In Warsaw the Swedes had been managing for a long time. Wittemberg, the
real governor of the city and the commander of the garrison, was at
that moment in Cracow; Radzeyovski carried on the government in his
place. Not less than two thousand soldiers were in the city proper
surrounded by walls, and in the jurisdictions beyond the walls built up
with splendid edifices belonging to the church and the world. The
castle and the city were not destroyed; for Pan Vessel, starosta of
Makovo, had yielded them up without battle, and he with the garrison
disappeared hurriedly, fearing the personal vengeance of Radzeyovski,
his enemy.
But when Pan Kmita examined more closely and carefully, he saw on many
houses the traces of plundering hands. These were the houses of those
citizens who had fled from the city, not wishing to endure foreign
rule, or who had offered resistance when the Swedes were breaking over
the walls.
Of the lordly structures in the jurisdictions those only retained their
former splendor the owners of which stood soul and body with the
Swedes. Therefore the Kazanovski Palace remained in all its
magnificence, for Radzeyovski had saved that, his own, and the palace
of Konyetspolski, the standard-bearer, as well as the edifice reared by
Vladislav IV., and which was afterward known as the Kazimirovski
Palace. But edifices of the clergy were injured considerably; the
Denhof Palace was half wrecked; the chancellor's or the so-called
Ossolinski Palace, on Reformatski Street, was plundered to its
foundations. German hirelings looked out through its windows; and that
costly furniture which the late chancellor had brought from Italy at
such outlay,--those Florentine leathers, Dutch tapestry, beautiful
cabinets inlaid with mother-of-pearl, pictures, bronze and marble
statues, clocks from Venice and Dantzig, and magnificent glasses were
either lying in disordered heaps in the yard, or, already packed, were
waiting to be taken, when the time came, by the Vistula to Sweden.
Guards watched over these precious things, but meanwhile they were
being ruined under the wind and rain.
In other cities the same thing might be seen; and though the capital
had yielded without battle, still thirty gigantic flat-boats were ready
on the Vistula to bear away the plunder.
The city looked like a foreign place. On the streets foreign languages
were heard more than Polish; everywhere were met Swedish soldiers,
German, French, English, and Scottish mercenaries, in the greatest
variety of uniforms,--in hats, in lofty helmets, in kaftans, in
breastplates, half breastplates, in stockings, or Swedish boots, with
legs as wide as water-buckets. Everywhere a foreign medley, foreign
garments, foreign faces, foreign songs. Even the horses had forms
different from those to which the eye was accustomed. There had also
rushed in a multitude of Armenians with dark faces, and black hair
covered with bright skull-caps; they had come to buy plundered
articles.
But most astonishing of all was the incalculable number of gypsies,
who, it is unknown for what purpose, had gathered after the Swedes from
all parts of the country. Their tents stood at the side of the
Uyazdovski Palace, and along the monastery jurisdiction, forming as it
were a special town of linen houses within a town of walled structures.
In the midst of these various-tongued throngs the inhabitants of the
city almost vanished; for their own safety they sat gladly enclosed in
their houses, showing themselves rarely, and then passing swiftly along
the streets. Only occasionally the carriage of some magnate, hurrying
from the Cracow suburbs to the castle, and surrounded by haiduks,
Turkish grooms, or troops in Polish dress, gave reminder that the city
was Polish.
Only on Sundays and holidays, when the bells announced services, did
crowds come forth from the houses, and the capital put on its former
appearance,--though even then lines of foreign soldiers stood hedgelike
in front of the churches, to look at the women or pull at their dresses
when, with downcast eyes, they walked past them. These soldiers
laughed, and sometimes sang vile songs just when the priests were
singing Mass in the churches.
All this flashed past the astonished eyes of Pan Kmita like jugglery;
but he did not warm his place long in Warsaw, for not knowing any man
he had no one before whom to open his soul. Even with those Polish
nobles who were stopping in the city and living in public houses built
during the reign of King Sigismund III. on Dluga Street, Pan Andrei did
not associate closely. He conversed, it is true, with this one and
that, to learn the news; but all were fanatical adherents of the
Swedes, and waiting for the return of Karl Gustav, clung to Radzeyovski
and the Swedish officers with the hope of receiving starostaships,
confiscated private estates, and profits from church and other
recoupments. Each man of them would have been served rightly had some
one spat in his eyes, and from this Kmita did not make great effort to
restrain himself.
From the townspeople Kmita only heard that they regretted past times,
and the good king of the fallen country. The Swedes persecuted them
savagely, seized their houses, exacted contributions, imprisoned them.
They said also that the guilds had arms secreted, especially the
linen-weavers, the butchers, the furriers, and the powerful guild of
tailors; that they were looking continually for the return of Yan
Kazimir, did not lose hope, and with assistance from outside were ready
to attack the Swedes.
