But a few days subsequent the great traitor in the castle was looking
at the darkness coming down on the snowy shrouds and listening to the
howling of the wind.
The lamp of his life was burning out slowly. At noon of that day he was
still walking around and looking through the battlements, at the tents
and the wooden huts of Sapyeha’s troops; but two hours later he grew so
ill that they had to carry him to his chambers.
From those times at Kyedani in which he had striven for a crown, he had
changed beyond recognition. The hair on his head had grown white,
around his eyes red rings had formed, his face was swollen and flabby,
therefore it seemed still more enormous, but it was the face of a half
corpse, marked with blue spots and terrible through its expression of
hellish suffering.
And still, though his life could be measured by hours, he had lived too
long, for not only had he outlived faith in himself and his fortunate
star, faith in his own hopes and plans, but his fall was so deep that
when he looked at the bottom of that precipice to which he was rolling,
he would not believe himself. Everything had deceived him: events,
calculations, allies. He, for whom it was not enough to be the
mightiest lord in Poland, a prince of the Roman Empire, grand hetman,
and voevoda of Vilna; he, for whom all Lithuania was less than what he
desired and was lusting after, was confined in one narrow, small castle
in which either Death or Captivity was waiting for him. And he watched
the door every day to see which of these two terrible goddesses would
enter first to take his soul or his more than half-ruined body.
Of his lands, of his estates and starostaships, it was possible not
long before to mark out a vassal kingdom; now he is not master even of
the walls of Tykotsin.
Barely a few months before he was treating with neighboring kings;
to-day one Swedish captain obeys his commands with impatience and
contempt, and dares to bend him to his will.
When his troops left him, when from a lord and a magnate who made the
whole country tremble, he became a powerless pauper who needed rescue
and assistance himself, Karl Gustav despised him. He would have raised
to the skies a mighty ally, but he turned with haughtiness from the
supplicant.
Like Kostka Napyerski, the foot-pad, besieged on a time in Chorshtyn,
is he, Radzivill, besieged now in Tykotsin. And who is besieging him?
Sapyeha, his greatest personal enemy. When they capture him they will
drag him to justice in worse fashion than a robber, as a traitor.
His kinsmen have deserted him, his friends, his connections. Armies
have plundered his property, his treasures and riches are blown into
mist, and that lord, that prince, who once upon a time astonished the
court of France and dazzled it with his luxury, he who at feasts
received thousands of nobles, who maintained tens of thousands of his
own troops, whom he fed and supported, had not now wherewith to nourish
his own failing strength; and terrible to relate, he, Radzivill, in the
last moments of his life, almost at the hour of his death, was hungry!
In the castle there had long been a lack of provisions; from the scant
remaining supplies the Swedish commander dealt stingy rations, and the
prince would not beg of him.
If only the fever which was devouring his strength had deprived him of
consciousness; but it had not. His breast rose with increasing
heaviness, his breath turned into a rattle, his swollen feet and hands
were freezing, but his mind, omitting moments of delirium, omitting the
terrible visions and nightmares which passed before his eyes, remained
for the greater part of the time clear. And that prince saw his whole
fall, all his want, all his misery and humiliation; that former
warrior-victor saw all his defeat, and his sufferings were so immense
that they could be equalled only by his sins.
Besides, as the Furies tormented Orestes, so was he tormented by
reproaches of conscience, and in no part of the world was there a
sanctuary to which he could flee from them. They tormented him in the
day, they tormented him at night, in the field, under the roof; pride
could not withstand them nor repulse them. The deeper his fall, the
more fiercely they lashed him. And there were moments in which he tore
his own breast. When enemies came against his country from every side,
when foreign nations grieved over its hapless condition, its sufferings
and bloodshed, he, the grand hetman, instead of moving to the field,
instead of sacrificing the last drop of his blood, instead of
astonishing the world like Leonidas or Themistocles, instead of pawning
his last coat like Sapyeha, made a treaty with enemies against the
mother, raised a sacrilegious hand against his own king, and imbrued it
in blood near and dear to him. He had done all this, and now he is at
the limit not only of infamy, but of life, close to his reckoning,
there beyond. What is awaiting him?
