With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕

“What times we live in!” muttered he. “Trash are drinking such mead. O Lord, thou seest this, and dost not hurl thy bolts!” Then he raised the cup and emptied it to the bottom.

Meanwhile the emboldened wedding-guests came with their whole company to beg him to do them no harm and let them pass; and among them came the bride Ksenia, timid, trembling, with tears in her eyes, blushing and beautiful as the dawn. When she drew near she joined her hands. “Be merciful, our lord!” and she kissed the yellow boot of Zagloba. The heart of the noble became soft as wax in a moment. He loosened his leather girdle, began to fumble in it, and finding the last gold sequin of those which Prince Yeremi had given him, he said to Ksenia⁠—

“Here! may God bless thee, as he does every innocence!”

Emotion did not permit further speech, for that shapely dark-browed Ksenia reminded him of the princess whom Zagloba loved in his own fashion. “Where is she now, poor girl, and are the angels of heaven guarding her?” thought he, completely overpowered, ready to embrace everyone and become a brother to all.

The wedding-guests, seeing this lordly act, began to shout from joy, to sing, and crowding up to him to kiss his clothes. “He is kind,” was repeated in the crowd. “He is a golden Pole! he gives away sequins, he does no harm, he is a kind lord. Glory to him, luck to him!” The fiddler quivered, he worked so hard; the hands of the drummers grew weary. The old cooper, evidently a coward to his innermost lining, had held himself in the rear till that moment. Now he pushed forward, together with his wife, the cooperess, and the ancient blacksmithess, the mother of the bridegroom; and now they began such a bowing to the girdle and insistent invitation to the house for the wedding, because it was a glory to have such a guest, and a happy augury for the young couple; if not, harm would come to them. After them bowed the bridegroom and the dark-browed Ksenia, who, though a simple girl, saw in a twinkle that her request was more effective than any other. The best men shouted that the farm was near, not out of the knight’s road; that the old cooper was rich, and would set out mead far better than this. Zagloba gazed at the soldiers; all were moving their mustaches as rabbits do their whiskers, foreseeing for themselves various delights in the dance and the drinks. Therefore, though they did not ask to go, Zagloba took pity on them, and after a while the groomsmen, the young women, and the soldiers were making for the farm in most perfect harmony.

In fact the farm was near, and the old cooper rich. The wedding therefore was noisy; all drank heavily, and Zagloba so let himself out that he was the first in everything. Soon strange ceremonies were begun. Old women took Ksenia to a chamber, and shutting themselves in with her, remained a long time; then they came forth and declared that the young woman was as a dove, as a lily. Thereupon joy reigned in the assembly; there rose a shout, “Glory! happiness!” The women began to clap their hands, the young fellows stamped with their feet; each one danced by himself, with a quart cup in his hand, which he emptied to “fame and happiness” before the door of the chamber. Zagloba danced also, distinguishing the importance of his birth by this only, that he drank before the door, not a quart, but half a gallon. Then the friends of the cooper and the blacksmith’s wife conducted young Dmitry to the door; but since young Dmitry had no father, they bowed down to Zagloba to take his place. Zagloba consented, and passed in with the others. During this time all became quiet in the house; but the soldiers drinking in the yard before the cottage shouted, crying “Allah!” from joy, in Tartar fashion, and fired from pistols.

The greatest rejoicing and uproar began when the parents appeared again in the main room. The old cooper embraced the blacksmith’s wife with delight, the young men came to the cooper’s wife and raised her from her feet, and the women glorified her because she had guarded her daughter as the eye in her head, kept her as a dove and a lily. Then Zagloba opened the dance with her. They began to stamp in front of each other; and he, keeping time with his hands, dropped into the prisyadka, sprang so high, and beat the floor with his metal-shod heels in such fashion that bits flew from the planks, and sweat poured from his forehead in abundance. They were followed by others⁠—those who had space dancing in the room, and those who had not in the yard⁠—the maidens with the young men and soldiers. From time to time the cooper had new kegs brought out. Finally the whole wedding-feast was transferred from the house to the yard; piles of dry thistles and pitch-pine were set on fire, for a dark night had settled down, and the rejoicing had changed to drinking with might and main. The soldiers fired from their pistols and muskets as in time of battle.

Zagloba, purple, steaming in perspiration, tottering on his feet, forgot what was happening to him, where he was; through the steam which came from his hair he saw the faces of his entertainers, but if he were to be impaled on a stake he couldn’t tell what sort of entertainers they were. He remembered that he was at a wedding, but whose wedding was it? Ha! it must be the wedding of Pan Yan and the princess. This idea seemed to him the most probable, and finally stuck in his head like a nail, and filled him with such joy that he began to shout