Hearing this, Kmita did not believe his own ears. It could not find
place in his head that men of mean station and rank should exhibit more
love for the country and loyalty to their lawful king than nobles, who
ought to bring those sentiments into the world with their birth.
But it was just the nobles and magnates who stood by the Swedes, and
the common people who for the greater part wished to resist; and more
than once it happened that when the Swedes were driving common people
to work at fortifying Warsaw, these common people chose to endure
flogging, imprisonment, even death itself, rather than aid in
confirming Swedish power.
Beyond Warsaw the country was as noisy as in a beehive. All the roads,
the towns, and the hamlets were occupied by soldiers, by attendants of
great lords and nobles, and by lords and nobles serving the Swedes. All
was captured, gathered in, subdued; everything was as Swedish as if the
country had been always in their hands.
Pan Andrei met no people save Swedes, adherents of the Swedes, or
people in despair, indifferent, who were convinced to the depth of
their souls that all was lost. No one thought of resistance; commands
were carried out quietly and promptly one half or a tenth part of which
would have been met in times not long past with opposition and protest.
Fear had reached that degree that even those who were injured praised
loudly the kind protector of the Commonwealth.
Formerly it happened often enough that a noble received his own civil
and military deputies of exaction with gun in hand, and at the head of
armed servants; now such tributes were imposed as it pleased the Swedes
to impose, and the nobles gave them as obediently as sheep give their
wool to the shearer. It happened more than once that the same tribute
was taken twice. It was vain to use a receipt as defence; it was well
if the executing officer did not moisten it in wine and make the man
who showed it swallow the paper. That was nothing! "Vivat protector!"
cried the noble; and when the officer had departed he ordered his
servant to crawl out on the roof and see if another were not coming.
And well if only all were ended with Swedish contributions; but worse
than the enemy were, in that as in every other land, the traitors. Old
private grievances, old offences were brought up; ditches were filled,
meadows and forests were seized, and for the friend of the Swedes
everything went unpunished. Worst, however, were the dissidents; and
they were not all. Armed bands were formed of unfortunates,
desperadoes, ruffians, and gamblers. Assisted by Swedish marauders,
Germans, and disturbers of all kinds, these bands fell upon peasants
and nobles. The country was filled with fires; the armed hand of the
soldier was heavy on the towns; in the forest the robber attacked. No
one thought of curing the Commonwealth; no one dreamed of rescue, of
casting off the yoke; no one had hope.
It happened that Swedish and German plunderers near Sohachev besieged
Pan Lushchevski, the starosta of that place, falling upon him at
Strugi, his private estate. He, being of a military turn, defended
himself vigorously, though an old man. Kmita came just then; and since
his patience had on it a sore ready to break at any cause, it broke at
Strugi. He permitted the Kyemliches, therefore, "to pound," and fell
upon the invaders himself with such vigor that he scattered them,
struck them down; no one escaped, even prisoners were drowned at his
command. The starosta, to whom the aid was as if it had fallen from
heaven, received his deliverer with thanks and honored him at once. Pan
Andrei, seeing before him a personage, a statesman, and besides a man
of old date, confessed his hatred of the Swedes, and inquired of the
starosta what he thought of the future of the Commonwealth, in the hope
that he would pour balsam on his soul.
But the starosta viewed the past differently, and said: "My gracious
sir, I know not what I should have answered had this question been put
when I had ruddy mustaches and a mind clouded by physical humor; but
to-day I have gray mustaches, and the experience of seventy years on my
shoulders, and I see future things, for I am near the grave; therefore
I say that not only we, even if we should correct our errors, but all
Europe, cannot break the Swedish power."
"How can that be? Where did it come from?" cried Kmita. "When was
Sweden such a power? Are there not more of the Polish people on earth,
can we not have a larger army? Has that army yielded at any time to
Sweden in bravery?"
"There are ten times as many of our people. God has increased our
produce so that in my starostaship of Sohachev more wheat is grown than
in all Sweden; and as to bravery, I was at Kirchholm when three
thousand hussars of us scattered in the dust eighteen thousand of the
best troops of Sweden."
"If that is true," said Kmita, whose eyes flashed at remembrance of
Kirchholm, "what earthly causes are there why we should not put an end
to them now?"
"First, this," answered the old man, with a deliberate voice, "that we
have become small and they have grown great; that they have conquered
us with our own hands, as before now they conquered the Germans with
Germans. Such is the will of God; and there is no power, I repeat, that
can oppose them to-day."
"But if the nobles should come to their senses and rally around their
ruler,--if all should seize arms, what would you advise to do then, and
what would you do yourself?"
"I should go with others and fall, and I should advise every man to
fall; but after that would come times on which it is better not to
look."
"Worse times cannot come! As true as life, they cannot! It is
impossible!" cried Kmita.
