“Praise be to God on high!”
“It is a wonder to me,” said Anusia, at last, “that news of these miracles of the Most Holy Lady have only just reached you, for that is an old story. I was still in Zamost, and Pan Babinich had not come for me—ai! how many weeks was it before that? Then they began to beat the Swedes everywhere, in Great Poland and with us; but most of all Pan Charnyetski, before whose very name they fly.”
“Oh, Charnyetski!” cried the sword-bearer, rubbing his hands; “he will give them pepper! I heard of him even from the Ukraine, as of a great warrior.”
Anusia merely shook her dress, and exclaimed to herself with aversion, as if it were a question of the smallest matter: “Oh, it is all over with the Swedes!”
Old Pan Tomash could not restrain himself. Seizing her small hand, he buried the little thing entirely in his enormous mustaches and kissed it eagerly; at last he cried,—
“Oh, my beauty! honey flows from your mouth, as God is dear to me! It cannot be but an angel has come to Taurogi.”
Anusia began at once to twist the ends of her tresses, tied with rosy ribbons, and cutting with her eyes from under her brows, said,—
“Oh, it is far from me to the angels! But the hetmans of the kingdom have begun to beat the Swedes, and all the quarter soldiers with them, and the knights; and they have formed a confederation in Tyshovtsi. The king has joined it, and they have given out manifestoes; even the peasants are beating the Swedes, and the Most Holy Lady gives Her blessing.”
She spoke as if a bird were warbling, but from that warbling Billevich’s heart grew soft, though some of the news was already known to him. He bellowed at last like an aurochs from delight; tears, too, began to flow over the face of Olenka, silent and many.
Seeing this, Anusia, having a good heart from nature, sprang to her at once, and putting her arms around her neck, began to say quickly,—
“Do not cry; I am sorry for you, and cannot see you shed tears. Why do you weep?”
There was so much sincerity in her voice that Olenka’s distrust vanished at once; but the poor girl wept still more.
“You are so beautiful,” said Anusia, comforting her. “Why do you cry?”
“From joy,” answered Olenka, “but also from suffering; for we are here in grievous captivity, knowing neither the day nor the hour.”
“How is that? Are you not with Prince Boguslav?”
“That traitor! that heretic!” roared Billevich.
“The same has happened to me,” said Anusia; “but I do not cry for that reason. I do not deny that the prince is a traitor and a heretic; but he is a courteous cavalier, and respects our sex.”
“God grant that in hell they will respect him in the same fashion! Young lady, you know him not, for he has not attacked you as he has this maiden. He is an arch-ruffian, and that Sakovich is another. God give Sapyeha to defeat them both!”
“As to defeating, he will defeat them. Prince Boguslav is terribly sick, and he has not a great force. It is true that he advanced quickly, scattered some squadrons, and took Tykotsin and me; but it is not for him to measure with the forces of Pan Sapyeha. You may trust me, for I saw both armies. With Pan Sapyeha are the greatest cavaliers, who will be able to manage Prince Boguslav.”
“Well, do you see! have I not told you?” asked the old man, turning to Olenka.
“I know Prince Boguslav from of old,” continued Anusia, “for he is a relative of the Vishnyevetskis and Zamoyski; he came once to us at Lubni, when Prince Yeremi himself was campaigning against the Tartars in the Wilderness. He remembered that I was at home there and nearest the princess. I was such a little thing then, not as I am to-day. My God! who could think at that time that he would be a traitor? But grieve not; for either he will fail to return, or we shall escape from this place in some way.”
“We have tried that already,” said Olenka.
“And you did not succeed?”
“How could we?” asked Billevich. “We told the secret to an officer whom we thought ready to aid us; but it turned out that he was ready to hinder, not to help. Seniority over all here is with Braun,—the Devil himself could not win that man.”
Anusia dropped her eyes.
“Maybe I can. If Pan Sapyeha would only come, so that we might have some one with whom to take refuge.”
“God give him at the earliest,” answered Pan Tomash, “for among his men we have many relatives, acquaintances, and friends. Among them, too, are former officers of the great Yeremi,—Volodyovski, Skshetuski, Zagloba,—I know them.”
“But they are not with Sapyeha. Oh, if they were, especially Volodyovski, for Shshetuski is married, I should not be here, for Pan Volodyovski would not let himself be picked up as Pan Kotchyts did.”
“He is a great cavalier,” said Billevich.
“The glory of the whole Commonwealth,” added Olenka.
“Have they not fallen, since you did not see them?”
