Volodyovski looked at those present, taking them to witness what injustice was done him; then he frowned. They thought he would burst out in anger, but because he had been drinking, he fell all at once into tenderness.
“This is my reward,” said he. “From the years of a stripling I have served the country; I have not put the sabre out of my hand! I have neither cottage, wife, nor children; my head is as lone as a lance-point. The most honorable think of themselves, but I have no rewards save wounds in the flesh; nay, I am accused of selfishness, almost held a traitor.”
Tears began to drop on his yellow mustaches. Zagloba softened in a moment, and throwing open his arms, cried—
“Pan Michael, I have done you cruel injustice! I should be given to the hangman for having belittled such a tried friend!”
Then falling into mutual embraces, they began to kiss each other; they drank more to good understanding, and when sorrow had gone considerably out of his heart, Volodyovski said—
“But you will not ruin the army, bring disobedience, and give an evil example?”
“I will not, Pan Michael, I will not for your sake.”
“God grant us to take Tykotsin; whose affair is it what I seek behind the walls of the fortress? Why should any man jeer at me?”
Struck by that question, Zagloba began to put the ends of his mustaches in his mouth and gnaw them; at last he said: “Pan Michael, I love you as the apple of my eye, but drive that Panna Billevich out of your head.”
“Why?” asked Pan Michael, with astonishment.
“She is beautiful, assentior (I agree),” answered Zagloba, “but she is distinguished in person, and there is no proportion whatever between you. You might sit on her shoulder, like a canary-bird, and peck sugar out of her mouth. She might carry you like a falcon on her glove, and let you off against every enemy, for though you are little you are venomous like a hornet.”
“Well, have you begun?” asked Volodyovski.
“If I have begun, then let me finish. There is one woman as if created for you, and she is precisely that kernel—What is her name? That one whom Podbipienta was to marry?”
“Anusia Borzobogati!” cried Pan Yan. “She is indeed an old love of Michael’s.”
“A regular grain of buckwheat, but a pretty little rogue; just like a doll,” said Zagloba, smacking his lips.
Volodyovski began to sigh, and to repeat time after time what he always repeated when mention was made of Anusia: “What is happening to the poor girl? Oh, if she could only be found!”
“You would not let her out of your hands, for, God bless me, I have not seen in my life any man so given to falling in love. You ought to have been born a rooster, scratch the sweepings in a house-yard, and cry, Co, co, co, at the topknots.”
“Anusia! Anusia!” repeated Pan Michael. “If God would send her to me—But perhaps she is not in the world, or perhaps she is married—”
“How could she be? She was a green turnip when I saw her, and afterward, even if she ripened, she may still be in the maiden state. After such a man as Podbipienta she could not take any common fellow. Besides, in these times of war few are thinking of marriage.”
“You did not know her well,” answered Pan Michael. “She was wonderfully honest; but she had such a nature that she let no man pass without piercing his heart. The Lord God created her thus. She did not miss even men of lower station; for example, Princess Griselda’s physician, that Italian, who was desperately in love with her. Maybe she has married him and he has taken her beyond the sea.”
“Don’t talk such nonsense, Michael!” cried Zagloba, with indignation. “A doctor, a doctor—that the daughter of a noble of honorable blood should marry a man of such low estate! I have already said that that is impossible.”
“I was angry with her myself, for I thought, ‘This is without limit; soon she will be turning the heads of attorneys.’ ”
“I prophesy that you will see her yet,” said Zagloba.
Further conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Pan Tokarzevich, who had served formerly with Radzivill, but after the treason of the hetman, left him, in company with others, and was now standard-bearer in Oskyerko’s regiment.
“Colonel,” said he to Volodyovski, “we are to explode a petard.”
“Is Pan Oskyerko ready?”
“He was ready at midday, and he is not willing to wait, for the night promises to be dark.”
“That is well; we will go to see. I will order the men to be ready with muskets, so that the besieged may not make a sortie. Will Pan Oskyerko himself explode the petard?”
“He will—in his own person. A crowd of volunteers go with him.”
“And I will go!” said Volodyovski.
“And we!” cried Pan Yan and Pan Stanislav.
“Oh, ’tis a pity that old eyes cannot see in the dark,” said Zagloba, “for of a surety I should not let you go alone. But what is to be done? When dusk comes I cannot draw my sword. In the daytime, in the daytime, in the sunlight, then the old man likes to move to the field. Give me the strongest of the Swedes, if at midday.”
“But I will go,” said, after some thought, the tenant of Vansosh. “When they blow up the gate the troops will spring to the storm in a crowd, and in the
