“Did he speak to you?”
“He spoke with us, and afterward I heard him speak to those who came with him.”
“What did he say to them?”
“He said this: ‘If I could have trusted money with you, I should not have come, even if the night were still darker.’”
“And wilt thou testify to this before the mayor in the town, or the starosta?”
“I will.”
“When he heard this, Pan Zbierhovski turned to his attendants and said, —
“Guard this man with special care, for me.”
CHAPTER XXV
They began now to counsel. The advice of the Bukoyemskis was to disguise some peasant woman in the dress of a lady, put her on horseback, give her attendants and soldiers dressed up as bandits, and go to the place designated by Martsian, and, when he made the attack as agreed upon, surround him immediately, and either wreak vengeance there, or take him to Cracow and deliver him to justice. They offered to go themselves, with great willingness, to carry out the plan, and swore that they would throw Martsian in fetters at the feet of Panna Anulka.
This proposal pleased all at the first moment, but when they examined it more carefully the execution seemed needless and difficult. Pan Zbierhovski might rescue from danger people whom he met on his march, but he had not the right to send soldiers on private expeditions, and he had no wish either to do so. On the other hand, since there was a bandit who knew and was ready to indicate to the courts the chief author of the ambush, it was possible to bring that same author to account any moment, and to have issued against him a sentence of infamy. For this reason both Pan Serafin and Father Voynovski grew convinced that there would be time for that after the war, since there was no fear that the Krepetskis, who owned large estates, would flee and abandon them. This did not please the Bukoyemskis, however, for they desired keenly to finish the question. They even declared that since that was the decision, they would go themselves with their attendants for Martsian. But Pan Serafin would not permit this, and they were stopped finally by Yatsek, who implored them by all that was sacred to leave Krepetski to him, and him only.
“I,” said he, “will not act through courts against Martsian, but after all that I have heard from you here, if I do not fall in the war, as God is in heaven, I will find the man, and it will be shown whether infamy would not be pleasanter and easier also than that which will meet him.”
And his “maiden” eyes glittered so fiercely that though the Bukoyemskis were unterrified warriors a shiver went through them. They knew in what a strange manner passion and mildness were intertwined in the spirit of Yatsek, together with an ominous remembrance of injustice.
He said then repeatedly: “Woe to him! — Woe to him!” and again he grew pale from his blood loss. Day had come already, and the morning light had tinted the world in green and rose colors; that light sparkled in the dewdrops, on the grass and the reeds, and the tree leaves and the needles of dwarf pines here and there on the edge of the quagmire. Pan Zbierhovski had commanded to bury the bodies of the fallen bandits, which was done very quickly, for the turf opened under spades easily, and when no trace of battle was left on that roadway, the march was continued toward Shydlovets.
Pan Serafin advised the young lady to sit again in the carriage, where she might have a good sleep before they reached the next halting place, but she declared so decisively that she would not desert Yatsek that even Father Voynovski did not try to remove her. So they went together, only two besides the driver, for sleep was so torturing Pani Dzvonkovski, that after a while they transferred her to the carriage.
Yatsek was lying face upward on bundles of hay arranged lengthwise in one side of the wagon, while she sat on the other, bending every little while toward his wounded shoulder, and watching to see if blood might not come through the bandages. At times she put a leather bottle of old wine to the mouth of the wounded man. This wine acted well to all seeming, for after a while he was wearied of lying, and had the driver draw out the bundle on which his feet were then resting.
“I prefer to ride sitting,” said he, “since I feel all my strength now.”
“But the wound, will that not pain you more if you are sitting?”
Yatsek turned his eyes to her rosy face, and said in a sad and low voice, “I will give the same answer as that knight long ago when King Lokietek saw him pierced with spears by the Knights of the Cross, on a battlefield. ‘Is thy pain great?’ asked the king. The knight showed his wounds then. ‘These pain least of all,’ said he in answer.”
Panna Sieninski dropped her eyes. “But what pains you more?” inquired she in a whisper.