“Oh, no!” answered Anusia, “for the loss of such knights would be spoken of; but nothing was said. You do not know them, they will never yield; only a bullet will kill them, for no man can stand before Skshetuski, Zagloba, or Pan Michael. Though Pan Michael is small, I remember what Prince Yeremi said of him,—that if the fate of the whole Commonwealth depended on a battle between one man and another, he would choose Pan Michael for the battle. He was the man who conquered Bogun. Oh, no, Pan Michael will help himself always.”
Billevich, satisfied that he had some one with whom to talk, began to walk with long strides through the room, asking,—
“Well, well! Then do you know Pan Volodyovski so intimately?”
“Yes; for we lived in the same place so many years.”
“Indeed! Then certainly not without love!”
“I’m not to blame for that,” answered Anusia, taking a timid posture; “but before this time surely Pan Michael is married.”
“And he is just not married.”
“Even if he were, it is all one to me.”
“God grant you to meet! But I am troubled because you say that they are not with the hetman, for with such soldiers victory would be easier.”
“There is some one there who is worth them all.”
“Who is he?”
“Pan Babinich from Vityebsk. Have you heard of him?”
“Not a word; which is a wonder to me.”
Anusia began to relate the history of her departure from Zamost, and everything that happened on the road. Babinich grew in her narrative to such a mighty hero that the sword-bearer was at a loss to know who he was.
“I know all Lithuania,” said he. “There are houses, it is true, with similar names, such as Babonaubek, Babill, Babinovski, Babinski, and Babiski. Babinich I have not heard, and I think it must be an assumed name; for many who are in parties take such names, so that their property and relatives may not suffer from the enemy. Hm! Babinich! He is some fiery cavalier, since he was able to settle Zamoyski in that fashion.”
“Oh, how fiery!” cried Anusia.
The old man fell into good humor. “How is that?” asked he, stopping before Anusia and putting his hands on his hips.
“If I tell you, you’ll suppose God knows what”
“God preserve me, I will suppose nothing.”
“Barely had we come out of Zamost when Pan Babinich told me that some one else had occupied his heart, and though he received no rent, still he did not think of changing the tenant.”
“And do you believe that?”
“Of course I believe it,” answered Anusia, with great vivacity; “he must be in love to his ears, since after so long a time—since—since—”
“Oh, there is some ‘since he would not,’” said the old man, laughing.
“But I say that,” repeated Anusia, stamping her foot, “since— Well, we shall soon hear of him.
”
“God grant it!”
“And I will tell you why. As often as Pan Babinich mentioned Prince Boguslav, his face grew white, and his teeth squeaked like doors.”
“He will be our friend!” said the sword-bearer,
“Certainly! And we will flee to him, if he shows himself.”
“If I could escape from this place, I would have my own party, and you would see that war is no novelty to me either, and that this old hand is good for something yet.”
“Go under command of Pan Babinich.”
“You have a great wish to go under his command.”
They chatted yet for a long time in this fashion, and always more joyously; he that Olenka, forgetting her grief, became notably more cheerful, and Anusia began at last to laugh loudly at the sword-bearer. She was well rested; for at the last halting-place in Rossyeni she had slept soundly; she left them then only late in the evening.
“She is gold, not a maiden!” said Billevich, after she had gone.
“A sincere sort of heart, and I think we shall soon come to confidence,” answered Olenka.
“But you looked at her frowningly at first.”
“For I thought that she was some one sent here. Do I know anything surely? I fear every one in Taurogi.”
“She sent? Perhaps by good spirits! But she is as full of tricks as a weasel. If I were younger I don’t know to what it might come; even as it is a man is still desirous.”
Olenka was delighted, and placing her hands on her knees, she put her head on one side, mimicking Anusia, and looking askance at her uncle.
“So, dear uncle! you wish to bake an aunt for me out of that flour?”
“Oh, be quiet, be quiet!” said the sword-bearer.
But he laughed and began to twist his mustache with his whole hand; after a time he added,—
“Still she roused such a staid woman as you; I am certain that great friendship will spring up between you.”
In truth, Pan Tomash was not deceived, for in no long time a very lively friendship was formed between the maidens; and it grew more and more, perhaps just for this reason,—that the two were complete opposites. One had dignity in her spirit, depths of feeling, invincible will, and reason; the other, with a good heart and purity of thought, was a tufted lark. One, with her calm face, bright tresses, and an unspeakable repose and charm in her slender form, was like an ancient Psyche; the other, a real brunette, reminded one rather of an ignis fatuus, which in the night hours entices people into pathless places and laughs at their vexation. The officers in Taurogi, who looked at both every day, were seized with the desire to kiss Olenka’s feet, but Anusia’s lips.
Kettling, having the soul of a Scottish mountaineer, hence full of melancholy, revered and adored Olenka; but from the first glance he could not endure Anusia, who paid him in kind, making up for her losses on Braun and others, not excepting the sword-bearer of Rossyeni himself.
