Complete Works of Henryk Sienkiewicz

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

“I am the cause of all this!” repeated she, sobbing; “I am the cause.”

  “Hania, my dear sister, do not weep; I will love thee always!” and I seized her hands to raise them to my lips as before. Suddenly I shivered and drew back my lips. Those hands, once so white, delicate, and beautiful, were dreadful. They were covered with black spots, and were rough, almost repulsive.

  “I will always love thee!” repeated I, with an effort.

  I lied. I had immense compassion in my heart, and the tearful love of a brother; but the old feeling had flown away, as a bird flies, without leaving a trace.

  I went to the garden; and in that same hop arbor where the first confession had taken place between Selim and Hania, I cried, as after the death of some dear one. In truth, the former Hania had died for me, or rather, my love had died; and in my heart there remained merely emptiness and pain, as if from an incurable wound, and a memory that presses tears from the eyes.

  I sat long and long. The quiet autumn evening began to flush in the twilight on the tree-tops. They looked for me in the house; at last my father entered the hop arbor. He looked at me and respected my sorrow.

  “Poor boy!” said he, “God has visited thee grievously; trust in Him. He knows always what He does.”

  I rested my head on my father’s breast, and for some time we were both silent.

  “Thou wert greatly attached to her,” said my father, after a while. “So tell me, if I were to say to thee, Give her thy hand for a lifetime, what wouldst thou answer?”

  “Father,” replied I, “love may fly from me, but honor never. I am ready.”

  My father kissed me heartily, and said, —

  “May God bless thee! I recognize thee, but it is not thy duty, not thy obligation; it is Selim’s.”

  “Will he come here?”

  “He will come with his father. His father knows everything now.”

  In fact, Selim came about dusk. When he saw Hania, he grew red, and then as pale as linen. For a while a great struggle between his heart and his conscience was evident on his face. It was clear that from him too that winged bird, whose name is love, had flown.

  But the noble youth conquered himself. He rose, stretched out his arms, fell on his knees before Hania, and cried, —

  “My Hania! I am always the same; I will never desert thee, — never, never!”

  Abundant tears were flowing down Hania’s face; but she pushed Selim away gently.

  “I do not believe, I do not believe that it is possible to love me now,” said she; then covering her face with her hands, she cried, —

  “Oh, how kind and noble you all are! I alone am less noble, more sinful; but now all is ended. I am another person.”

  And in spite of the insistence of the old Mirza, in spite of Selim’s prayers, she refused her hand.

  The first storm of life had broken that beautiful flower when it had barely opened. Poor girl! She needed now after the tempest some holy and peaceful harbor, where she could pacify her conscience, and bring her heart to rest.

  She found that quiet and holy harbor. She became a Sister of Charity.

  Later on, new events and one terrible storm caused me for a long time to lose sight of her. But after a number of years I saw her unexpectedly. Peace and calm were depicted on those angelic features; all traces of the terrible disease had disappeared. In the black robe and white head-dress of the cloister she was beautiful as never before; but it was a beauty not of earth, beauty more angelic than human.

  TARTAR CAPTIVITY.

  FRAGMENTS FROM THE CHRONICLE OF A NOBLE, ALEXIS ZDANOBARSKI.

  CHAPTER I.

  MY attendant, riding in advance, or following, thrummed on his teorban, while sorrow and longing for Marysia pressed my heart; and the farther I went the more ardently I loved her. Then came to my mind the words, post equitem sedet atra cura (behind the horseman sits dark care). But if in the great decrease of my fortune I had spoken with his serene great mightiness, Pan Tvoryanski, I dared not mention my feelings. Nothing was left me but to win a fortune with my sword, and when I had adorned myself with military glory to stand before him. Neither God nor my Marysia could take it ill of me that I did not make the confession to Pan Tvoryanski. If Marysia had commanded me to spring into fire, or into water, or simply to shed my blood, Thou, O Jesus Christ, who lookest into my heart, seest that I would have done so. There was one thing, however, which I could not sacrifice, even for my charming maiden, and that was the honor of a noble. My fortune was nothing; but the dignity of blood is great, and from my ancestors I had received a command, sacred as a last will, to remember ever that my life was my own, that I might expose it to peril, but integra rodu 4 dignitas was an inheritance from my ancestors, which I was bound to hand down as I had received it, that is, integram. O God, grant eternal rest to my ancestors, and may eternal light shine on them for the ages of ages! Even had his serene great mightiness, Tvoryanski, consented to give me his daughter, I had no place to which I might conduct her. If, considering the scantiness of my fortune, he, in his pride, had called me a pauper, or simply a homespun, I, knowing the excellence of my family, should have been insulted and forced to take revenge on him, which may God not permit, since he is the father of my Marysia.

