"How is that?" inquired Father Voynovski, at the dinner which his
comrades gave Yatsek. "We are going in five or six days; thou mightst
die in the war; is it worth while to marry before a campaign, instead
of waiting for the happy end of it, and then marrying at your leisure?"
His comrades, when they heard these prudent words, burst into laughter;
some of them held their sides, others cried in a chorus,--"Oh! it is
worth while, benefactor! and just for this reason that he may die is it
worth while all the more."
The priest was a little angry, but when the three hundred best men, not
excepting Pan Stanislav insisted, and Yatsek would not hear of delay,
it had to be as he wanted. Renewed relations with the court, and the
favor of the king and queen facilitated the affair very greatly. The
queen declared that the coming Pani Tachevski would be under her
protection till the war ended, and the king himself promised to be at
the marriage, and to think of a fitting dowry when his mind was less
occupied. He remembered that many lands of the Sieninskis had passed to
the Sobieskis, and how his ancestors had grown strong from them, hence
he felt under obligations to the orphan, who, besides, had attracted
him by her beauty, and also roused his compassion by her harsh fate,
and the evils which she had suffered.
Pan Matchynski, a friend from of old, to Father Voynovski, and also a
friend of the king, promised to remind him of the young lady, but after
the war; for at that time when on the shoulders of Yan III the fate of
all Europe was resting, and of all Christianity, it was not permitted
to trouble him with private interests. Father Voynovski was comforted
with this promise as much as if Yatsek had then received a good "crown
estate," for all knew that word from Pan Matchynski was as sure of
fulfilment as had been the words of Zavisha. To speak strictly, he was
the author of all the good which had met Panna Sieninski in Cracow; he
mentioned Father Voynovski to the king and queen; finally he won for
the young lady the queen, who, though capricious in her likings, and
fickle, began from the first moment to show her special favor and
friendship, which seemed even almost too sudden.
A dispensation from banns was received easily through protection of the
court, and the favor of the bishop of Cracow. Even earlier, Pan Serafin
had obtained for the young couple handsome lodgings from a Cracow
merchant, whose ancestors and those of Pan Serafin had done business in
their day, when the latter were living in Lvoff, and importing brocades
from the Orient. That was a beautiful lodging, and, because of the
multitude of civil and military dignitaries in the city, so good a one
could not be obtained by many a voevoda. Stanislav had determined that
Yatsek should pass those few days before the campaign as it were in a
genuine heaven, and he ornamented those lodgings unusually with fresh
flowers and tapestry; other comrades helped him with zeal, each
lending, the best of what he had, rugs, tapestry, carpets, and such
like costly articles, which in wealthy hussar regiments were taken in
campaigns even.
In one word, all showed the young couple the greatest good-will, and
helped them as each one was able and with what he commanded, except the
four Bukoyemskis. They, in the first days after coming to Cracow, went
sometimes twice in a day to Stanislav and to Yatsek, and to merchants
at the inns with whom officers from the regiment of Prince Alexander
drank not infrequently, but afterward the four brothers vanished as if
they had fallen into water. Father Voynovski thought that they were
drinking in the suburbs, where servants had seen them one evening, and
where mead and wine were cheaper than in the city, but immediately
after that all report of them vanished. This angered the priest as well
as the Tsyprianovitches, for the brothers were bound to Pan Serafin in
gratitude; this they should not have forgotten. "They may be good
soldiers," said the priest, "but they are giddy heads in whose
sedateness we cannot put confidence. Of course they have found some
wild company in which they pass time more pleasantly than with any of
us."
This judgment proved inaccurate, however, for on the eve of Yatsek's
marriage, when his quarters were filled with acquaintances who had come
with good wishes and presents, the four brothers appeared in their very
best garments. Their faces were calm, serious, and full of
mysteriousness.
"What has happened to you?" asked Pan Serafin.
"We have been tracking a wild beast!" replied Lukash.
"Quiet!" said Mateush, giving him a punch in the side, "Do not tell
till the time comes."