The hair rose on his head when he thought of that. For he had raised
his hand against his country, he had appeared to himself great in
relation to that country, and now all had changed. Now he had become
small, and the Commonwealth, rising from dust and blood, appeared to
him something great and continually greater, invested with a mysterious
terror, full of a sacred majesty, awful. And she grew, increased
continually in his eyes, and became more and more gigantic. In presence
of her he felt himself dust as prince and as hetman, as Radzivill. He
could not understand what that was. Some unknown waves were rising
around him, flowing toward him, with roaring, with thunder, flowing
ever nearer, rising more terribly, and he understood that he must be
drowned in that immensity, hundreds such as he would be drowned. But
why had he not seen this awfulness and this mysterious power at first;
why had he, mad man, rushed against it? When these ideas roared in his
head, fear seized him in presence of that mother, in presence of that
Commonwealth; for he did not recognize her features, which formerly
were so kind and so mild.
The spirit was breaking within him, and terror dwelt in his breast. At
moments he thought that another country altogether, another people,
were around him. Through the besieged walls came news of everything
that men were doing in the invaded Commonwealth, and marvellous and
astonishing things were they doing. A war of life or death against the
Swedes and traitors had begun, all the more terrible in that it had not
been foreseen by any man. The Commonwealth had begun to punish. There
was something in this of the anger of God for the insult to majesty.
When through the walls of Tykotsin came news of the siege of
Chenstohova, Radzivill, a Calvinist, was frightened; and fright did not
leave his soul from that day, for then he perceived for the first time
those mysterious waves which, after they had risen, were to swallow the
Swedes and him; then the invasion of the Swedes seemed not an invasion,
but a sacrilege, and the punishment of it inevitable. Then for the
first time the veil dropped from his eyes, and he saw the changed face
of the Commonwealth, no longer a mother, but a punishing queen.
All who had remained true to her and served with heart and soul, rose
and grew greater and greater; whoso sinned against her went down. “And
therefore it is not free to any one to think,” said the prince to
himself, “of his own elevation, or that of his family, but he must
sacrifice life, strength, and love to her.”
But for him it was now too late; he had nothing to sacrifice; he had no
future before him save that beyond the grave, at sight of which he
shuddered.
From the time of besieging Chenstohova, when one terrible cry was torn
from the breast of an immense country, when as if by a miracle there
was found in it a certain wonderful, hitherto unknown and not
understood power, when you would have said that a mysterious hand from
beyond this world rose in its defence, a new doubt gnawed into the soul
of the prince, and he could not free himself from the terrible thought
that God stood with that cause and that faith.
And when such thoughts roared in his head he doubted his own faith, and
then his despair passed even the measure of his sins. Temporal fall,
spiritual fall, darkness, nothingness,—behold to what he had come, what
he had gained by serving self.
And still at the beginning of the expedition from Kyedani against
Podlyasye he was full of hope. It is true that Sapyeha, a leader
inferior to him beyond comparison, had defeated him in the field, and
the rest of the squadrons left him, but he strengthened himself with
the thought that any day Boguslav might come with assistance. That
young eagle of the Radzivills would fly to him at the head of Prussian
Lutheran legions, who would not pass over to the papists like the
Lithuanian squadrons; and at once he would bend Sapyeha in two, scatter
his forces, scatter the confederates, and putting themselves on the
corpse of Lithuania, like two lions on the carcass of a deer, with
roaring alone would terrify all who might wish to tear it away from
them.
But time passed; the forces of Prince Yanush melted; even the foreign
regiments went over to the terrible Sapyeha; days passed, weeks,
months, but Boguslav came not.
At last the siege of Tykotsin began.
The Swedes, a handful of whom remained with Yanush, defended themselves
heroically; for, stained already with terrible cruelty, they saw that
even surrender would not guard them from the vengeful hands of the
Lithuanians. The prince in the beginning of the siege had still the
hope that at the last moment, perhaps, the King of Sweden himself would
move to his aid, and perhaps Pan Konyetspolski, who at the head of six
thousand cavalry was with Karl Gustav. But his hope was vain. No one
gave him a thought, no one came with assistance.
“Oh, Boguslav! Boguslav!” repeated the prince, walking through the
chambers of Tykotsin; “if you will not save a cousin, save at least a
Radzivill!”
At last in his final despair Prince Yanush resolved on taking a step at
which his pride revolted fearfully; that was to implore Prince Michael
Radzivill of Nyesvyej for rescue. This letter, however, was intercepted
on the road by Sapyeha’s men; but the voevoda of Vityebsk sent to
Yanush in answer a letter which he had himself received from Prince
Michael a week before.
