The Deluge- Volume 2

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  Here the sword-bearer was so delighted with his own cunning and courtesy, and he muttered so expressively at Olenka, that she was alarmed lest the prince should notice those signs.

  And he did notice them. “They do not believe me,” thought he. And though he showed no wrath on his face, Billevich had pricked him to the soul. He was convinced with perfect sincerity that it was an offence not to believe, a Radzivill, even when he saw fit to lie.

  “Patterson has told me,” continued he, after a while, “that you wish to give me ready money for my paper. I agree to this willingly; for I acknowledge that ready money is useful to me at the moment. When peace comes, you can do as you like,—either take a certain sum, or I will give you a couple of villages as security, so that the transaction will be profitable for you.—Pardon,” said the prince, turning to Olenka, “that in view of such material questions we are not speaking of sighs or ideals. This conversation is out of place; but the times are such that it is impossible to give their proper course to homage and admiration.”

  Olenka dropped her eyes, and seizing her robe with the tips of her fingers, made a proper courtesy, not wishing to give an answer. Meanwhile the sword-bearer formed in his mind a project of unheard-of unfitness, but which he considered uncommonly clever.

  “I will flee with Olenka and will not give the money,” thought he.

  “It will be agreeable to me to accommodate your highness. Patterson has not told of all, for there is about half a pot of gold ducats buried apart, so as not to lose all the money in case of accident. Besides, there are barrels belonging to other Billeviches; but these during my absence were buried under the direction of this young lady, and she alone is able to calculate the place, for the man who buried them is dead.”

  Boguslav looked at him quickly. “How is that? Patterson said that you have already sent men; and since they have gone, they must know where the money is.”

  “But of the other money no one knows, except her.”

  “Still it must be buried in some definite place, which can be described easily in words or indicated on paper.”

  “Words are wind; and as to pictures, the servants know nothing of them. We will both go; that is the thing.”

  “For God’s sake! you must know your own gardens. Therefore go alone. Why should Panna Aleksandra go?”

  “I will not go alone!” said Billevich, with decision.

  Boguslav looked at him inquiringly a second time; then he seated himself more comfortably, and began to strike his boots with a cane which he held in his hand.

  “Is that final?” asked he. “Well! In such an event I will give a couple of regiments of cavalry to take you there and bring you back.”

  “We need no regiments. We will go and return ourselves. This is our country. Nothing threatens us here.”

  “As a host, sensitive to the good of his guests, I cannot permit that Panna Aleksandra should go without armed force. Choose, then. Either go alone, or let both go with an escort.”

  Billevich saw that he had fallen into his own trap; and that brought him to such anger that, forgetting all precautions, he cried,—

  “Then let your highness choose. Either we shall both go unattended, or I will not give the money!”

  Panna Aleksandra looked on him imploringly; but he had already grown red and begun to pant. Still, he was a man cautious by nature, even timid, loving to settle every affair in good feeling; but when once the measure was exceeded in dealing with him, when he was too much excited against any one, or when it was a question of the Billevich honor, he hurled himself with a species of desperate daring at the eyes of even the most powerful enemy. So that now he put his hand to his left side, and shaking his sabre began to cry with all his might,—

  “Is this captivity? Do they wish to oppress a free citizen, and trample on cardinal rights?”

  Boguslav, with shoulders leaning against the arms of the chair, looked at him attentively; but his look became colder each moment, and he struck the cane against his boots more and more quickly. Had the sword-bearer known the prince better, he would have known that he was bringing down terrible danger on his own head.

  Relations with Boguslav were simply dreadful. It was never known when the courteous cavalier, the diplomat accustomed to self-control, would be overborne by the wild and unrestrained magnate who trampled every resistance with the cruelty of an Eastern despot. A brilliant education and refinement, acquired at the first courts of Europe; reflection and studied elegance, which he had gained in intercourse with men,—were like wonderful and strong flowers under which was secreted a tiger.

  But the sword-bearer did not know this, and in his angry blindness shouted on,—

  “Your highness, dissemble no further, for you are known! And have a care, for neither the King of Sweden nor the elector, both of whom you are serving against your own country, nor your princely position, will save you before the law; and the sabres of nobles will teach you manners, young man!”

  Boguslav rose; in one instant he crushed the cane in his iron hands, and throwing the pieces at the feet of the sword-bearer, said with a terrible, suppressed voice,—

  “That is what your rights are for me! That your tribunals! That your privileges!”

  “Outrageous violence!” cried Billevich.

  “Silence, paltry noble!” cried the prince. “I will crush you into dust!” And he advanced to seize the astonished man and hurl him against the wall.

  Now Panna Aleksandra stood between them. “What do you think to do?” inquired she.

