On the Field of Glory

CHAPTER IV

Pan Gideon had not invented when he spoke of the "abhorrence" which at his house both women felt for the conqueror. Yatsek convinced himself of this from one glance at them. Pani Vinnitski met him with an offended face, and snatched her hand away when he wished to kiss it in greeting; and the young lady, without compassion for his suffering and embarrassment, did not answer his greeting. She was occupied with Stanislav, sparing neither tender looks nor anxious questions; she pushed her care so far that when he rose from the armchair in the dining-room to go to the chamber set apart for the wounded she supported him by the arm, and though he opposed and excused himself she conducted him to the threshold.

"For thee there is nothing in this house. All is lost!" cried despair and also jealousy in Yatsek's heart at sight of this action. Toward him that maiden had shown changing humors, and with one kindly word had given usually ten that were cold, when not biting, hence his pain was the keener, that till then he had not supposed that she could be kind, sweet, and angel-like to a man whom she loved really. That Panna Anulka loved Stanislav the ill-fated Yatsek had no doubt whatever. He would have endured not only such a wound as that given Stanislav, but would have shed all his blood with delight, if she would speak even once in her life to him with such a voice, and look with such eyes at him as she had looked then at Stanislav. Hence, besides pain, an immeasurable sorrow now seized him. This sent a torrent of tears toward his eyeballs, and if those tears did not gush out and flow down his cheeks, they flooded his heart and pervaded his being. Thus did Yatsek feel his whole breast fill with tears, and, to give the last blow at this juncture, never had Panna Anulka seemed to him so beautiful beyond measure as at that moment, with her pale face and her crown of golden hair slightly dishevelled from emotion. "She is an angel, but not for thee," complained the sorrow within him; "wonderful, but another will take her!" And he would have fallen at her feet and confessed all his suffering and devotion, but at the same time he felt that just after that which had happened it would not be proper to do so, and that if he did not control himself and stifle the struggle in his spirit he would tell her something quite different from that which he wanted, and sink himself utterly in her estimation.

Meanwhile Pani Vinnitski, as an elderly person and one skilled in medicine, entered the chamber with Stanislav, while the young lady turned back from the threshold. Yatsek, understanding that he must use the opportunity approached her.

"I should like a word with you," said he, struggling to control himself, and with a trembling voice which, as it were, belonged to another.

She looked at him with cold astonishment.

"What do you wish?"

Yatsek's face was lighted with a smile of such pain that it was almost like that of a martyr.

"What I wish for myself will not come to me, though I were to give my own soul's salvation to get it," said he, shaking his head; "but for one thing I beg you: do not accuse me, cherish no offence against me, have some compassion, for I am not of wood nor of iron."

"I have no word to say," replied she, "and there is no time for talking."

"Ah! there is always some time to say a kind word to the man for whom this world is grievous."

"Is it because you have wounded my rescuers?"

"The blame is not mine, as God stands by the innocent! The messenger who came for those gentlemen to Vyrambki should have declared what Father Voynovski told him to tell here; namely, that I did not challenge them. Did you know that they were the challengers?"

"I did. The attendant, being a simple man, did not repeat, it is true, every word which the priest sent; he merely cried out that 'the young lord of Vyrambki had slashed them to pieces;' then Pan Gideon, on returning from Vyrambki, ran in from the road and explained what had happened."

Pan Gideon feared lest the news that Yatsek had been challenged might reach the young lady from other lips and weaken her anger, hence he wished above all to describe the affair in his own way, not delaying to add that Yatsek by venomous insults had forced them to challenge him. He reckoned on this: that Panna Anulka, taking things woman fashion, would be on the side of the men who had suffered most.

Still, it seemed to Yatsek that the beloved eyes looked on him less severely, so he repeated the question, -

"Did you know this position?"

"I knew," replied she, "but I remember that which you should not have forgotten if you had even a trifling regard for me, – that I owe my life to those gentlemen. And I have learnt from my guardian that you forced them to challenge you."

"I, not have regard for you? Let God, who looks into men's hearts, judge that statement."

All on a sudden her eyes blinked time after time; then she shook her head till a tress fell to the opposite shoulder, and she said, -

"Is that true?"

