER VIII.

  Basia insisted that Volodyovski should give her instruction in “fencing;” he did not refuse, though he delayed for some days. He preferred Krysia; still, he liked Basia greatly, so difficult was it, in fact, not to like her.

  A certain morning the first lesson began, mainly because of Basia’s boasting and her assurances that she knew that art by no means badly, and that no common person could stand before her. “An old soldier taught me,” said she; “there is no lack of these among us; it is known too that there are no swordsmen superior to ours. It is a question if even you, gentlemen, would not find your equals.”

  “Of what are you talking?” asked Zagloba. “We have no equals in the whole world.”

  “I should wish it to come out that even I am your equal. I do not expect it, but I should like it.”

  “If it were firing from pistols, I too would make a trial,” said Pani Makovetski, laughing.

  “As God lives, it must be that the Amazons themselves dwell in Latychov,” said Zagloba. Here he turned to Krysia: “And what weapon do you use best, your ladyship?”

  “None,” answered Krysia.

  “Ah, ha! none!” exclaimed Basia. And here, mimicking Krysia’s voice, she began to sing: —

  “‘O knights, believe me,

  Useless is armor,

  Shields give no service;

  Cupid’s keen arrows,

  Through steel and iron,

  Go to all hearts.’

  “She wields arms of that kind; never fear,” added Basia, turning to Pan Michael and Zagloba. “In that she is a warrior of no common skill.”

  “Take your place, young lady!” said Pan Michael, wishing to conceal a slight confusion.

  “Oh, as God lives! if what I think should come true!” cried Basia, blushing with delight.

  And she stood at once in position with a light Polish sabre in her right hand; the left she put behind her, and with breast pushed forward, with raised head and dilated nostrils, she was so pretty and so rosy that Zagloba whispered to Pan Michael’s sister, “No decanter, even if filled with Hungarian a hundred years old, would delight me so much with the sight of it.”

  “Remember,” said the little knight to Basia, “that I will only defend myself; I will not thrust once. You may attack as quickly as you choose.”

  “Very well. If you wish me to stop, give the word.”

  “The fencing could be stopped without a word, if I wished.”

  “And how could that be done?”

  “I could take the sabre easily out of the hand of a fencer like you.”

  “We shall see!”

  “We shall not, for I will not do so, through politeness.”

  “There is no need of politeness in this case. Do it if you can. I know that I have less skill than you, but still I will not let that be done.”

  “Then you permit it?”

  “I permit it.”

  “Oh, do not permit, sweetest haiduk,” said Zagloba. “He has disarmed the greatest masters.”

  “We shall see!” repeated Basia.

  “Let us begin,” said Pan Michael, made somewhat impatient by the boasting of the maiden.

  They began. Basia thrust terribly, skipping around like a pony in a field. Volodyovski stood in one place, making, according to his wont, the slightest movements of the sabre, paying but little respect to the attack.

  “You brush me off like a troublesome fly!” cried the irritated Basia.

  “I am not making a trial of you; I am teaching you,” answered the little knight. “That is good! For a fair head, not bad at all! Steadier with the hand!”

  “‘For a fair head?’ You call me a fair head! you do! you do!”

  But Pan Michael, though Basia used her most celebrated thrusts, was untouched. Even he began to talk with Zagloba, of purpose to show how little he cared for Basia’s thrusts: “Step away from the window, for you are in the lady’s light; and though a sabre is larger than a needle, she has less experience with the sabre.”

  Basia’s nostrils dilated still more, and her forelock fell to her flashing eyes. “Do you hold me in contempt?” inquired she, panting quickly.

  “Not your person; God save me from that!”

  “I cannot endure Pan Michael!”

  “You learned fencing from a schoolmaster.” Again he turned to Zagloba: “I think snow is beginning to fall.”

  “Here is snow! snow for you!” repeated Basia, giving thrust after thrust.

  “Basia, that is enough! you are barely breathing,” said Pani Makovetski.

  “Now hold to your sabre, for I will strike it from your hand.”

  “We shall see!”

  “Here!” And the little sabre, hopping like a bird out of Basia’s hands, fell with a rattle near the stove.

  “I let it go myself without thinking! It was not you who did that!” cried the young lady, with tears in her voice; and seizing the sabre, in a twinkle she thrust again: “Try it now.”

  “There!” said Pan Michael. And again the sabre was at the stove. “That is enough for to-day,” said the little knight.

  Pani Makovetski began to bustle about and talk louder than usual; but Basia stood in the middle of the room, confused, stunned, breathing heavily, biting her lips and repressing the tears which were crowding into her eyes in spite of her. She knew that they would laugh all the more if she burst out crying, and she wished absolutely to restrain herself; but seeing that she could not, she rushed from the room on a sudden.

  “For God’s sake!” cried Pani Makovetski. “She has run to the stable, of course, and being so heated, will catch cold. Some one must go for her. Krysia, don’t you go!”