  The prince restrained himself. But she stood with nostrils distended, with flaming face, with fire in her eyes like an angry Minerva. Her breast heaved under her bodice like a wave of the sea, and she was marvellous in that anger, so that Boguslav was lost in gazing at her; all his desires crept into his face, like serpents from the dens of his soul.

  After a time his anger passed, presence of mind returned; he looked awhile yet at Olenka. At last his face grew mild; he bent his head toward his breast, and said,—

  “Pardon, angelic lady! I have a soul full of gnawing and pain, therefore I do not command myself.” Then he left the room.

  Olenka began to wring her hands; and Billevich, coming to himself, seized his forelock, and cried,—

  “I have spoiled everything; I am the cause of your ruin!”

  The prince did not show himself the whole day. He even dined in his own room with Sakovich. Stirred to the bottom of his soul, he could not think so clearly as usual. Some kind of ague was wasting him. It was the herald of a grievous fever which was to seize him soon with such force that during its attacks he was benumbed altogether, so that his attendants had to rub him most actively. But at this time he ascribed his strange state to the power of love, and thought that he must either satisfy it or die. When he had told Sakovich the whole conversation with the sword-bearer, he said,—

  “My hands and feet are burning, ants are walking along my back, in my mouth are bitterness and fire; but, by all the horned devils, what is this? Never has this attacked me before!”

  “Your highness is as full of scruples as a baked capon of buckwheat grits. The prince is a capon, the prince is a capon. Ha, ha!”

  “You are a fool!”

  “Very well.”

  “I don’t need your ideas.”

  “Worthy prince, take a lute and go under the windows of the maiden. Billevich may show you his fist. Tfu! to the deuce! is that the kind of bold man that Boguslav Radzivill is?”

  “You are an idiot!”

  “Very well. I see that your highness is beginning to speak with yourself and tell the truth to your own face. Boldly, boldly! Pay no heed to rank.”

  “You see, Sakovich, that my Castor is growing familiar with me; as it is, I kick him often in the ribs, but a greater accident may meet you.”

  Sakovich sprang up as if red with
anger, like Billevich a little while before; and since he had an uncommon gift of mimicry, he began to cry in a voice so much like that of Billevich that any one not seeing who was talking, might have been deceived.

  “What! is this captivity? Do they wish to oppress a free citizen, to trample on cardinal rights?”

  “Give us peace! give us peace!” said the prince, fretfully. “She defended that old fool with her person, but here there is one to defend you.”

  “If she defended him, she should have been taken in pawn!”

  “There must be some witchcraft in this place! Either she must have given me something, or the constellations are such that I am simply leaving my mind. If you could have seen her when she was defending that mangy old uncle of hers! But you are a fool! It is growing cloudy in my head. See how my hands are burning! To love such a woman, to gain her—with such a woman to—”

  “To have posterity!” added Sakovich.

  “That’s so, that’s so!—as if you knew that must be; otherwise I shall burst as a bomb. For God’s sake! what is happening to me? Must I marry, or what, by all the devils of earth and hell?”

  Sakovich grew serious. “Your princely highness, you must not think of that!”

  “I am thinking of just that, precisely because I wish it. I will do that, though a regiment of Sakoviches repeated a whole day to me, ‘Your princely highness must not think of that!’”

  “Oh, I see this is no joke.”

  “I am sick, enchanted.”

  “Why do you not follow my advice at last?”

  “I must follow it,—may the plague take all the dreams, all the Billeviches, all Lithuania with the tribunals, and Yan Kazimir to boot! I shall not succeed otherwise; I see that I shall not! I have had enough of this, have I not? A great question! And I, the fool, was considering both sides hitherto; was afraid of dreams, of Billeviches, of lawsuits, of the rabble of nobles, the fortune of Yan Kazimir. Tell me that I am a fool! Do you hear? I command you to tell me that I am a fool!”

  “But I will not obey, for now you are really Radzivill, and not a Calvinist minister. But in truth you must be ill, for I have never seen you so changed.”

  “True! In the most difficult positions I merely waved my hand and whistled, but now I feel as if some one were thrusting spurs into my sides.”

  “This is strange, for if that maiden has given you something designedly, she has not done so to run away afterward; but still, from what you say, it seems that they wish to flee in secret.”

  “Ryff told me that this is the influence of Saturn, on which burning exhalations rise during this particular month.”

  “Worthy prince, rather take Jove as a model, for he was happy without marriage. All will be well; only do not think of marriage, unless of a counterfeit one.”

  All at once the starosta of Oshmiana struck his forehead.

  “But wait, your highness! I have heard of such a case in Prussia.”

  “Is the Devil whispering something into your ear? Tell me!”