  Nothing remained but to go to the frontier. Of trappings, girdles, and what was best after my ancestors, some I pawned, others I sold and received three hundred weighty ducats, which I gave to Tvoryanski on interest; then, taking farewell of Marysia with tears and deep sighing, I prepared for the road during the night, and next morning I and my attendant turned our horses’ heads eastward.

  The journey was through Zaslav and Bar to Haysynie. Stopping now at a castle, now at a mansion, now at an inn, we came at last to Uman, beyond which the steppe was open before us, level, rich, silent. My attendant, riding in advance, played on the teorban and sang songs. He seemed as if flying before me, the bird, as it were, which I was pursuing, namely, glory; and behind me followed another bird; this was grief. We were going to the stanitsa called Mohylna, where in his day my serene, great, mighty father stood on guard as colonel of an armored squadron which he at his own cost had mounted for war with the Bisurmans. 5

  It was very far to Mohylna, for, praise be to God, the Commonwealth has spread itself over the earth widely; and, besides, we had to travel through steppes, on which Tartars and various other ruffians were prowling night and day; a man had to guard his life carefully.

  Along the road I marvelled at everything. Since that was my first time in the Ukraine, I saw the strangest deeds and strangest things. That country is warlike; there the common man too is more resolute and daring than with us, and in peasants there is courage of which a noble would not be ashamed. When you pass through a settlement, though people know you to be a man of birth, they hardly raise a cap, and look you straight in the eyes. In every cottage there is a sabre and a musket, and more than one peasant has a hatchet-headed staff in his hand, like a noble in another place. There is a daring nature in these people. They even make small account of commissioners of the Commonwealth; for this the sabre has punished them already, and will punish them more in the future. The vicinity of pagans, and continual readiness for warfare, has developed their courage. They cultivate the earth not too willingly; and if any one wins profit from tillage, he prefers to settle on his own fields rather than on those of a master. On the other hand, they join escorts of nobles, or light squadrons of the Commonwealth readily, and are excellent warriors, especially in scouting and skirmishing, though in battle non cunctant (they are not slow). They raise shouts, and go at the enemy as if they were smoke, cutting and thrusting. Each of their settlements is more like a tabor than a village; they keep multitudes of horses, which feed winter and summer in the steppes, and are as swift as those of the Tartars. Many of these people betake themselves also to the islands of the Dnieper, and there at the Saitch lead a life in the fashion of monks, but military and quite robber-like. From these uncontrolled actions our dear country has suffe
red much, and will suffer much more in the future, till it tames them. It would be difficult for a noble, or even a great lord, to keep them in one place; for time after time they break away to empty steppes, of which in those regions there are many; they settle in the steppes and live at their own will. In form of body, and in manners, they are different from our peasants; they are tall and strong, dark in complexion, more like Tartars; their mustaches are black, as with the Wallachians; they shave their heads after the fashion of pagans, leaving on the very crown only a tuft, thick and long.

  Seeing and considering all this, I wondered greatly at that land and at everything in it; and as I have called it warlike, I repeat now, that a country more suited to an armed and mounted people it would be vain to seek throughout the whole earth. When some of these people are killed, others ride in from all sides and along every road, just as if flocks of birds were flying in; and throughout that wild steppe it is easier to hear the sound of muskets, the clatter of sabres, the neighing of horses, the fluttering of flags in the wind, and the shouts of warriors, than the lark in a meadow.

