On the Field of Glory Part 16

"We challenged him, not he us!"

"That is true, gracious benefactor," said Stanislav. "There is no blame to this cavalier in all that has happened, but to us, for which we beg your grace's pardon submissively."

"It would have been well for the judge to examine the witnesses before he pa.s.sed sentence," said Father Voynovski, with seriousness.

Lukash, too, wished to say something, but since his cheek was cut to the gum and his gum to the teeth, the pain was acute when his chin moved, so he only put his palm on the plaster which was drying, and said with one side of his mouth,--

"May the devils take the sentence and my jaw with it also."

Pan Gideon was confused in some measure by these voices, still, he had no thought of yielding. On the contrary, he looked around with stern glance, as if wishing in that way to express silent blame for defenders of Yatsek.

"It is not for me to offer pardon to my rescuers. No blame touches you, gentlemen. On the contrary, I know and understand all this matter, for I see that you were insulted on purpose. Indeed, that same jealousy, which on a dying horse failed to ride living wolves down, increased later on the desire for vengeance. I was not alone in seeing how that 'cavalier,' whom you defend so magnanimously, gave occasion and did everything from the earliest moment of meeting to force you to that action. But the fault is mine more than any man's, since I was mild with him, and did not tell the man to find for himself at a fair or a dram shop more fitting society."

When Yatsek heard this his face grew as pale as linen. As to the priest, the blood rose to his forehead.

"He was challenged! What was he to do? Be ashamed of yourself!"

exclaimed Father Voynovski.

But Pan Gideon looked down at him and answered,--

"Those are worldly questions, in which the laity are as experienced, and more so, than the clergy, but I will answer your question, so that no one here should accuse me of injustice. 'What was he to do?' As a younger to an older man, as a guest to his host, as a man who ate my bread so many times when he had none of his own to eat, he should first of all have informed me of the question. And I with my dignity of a host would have settled it, and not have let matters come to this: that my rescuers, and such worthy gentlemen, are lying here in their own blood on straw in this hut as in a hog pen."

"You would have thought me a coward!" cried Yatsek, trembling as in a fever.

Pan Gideon did not answer a word, and feigned, as he had from the first, not to see him. Instead of answering he turned then to Stanislav, and continued,--

"I, with Pan Grothus the starosta, will go to your father in Yedlinka this instant, to express our condolence. I doubt not that he will accept my hospitality, hence I invite you with your comrades here present to return to my mansion. I also remind you that you are here by chance merely, and that at the moment you are really my guests, to whom I wish with all my heart to show grat.i.tude. Your father, Pan Tsyprianovitch, cannot visit the man who has wounded you, and under my roof you will have greater comfort, and will not die of hunger, which might happen very easily in this place."

Stanislav was troubled greatly and delayed for a while to give answer, both out of regard for Yatsek, and because that, being a very decent young man, he was concerned about propriety; meanwhile his lip and chin, which had swollen beneath the plaster, deformed him very sensibly.

"We have felt neither hunger nor thirst here," said he, "as has been shown already; but in truth we are guests of your grace, and my father, not knowing how things have happened, might hesitate to come to us. But how am I to appear before those ladies, your grace's relatives, with a face which could rouse only abhorrence?"

Then his face twisted, for his lip pained him from long speaking, and his features, in fact, were not beautiful at the moment.

"Be not troubled. Those ladies feel disgust, but not toward your wounds, after the healing of which your former good-looks will return to you. Three sleighs will come here with servants immediately, and in my house good beds are waiting. Meanwhile, farewell, since it is time for me and Pan Grothus to set out for Yedlinka--With the forehead!"

And he bowed once to the five n.o.bles. To Father Voynovski he bowed specially, but he made no inclination whatever to Yatsek. When near the door the priest approached him.

"You have too little justice and too little tenderness," said he.

"I acknowledge sins only at confession," retorted Pan Gideon, and he pa.s.sed through the doorway. After him went the starosta, Pan Grothus.

Yatsek had been a whole hour as if tortured. His face changed, and at moments he knew not whether to fall at the feet of Pan Gideon with a prayer for forgiveness, or spring at his throat and avenge the humiliation through which he was pa.s.sing. But he remembered that he was in his own house, that before him was standing the guardian of Panna Anulka; hence, as the two men walked out he moved after them, not giving an account to himself of his action, but because of custom which commanded to conduct guests, and in some kind of blind hope that perhaps even at parting the stubborn Pan Gideon would bow to him. But this hope failed him also; only Pan Grothus, a kindly man, as was evident, and of good wit pressed his hand at the entrance, and whispered, "Despair not, his first rage will pa.s.s, cavalier, and all will arrange itself."

Yatsek did not think thus, and he would have been sure that his case was lost utterly had he known that Pan Gideon, though indignant, feigned anger far more than he felt it.