“A yearning heart, and separation, and the memory of wrongs inflicted.”
For a while silence continued, but the hearts began to throb in both with power which increased every moment, for they knew that the time had come then in which they could and should confess everything which each had against the other.
“It is true,” said she, “I did you an injustice, when, after the duel, I received you with angry face, and inhumanly. But that was the only time, and, though God alone knows how much I regretted that afterward, still I say it is my fault! and from my whole soul I implore you.” Yatsek put his sound hand to his forehead.
“Not that,” answered he, “was the thorn, not that the great anguish!”
“I know it was not that, but the letter from Pan Gideon. How could you suspect me of knowing the contents of the letter, or having suggested them?”
And she began to tell, with a broken voice, how it happened: how she had implored Pan Gideon to make a step toward being reconciled: how he had promised to write a heartfelt and fatherly letter, but he wrote entirely the opposite. Of this she learned only later from Father Voynovski, and from this it was shown that Pan Gideon having other plans, simply wanted to separate them from each other forever.
At the same time, since her words were a confession, and also a renewal of painful and bitter memories, her eyes were dimmed with tears, and from constraint and shame a deep blush came out on her cheeks from one instant to another.
“Did Father Voynovski,” asked she at last, “not write to you that I knew nothing, and that I could not even understand why I received for my sincere feelings a recompense of that kind?”
“Father Voynovski,” answered Yatsek, “only wrote me that you were going to marry Pan Gideon.”
“But did he not write that I consented to do so only through orphanhood and pain and desertion, and out of gratitude to my guardian? For I knew not then how he had treated you; I only knew that I was despised and forgotten.”
When he heard this Yatsek closed his eyes and began to speak with great sadness.
“Forgotten? Is that God’s truth? I was in Warsaw, I was at the king’s court, I went through the country with my regiment, but whatever I did, and wherever I travelled, not for one moment didst thou go from my heart and my memory. Thou didst follow me as his shadow a man. And during nights without sleep, in suffering and in pain, which came simply from torture, many a time have I called to thee: ‘Take pity, have mercy! grant to forget thee!’ But thou didst not leave me at any time, either in the day, or the night, or in the field, or under a house roof, until at last I understood that only then could I tear thee from my heart when I had torn the heart itself from my bosom.”
Here he stopped, for his voice was choked from emotion; but after a time he continued, —
“So after that often and often I said in my prayers: ‘O God, grant me death, for Thou seest that it is impossible for me to attain her, and impossible for me to be without her!’ And that was before I had hoped for the favor of seeing thee in life again — thou, the only one in the world — thou, beloved!”
As he said this he bent toward her and touched her arm with his temple.
“Thou,” whispered he, “art as that blood which gives life to me, as that sun in the heavens. The mercy of God is upon me, that I see thee once more — O beloved! beloved!�
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And it seemed to her that Yatsek was singing some marvellous song at that moment. Her eyes were filled with a wave of tears then, and a wave of happiness flooded her heart. Again there was silence between them; but she wept long with such a sweet weeping as she had never known in her life till that morning.
“Yatsek,” said she at last, “why have we so tormented each other?”
“God has rewarded us a hundred fold,” said he in answer.
And for the third time there was silence between them; only the wagon squeaked on, pushing forward slowly over the ruts of the roadway. Beyond the forest they came out onto great fields bathed in sunlight; on those fields wheat was rustling, dotted richly with red poppies and blue star thistles. There was great calm in that region. Above fields on which the grain had been reaped, here and there skylarks were soaring, lost in song, motionless; on the edges of the fields sickles glittered in the distance; from the remoter green pastures came the cries and songs of men herding cattle. And to both it seemed that the wheat was rustling because of them; that the poppies and star thistles were blooming because of them; that, the larks were singing because of them; that the calls of the herdsmen were uttered because of them; that all the sunny peace of those fields and all those voices were simply repeating their ecstasy and happiness.
They were roused from this oblivion by Father Voynovski, who had pushed up unnoticed to the wagon.
