“For God’s sake, what is the matter?” cried the astonished host.
“God has given happiness to one and taken it from another,” said Kharlamp. “But the reasons of my sorrow I can tell only to you.”
Here he looked at Olenka; she, seeing that he was unwilling to speak in her presence, said to her husband, “I will send mead to you, gentlemen, and now I leave you.”
Kmita took Pan Kharlamp to the summer-house, and seating him on a bench, asked, “What is the matter? Are you in need of assistance? Count on me as on Zavisha!”[3]
“Nothing is the matter with me,” said the old soldier, “and I need no assistance while I can move this hand and this sabre; but our friend, the most worthy cavalier in the Commonwealth, is in cruel suffering. I know not whether he is breathing yet.”
“By Christ’s wounds! Has anything happened to Volodyovski?”
“Yes,” said Kharlamp, giving way to a new outburst of tears. “Know that Panna Anna Borzobogati has left this vale—”
“Is dead!” cried Kmita, seizing his head with both hands.
“As a bird pierced by a shaft.”
A moment of silence followed,—no sound but that of apples dropping here and there to the ground heavily, and of Pan Kharlamp panting more loudly while restraining his weeping. But Kmita was wringing his hands, and repeated, nodding his head,—