"You see," continued the starosta, "before the end of the world and
before the last judgment Antichrist will come, and it is said that evil
men will get the upper hand of the good. Satans will go through the
world, will preach a faith opposed to the true one, and will turn men
to it. With the permission of God, evil will conquer everywhere until
the moment in which trumpeting angels shall sound for the end of the
world."
Here the starosta leaned against the back of the chair on which he was
sitting, closed his eyes, and spoke on in a low, mysterious voice,--
"It was said, 'There will be signs.' There have been signs on the sun
in the form of a hand and a sword. God be merciful to us, sinners! The
evil gain victory over the just, for the Swedes and their adherents are
conquering. The true faith is failing, for behold the Lutheran is
rising. Men! do ye not see that _dies iræ, dies illa_ (the day of
wrath, that day) is approaching? I am seventy years old; I stand on the
brink of the Styx,--I am waiting for the ferryman and the boat,--I
see--"
Here the starosta became silent, and Kmita looked at him with terror;
for the reasons seemed to him just, the conclusions fitting, therefore
he was frightened at his decisions and reflected deeply. But the
starosta did not look at him; he only looked in front of himself, and
said at last,--
"And of course the Swedes conquer here when that is the permission of
God, the express will mentioned and spoken of in the Prophecies--Oi,
people, to Chenstohova, to Chenstohova!" And again the starosta was
silent.
The sun was just setting, and looking only aslant into the room, its
light broke into colors on the glass fitted in lead, and made seven
colored stripes on the floor; the rest of the room was in darkness. It
became more and more awe-inspiring for Kmita; at moments it seemed to
him that if the light were to vanish, that instant the trumpeting angel
would summon to judgment.
"Of what prophecies is your grace speaking?" asked Kmita, at last; for
the silence seemed to him still more solemn.
The starosta instead of an answer turned to the door of an adjoining
room, and called,--
"Olenka! Olenka!"
"In God's name!" cried Kmita, "whom are you calling?"
At that moment he believed everything,--believed that his Olenka by a
miracle was brought from Kyedani and would appear before his eyes. He
forgot everything, fastened his gaze on the door, and waited without
breath in his breast.
"Olenka! Olenka!"
The door opened, and there entered not Panna Billevich, but a young
woman, shapely, slender, tall, a little like Olenka, with dignity and
calm spread over her face. She was pale, perhaps ill, and maybe
frightened at the recent attack; she walked with downcast eyes as
lightly and quietly as if some breath were moving her forward.
"This is my daughter," said the starosta. "I have no sons at home; they
are with Pan Pototski, and with him near our unfortunate king."
Then he turned to his daughter: "Thank first this manful cavalier for
rescuing us, and then read to him the prophecy of Saint Bridget."
The maiden bowed down before Pan Andrei, then went out, and after a
while returned with a printed roll in her hand, and standing in that
many-colored light, began to read in a resonant and sweet voice,--
"The prophecy of Saint Bridget, I will declare to you first of the five
kings and their rule: Gustav the son of Erick, the lazy ass, because
neglecting the right worship he went over to the false. Rejecting the
faith of the Apostles, he brought to the kingdom the Augsburg
Confession, putting a stain on his reputation. Look at Ecclesiastes,
where it is stated of Solomon that lie defiled his glory with
idolatry--"
"Are you listening?" asked the starosta, pointing toward Kmita with the
index finger of his left hand and holding the others, ready for
counting.
"Yes," answered Kmita.
"Erick, the son of Gustavus, a wolf of unsatiable greed," read the
lady, "with which he drew on himself the hatred of all men and of his
brother Yan. First, suspecting Yan of intrigues with Denmark and
Poland, he tormented him with war, and taking him with his wife he held
them four years in a dungeon. Yan, at last brought out of imprisonment
and aided by change of fortune, conquered Erick, expelled him from the
kingdom, and put him into prison forevermore. There is an unforeseen
event!"
"Consider," said the old man. "Here is another."
The lady read further:--
"Yan, the brother of Erick, a lofty eagle, thrice conqueror over Erick,
the Danes, and the Northerners. His son Sigismund, in whom dwells
nobility of blood, chosen to the Polish throne. Praise to his
offshoots!"
"Do you understand?" asked the starosta.
"May God prosper the years of Yan Kazimir!" answered Kmita.
"Karl, the prince of Sudermanii, the ram, who as rams lead the flock,
so he led the Swedes to injustice; and he attacked justice."
"That is the fourth!" interrupted the starosta.
"The fifth, Gustavus Adolphus," read the lady, "is the lamb slain, but
not spotless, whose blood was the cause of suffering and misfortune--"
"Yes; that is Gustavus Adolphus!" said the starosta. "Of Christiana
there is no mention, for only men are counted. Read now the end, which
refers accurately to the present time."
