With Fire and Sword by Henryk Sienkiewicz (big ebook reader .txt) 📕
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Goodwill in the seventeenth century Polish Commonwealth has been stretched thin due to the nobility’s perceived and real oppression of the less well-off members. When the situation reaches its inevitable breaking point, it sparks the taking up of arms by the Cossacks against the Polish nobility and a spiral of violence that engulfs the entire state. This background provides the canvas for vividly painted narratives of heroism and heartbreak of both the knights and the hetmans swept up in the struggle.
Henryk Sienkiewicz had spent most of his adult life as a journalist and editor, but turned his attention back to historical fiction in an attempt to lift the spirits and imbue a sense of nationalism to the partitioned Poland of the nineteenth century. With Fire and Sword is the first of a trilogy of novels dealing with the events of the Khmelnytsky Uprising, and weaves fictional characters and events in among historical fact. While there is some contention about the fairness of the portrayal of Polish and Ukrainian belligerents, the novel certainly isn’t one-sided: all factions indulge in brutal violence in an attempt to sway the tide of war, and their grievances are clearly depicted.
The initial serialization and later publication of the novel proved hugely popular, and in Poland the Trilogy has remained so ever since. In 1999, the novel was the subject of Poland’s then most expensive film, following the previously filmed later books. This edition is based on the 1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin, who also translated Sienkiewicz’s later (and perhaps more internationally recognized) Quo Vadis.
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- Author: Henryk Sienkiewicz
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For a while it appeared as if Bogun would yield to the gigantic power and obstinacy of the youth, for he began again to retreat and defend himself. His countenance was contracted as if by overexertion. Nikolai redoubled his blows; dust rose from the floor and covered the two men with a cloud, but through the masses of it the Cossacks saw blood flowing from the face of their leader.
All at once Bogun sprang aside; the prince’s sword struck the empty air. Nikolai staggered from the effort and bent forward; that instant the Cossack struck him such a blow on the neck that he dropped as if struck by lightning.
The joyful cries of the Cossacks were mingled with the unearthly shriek of the princess. It seemed as though the ceiling would break from the noise. The struggle was finished. The Cossacks rushed at the weapons hanging along the walls, and began to pull them down, tearing from one another the most costly sabres and daggers, and trampling upon the bodies of the princes and their own comrades who had fallen at the hands of Nikolai. Bogun permitted everything. He stood at the door leading to Helena’s rooms, guarding the way. He breathed heavily from weariness; his face was pale and bloody, for the sword of the prince had struck his head twice. His wandering look passed from the body of Nikolai to the body of Simeon, and then fell upon the blue face of the princess, whom the Cossacks, holding by the hair, pressed to the floor with their knees, for she was tearing herself from their hands to the bodies of her children.
The tumult and confusion in the room increased every moment. The Cossacks tied the servants with ropes and tormented them without mercy. The floor was covered with blood and dead bodies, the room filled with smoke from pistol-shots; the walls were stripped, the birds killed.
All at once the door at which Bogun stood was opened wide. He turned and started back. In the door appeared the blind Vassily, and at his side Helena, dressed in a white gown, pale herself as the gown, with eyes starting out from terror, and with open mouth.
Vassily carried in both hands a cross, which he held as high as his face. In the midst of the uproar in the room, in the presence of the corpses, and the blood scattered in pools on the floor, in front the glitter of sabres and of flashing eyes, that lofty figure had an appearance of wonderful solemnity. Emaciated, with hair growing gray, and with depressions instead of eyes, you would have said that it was a spirit, or a dead body which had left its shroud and was coming for the punishment of crime.
The clamor ceased; the Cossacks drew back in a fright. Silence was broken by the calm, but painful and groaning voice of the prince—
“In the name of the Father, the Saviour, the Spirit, and the Holy Virgin! Oh, you men who come from distant lands, do you come in the name of God?—for blessed is the wayfarer who goes announcing the word of God. And do you bring good news? Are you apostles?”
A deathlike stillness reigned after the words of Vassily; but he turned slowly with the cross to one side and then the other, and continued—
“Woe to you, brothers, for whoso makes war for gain or vengeance will be damned forever. Let us pray, so that we obtain mercy. Woe to you, brothers, woe to me! Woe! woe! woe!”
A groan came from the breast of the prince.
“Lord, have mercy upon us!” answered the dull voices of the Cossacks, who under the influence of fear began to make the sign of the cross in terror.
Suddenly a wild piercing shriek from the princess was heard: “Vassily! Vassily!”
There was something in her voice as full of anguish as in the last voice of life passing away. But the Cossacks pressing her with their knees knew that she could not escape from their hands.
The prince shuddered, but immediately covered himself with the cross, on the side from which the voice came, and said: “Oh, lost soul, crying from the abyss, woe to thee!”
“Lord, have mercy upon us!” repeated the Cossacks.
“To me!” said Bogun to the Cossacks that moment, and he staggered.
The Cossacks sprang and supported him under the shoulders.
“You are wounded, father?”
“I am! But that is nothing; I have lost blood. Here, boys! guard this young woman as the eyes in your head. Surround the house; let no one out! Princess—”
He could say no more; his lips grew white, and his eyes were covered with a mist.
“Bear the ataman to the rooms!” cried Zagloba, who creeping out of some corner or another appeared unexpectedly at Bogun’s side. “This is nothing, nothing at all,” said he, feeling the wounds with his fingers. “He will be well tomorrow. I will take care of him. Mix up bread and spiderwebs for me! You, boys, go off to the devil with yourselves, to frolic with the girls in the servants’ quarters, for you have nothing to do here; but let two carry the ataman. Take him—that’s the way! Be off now! What are you standing here for? I will take care of the house, I will look after everything.”
Two Cossacks carried Bogun to the adjoining room; the rest went out of the antechamber.
Zagloba approached Helena, and rapidly blinking his one eye, said in a quick low voice—
“I am Pan Skshetuski’s friend; have no fear. Only put your prophet to bed and wait for me.”
Having said this, he went to the room in which the two essauls had put Bogun on a Turkish divan. Then he sent them for bread and spiderwebs; and when these were brought from the servants’ quarters he set about nursing the young ataman with the dexterity which every noble possessed at that
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