"True, true!" continued he, in a panting and deeply sad voice. "I should have let men cut me down, it seems, so as not to annoy you. The blood which was dearest to you would not have been shed then. But there is no help now for the omission. There is no help now for anything! Your guardian told you that I forced those gentlemen to challenge me. I leave that too to God's judgment. But did your guardian tell you that he himself had insulted me beyond mercy and measure beneath my own roof tree? I have come now to you because I knew that I should not find him here. I have come to satisfy my unhappy eyes with the last look at you. I know that this is all one to you, but I thought that even in that case-"

Here Yatsek halted, for tears stopped his utterance. Parma Anulka's mouth began also to quiver and to take on more and more the shape of a horseshoe, and only haughtiness joined to timidity, the timidity of a maiden, struggled in her with emotion. But perhaps she was restrained by this also: that she wished to get from Yatsek a still more complaining confession, and perhaps because she did not believe that he would go from her and never come back again. More than once there had been misunderstandings between them, more than once had Pan Gideon offended him greatly, and still, after brief exhibitions of anger, there had followed silent or spoken explanations and all had gone on again in the old way.

"So it will be this time also," thought Panna Anulka.

For her it was sweet to listen to Yatsek and to see that great love which, though it dared not express itself in determinate utterance, was still beaming from him with a submission which was matched only by its mightiness. Hence she yearned to hear him speak with her the longest time possible with that wondrous voice, and to lay at her feet for the longest time possible that young, loving, pained heart of his.

But he, inexperienced in love matters and blind as are all who love really, could not take note of this, and did not know what was happening within her. He looked on her silence as hardened indifference, and bitterness was gradually drowning his spirit. The calmness with which he had spoken at first began now to desert him, his eyes took on another light, drops of cold sweat came out on his temples: something was tearing and breaking the soul in him. He was seized by despair of such kind that when a man lies in the grip of it he reckons with nothing, and is ready with his own hands to tear his own wounded heart open. He spoke yet as it were calmly, but his voice had a new sound, it was firmer, though hoarser.

"Is this the case," asked he, "and is there not one word from thee?"

Panna Anulka shrugged her shoulders in silence.

"The priest told me the truth when he warned that here a still greater wrong was in store for me."

"In what have I wronged thee?" asked she, bitterly, pained by the sudden change which she saw in him.

But he waded on farther in blindness.

"Had I not seen how thou didst treat this Pan Stanislav, I should think that thou hadst no heart in thy bosom. Thou hast a heart, but for him, not for me. He glanced at thee, and that was sufficient."

Then Yatsek grasped the hair of his head with both hands on a sudden.

"Would to God that I had cut him to pieces!"

A flame flashed, as it were, through Panna Anulka; her cheeks crimsoned, anger blazed in her eyes as well at herself as at Yatsek; because a moment before she had been ready for weeping, her heart was seized now by indignation, deep and sudden.

"You, sir, have lost your senses!" cried she, raising her head and shaking back the tress from her shoulder.

She was on the point of rushing away, but that brought Yatsek to utter desperation; he seized her hands and detained her.

"Not thou art to go. I am the person to go," said he, with set teeth. "And before going I say this to thee: though for years I have loved thee more than health, more than life, and more than my own soul, I will never come back to thee. I will gnaw my own hands off in torture, but, so help me, God, I will never come back to thee!"

Then, forgetting his worn Hungarian cap on the floor there, he sprang to the doorway, and in an instant she saw him through the window, hurrying away along the garden by which the road to Vyrambki was shorter, – and he vanished.

Panna Anulka stood for a time as if a thunderbolt had struck her. Her thoughts had scattered like a flock of birds in every direction; she knew not what had happened. But when thoughts returned to her all feeling of offence was extinguished, and in her ears were sounding only the words: "I loved thee more than health, more than life, more than my own soul, but I will never come back to thee!" She felt now that in truth he would never come back, just because he had loved her so tremendously. Why had she not given him even one kind word for which, before anger had swept the man off, he had begged as if for alms, or a morsel of bread to give strength on a journey? And now endless grief and fear seized her. He had rushed off in pain and in madness. He may fall on the road somewhere. He may in despair work on himself something evil, and one heartfelt word might have healed and cured everything. Let him hear her voice even. He must go, beyond the garden, through the meadow to the river. He will hear her there yet before he vanishes.

And rushing from the house she ran to the garden. Deep snow lay on the middle path, but his tracks there were evident. She ran in them. She sank at times to her knees, and on the road lost her rosary, her handkerchief, and her workbag with thread in it, and, panting, she reached the garden gate finally.

"Pan Yatsek! Pan Yatsek!" cried she.