Prince Yanush found in it the following passage:—
“If news has come to you, gracious lord, that I intend to go with
succor to my relative, the voevoda of Vilna, believe it not, for I hold
only with those who endure in loyalty to the country and our king, and
who desire to restore the former liberties of this most illustrious
Commonwealth. This course will not, as I think, bring me to protect
traitors from just and proper punishment. Boguslav too will not come,
for, as I hear, the elector prefers to think of himself, and does not
wish to divide his forces; and _quod attinet_ (as to) Konyetspolski,
since he will pay court to Prince Yanush’s widow, should she become
one, it is to his profit that the prince voevoda be destroyed with all
speed.”
This letter, addressed to Sapyeha, stripped the unfortunate Yanush of
the remnant of his hope, and nothing was left him but to wait for the
accomplishment of his destiny.
The siege was hastening to its close.
News of the departure of Sapyeha passed through the wall almost that
moment; but the hope that in consequence of his departure hostile steps
would be abandoned were of short duration, for in the infantry
regiments an unusual movement was observable. Still some days passed
quietly enough, since the plan of blowing up the gate with a petard
resulted in nothing; but December 31 came, on which only the
approaching night might incommode the besiegers, for evidently they
were preparing something against the castle, at least a new attack of
cannon on the weakened walls.
The day was drawing to a close. The prince was lying in the so-called
“Corner” hall situated in the western part of the castle. In an
enormous fireplace were burning whole logs of pine wood which cast a
lively light on the white and rather empty walls. The prince was lying
on his back on a Turkish sofa, pushed out purposely into the middle of
the room, so that the warmth of the blaze might reach it. Nearer to the
fireplace, a little in the shade, slept a page, on a carpet; near the
prince were sitting, slumbering in arm-chairs, Pani Yakimovich,
formerly chief lady-in-waiting at Kyedani, another page, a physician,
also the prince’s astrologer, and Kharlamp.
Kharlamp had not left the prince, though he was almost the only one of
his former officers who had remained. That was a bitter service, for
the heart and soul of the officer were outside the walls of Tykotsin,
in the camp of Sapyeha; still he remained faithful at the side of his
old leader. From hunger and watching the poor fellow had grown as thin
as a skeleton. Of his face there remained but the nose, which now
seemed still greater, and mustaches like bushes. He was clothed in
complete armor, breastplate, shoulder-pieces, and morion, with a wire
cape which came down to his shoulders. His cuirass was battered, for he
had just returned from the walls, to which he had gone to make
observations a little while before, and on which he sought death every
day. He was slumbering at the moment from weariness, though there was a
terrible rattling in the prince’s breast as if he had begun to die, and
though the wind howled and whistled outside.
Suddenly short quivering began to shake the gigantic body of Radzivill,
and the rattling ceased. Those who were around him woke at once and
looked quickly, first at him and then at one another. But he said,—
“It is as if something had gone out of my breast; I feel easier.”
He turned his head a little, looked carefully toward the door, at last
he said, “Kharlamp!”
“At the service of your highness!”
“What does Stahovich want here?”
The legs began to tremble under poor Kharlamp, for unterrified as he
was in battle he was superstitious in the same degree; therefore he
looked around quickly, and said in a stifled voice,—
“Stahovich is not here; your highness gave orders to shoot him at
Kyedani.”
The prince closed his eyes and answered not a word.
For a time there was nothing to be heard save the doleful and
continuous howling of the wind.
“The weeping of people is heard in that wind,” said the prince, again
opening his eyes in perfect consciousness. “But I did not bring in the
Swedes; it was Radzeyovski.”
When no one gave answer, he said after a short time,—
“He is most to blame, he is most to blame, he is most to blame.”
And a species of consolation entered his breast, as if the remembrance
rejoiced him that there was some one more guilty than he.
Soon, however, more grievous thoughts must have come to his head, for
his face grew dark, and he repeated a number of times,—
“Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!”
And again choking attacked him; a rattling began in his throat more
terrible than before. Meanwhile from without came the sound of
musketry, at first infrequent, then more frequent; but amidst the
drifting of the snow and the howling of the whirlwind they did not
sound too loudly, and it might have been thought that that was some
continual knocking at the gate.
“They are fighting!” said the prince’s physician.
“As usual!” answered Kharlamp. “People are freezing in the snow-drifts,
and they wish to fight to grow warm.”