  So saying, she went out, and seizing a warm shuba in the ante-room, hurried to the stable; and after her ran Zagloba, troubled about his little haiduk. Krysia wished to go also, but the little knight held her by the hand. “You heard the prohibition. I will not let this hand go till they come back.”

  And, in fact, he did not let it go. But that hand was as soft as satin. It seemed to Pan Michael that a kind of warm current was flowing from those slender fingers i
nto his bones, rousing in them an uncommon pleasantness; therefore he held them more firmly. A slight blush flew over Krysia’s face. “I see that I am a prisoner taken captive.”

  “Whoever should take such a prisoner would not have reason to envy the Sultan, for the Sultan would gladly give half his kingdom for her.”

  “But you would not sell me to the Pagans?”

  “Just as I would not sell my soul to the Devil.”

  Here Pan Michael remarked that momentary enthusiasm had carried him too far, and he corrected himself: “As I would not sell my sister.”

  “That is the right word,” said Krysia, seriously. “I am a sister in affection to your sister, and I will be the same to you.”

  “I thank you from my heart!” said Pan Michael, kissing her hand; “for I have great need of consolation.”

  “I know, I know,” repeated the young lady; “I am an orphan myself.” Here a small tear rolled down from her eyelid and stopped at the down on her lip.

  Pan Michael looked on that tear, on the mouth slightly shaded, and said, “You are as kind as a real angel; I feel comforted already.”

  Krysia smiled sweetly: “May God reward you!”

  “As God is dear to me.”

  The little knight felt meanwhile that if he should kiss her hand a second time, it would comfort him still more; but at that moment his sister appeared. “Basia took the shuba,” said she, “but is in such confusion that she will not come in for anything. Pan Zagloba is chasing her through the whole stable.”

  In fact, Zagloba, sparing neither jests nor persuasion, not only followed Basia through the stable, but drove her at last to the yard, in hopes that he would persuade her to the warm house. She ran before him, repeating, “I will not go! Let the cold catch me! I will not go! I will not go!”

  Seeing at last a pillar before the house with pegs, and on it a ladder, she sprang up the ladder like a squirrel, stopped, and leaned at last on the eave of the roof. Sitting there, she turned to Pan Zagloba and cried out half in laughter, “Well, I will go if you climb up here after me.”

  “What sort of a cat am I, little haiduk, to creep along roofs after you? Is that the way you pay me for loving you?”

  “I love you too, but from the roof.”

  “Grandfather wants his way; grandmother will have hers. Come down to me this minute!”

  “I will not go down!”

  “It is laughable, as God is dear to me, to take defeat to heart as you do. Not you alone, angry weasel, but Kmita, who passed for a master of masters, did Pan Michael treat in this way, and not in sport, but in a duel. The most famous swordsmen — Italians, Germans, and Swedes — could not stand before him longer than during one ‘Our Father,’ and here such a gadfly takes the affair to heart. Fie! be ashamed of yourself! Come down, come down! Besides, you are only beginning to learn.”

  “But I cannot endure Pan Michael!”

  “God be good to you! Is it because he is exquisitissimus in that which you yourself wish to know? You should love him all the more.”

  Zagloba was not mistaken. The admiration of Basia for the little knight increased in spite of her defeat; but she answered, “Let Krysia love him.”

  “Come down! come down!”

  “I will not come down.”

  “Very well, stay there; but I will tell you one thing: it is not nice for a young lady to sit on a ladder, for she may give an amusing exhibition to the world.”

  “But that’s not true,” answered Basia, gathering in her skirts with her hand.

  “I am an old fellow, — I won’t look my eyes out; but I’ll call everybody this minute, let others stare at you.”

  “I’ll come down!” cried Basia.

  With that, Zagloba turned toward the side of the house. “As God lives, somebody is coming!” said he.

  In fact, from behind the corner appeared young Adam Novoveski, who, coming on horseback, had tied his beast at the side-gate and passed around the house himself, wishing to enter through the main door. Basia, seeing him, was on the ground in two springs, but too late. Unfortunately Pan Adam had seen her springing from the ladder, and stood confused, astonished, and covered with blushes like a young girl. Basia stood before him in the same way, till at last she cried out, —

  “A second confusion!”

  Zagloba, greatly amused, blinked some time with his sound eye; at length he said, “Pan Novoveski, a friend and subordinate of our Michael, and this is Panna Drabinovski (Ladder). Tfu! I wanted to say Yezorkovski.”

  Pan Adam recovered readily; and because he was a soldier of quick wit, though young, he bowed, and raising his eyes to the wonderful vision, said, “As God lives! roses bloom on the snow in Ketling’s garden.”

  But Basia, courtesying, muttered to herself, “For some other nose than yours.” Then she said very charmingly, “I beg you to come in.”