Then he looked at the priest, at Pan Serafin and his son, and turning
finally to Yatsek, began to clear his throat, like a man who intends to
speak in some detail.
"Well, begin right away!" urged his brothers.
But he looked at them with staring eyes, and inquired,--
"How was it?"
"How? Hast thou forgotten?"
"It has broken in me."
"Wait--I know," cried Yan. "It began: 'Our most worthy--' Go on!"
"Our most worthy Pilate," began Mateush.
"Why 'Pilate'?" interrupted the priest. "Perhaps it is Pylades?"
"Benefactor thou hast hit the nail on the head," cried Yan. "As I live,
it is Pylades."
"Our worthy Pylades!" began Mateush, now reassured, "though not the
iron Boristhenes, but the gold-bearing Tagus itself were to flow in our
native region, we, being exiled through attacks of barbarians, should
have nothing but our hearts glowing with friendship to offer thee,
neither could we honor this day as it merits by any thank-offering--"
"Thou speakest as if cracking nuts," cried out Lukash excitedly.
But Mateush kept on repeating: "As it merits,--as it merits--" He
stopped, looked at his brothers, calling with his eyes for rescue, but
they had forgotten entirely that which was to come later.
The Bukoyemskis began now to frown, and the audience to titter. Seeing
this Pan Serafin resolved to assist them.
"Who composed this speech for you?" asked he.
"Pan Gromyka, of Pan Shumlanski's regiment," said Mateush.
"There it is. A strange horse is more likely to balk and rear than your
own beast; so now embrace Yatsek and tell him what ye have to say."
"Surely that is the best way."
And they embraced Yatsek one after another. Then Mateush
continued,--"Yatsus! we know that thou art no Pilate, and thou knowest
that after losing Kieff regions we are poor fellows, in short we are
naked. Here is all that we can give, and accept with thankful heart
even this."
Then they handed him some object wound up in a piece of red satin, and
at that moment the three younger brothers repeated, with feeling,--
"Accept it, Yatsus, accept! Accept!"
"I accept, and God repay you," answered Yatsek.
Thus speaking, he put the object on the table, and began to unroll the
satin. All at once he started back, and cried,--
"As God lives, it is the ear of a man!"
"But dost thou know whose ear? Martsian Krepetski's!" thundered the
brothers.
"Ah!"
All present were so tremendously astonished that silence followed
immediately.
"Tfu!" cried Father Voynovski, at last.
And measuring the brothers, one after the other, with a stern glance,
he began at the eldest,--
"Are ye Turks to bring in the ears of beaten enemies? Ye are a shame to
this Christian army and all nobles. If Krepetski deserved death a
hundred times, if he were even a heretic, or out and out a pagan, it
would still be an inexpressible shame to commit such an action. Oh, ye
have delighted Yatsek, so that he spits from his mouth that which comes
into it. But I tell you that for such a deed ye are to expect not
gratitude but contempt, and shame also; for there is no regiment in all
the cavalry, or even a regiment in the infantry, which would accept
such barbarians as comrades."
At this Mateush stepped out in front of his brothers, and, flaming with
rage, said,--
"Here is gratitude for you, here is reward, here is the justice of
people, and a judgment. If any layman were to utter this judgment I
should cut one ear from him, and also the other to go with it, but
since a clerical person speaks thus, let the Lord Jesus judge him, and
take the side of the innocent! Your Grace asks: 'Are ye Turks?' but I
ask: Do you think that we cut off the ear of a dead man? My born
brothers, ye innocent orphans, to what have ye come, that they make
Turks of you, enemies of the faith! To what?"
Here his voice quivered, for his grief had exceeded his auger. The
three brothers, roused by the unjust judgment, began to cry out with
equal sorrow,--
"They make Turks of us!"
"Enemies of the faith!"
"Vile pagans!"
"Then tell, in the name of misfortune, how it was," said the priest.
"Lukash cut off Martsian's ear in a duel."
"Whence did Krepetski come hither?"
"He rode into Cracow. He was here five days. He rode in behind us."
"Let one speak. Speak thou, but to the point."