But the field beyond the garden was empty. Besides, that same wind which had blown the morning haze off, made a great sound among the branches of apple and pear trees; her weak voice was lost in that sound altogether. Then, not regarding the cold nor her light, indoor clothing, she sat on a bench near the gate and fell to crying. Tears as large as pearls dropped down her cheeks and she, having nothing else now with which to remove them, brushed those tears away with that tress on her shoulder.

"He will not come back."

Meanwhile the wind sounded louder and louder, shaking wet snow from the dark branches.

When Yatsek rushed into his house like a whirlwind, without cap and with dishevelled hair, the priest divined clearly enough what had happened.

"I foretold this," said he. "God give thee aid, O my Yatsek; but I ask nothing till thou hast come to thy mind and art quiet."

"Ended! All is ended!" said Yatsek.

And he walked up and down in the chamber, like a wild beast in confinement.

The priest said no word, interrupted him in nothing, and only after long waiting did he rise, put his arms around Yatsek's shoulders, kiss his head, and lead him by the hand to an alcove.

The old man knelt before a small crucifix which was hanging over the bed there, and when the sufferer had knelt at his side the priest prayed as follows:

"O Lord, Thou knowest what pain is, for Thou didst endure it on the cross for the offences of mankind.

"Hence I bring my bleeding heart to Thee, and at Thy feet which are pierced I implore Thee for mercy.

"I cry not to Thee: 'take this pain from me,' but I cry 'give me strength to endure it.'

"For I, O Lord, am a soldier submissive to Thy order, and I desire much to serve Thee, and the Commonwealth, my mother- But how can I do this when my heart is faint and my right hand is weakened?

"Because of this make me forget myself and make me think only of Thy glory, and the rescue of my mother, for those things are of far greater moment than the pain of a pitiful worm, such as I am.

"And strengthen me, O Lord, in my saddle, so that through lofty deeds against pagans I may reach a glorious death, and also heaven.

"By Thy crown of thorns, hear me!

"By the wound in Thy side, hear me!

"By Thy hands and feet pierced with nails, hear me!"

Then they knelt for a long time, but at the middle of the prayer it was evident that the pain in Yatsek's breast had broken, for on a sudden he covered his face with both hands and fell to sobbing. When they had risen and gone to the adjoining chamber Father Voynovski sighed deeply.

"My Yatsek," said he, "I saw much of life in my years of a warrior, during which sorrow greater than thine met me. I have no thought to speak touching this to thee. I will say only that in a time of most terrible anguish I composed this very prayer and to it owe deliverance. I have repeated it frequently in misfortune since that day, and always with solace; we have repeated it now for this reason. And how dost thou feel? Art thou not freed in some measure? Pray tell me!"

"I feel pain, but it burns less severely."

"Ah, seest thou! Now drink some wine. I will tell thee, or rather I will show thee, something which should give thee comfort. Look!"

And bending his head down he showed beneath his white hair a dreadful scar, which passed across his whole crown from one side to the other.

"From that," said he, "I came very near dying. The wound pained me awfully, but the scar gives no trouble. In like manner, Yatsek, thy wound will cease to pain when a scar takes the place of it. Tell me now what has happened to thee."

Yatsek began, but met failure. It was not in his nature to invent, or increase, or exaggerate, so now he himself wondered over this: that all which had torn him with such torture seemed less cruel in the narrative. But Father Voynovski, clearly a man of experience, and knowing the world, heard him out to the end, and then added, -

"It is difficult, I understand that, to describe looks or even gestures which may be altogether contemptuous and insulting. Often even one look, or one wave of the hand, has led men to duels and to bloodshed. The main point is this: thou hast told the young lady that thou wilt not go back to her. Youth is giddy, and when guided by sadness it changes as the moon in the sky does. And love too is like that mendacious moon, which when it seems to decrease is just growing and swelling toward its fulness. How is it then, hast thou the true wish of doing what thy words tell me?"

"So help me, God, I have told my whole wish, and if thou desire I will repeat the same in an oath on that cross there."

"And what dost thou think to do?"

"To go into the world."

"I have been hoping for that. I have desired it this long time. I have known what detained thee, but go now. When thou hast broken thy fetters go into the world. Thou wilt wait for no good thing in this place, no good thing has met thee here, or will meet thee here ever. To thee the life here has been ruin. It was a happiness that I was near by and trained thee in Latin, and in working with thy sword even somewhat; without these two kinds of knowledge thou wouldst have dropped down to be a peasant. Thank me not, Yatsus, for that was pure devotion on my part. I shall be sad here without thee, but I am not in question. Thou wilt go into the world. That, as I understand, means that thou wilt join the army. That road is the straightest and the most honorable, also, especially since war with the pagan is approaching. The pen and the chancellery are more certain, men tell us, than promotion from the sabre, but they are less fitted for blood such as thine is."

