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

Are the distant relatives, male and female, of every magnate among the nobles few in number? These relatives he gives in marriage to his most important men. Very likely Sufchinski of Senchy married some distant relative of the Vishnyevetskis. Though some of us serve, we are all brothers, Pan Michael⁠—all brothers, since we are all descended in common from Japhet, and the whole difference is in fortune and offices to which each may arrive. There are likely enough in some other countries considerable differences between nobles, but they are mangy nobles. I understand differences between dogs; there are, for instance, pointers, and there are hounds of various kinds. But consider, Pan Michael, it cannot be so among nobles; for then we should be dog-brothers, not nobles⁠—which disgrace to such an honorable order Thou wilt not permit, O Lord!”

“You speak truly,” said Volodyovski; “but then the Vishnyevetskis are kingly stock, almost.”

“Ah, Pan Michael, just as if you are not eligible to the throne! I, first of all, would vote for you, if I should make up my mind like Pan Sigismond Skarshevski, who swears that he will vote for himself unless he is ruined at dice. Everything, thank God, with us is obtained by free vote; our poverty, not our birth, stands in the way.”

“That’s the case precisely,” sighed Pan Michael.

“What’s to be done? We are plundered to the last, and we shall be lost if the Commonwealth doesn’t provide some income for us,” said Zagloba, “and we shall perish miserably. What wonder is it if a man, though by nature abstemious, should like to get drunk under such oppressions? Let us go, Pan Michael, and drink a glass of small beer; we shall comfort ourselves even a little.”

Thus conversing, they reached the old town and entered a wine-shop, before which a number of attendants were holding the shubas and burkas of nobles who were drinking inside. Having seated themselves before a table, they ordered a decanter and began to take counsel as to what they should do now, after the killing of Bogun.

“If Hmelnitski should leave Zamost and peace follow, then the princess is ours,” said Zagloba.

“We must go to Skshetuski at once, and not let him off till he finds the girl.”

“True, we will go at once; but now there is no way of getting to Zamost.”

“That’s all the same, if only God will favor us later.”

Zagloba raised his glass. “He will, he will,” said he. “Do you know, Pan Michael, what I’ll tell you?”

“What is it?”

“Bogun is killed.”

Volodyovski looked at him with astonishment. “Yes; who should know that better than I?”

“May your hands be holy! you know and I know. I saw how you fought; you are now before my eyes, and still I must repeat it to myself continually, for at times it seems as though I had only some kind of a dream. What a care has been removed! what a knot your sabre cut! May the bullets strike you! for God knows, this is too great to be told. No, I cannot restrain myself; let me press you once again, Pan Michael. If you will believe, when I made your acquaintance I thought to myself: ‘There is a little whippersnapper.’ A nice whippersnapper, to slash Bogun in this fashion! Bogun is gone; no trace, no ashes of him⁠—slain to death for the ages of ages; amen!”

Here Zagloba began to hug and kiss Volodyovski, and Pan Michael was moved to tears as if sorry for Bogun. At last, however, he freed himself from Zagloba’s embraces and said: “We were not present at his death, and he is hard to kill. Suppose he recovers?”

“Oh, in God’s name, what are you talking about?” said Zagloba. “I should be ready to go tomorrow to Lipki and arrange the nicest funeral for him, just after his death.”

“Why should you go? You wouldn’t finish a wounded man. After the sabre, whoever does not yield his breath at once is likely to pull through. A sabre is not a bullet.”

“He cannot recover. He was already in the death-agony when we left. No chance of recovery! I examined his wounds myself. Let him rest, for you cut him open like a hare. We must go to Skshetuski at once and comfort him, or he may die of gnawing grief.”

“Or he will become a monk; he told me so himself.”

“What wonder? I should do the same in his place. I do not know a more honorable knight, and a more unhappy one I do not know. The Lord visits him grievously.”

“Leave off,” said Volodyovski, a little drunk, “for I am not able to stop my tears.”

“Neither am I,” added Zagloba; “such an honorable knight, and such a soldier! But the princess⁠—you do not know her; such a darling!”

Here Zagloba began to howl in a low bass, for he really loved the princess; and Pan Michael accompanied him in a higher key, and they drank wine mixed with tears. Then, dropping their heads on their breasts, they sat for a time gloomily, till Zagloba struck his fist on the table.

“Pan Michael, why do we weep? Bogun is killed!”

“True,” said Volodyovski.

“We ought rather to rejoice. We are fools now if we don’t find her.”

“Let us go,” said Volodyovski, rising.

“Let us drink,” corrected Zagloba. “God grant us to hold their children at the christening, and all because we slew Bogun.”

“Served him right!” finished Volodyovski, not noticing that Zagloba was already sharing with him the merit of killing Bogun.

XLVII

At last “Te Deum laudamus” was heard in the cathedral of Warsaw, and the king was enthroned; cannon thundered, bells were tolled, and confidence began to enter all hearts. The interregnum had passed⁠—a time of storms and unrest the more terrible for the Commonwealth that it happened in a period of universal disaster. Those who had been trembling at the thought of threatening dangers, now that the election had passed with unusual harmony, drew a deep breath. It seemed to many that