Stanislav and the Bukoyemskis were his rescuers, but Yatsek had not killed them, and a duel of itself was too common to rouse such unmerciful hatred. But Pan Gideon, from the moment that the starosta had told him how aged men marry and sometimes have children, looked with other eyes upon Panna Anulka. That which perhaps had never occurred to him earlier, seemed all at once possible and also alluring.

At thought of the charms of that maiden, marvellous as a rose, the soul warmed in him, and still more powerfully did pride play in the old n.o.ble. So then, the race of Pangovski might flourish afresh and bloom up again; and besides, born from such a patrician as Panna Anulka, not only related to all the great houses in the Commonwealth, but herself the last sprout of a race from whose wealth rose in greater part the Sobieskis, Jolkievskis, Daniloviches, and many others. There was a whirl in Pan Gideon's brain at the thought of this, and he felt that not only he but the Commonwealth was concerned in Pangovskis of that kind. So straightway fear rose in him lest it should happen that the lady might love some one else, and give her hand to another man. One more important than himself in that region, he had not discovered; there were younger men, however. But who? Pan Stanislav? Yes! He was young, of good looks, very rich, but n.o.ble in the third generation, descended from enn.o.bled Armenians. That such a _h.o.m.o novus_ should indeed strive for Panna Anulka could not find place in the head of Pan Gideon in any shape. It was laughable to think of the Bukoyemskis, though good n.o.bles and claiming kindred with Saint Peter. There remained then Tachevski alone, a real "Lazarus," it is true, as poor as a church mouse, but from an ancient stock of great knights; from Tachevo who had the Kovala escutcheon, one of whom was a real giant, and had taken part in the dreadful defeat of the Germans at Tannenberg; he had been famous not only in the Commonwealth but at foreign courts also. Only a Tachevski could compare with the Sieninskis. Besides, he was young, daring, handsome, and melancholy; this last often moves the heart in a woman. He was also at home in Belchantska, and seemed a friend, nay, a brother to the lady. Hence, Pan Gideon fell now to recalling various cases, as, for instance, disputes and poutings among the young people, then their reconciliations and friendship, then various words and glances, sadness and rejoicing in common, and laughter. Things which a short time before he had thought scarcely worthy of notice seemed now suspicious. Yes! danger could threaten only from that side. The old n.o.ble thought, also, that Panna Anulka might, in part at least, be the cause of the duel, and he was terrified.

Hence, to antic.i.p.ate the danger, he tried to present to the young lady in the strongest light possible, all the dishonor of Yatsek's late action, and to rouse in her due anger; and then by feigning greater rage than he felt, or than the case called for, to burn all the bridges between his own mansion and Vyrambki, and, when he had humiliated Yatsek without mercy, to close the doors of the house to him forever.

And he was reaching his object. Yatsek walked back from the porch, took a seat at the table, thrust his fingers through his hair, supported his elbows, and was as silent as if pain had taken speech from him. Father Voynovski approached and put his hand on his shoulder.

"Yatsus, suffer what thou must," said he, "but a foot of thine should never enter that mansion hereafter."

"It never will," replied Yatsek, in a dull voice.

"But yield not to pain. Remember who thou art."

The young man set his teeth.

"I remember, but for that very reason pain burns me!"

"No one here applauds Pan Gideon for his action," said Stanislav. "It is one thing to censure, and another to trample a man's honor."

Hereupon the Bukoyemskis were moving, and Mateush, whom speech troubled least, added promptly,--

"Under his roof I will say nothing, but when I recover and meet him on the road, or at a neighbor's, I will tell him to kiss a dog's snout that same minute."

"O, yei!" said Marek. "To insult such a cavalier! The hour will come when that will not be forgiven him."

Meanwhile three sleighs with sofas and three servants, besides drivers, appeared to convey the wounded men to Belchantska. Because of regard for the expected arrival of Pan Serafin, Yatsek dared not detain them, and because also of this: that they were really the guests of Pan Gideon. As to the men, they would not have remained after hearing of Yatsek's great poverty lest they might burden him. They took farewell and gave thanks for his hospitality with a heartiness as great as if there had never been a quarrel between them.

But when Stanislav was taking his seat in the last sleigh Yatsek sprang forward on a sudden,--

"I will go with you," said he. "I cannot endure to do otherwise! I cannot endure! Before Pan Gideon returns I must--for the last time--"

Father Voynovski, since he knew Yatsek, knew that words would be useless; still, he drew him aside and began to expostulate,--

"Yatsek! O Yatsek! a woman again. G.o.d grant that a still greater wrong may not meet thee. O Yatsek, remember the words of Ecclesiastes: 'In a thousand I found one man, among all I found not one woman.' Take pity on thyself and remember this."

But these words were as peas against a battlement. In a moment Yatsek was sitting in the sleigh at the side of Stanislav, and they started.

Meanwhile the east wind had broken the mist and driven it to the wilderness; then the bright sun from a blue sky looked at them.

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 s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away when he wished to kiss it in greeting; and the young lady, without compa.s.sion for his suffering and embarra.s.sment, 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 eyeb.a.l.l.s, 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.