She read as follows:--
"I will show to thee the sixth, who distracts land and sea and brings
trouble on the simple; whose hour of punishment I will place in my own
hand. Though he attained his end quickly, my judgment draws near him;
he will leave the kingdom in suffering and it will be written: They
sowed rebellion and reap suffering and pain. Not only will I visit that
kingdom, but rich cities and powerful; for the hungry are called, who
will devour their sufficiency. Internal evils will not be lacking, and
misfortune will abound. The foolish will rule, and the wise and the old
men will not raise their heads. Honor and truth will fall, till that
man shall come who will implore away my anger and who will not spare
his own soul in love of truth."
"There you have it!" said the starosta.
"All is verified, so that only a blind man could doubt!" answered
Kmita.
"Therefore the Swedes cannot be conquered," said the starosta.
"Till that man shall come who will not spare his soul for the love of
truth!" exclaimed Kmita. "The prophecy leaves hope! Not judgment, but
salvation awaits us."
"Sodom was to be spared if ten just men could be found in it," said the
starosta; "but that many were not found. In the same manner will not be
found the man who will not spare his soul for love of truth; and the
hour of judgment will strike."
"It cannot be but that he will be found," called out Kmita.
Before the starosta answered the door opened, and into the room walked
a man no longer young, in armor and with a musket in his hand.
"Pan Shchebjytski?" said the starosta.
"Yes," answered the newly arrived. "I heard that ruffians had besieged
you, and I hastened with my servants to the rescue."
"Without the will of God a hair will not fall from the head of a man,"
answered the starosta. "This cavalier has already freed me from
oppression. But whence do you come?"
"From Sohachev."
"Have you heard anything new?"
"Every news is worse. New misfortune--"
"What has happened?"
"The provinces of Cracow, Sandomir, Rus, Lubelsk, Belzk, Volynia, and
Kieff have surrendered to Karl Gustav. The act is already signed by
envoys and by Karl."
The starosta shook his head, and turned to Kmita,--
"See," said he, "do you still think that the man will be found who will
not spare his soul for the love of truth?"
Kmita began to tear the hair from his forelock; "Despair! despair!"
repeated he, in distraction.
And Pan Shchebjytski continued: "They say also that the remnants of the
army, which are with Pototski, the hetman, have already refused
obedience and wish to go to the Swedes. The hetman probably is not sure
of safety or life among them, and must do what they want."
"They sow rebellion and reap suffering and pain," said the starosta.
"Whoso wishes to do penance for his sins, now is his time!"
Kmita could not hear further either prophecies or news; he wanted to
sit with all speed on his horse and cool his head in the wind. He
sprang up therefore, and began to take farewell of the starosta.
"But whither so hastily?" asked the latter.
"To Chenstohova, for I too am a sinner!"
"Though glad to entertain, I will not delay you, since your work is
more urgent, for the day of judgment is at hand."
Kmita went out; and after him went the young lady, wishing instead of
her father to do honor to the guest, for the old man was weak on his
feet.
"Be in good health, young lady," said Kmita; "you do not know how
thankful I am to you."
"If you are thankful to me," answered the young lady, "do me one
service. You are going to Chenstohova; here is a ruddy ducat,--take it,
I beg, and give it for a Mass in the chapel."
"For whose intention?" asked Kmita.
The prophetess dropped her eyes, trouble spread over her face; at the
same time a slight flush came to her cheeks, and she said with a low
voice, like the rustle of leaves,--
"For the intention of Andrei, that God may turn him from sinful ways."
Kmita pushed back two steps, stared, and from astonishment could not
speak for a time.
"By the wounds of Christ!" cried he, at last, "what manner of house is
this? Where am I? The prophecy itself, the soothsaying, and the
indications--Your name is Olenka, and you give me for a Mass for the
intentions of a sinful Andrei. This cannot be chance; it is the finger
of God,--it is, it is. I shall go wild!--As God lives, I shall!"
"What is the matter?"
He caught her hands violently and began to shake them. "Prophesy
further, speak to the end! If that Andrei will return and efface his
faults, will Olenka keep faith with him? Speak, answer, for I shall not
go away without that!"
"What is your trouble?"
"Will Olenka keep faith with him?" repeated Kmita.
Tears came suddenly into the eyes of the maiden: "To the last breath,
to the hour of death!" said she, with sobbing.
She had not finished speaking when Kmita fell his whole length at her
feet. She wanted to flee; he would not let her, and kissing her feet,
he said,--
"I too am a sinful Andrei, who wants to return. I too have my loved
one, Olenka. May yours return, and may mine keep faith. May your words
be prophetic. You have poured balsam and hope into my suffering
soul,--God reward you, God reward you!"
Then he sprang up, sat on his horse, and rode away.