  Old minstrels, greatly honored by every one, go about there as in Podolia and Volynia. These, being blind, play on lyres and sing knightly songs; these minstrels cause courage and love of glory to flourish greatly. Warriors in those regions, seeing that they live to-day and to-morrow decay, esteem their own lives as a broken copper, and spend their blood as a magnate spends gold, caring more for a beautiful death than for life and earthly goods. Others love war above everything, and though often of high birth, they become almost wild in continual fighting, and go to battle as if to a wedding, with great rejoicing and songs. In time of peace they are terribly grieved at not finding an outlet for warlike humors, hence they are dangerous to public peace. These men are called “the desperate.” When a warrior is killed, all count that an ordinary occurrence, and even his nearest friends do not mourn overmuch for him, saying that it beseems a man more to die in the steppe, than in bed, like a woman.

  Indeed, in that land is the best school and practice of knighthood. When a young regiment has passed one year or two in a stanitsa, it becomes as keen as a Turkish sabre, so that neither German cavalry nor Turkish janissaries can stand before its fury when they are equal in numbers; and what must it be for other inferior soldiers, as, for example, the Wallachians, or any kind of hireling? It is easy to quarrel in the steppe; and this should be avoided, for the whole country is swarming with armed men.

  Advancing with my attendant, I met household troops of the Pototskis, the Vishnyevetskis, the Kisiels, the Zbaraskis, in various uniforms, black, red, and many-colored, now quota troops of the Commonwealth, now squadrons of the king. The horses of these warriors advanced to their bellies in grass, and snorted as if swimming in water; captains managed the squadrons, as shepherd dogs tend their flocks; the Cossacks beat kettle-drums, blew their horn trumpets and fifes, or sang songs, making so tremendous an uproar that when they had passed and disappeared the wind brought back a sound, as it were, of some distant storm. At intervals moved also the wagons of bullock-drivers, which squeaked shrilly; from this squeaking our horses were frightened. Some of those bullock-drivers were bringing salt from the Liman at the Euxine; others were returning from among foul pagans at the Palus Maeotis, or from Moscow; others were taking Moldavian wine to the Saitch; and the wagons moved one after another in the order of storks, forming lines a mile long on the steppe.

  We met also herds of oxen, all of one color, gray, with great curving horns. Crowding together, they moved so closely as to form a solid mass, their horned foreheads swaying from side to side.

  Beyond the stanitsa Kiselova, one company of an important hussar regiment met us. The men were in full equipment, and a sound went from their wings, as from those of eagles. My attendant and I could not take our eyes from them, though it was difficult to look at the men, for the eye was struck by a terrible glare of sunlight reflected from their weapons; the gleams from their lance-points raised upward were like flames of burning candles suspended in the air. But the hearts rose in us, for those hussars seemed more like a company of kings than common warriors, such was the auctoritas (authority) in them, and the majesty of battle.

  Beyond the stanitsa the country was wilder. Often in the steppe we saw at night fires of Cossack couriers sent to various stanitsas, or even of peasants who were fleeing to the steppe. We did not approach these, since we made our own fires.

  At times strangers came to us, either hungry men, or men gone astray in the steppe; and once came a wonderful person with a face all grown over with hair, like a wolf’s face. My attendant began to cry out with fear when he saw him; and I, thinking that I had to do with a werewolf (wolf man), was reaching for my sabre to slash him. When that monster did not howl, but praised God, I would not touch him. The unknown said that he was a Tartar by descent, but a Catholic. I wondered at that, for the Tartars in Lithuania adhere to the Koran. But this man changed his faith for his wife, and, serving later as a flag-bearer in his regiment, was sent by the Lithuanian hetmans with a letter to the horde, because he knew Tartar. Still it was hateful to my man to sleep at one fire with him. More frequently we spent the night sleeping in turns, or not sleeping at all, so as to keep watch of our horses. More than once I stretched on the grass and looked at the twinkling stars of the sky, thinking in my soul that the one which looked on me most lovingly was Marysia. In my grief I had the consolation of knowing that that little star would never shine for another, but would keep faith with me, since it had a heart that was honest, and a soul as pure as a tear dropped in prayer before God.