“How art thou, Yatsus?” asked he.
Yatsek trembled and looked with shining eyes at him, as if just roused from slumber.
“What is it, benefactor?”
“How art thou?”
“Eh! it will not be better in paradise!”
The priest looked seriously first at him, then at the young lady.
“Is that true?” asked he.
And he galloped off to the company. But the delightful reality embraced them anew. They began to look on each other, and sink in the eyes of each other.
“O, thou not-to-be-looked-at-sufficiently!” said Yatsek.
But she lowered her eyes, smiled at the corners of her mouth till dimples appeared in her rosy cheeks, and asked in a whisper, —
“But is not Panna Zbierhovski more beautiful?”
Yatsek looked at her with amazement.
“What, Panna Zbierhovski?”
She made no answer; she simply laughed in her fist, with a laugh as resonant as a silver bell.
Meanwhile, when the priest had galloped to the company, the men, who loved Yatsek, fell to inquiring, —
“Well, how is it there? How is our wounded man?”
“He is no longer in this world!” replied Father Voynovski.
“As God lives! What has happened? How is he not in the world?”
“He is not, for he says that he is in paradise — a woman!!!”
The Bukoyemskis, as men who understand without metaphor all that is said to them, did not cease to look at the priest with astonishment and, removing their caps, were just ready to say, “eternal rest,” when a general outbreak of laughter interrupted their pious thoughts and intention. But in that laughter of the company there was sincere good-will and sympathy for Yatsek. Some of the men had learned from Pan Stanislav how sensitive that cavalier was, and all divined how he must have suffered, hence the words of the priest delighted them greatly. Voices were heard at once, therefore: “God knows! we have seen how he fought with his feelings, how he answered questions at random, how he left buckles unfastened, how he forgot himself when eating or drinking, how he turned his eyes to the moon during night hours.”
“Those are infallible signs of unfortunate love,” added some. “It is true,” put in others, “that he is now as if in paradise, for if no wounds give more pain than those caused by Love, there is no sweeter thing than mutuality.”
These and similar remarks were made by Yatsek’s comrades. Some of them, having learned of the hardships which the lady had passed through, and how shamefully Krepetski had treated her, fell to shaking their sabres, and crying; “Give him hither!” Some became sensitive over the maiden, some, having learned how Martsian had been handled by the Bukoyemskis, raised to the skies the native valor and wit of those brothers. But after a while universal attention was centred again on the lovers: “Well,” cried out all, “let us shout to their health and good fortune et felices rerum successus!” and immediately a noisy throng moved toward the wagon on horseback. In one moment almost the whole regiment had surrounded Pan Yatsek and Panna Anulka. Loud voices thundered: “Vivant! floreant!” others cried before the time: “Crescite et multiplicamini!” Whether Panna Anulka was really frightened by those cries, or rather as an “insidious woman,” she only feigned terror father Voynovski himself could not have decided. It is enough that, sheltering her bright head at the unwounded shoulder of Yatsek, she asked with shamefaced confusion, —
“What is this, Yatsek? what are they doing?”
He surrounded her with his sound arm, and said, —
“People are giving thee, dearest flower, and I am taking thee.”
“After the war?”
“Before the war.”
“In God’s name, why so hurried?”
But it was evident that Yatsek had not heard this query for instead of replying, he said to her, —
“Let us bow to the dear comrades for this good-will, and thank them.”
Hence they bowed toward both sides, which roused still greater enthusiasm. Seeing the blushing face of the maiden, which was as beautiful as the morning dawn, the warriors struck their thighs with their palms from admiration.
“By the dear God!” cried they. “One might be dazzled!”
“An angel would be enamoured; what can a sinful man do?”
“It is no wonder that he was withering with sorrow.”
And again hundreds of voices thundered more powerfully, —
“Vivant! crescant! floreant!”