“This is the sixth day of the whirlwind and the snow,” answered the
doctor. “Great changes will come in the kingdom, for this is an unheard
of thing.”
“God grant it!” said Kharlamp. “It cannot be worse.”
Further conversation was interrupted by the prince, to whom a new
relief had come.
“Kharlamp!”
“At the service of your highness!”
“Does it seem to me so from weakness, or did Oskyerko try to blow up
the gate with a petard two days since?”
“He tried, your highness; but the Swedes seized the petards and wounded
him slightly, and Sapyeha’s men were repulsed.”
“If wounded slightly, then he will try again. But what day is it?”
“The last day of December, your highness.”
“God be merciful to my soul! I shall not live to the New Year. Long ago
it was foretold me that every fifth year death is near me.”
“God is kind, your highness.”
“God is with Sapyeha,” said the prince, gloomily.
All at once he looked around and said: “Cold comes to me from it. I do
not see it, but I feel that it is here.”
“What is that, your highness?”
“Death!”
“In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”
A moment of silence followed; nothing was heard but the whispered “Our
Father,” repeated by Pani Yakimovich.
“Tell me,” said the prince, with a broken voice, “do you believe that
outside of your faith no one can be saved?”
“Even in the moment of death it is possible to renounce errors,” said
Kharlamp.
The sound of shots had become at that moment more frequent. The thunder
of cannon began to shake the windowpanes, which answered each report
with a plaintive sound.
The prince listened a certain time calmly, then rose slightly on the
pillow; his eyes began slowly to widen, his pupils to glitter. He sat
up; for a moment he held his head with his hand, then cried suddenly,
as if in bewilderment,—
“Boguslav! Boguslav! Boguslav!”
Kharlamp ran out of the room like a madman.
The whole castle trembled and quivered from the thunder of cannon.
All at once there was heard the cry of several thousand voices; then
something was torn with a ghastly smashing of walls, so that brands and
coals from the chimney were scattered on the floor. At the same time
Kharlamp rushed into the chamber.
“Sapyeha’s men have blown up the gate!” cried he. “The Swedes have fled
to the tower! The enemy is here! Your highness—”
Further words died on his lips. Radzivill was sitting on the sofa with
eyes starting out; with open lips he was gulping the air, his teeth
bared like those of a dog when he snarls; he tore with his hands the
sofa on which he was sitting, and gazing with terror into the depth of
the chamber, cried, or rather gave out hoarse rattles between one
breath and another,—
“It was Radzeyovski—Not I—Save me!—What do you want? Take the crown!—It
was Radzeyovski—Save me, people! Jesus! Jesus! Mary!”
These were the last words of Radzivill.
Then a terrible coughing seized him; his eyes came out in still more
ghastly fashion from their sockets; he stretched himself out, fell on
his back, and remained motionless.
“He is dead!” said the doctor.
“He cried Mary, though a Calvinist, you have heard!” said Pani
Yakimovich.
“Throw wood on the fire!” said Kharlamp to the terrified pages.
He drew near to the corpse, closed the eyelids; then he took from his
own armor a gilded image of the Mother of God which he wore on a chain,
and placing the hands of Radzivill together on his breast, he put the
image between the dead fingers.
The light of the fire was reflected from the golden ground of the
image, and that reflection fell upon the face of the voevoda and made
it cheerful so that never had it seemed so calm.
Kharlamp sat at the side of the body, and resting his elbows on his
knees, hid his face in his hands.
The silence was broken only by the sound of shots.
All at once something terrible took place. First of all was a flash of
awful brightness; the whole world seemed turned into fire, and at the
same time there was given forth such a sound as if the earth had fallen
from under the castle. The walls tottered; the ceilings cracked with a
terrible noise; all the windows tumbled in on the floor, and the panes
were broken into hundreds of fragments. Through the empty openings of
the windows that moment clouds of snow drifted in, and the whirlwind
began to howl gloomily in the corners of the chamber.
All the people present fell to the floor on their faces, speechless
from terror.
Kharlamp rose first, and looked directly on the corpse of the voevoda;
the corpse was lying in calmness, but the gilded image had slipped a
little in the hands.
Kharlamp recovered his breath. At first he felt certain that that was
an army of Satans who had broken into the chamber for the body of the
prince.
“The word has become flesh!” said he. “The Swedes must have blown up
the tower and themselves.”