  She went forward herself, and rushing into the room where Pan Michael was sitting with the rest of the company, cried, making reference to the red kontush of Pan Adam, “The red finch has come!” Then she sat at the table, put one hand into the other, and pursed her mouth in the style of a demure and strictly reared young lady.

  Pan Michael presented his young friend to his sister and Panna Krysia; and the friend, seeing another young lady of equal beauty, but of a different order, was confused a second time; he covered his confusion, however, with a bow, and to add to his courage reached his hand to his mustache, which had not grown much yet. Twisting his fingers above his lip, he turned to Pan Michael and told him the object of his coming. The grand hetman wished anxiously to see the little knight. As far as Pan Adam could conjecture, it was a question of some military function, for the hetman had received letters recently from Pan Vilchkovski, from Pan Silnitski, from Colonel Pivo, and other commandants stationed in the Ukraine and Podolia, with reports of Crimean events which were not of favorable promise.

  “The Khan himself and Sultan Galga, who made treaties with us at Podhaytse,” continued Pan Adam, “wish to observe the treaties; but Budjyak is as noisy as a bee-hive at time of swarming. The Belgrod horde also are in an uproar; they do not wish to obey either the Khan or Galga.”

  “Pan Sobieski has informed me already of that, and asked for advice,” said Zagloba. “What do they say now about the coming spring?”

  “They say that with the first grass there will be surely a movement of those worms; that it will be necessary to stamp them out a second time,” replied Pan Adam, assuming the face of a terrible Mars, and twisting his mustache till his upper lip reddened.

  Basia, who was quick-eyed, saw this at once; therefore she pushed back a little, so that Pan Adam might not see her, and then twisted, as it were, her mustache, imitating the youthful cavalier. Pan Michael’s sister threatened with her eyes, but at the same time she began to quiver, restraining her laughter with difficulty. Volodyovski bit his lips; and Krysia dropped her eyes till the long lashes threw a shadow on her cheeks.

  “You are a young man,” said Zagloba, “but a soldier of experience.”

  “I am twenty-two years old, and I have served the country seven years without ceasing; for I escaped to the field from the lowest bench in my fifteenth year,” answered the young man.

  “He knows the steppe, knows how to make his way through the grass, and to fall on the horde as a kite falls on grouse,” said Pan Michael. “He is no common partisan! The Tartar will not hide from him in the steppe.”

  Pan Adam blushed with delight that praise from such famous lips met him in presence of ladies. He was withal not merely a falcon of the steppes, but a handsome fellow, dark, embrowned by the winds. On his face he bore a scar from his ear to his nose, which from this cut was thinner on one side than the other. He had quick eyes, accustomed to look into the distance, above them very dark brows, joined at the nose and forming, as it were, a Tartar bow. His head, shaven at the sides, was surmounted by a black, bushy forelock. He pleased Basia both in speech and in bearing; but still she did not cease to
mimic him.

  “As I live!” said Zagloba, “it is pleasant for old men like me to see that a new generation is rising up worthy of us.”

  “Not worthy yet,” answered Pan Adam.

  “I praise the modesty too. We shall see you soon receiving commands.”

  “That has happened already!” cried Pan Michael. “He has been commandant, and gained victories by himself.”

  Pan Adam began so to twist his mustache that he lacked little of pulling out his lip. And Basia, without taking her eyes from him, raised both hands also to her face, and mimicked him in everything. But the clever soldier saw quickly that the glances of the whole company were turning to one side, where, somewhat behind him, was sitting the young lady whom he had seen on the ladder, and he divined at once that something must be against him. He spoke on, as if paying no heed to the matter, and sought his mustache as before. At last he selected the moment, and wheeled around so quickly that Basia had no time either to turn her eyes from him, or to take her hands from her face. She blushed terribly, and not knowing herself what to do, rose from the chair. All were confused, and a moment of silence followed.

  Basia struck her sides suddenly with her hands: “A third confusion!” cried she, with her silvery voice.

  “My gracious lady,” said Pan Adam, with animation, “I saw at once that something hostile was happening behind me. I confess that I am anxious for a mustache; but if I do not get it, it will be because I shall fall for the country, and in that event I hope I shall deserve tears rather than laughter from your ladyship.”

  Basia stood with downcast eyes, and was the more put to shame by the sincere words of the cavalier.

  “You must forgive her,” said Zagloba. “She is wild because she is young, but she has a golden heart.”

  And Basia, as if confirming Zagloba’s words, said at once in a low voice, “I beg your forgiveness most earnestly.”

  Pan Adam caught her hands that moment and fell to kissing them. “For God’s sake, do not take it to heart! I am not some kind of barbarian. It is for me to beg pardon for having dared to interrupt your amusement. We soldiers ourselves are fond of jokes. Mea culpa! I will kiss those hands again, and if I have to kiss them till you forgive me, then, for God’s sake, do not forgive me till evening!”