Once, when running with skeins of thread for the princess, she met Pan Yan coming out of the bedchamber of the prince. She ran against him like a storm, striking him full in the breast; then springing back, she exclaimed,--
"Oh, how you have frightened me! Good-day, sir!"
"Good-day. Am I such a monster as to terrify you?"
She stood with downcast eyes, began to twist the end of her tresses, and standing first on one foot and then on the other, as if confused, she answered with a smile: "Oh, no! not at all,--sure as I love my mother!" She looked quickly at the lieutenant and dropped her eyes a second time. "Are you angry with me?" asked she.
"I? But could Panna Anna care for my anger?"
"Well, to tell the truth, no. Maybe you think that I would fall to crying at once? Pan Bykhovets is more polite."
"If that is true, there is nothing for me but to leave the field to Pan Bykhovets and vanish from the eyes of Panna Anna."
"Do I prevent you?" Having said this, Anusia blocked the way before him. "You have just returned from the Crimea?" asked she.
"From the Crimea."
"And what have you brought back from the Crimea?"
"I've brought back Pan Podbipienta. You have seen him, I think? A very amiable and excellent cavalier."
"It is sure he is more amiable than you. And why has he come?"
"So there might be some one on whom Panna Anna might try her power. But I advise great care, for I know a secret which makes this cavalier invincible, and Panna Anna can do nothing with him."
"Why is he invincible?"
"He cannot marry."
"What do I care for that? Why can he not marry?"
Skshetuski bent to the ear of the young woman, but said very clearly and emphatically: "He has made a vow of celibacy."
"Oh, you stupid!" cried Anusia, quickly; and at the same moment she shot away like a frightened bird.
That evening, however, she looked for the first time carefully at Pan Longin. The guests were numerous, for the prince gave a farewell dinner to Pan Bodzynski. Our Lithuanian, dressed with care in a white satin tunic and a dark blue velvet coat, had a grand appearance, especially since a light curved sabre hung at his side in a gilded sheath, instead of his death-dealing long sword.
The eyes of Anusia shot their darts at Pan Longin, somewhat on purpose to spite Skshetuski. The lieutenant would not have noticed them, however, had it not been for Volodyovski, who, pushing him with his elbow, said,--
"May captivity strike me if Anusia isn't making up to that Lithuanian hop-pole!"
"Tell him so."
"Of course I will. They will make a pair."
"Yes, he might wear her in place of a button in his coat, such is the proportion between them, or instead of a plume in his cap."
Volodyovski went up to the Lithuanian and said: "It is not long since you arrived, but I see you are getting to be a great rogue."
"How is that, brother? how is that?"
"You have already turned the head of the prettiest girl among the ladies in waiting."
"Oh, my dear friend!" said Podbipienta, clasping his hands together, "what do you tell me?"
"Well, look for yourself at Panna Anusia Borzobogata, with whom we have all fallen in love, and see how she fixes you with her eyes. But look out that she doesn't fool you as she has us!"
When he had said this, Volodyovski turned on his heel and walked off, leaving Podbipienta in meditation. He did not indeed dare to look in the direction of Anusia at once. After a time, however, he cast a quick glance at her, but he trembled. From behind the shoulder of Princess Griselda two shining eyes looked on him steadfastly and curiously. "Avaunt, Satan!" thought the Lithuanian; and he hurried off to the other end of the hall, blushing like a schoolboy.
Still, the temptation was great. That imp, looking from behind the shoulder of the princess, possessed such charm, those eyes shone so clearly, that something drew Pan Longin on to glance at them even once more. But that moment he remembered his vow. Zervikaptur stood before him, his ancestor Stoveiko Podbipienta, the three severed heads,--and terror seized him. He made the sign of the cross, and looked at her no more that evening. But next morning, early, he went to the quarters of Pan Yan.
"Well, Lieutenant, are we going to march soon? What do you hear about the war?"
"You are in great straits. Be patient till you join the regiment."
Pan Podbipienta had not yet been enrolled in the place of the late Zakshevski; he had to wait till the quarter of the year had expired,--till the first of April. But he was in a real hurry; therefore he asked,--
"And has the prince said nothing about this matter?"
"Nothing. The king won't stop thinking of war while he lives, but the Commonwealth does not want it."
"But they say in Chigirin that a Cossack rebellion is threatened."
"It is evident that your vow troubles you greatly. As to a rebellion, you may be sure there will be none till spring; for though the winter is mild, winter is winter. It is now the 15th of February, and frost may come any day. The Cossacks will not take the field till they can intrench themselves behind earthworks; they fight terribly, but in the field they cannot hold their own."
"So one must wait for the Cossacks?"
"Think of this, too, that although you should find your three heads in time of rebellion, it is unknown whether you would be released from your vow; for Crusaders or Turks are one thing, and your own people are another,--children of the same mother, as it were."
"Oh, great God! what a blow you have planted on my head! Here is desperation! Let the priest Mukhovetski relieve me from this doubt, for otherwise I shall not have a moment's rest."
"He will surely solve your doubt, for he is a learned and pious man; but he will not tell you anything else. Civil war is a war of brothers."
"But if a foreign power should come to the aid of the rebels?"
"Then you would have a chance. Meanwhile I can recommend but one thing to you,--wait, and be quiet."
But Skshetuski was unable to follow this advice himself. His melancholy increased continually. He was annoyed by the festivals at the castle, and by those faces on which some time before he gazed with such pleasure. Bodzynski and Rozvan Ursu departed at last, and after their departure profound quiet set in. Life began to flow on monotonously. The prince was occupied with the review of his enormous estates, and every morning shut himself in with his agents, who were arriving from all Rus and Sandomir, so that even military exercises took place but rarely. The noisy feasts of the officers, at which future wars were discussed, wearied Skshetuski beyond measure; so he used to go out with a gun on his shoulder to Solonitsa, where Jolkefski had inflicted such terrible defeats on Nalivaika, Loboda, and Krempski. The traces of these battles had already disappeared from the memory of men, and the field of conflict; but from time to time the earth cast up from its bosom whitened bones, and beyond the water was visible the Cossack breastwork from behind which the Zaporojians of Loboda and the volunteers of Nalivaika had made such a desperate defence. But a dense grove had already spread its roots over the breastwork. That was the place where Skshetuski hid himself from the noise of the castle; and instead of shooting at birds he fell into meditation, and before the eyes of his spirit stood the form of the beloved maiden called hither by his memory and his heart. There in the mist, the rustle of the reeds, and the melancholy of those places he found solace in his own yearning.
But later on began abundant rains, the harbinger of spring. Solonitsa became a morass;