"I have not thought of another service," said Yatsek, "but I shall not join the infantry, and I cannot in any way reach the higher banners, for I am in terrible poverty-"

"A noble who has Latin on his tongue and a sabre in his fist will make his way always," interrupted the priest; "but there is no need of talking, thou must have good horses. We must think over this carefully. Now I will tell thee something of which I have never yet spoken. I hold for thee ten ruddy ducats which thy late mother left with me-and her letter, in which she begs not to give thee this money, lest it be spent ere the time comes. Only in sudden need may I give it when either the ferry or the wagon is awaiting thee-when some dilemma presents itself-well, the dilemma is here at this moment! Thou hadst an honorable, a holy, and an unhappy mother, for when that woman was dying there was great need in her dwelling, and she took from her own mouth that which she left with me."

"God give eternal rest to her," said Yatsek. "Let those ten ducats be used for masses to benefit her soul, and Vyrambki I will sell even for a trifle."

Father Voynovski grew very tender at these words; a tear glistened in his eye, and again he put his arms around Yatsek.

"There is honest blood in thee," said he, "but thou art not free to reject this gift from thy mother, even for the purpose which thou hast mentioned. Masses will not be lacking in her case, be sure of that, though in truth she has no great need of them; but to other souls suffering in purgatory they will be of service. As to Vyrambki it would be better to mortgage it; though a noble has but the smallest estate, how differently do people esteem him from one who is landless."

"But I am in a hurry. I should like to go even to-day."

"To-day thou wilt not go, though the sooner the better. I must write for thee letters to my comrades and friends. We must talk also with the brewers in Yedlina who have money and also good horses, so that no armored warrior may have a better outfit. In my house there are some old arms and some sabres, not so much ornamented as tested on Swedish and Turkish shoulders."

Here the priest looked through the window and said, -

"But the sleigh is waiting, and a traveller should start when his sleigh comes."

An expression of pain now shot over the face of the young man; he kissed the priest's hand and added, -

"I have one other prayer, my benefactor and father; let me go with you now and live in your house till I leave this region. Those roofs are visible from this dwelling. They are too near me."

"Of course! I wished to propose this; thou hast taken the words from my lips. There is no work for thee here, and I shall be glad from my soul to have thee under my roof tree. Be of good cheer, O my Yatsus. The world does not end in Belchantska, but stands open widely before thee. God alone knows how far thou wilt ride when once thou art on horseback. War is awaiting thee! Glory is awaiting thee! and that which pains thee to-day will be healed at another time. I see now how the wings are growing out at thy shoulders. Fly then, O bird of the Lord, for to that wert thou predestined and created."

And joy like a sunray lighted up the honest face of the old man. He struck his thigh with his palm, soldier fashion.

"Now take thy cap and we will go."

But small things stand often in the way of important ones, and the comic is mixed with the tragic. Yatsek glanced round the room; then he gazed with concern at the priest, and repeated, -

"My cap!"

"Well! Thou wilt not go bareheaded-"

"How could I?"

"Where is it?"

"But suppose it remained at Belchantska?"

"There are thy love tricks, old woman! What wilt thou do?"

"What shall I do? I might get a cap from my man, but I could not go in the cap of a peasant."

"Thou canst not go in a peasant's cap, but send thy man to Belchantska."

"I would not for anything."

The priest was becoming impatient.

"Plague take it! War, glory, the wide world-these are all waiting for the man, but his cap is gone!"

"There is an old hat in the bottom of a trunk which my father took from a Swedish officer at Tremeshno-"

"Take it, and let us go."

Yatsek vanished and returned a little later wearing the yellow hat of a Swedish horseman, which was too large for him. Amused by the sight of it, the priest caught at his left side as if seeking his sabre.

"It is well," said he, "that it is not a Turkish turban. But this is a real carnival!"

Yatsek smiled in reply, and then added, -

"There are some stones in the buckle; they may be of value."

Then they took seats in the sleigh and moved forward. Immediately beyond the enclosure Belchantska and the mansion were as visible through leafless alders as something on one's hand. The priest looked carefully at Yatsek, who merely drew the big Swedish hat over his eyes and did not look, though something besides his Hungarian cap had been left in the mansion.