Amid those shouts, and in clouds of golden dust they entered Shydlovets. At the first moment the inhabitants were frightened, and, leaving in front of their houses the workshops in which they were cutting out whetstones from sandrock, they ran to their chambers. But, learning soon that those were the shouts of a betrothal, and not of anger, they rushed in a crowd to the street and followed the soldiers. A throng of horses and men was formed straightway. The kettledrums of the horsemen were beaten, the trumpets and crooked horns sounded. Gladness became universal. Even the Jews, who through fear had stayed longer in the houses, shouted: “Vivait!” though they knew not well what the question was.
But Tachevski said to Panna Anulka, —
“Before the war, before the war, even though death were to come one hour later.”
CHAPTER XXVI
“How is that?” inquired Father Voynovski, at the dinner which his comrades gave Yatsek. “We are going in five or six days; thou mightst die in the war; is it worth while to marry before a campaign, instead of waiting for the happy end of it, and then marrying at your leisure?”
His comrades, when they heard these prudent words, burst into laughter; some of them held their sides, others cried in a chorus,— “Oh! it is worth while, benefactor! and just for this reason that he may die is it worth while all the more.”
The priest was a little angry, but when the three hundred best men, not excepting Pan Stanislav insisted, and Yatsek would not hear of delay, it had to be as he wanted. Renewed relations with the court, and the favor of the king and queen facilitated the affair very greatly. The queen declared that the coming Pani Tachevski would be under her protection till the war ended, and the king himself promised to be at the marriage, and to think of a fitting dowry when his mind was less occupied. He remembered that many lands of the Sieninskis had passed to the Sobieskis, and how his ancestors had grown strong from them, hence he felt under obligations to the orphan, who, besides, had attracted him by her beauty, and also roused his compassion by her harsh fate, and the evils which she had suffered.
Pan Matchynski,
a friend from of old, to Father Voynovski, and also a friend of the king, promised to remind him of the young lady, but after the war; for at that time when on the shoulders of Yan III the fate of all Europe was resting, and of all Christianity, it was not permitted to trouble him with private interests. Father Voynovski was comforted with this promise as much as if Yatsek had then received a good “crown estate,” for all knew that word from Pan Matchynski was as sure of fulfilment as had been the words of Zavisha. To speak strictly, he was the author of all the good which had met Panna Sieninski in Cracow; he mentioned Father Voynovski to the king and queen; finally he won for the young lady the queen, who, though capricious in her likings, and fickle, began from the first moment to show her special favor and friendship, which seemed even almost too sudden.
A dispensation from banns was received easily through protection of the court, and the favor of the bishop of Cracow. Even earlier, Pan Serafin had obtained for the young couple handsome lodgings from a Cracow merchant, whose ancestors and those of Pan Serafin had done business in their day, when the latter were living in Lvoff, and importing brocades from the Orient. That was a beautiful lodging, and, because of the multitude of civil and military dignitaries in the city, so good a one could not be obtained by many a voevoda. Stanislav had determined that Yatsek should pass those few days before the campaign as it were in a genuine heaven, and he ornamented those lodgings unusually with fresh flowers and tapestry; other comrades helped him with zeal, each lending, the best of what he had, rugs, tapestry, carpets, and such like costly articles, which in wealthy hussar regiments were taken in campaigns even.
In one word, all showed the young couple the greatest good-will, and helped them as each one was able and with what he commanded, except the four Bukoyemskis. They, in the first days after coming to Cracow, went sometimes twice in a day to Stanislav and to Yatsek, and to merchants at the inns with whom officers from the regiment of Prince Alexander drank not infrequently, but afterward the four brothers vanished as if they had fallen into water. Father Voynovski thought that they were drinking in the suburbs, where servants had seen them one evening, and where mead and wine were cheaper than in the city, but immediately after that all report of them vanished. This angered the priest as well as the Tsyprianovitches, for the brothers were bound to Pan Serafin in gratitude; this they should not have forgotten. “They may be good soldiers,” said the priest, “but they are giddy heads in whose sedateness we cannot put confidence. Of course they have found some wild company in which they pass time more pleasantly than with any of us.”
Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz Page 578