uania, before whom the greatest lords had
been wont to tremble, who had not lived a day without a battle, who would
not have allowed the Pantler, no, not the King himself, to do me wrong; I,
who was driven to fury by the least disagreement--I, then, though angry and
drunken, held my peace like a lamb!--as though I had suddenly beheld the
consecrated Host!174

* * * * * * * *

"How many times did I wish to open my heart and even to humble myself to
implore him; but when I looked into his eyes and met his gaze cold as ice,
I felt shame for my emotion; I hastened once more to discourse as coldly
as I might of suits at law and of the district diets, and even to jest.
All this, to be sure, was from pride, in order not to debase the name of
the Soplicas, in order not to lower myself before a magnate by a vain
request and receive a refusal--for what gossip there would have been among
the gentry, if they had known that I, Jacek----

* * * * * * * *

"The Horeszkos refuse a wench to a Soplica! They serve me, Jacek, with
black soup!

"Finally, not knowing myself what way to turn, I bethought me of gathering
together a little company of gentry, and of leaving forever this district
and my Fatherland; of going off somewhere or other, to Moscow or to the
land of the Tatars, and beginning a war. I rode over to bid the Pantler
farewell, in the hope that when he saw his faithful partisan, his former
friend, a man almost of his own household, with whom he had caroused and
made war for so many long years, now bidding him farewell and riding off
to the ends of the earth--that the old man might be moved and show me at
least a trace of a human soul, as a snail shows its horns!

"Ah! if one has at the bottom of his heart the faintest spark of feeling
for a friend, that spark will break forth when he bids him farewell, like
the last flame of life before a man expires! The coldest eye, when for the
last time it touches the brow of a friend, will often shed a tear!

* * * * * * * *

"The poor girl, hearing that I was about to leave the country, turned
pale, and fell in a swoon, almost dead; she could not speak, but from her
eyes there streamed a flood of tears--I learned how dear I was to her.

* * * * * * * *

"I remember that for the first time in my life I shed tears, for joy and
for despair; I forgot myself, I went ma