But from without there came no sound. Evidently the troops of Sapyeha
were standing in dumb wonder, or perhaps in fear that the whole castle
was mined, and that there would be explosion after explosion.
“Put wood on the fire!” said Kharlamp to the pages.
Again the room was gleaming with a bright, quivering light. Round about
a deathlike stillness continued; but the fire hissed, the whirlwind
howled, and the snow rolled each moment more densely through the window
openings.
At last confused voices were heard, then the clatter of spurs and the
tramp of many feet; the door of the chamber was opened wide, and
soldiers rushed in.
It was bright from the naked sabres, and more and more figures of
knights in helmets, caps, and kolpaks crowded through the door. Many
were bearing lanterns in their hands, and they held them to the light,
advancing carefully, though it was light in the room from the fire as
well.
At last there sprang forth from the crowd a little knight all in
enamelled armor, and cried,—
“Where is the voevoda of Vilna?”
“Here!” said Kharlamp, pointing to the body lying on the sofa.
Volodyovski looked at him, and said,—
“He is not living!”
“He is not living, he is not living!” went from mouth to mouth.
“The traitor, the betrayer is not living!”
“So it is,” said Kharlamp, gloomily. “But if you dishonor his body and
bear it apart with sabres, you will do ill, for before his end he
called on the Most Holy Lady, and he holds Her image in his hand.”
These words made a deep impression. The shouts were hushed. Then the
soldiers began to approach, to go around the sofa, and look at the dead
man. Those who had lanterns turned the light of them on his eyes; and
he lay there, gigantic, gloomy, on his face the majesty of a hetman and
the cold dignity of death.
The soldiers came one after another, and among them the officers;
therefore Stankyevich approached, the two Skshetuskis, Horotkyevich,
Yakub Kmita, Oskyerko, and Pan Zagloba.
“It is true!” said Zagloba, in a low voice, as if he feared to rouse
the prince. “He holds in his hands the Most Holy Lady, and the shining
from Her falls on his face.”
When he said this he removed his cap. That instant all the others bared
their heads. A moment of silence filled with reverence followed, which
was broken at last by Volodyovski.
“Ah!” said he, “he is before the judgment of God, and people have
nothing to do with him.” Here he turned to Kharlamp: “But you,
unfortunate, why did you for his sake leave your country and king?”
“Give him this way!” called a number of voices at once.
Then Kharlamp rose, and taking off his sabre threw it with a clatter on
the floor, and said,—
“Here I am, cut me to pieces! I did not leave him with you, when he was
powerful as a king, and afterward it was not proper to leave him when
he was in misery and no one stayed with him. I have not grown fat in
his service; for three days I have had nothing in my mouth, and the
legs are bending under me. But here I am, cut me to pieces! for I
confess furthermore [here Kharlamp’s voice trembled] that I loved him.”
When he had said this he tottered and would have fallen; but Zagloba
opened his arms to him, caught him, supported him, and cried,—
“By the living God! Give the man food and drink!”
That touched all to the heart; therefore they took Kharlamp by the arms
and led him out of the chamber at once. Then the soldiers began to
leave it one after another, making the sign of the cross with devotion.
On the road to their quarters Zagloba was meditating over something. He
stopped, coughed, then pulled Volodyovski by the skirt. “Pan Michael,”
said he.
“Well, what?”
“My anger against Radzivill is passed; a dead man is a dead man! I
forgive him from my heart for having made an attempt on my life.”
“He is before the tribunal of heaven,” said Volodyovski.
“That’s it, that’s it! H’m, if it would help him I would even give for
a Mass, since it seems to me that he has an awfully small chance up
there.”
“God is merciful!”
“As to being merciful, he is merciful; still the Lord cannot look
without abhorrence on heretics. And Radzivill was not only a heretic,
but a traitor. There is where the trouble is!”
Here Zagloba shook his head and began to look upward.
“I am afraid,” said he, after a while, “that some of those Swedes who
blew themselves up will fall on my head; that they will not be received
there in heaven is certain.”
“They were good men,” said Pan Michael, with recognition; “they
preferred death to surrender, there are few such soldiers in the
world.”
All at once Volodyovski halted: “Panna Billevich was not in the
castle,” said he.
“But how do you know?”
“I asked those pages. Boguslav took her to Taurogi.”
“Ei!” said Zagloba, “that was as if to confide a kid to a wolf. But it
is not your affair; your predestined is that kernel!”