Pan Zamoyski, the owner by inheritance, permitted them as a mark of great affection and favor to enter the town. They were admitted through a brick gate, while the other two were stone. Kmita himself did not expect to see anything similar, and he could not recover from astonishment at sight of the broad streets, built in straight lines, Italian fashion; at sight of the splendid college, and the academy, the castle, walls, the great cannon and every kind of provision. As few among magnates could be compared with the grandson of the great chancellor, so there were few fortresses that could be compared with Zamost.
But the greatest ecstasy seized the Tartars, when they saw the Armenian part of the town. Their nostrils drew in greedily the odor of morocco, a great manufacture of which was carried on by industrial immigrants from Kaffa; and their eyes laughed at sight of the dried fruits and confectionery, Eastern carpets, girdles, inlaid sabres, daggers, bows, Turkish lamps, and every kind of costly article.
The cupbearer of the kingdom himself pleased Kmita’s heart greatly, he was a genuine kinglet in that Zamost of his; a man in the strength of his years, of fine presence though lacking somewhat robustness, for he had not restrained sufficiently the ardors of nature in early years. He had always loved the fair sex, but his health had not been shaken to that degree that joyousness had vanished from his face. So far he had not married, and though the most renowned houses in the Commonwealth had opened wide their doors, he asserted that he could not find in them a sufficiently beautiful maiden. He found her somewhat later, in the person of a young French lady, who though in love with another gave him her hand without hesitation, not foreseeing that the first one, disregarded, would adorn in the future his own and her head with a kingly crown.
The lord of Zamost was not distinguished for quick wit, though he had enough for his own use. He did not strive for dignities and offices, though they came to him of themselves; and when his friends reproached him with a lack of native ambition, he answered—“It is not true that I lack it, for I have more than those who bow down. Why should I wear out the thresholds of the court? In Zamost I am not only Yan Zamoyski, but Sobiepan Zamoyski,”34 with which name he was very well pleased. He was glad to affect simple manners, though he had received a refined education and had passed his youth in journeys through foreign lands. He spoke of himself as a common noble, and spoke emphatically of the moderateness of his station, perhaps so that others might contradict him, and perhaps so that they might not notice his medium wit. On the whole he was an honorable man, and a better son of the Commonwealth than many others.
And as he came near Kmita’s heart, so did Kmita please him; therefore he invited Pan Andrei to the chambers of the castle and entertained him, for he loved this also, that men should exalt his hospitality.
Pan Andrei came to know in the castle many noted persons; above all, Princess Griselda Vishnyevetski, sister of Pan Zamoyski and widow of the great Yeremi—a man who in his time was well-nigh the greatest in the Commonwealth, who nevertheless had lost his whole immense fortune in the time of the Cossack incursion, so that the princess was now living at Zamost, on the bounty of her brother Yan.
But that lady was so full of grandeur, of majesty and virtue, that her brother was the first to blow away the dust from before her; and moreover he feared her like fire. There was no case in which he did not gratify her wishes, nor an affair the most important concerning which he did not advise with her. The people of the castle said that the princess ruled Zamost, the army, the treasury, and her brother; but she did not wish to take advantage of her preponderance, being given with her whole soul to grief for her husband and to the education of her son.
That son had recently returned for a short time from the court of Vienna and was living with her. He was a youth in the springtime of life; but in vain did Kmita seek in him those marks which the son of the great Yeremi should bear in his features.
The figure of the young prince was graceful; but he had a large, full face, and protruding eyes with a timid look; he had coarse lips, moist, as with people inclined to pleasures of the table; an immense growth of hair, black as a raven’s wing, fell to his shoulders. He inherited from his father only that raven hair and dark complexion.
Pan Andrei was assured by those who were more intimate with the prince that he had a noble soul, unusual understanding, and a remarkable memory, thanks to which he was able to speak almost all languages; and that a certain heaviness of body and temperament with a native greed for food were the only defects of that otherwise remarkable young man.
In fact, after he had entered into conversation with him Pan Andrei became convinced that the prince not only had an understanding mind and a striking judgment touching everything, but the gift of attracting people. Kmita loved him after the first conversation with that feeling in which compassion is the greatest element. He felt that he would give much to bring back to that orphan the brilliant future which belonged to him by right of birth.
Pan Andrei convinced himself at the first dinner that what was said of the gluttony of Michael Vishnyevetski was true. The young prince seemed to think of nothing save eating. His prominent eyes followed each dish uneasily, and when they brought him the platter he took an