Olenka soon won great influence over her friend, who with perfect sincerity of heart said to Pan Tomash,—
“She can say more in two words than I in a whole day.”
But the dignified lady could not cure her vain friend of one defect, coquetry; for let Anusia only hear the rattle of spurs in the corridor, immediately she would pretend that she had forgotten something, that she wanted to see if there were tidings from Sapyeha; would rush into the corridor, fly like a whirlwind, and coming up against an officer, cry out,—
“Oh, how you frightened me!”
Then a conversation would begin, intermingled with twisting of her skirts, glancing from under her brows, and various artful looks, through the aid of which the hardest heart may be conquered.
This coquetry Olenka took ill of her, all the more that Anusia after a few days confessed to a secret love for Babinich. They discussed this among themselves more than once.
“Others beg like minstrels,” said Anusia; “but this dragon chose to look at his Tartars rather than at me, and he never spoke otherwise than in command,—’Come out, my lady! eat, my lady! drink, my lady!’ And if he had been rude at the same time, but he was not; if he had not been painstaking, but he was! In Krasnystav I said to myself, ‘Do not look at me—wait!’ And in Lanchna I was so overcome that it was terrible. I tell you that when I looked into his blue eyes, and when he laughed, gladness seized me, such a prisoner was I.”
Olenka dropped her head, for blue eyes came to her memory too; and that one spoke in the same way, and he had command ever on his lips, activity ever in his face, but neither conscience nor the fear of God.
Anusia, following her own thoughts, continued,—
“When he flew over the field on his horse, with his baton, I thought, That is an eagle or some hetman. The Tartars feared him more than fire. When he came, there had to be obedience; and when there was a battle, fires were striking him from desire of blood. I saw many worthy cavaliers in Lubni, but one such that fear seized me in his presence I have never seen.”
“If the Lord God has predestined him to you, you will get him; but that he did not love you, I cannot believe.”
“As to love, he loves me a little, but the other more. He told me himself more than once, ‘It is lucky that I am not able to forget or cease loving, for it would be better to confide a kid to a wolf than such a maiden as you are to me.”
“What did you say to that?”
“I said, ‘How do you know that I would return your love?’ And he answered, ‘I should not have asked you.’ Now, what are you to do with such a man? That other woman is foolish not to love him, and she must have callousness in her heart. I asked what her name is, but he would not tell me. ‘Better,’ said he, ‘not to touch that, for it is a sore; and another sore,’ said he, ‘is the Radzivills,—the traitors!’ And then he made such a terrible face that I would have hidden in a mouse-hole. I simply feared him. But what is the use in talking? He is not for me!”
“Ask Saint Michael for him; I know from Aunt Kulvyets that he is the best aid in such cases. Only be careful not to offend the saint by duping more men.”
“I never will, except so much,—the least little bit.”
Here Anusia showed on her finger how much; and she indicated at most about half the length of the nail, so as not to anger Saint Michael.
“I do not act so from waywardness,” explained she to Billevich, who also had begun to take her frivolity to heart; “but I must, for if these officers do not help us we shall never escape.”
“Braun will not let us out.”
“Braun is overcome!” replied Anusia, with a thin voice, dropping her eyes.
“But Fitz-Gregory?”
“He is overcome too!” with a voice still thinner.
“And Ottenhagen?”
“Overcome!”
“And Von Irhen?”
“Overcome!”
“May the forest surround you! I see that Kettling is the only man whom you could not manage.”
“I cannot endure him! But some one else will manage him. Besides, we can go without his permission.”
“And you think that when we wish to flee they will not hinder?”
“They will go with us!” said Anusia, stretching her neck and blinking.
“For God’s sake! then why do we stay here? I should like to be far away this day.”
But from the consultation which followed at once, it appeared needful to await the decision of Boguslav’s fate and Pan Sapyeha’s arrival in the neighborhood of Jmud. Otherwise they would be threatened by terrible destruction from even their own people. The society of foreign officers not only would not be a defence, but would add to their danger; for the peasants were so terribly envenomed against foreigners that they murdered without mercy every one who did not wear a Polish dress. Even Polish dignitaries wearing foreign costume, not to speak of Austrian and French diplomats, could not travel sa
ve under the protection of powerful bodies of troops.
“You will believe me, for I have passed through the whole country,” said Anusia. “In the first village, in the first forest, ravagers would kill us without asking who we are. It is impossible to flee except to an army.”
“But I shall have my own party.”
“Before you could collect it, before you could reach a village where you are known, you would lose your life. News from Prince Boguslav must come soon. I have ordered Braun to inform me at once.”
The Deluge- Volume 2 Page 69