eyes, and at last he laughed.--Happy in her
reply, he advanced more quickly, gazing down at his rivals; now he hung
his white cap with its heron's plumes over his brow, now he shook it above
his brow; at last he cocked it over his ear and twirled his mustache. He
strode on; all felt envious of him and pressed upon him in pursuit; he
would have been glad to steal away from the throng with his lady; at times
he stood still, courteously raised his hand, and humbly begged them to
pass by; sometimes he meditated withdrawing adroitly to one side; he often
changed his course, and would have been glad to elude his comrades, but
they importunately followed him with swift steps, and encircled him from
all sides in the evolutions of the dance: so he grew angry, and laid his
right hand on his sword hilt, as if to say: "I care not for you; woe to
those who are jealous of me!" He turned about with a haughty brow and with
a challenge in his eye, and made straight for the throng; the throng of
dancers did not dare withstand him, but retired from his path--and,
changing their formation, they started again in pursuit of him.--

Cries rang out on all sides: "Ah, perhaps he is the last--watch, watch, you
young men--perhaps he is the last who can lead the polonaise in such
fashion!" And the couples followed one another merrily and uproariously;
the circle would disperse and then contract once more! As when an immense
serpent twines into a thousand folds, so there was seen a perpetual change
amid the gay, parti-coloured garments of the ladies, the gentlemen, and
the soldiers, like glittering scales gilded by the beams of the western
sun and relieved against the dark pillows of turf. Brisk was the dance and
loud the music, the applause, and the drinking of healths.

Corporal Buzzard Dobrzynski alone neither listened to the band, nor
danced, nor made him merry; with his hands behind him he stood glum and
sullen and called to mind his old-time wooing of Zosia; how he had loved
to bring her flowers, to plait little baskets, to gather birds' nests, to
make little earrings. Ungrateful girl! Though he had wasted upon her so
many lovely gifts, though she had fled from him, though his father had
forbidden him, yet how many times he had sat on the wall just to see her
through the window, and had stolen into the hemp in order to watch how she
tended her little flower garden, picked cucumbers, or fed the roosters!
Ungrateful girl! He drooped his head; f