Here the priest turned to Yan, the youngest.
"An acquaintance of ours from the regiment of the Bishop of Sandomir,"
began Yan, "told us by chance, three days ago, that he had seen in a
wineshop on Kazamir street a certain wonder. 'A noble,' says he, 'as
thick as a tree stump, with a great head so thrust into his body that
his shoulders come up to his ears, on short crooked legs,' says he,
'and he drinks like a dragon. A viler monkey I have not seen in my
life,' says he. And we, since the Lord Jesus has given us this gift
from birth, take everything in at a twinkle, we look at one another
that instant: Well, is not that Krepetski? Then we said to the man,
'Take us to that wineshop.' 'I will take you.' And he took us. It was
dark, but we looked till we saw something black in one corner behind a
table. Lukash walked up to it, and made sparks fly before the very eyes
of him who was hiding there. 'Krepetski,' cries he, and grabs him by
the shoulder. We to our sabres. Krepetski sprang away, but saw that
there was no escape, for we were between him and the doorway. Did he
not jump then? He jumped up time after time as a cock does. 'What,'
says he, 'do ye think that I am afraid? Only come at me one by one, not
in a crowd, unless ye are murderers, not nobles.'"
"The scoundrel!" interrupted the priest.
"What did he try to do with us? That is what Lukash asked him. 'Oh!'
said Lukash, 'thou son of such a mother, thou didst hire a whole
regiment of cut-throats against us. It would be well,' said he, 'to
give thee to the headsman, but this is the shorter way!' Then he
presses on, and they fall to cutting. After the third or fourth blow,
his head leans to one side. I look--and there is an ear on the floor.
Mateush raises it immediately, and cries,--'Leave the other to us, do
not cut it. This,' said he 'will be for Yatsek, and the other for Panna
Anulka.' But Martsian dropped his sabre, for his blood had begun to
flow terribly, and he fainted. We poured water on his head, and wine
into his mouth, thinking that he would revive and meet the next one of
us; but that could not be. He recovered consciousness, it is true, and
said: 'Since ye have sought justice yourselves, ye are not free to seek
any other,' and he fainted again. We went away then, sorry not to have
the other ear. Lukash said that he could have killed the man, but he
spared him for us, and especially for Yatsek. And I do not know if any
one could act more politely, for it is no sin to crush such vermin as
Martsian, but it is clear that politeness does not pay now-a-days,
since we have to suffer for showing it."
"True! He speaks justly!" said the other brothers.
"Well," said the priest, "if the matter stands thus it is different,
but still the gift is unsavory."
The brothers looked with amazement one at another.
"Why say unsavory?" asked Marek. "You do not think we brought it for
Yatsek to eat, do you?"
"I thank you from my soul for your good wishes," said Tachevski. "I
think that ye did not bring it to me to be stored away."
"It has grown a little green--it might be smoke-dried."
"Let a man bury it at once," said the priest with severity; "it is the
ear of a Christian in every case."
"In Kieff we have seen better treatment," growled out Mateush.
"Krepetski came hither undoubtedly," remarked Yatsek, "to make a new
attack on Anulka."
"He will not take her away from the king's palace," said the prudent
Pan Serafin, "but he did not come for that, if I think correctly. His
attack failed, so I suppose he only wanted to learn whether we know
that he arranged it, and if we have complained of him. Perhaps old
Krepetski did not know of his son's undertaking; but perhaps he did
know; if he did, then both must be greatly alarmed, and I am not at all
surprised that Martsian came here to investigate."
"Well," said Stanislav, laughing, "he has no luck with the Bukoyemskis,
indeed he has not."
"Let him go," said Tachevski. "To-day I am ready to forgive him."
The Bukoyemskis and Stanislav, who knew the stubbornness of the young
cavalier, looked at him with astonishment, and he, as if answering
them, added,--
"For Anulka will be mine immediately, and to-morrow I shall be a
Christian knight and defender of the faith, a man whose heart should be
free of all hate and personalities."
"God bless thee for that!" cried the priest.