  At times Marysia came to me in sleep, just as if living; and one night when she came she promised to pray for me and to fly after me through the air, like a swallow, and if she grew weary she would rest on my head, and twitter to heaven to obtain for me glory and happiness. Then she vanished like mist; and when I woke I thought that an angel had been near me, and what astonished me also was this, that the horses pricking their ears snorted loudly, as if they had felt some one near them. Considering such apparitions as a mark of God’s favor and encouragement in my toil, I vowed to the most Holy Mary and to Saint Alexis, my patron, never to stain myself with mortal sin, so as to retain their favor in the future also. That night I prayed till daylight, or till the time of starting. Generally we were moving on the road before sunrise, which in those regions is altogether more beautiful than with us; for when the first rays shoot along the plain covered with dew from the night cold, the whole steppe, because of the myriads of flowers, looks like brocade interwoven with pearls. From this comes joy to all creatures. Partridges, quails, ptarmigans, and other birds of the steppe, shooting along through the grass, dash those pearls down to the earth.

  There are countless myriads of birds in that region. We met every day cunning bustards and slender storks. These last stand on the ground, stretching upward their long necks, like spears, and keep guard in order around the grave mounds; but when they fly through the air, with tremendous outcry, they rise to such heights that the eye cannot follow them. Bullock-drivers respect these birds greatly; for by the order of their flying they bring the holy cross to one’s mind. Warriors too, counting them with their sabres, predict fortune from their number; but, according to my reason, this has nothing to do with reality, for whatever the Lord God in His mercy intends for a man, He will give anyhow. Of other birds there are ravens, crows, hawks, and eagles. These creatures at twilight make a great uproar, now sitting in a circle on some mound, now breaking out without cause in a rattling and croaking so immense and complaining that there is need to shut one’s ears.

  The evening twilights are far redder than with us. The reason of this is that pagans shed much Christian blood there; this blood goes to heaven and is red, crying for vengeance. Grave mounds here cover the whole country, as far as the eye can reach, and in them are lying knights waiting for the day of Judgment. Some say that these knights are only sleeping, and will wake when the campaign shall be he
ralded of all Christian kings against the pagan. I know not if this be true; but I think that it may happen, for everything is in the power of God.

  This is a land of warlike people, a land which Poles, Cossacks, and Tartars, in continual warfare, have trampled with hoofs of horses, one chasing another in arms. And so whole generations are like those figures which appear and disappear in a holiday puppet-show. Many good nobles come here also to live. They bring peasants from the Crown, or, finding them in the place, begin settlements; for though one must lead a life in continual fear of war, the Lord God has given such courage to our people that dangers, instead of frightening them, are rather an enticement. In fact, when a noble youth comes to years, it is difficult to keep him at home, or on the school bench, for he is tearing away, like a falcon, to fly to the border. Many a one loses his life there; but some poor boy comes out a lord, as have many whose children live now in their castles, keep escorts, and enjoy senatorial dignity in the Commonwealth.

  It is in accordance with God’s thought for a knightly man to become a lord from war and from land, and by settling the steppe to give growth to the Commonwealth. From the Masovians, who are great people to multiply, and who increase like bees in a hive, are descended most of those colonists. They cultivate the steppe with ploughs, and become agriculturists readily; but in time of war they go in a body, one after another, all willing to die.

  Thinking over these matters, I rejoiced greatly; for I understood that either I should lie down in battle, — for which a noble, a Christian warrior should always be ready, — and receive a heavenly crown, or, giving notable service to my country, restore to its former splendor my family, and delight my ancestors in paradise. They, too, came to fortune; not by lawsuits at courts, or by uproars at diets, but by blood, the foundation of life; and what they received they received from the Commonwealth, and they did not spare it on behalf of the Commonwealth. Thus my serene, great, mighty grandfather and my father, each of them, fitted out a regiment for war against the Bisurman. May God grant them light eternal in heaven, for it is proper that a fortune which came with the sabre should be spent on the sabre. As to me, though my heart aches for Marysia, and the wind whistles through my purse, I am the heir of a glorious name and great, noble ambition, owing to which I hear at night, as it were, trumpets and voices of some kind, which call to me, “Preserve thy name unspotted; be equal to thy fathers; yield not to evil!” Thou, O God, so bless me, that I shall preserve my name, and be equal to my fathers! I will break before I bend.