  But Sakovich was silent for a long time; at last his face brightened, and he said,—

  “Thank the fortune that gave you Sakovich as friend.”

  “What news, what news?”

  “Nothing. I will be your highness’s best man” (here Sakovich bowed),—"no small honor for such a poor fellow!”

  “Don’t play the jester; speak quickly!”

  “There is in Tyltsa one Plaska, or something like that, who in his time was a priest in Nyevorani, but who falling away from the faith became a Lutheran, got married, took refuge under the elector, and now is dealing in dried fish with people of this region. Bishop Parchevski tried to lure him back to Jmud, where in good certainty there was a fire waiting for him; but the elector would not yield up a fellow-believer.”

  “How does that concern me? Do not loiter.”

  “How does that concern your highness? In this way it must concern you; for he will sew you and her together with stitches on the outside, you understand? And because he is a fool of a workman, and does not belong to the guild, it will be easy to rip the work after him. Do you see? The guild does not recognize this sewing as valid; but still there will be no violence, no outcry; you can twist the neck of the workman afterward, and you will complain that you were deceived, do you understand? But before that time crescite et multiplicamini. I’ll be the first to give you my blessing.”

  “I understand, and I don’t understand,” said the prince. “The devil I understand there perfectly. Sakovich, you must have been born, like a witch, with teeth in your mouth. The hangman is waiting for you; it cannot be otherwise, O Starosta! But while I live a hair will not fall from your head; a fitting reward will not miss you. I then—”

  “Your highness will make a formal proposal to Panna Billevich, to her and to her uncle. If they refuse, if they do not consent, then give command to tear the skin from me, make sandal strings out of it, and go on a pilgrimage of penance to—to Rome. It is possible to resist a Radzivill if he wishes simply to be a lover; but if he wishes to marry, he need not try to please any noble. You must only tell Billevich and the lady that out of regard for the elector and the King of Sweden, who want you to marry the Princess of Bipont, your marriage must remain secret till peace is declared. Besides, you will write the marriage contract as you like. Both churches will be forced to declare it invalid. Well, what do you think?”

  Boguslav was silent for a while, but on his face red fever-spots appeared under the paint; then he cried,—

  “There is no time in three days. I must move against Sapyeha.”

  “That is just the position! Were there more time, it would be impossible to justify the pretext. Is not this true? Only through lack of time can you explain that the first priest at hand officiates, as happens in sudden emergencies, and marries on a bolting-cloth. They will think too, ‘It is sudden, for it must be sudden!’ She is a knightly maiden; you can take her with you to the field. Dear bridegroom, if Sapyeha conquers, even then you will have half the victories of the campaign.”

  “That is well, that is well!” said the prince.

  But at that moment the first paroxysm seized him so that his jaws closed and he could not say another word. He grew rigid, and then began to quiver and flounder like a fish out of water. But before the terrified Sakovich could bring the physician, the paroxysm had passed.

  CHAPTER XLIII.

  After his conversation with Sakovich, Prince Boguslav betook himself on the afternoon of the morrow directly to Billevich.

  “My benefactor,” said he, to begin with, “I was grievously to blame the last time we met, for I fell into anger in my own house. It is my fault, and all the more so that I gave this affront to a man of a family friendly to the Radzivills. But I come to implore forgiveness. Let a sincere confession be satisfaction to you, and my atonement. You know the Radzivills of old; you know that we are not in haste to beg pardon; still, since I was to blame before age and dignity, I come without considering who I am, with a penitent head. And you, old friend of our house, will not refuse me your hand, I am certain.”

  Then he extended his hand; and Billevich, in whose soul the first outburst had passed, did not dare to refuse his own, though he gave it with hesitation.

  “Your highness, return to us our freedom; that will be the best satisfaction.”

  “You are free, and may go, even to-day.”

  “I thank your highness,” said the astonished Billevich.

  “I interpose only one condition, which you, God grant, will not reject.”

  “What is that?” asked Billevich, with fear.

  “That you listen patiently to what I am going to say.”

  “If that is all, I will listen even till evening.”

  “Do not give me your answer at once, but think an hour or two.”

  “God sees that if I receive my freedom I w
ish peace.”

  “You will receive your freedom; but I do not know whether you will use it, or whether you will be urgent to leave my threshold. I should be glad were you to consider my house and all Taurogi as your own; but listen to me now. Do you know, my benefactor, why I was opposed to the departure of Panna Billevich? This is why,—because I divined that you wished to flee simply; and I have fallen in love with your niece, so that to see her I should be ready to swim a Hellespont each day, like Leander.”

  Billevich grew red again in a moment. “Does your highness dare to say that to me?”

  “To you especially, my benefactor.”