“Ah, often over the winecups, when he was in a melting mood, when he clasped me so closely and assured me of his friendship, since he needed my sabre or my vote at the diet, and when in return I was forced to clasp him in friendly wise, then anger would so boil up within me that I would turn the spittle within my [pg 266] lips and clasp my sword hilt with my hand, longing to spit upon this friendship and to draw the sword at once. But Eva, noticing my glance and my bearing, would guess, I know not how, what was passing within me, and would gaze at me imploringly, and her face would turn pale; and she was so fair and meek a dove, and she had so gentle and serene a glance!—so angel-like that—I know not how—but I lacked the courage to anger or alarm her—and I held my peace. And I, a roistering champion famous through all Lithuania, 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]
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“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——
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“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 [pg 267] 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!
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“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.
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