“You cannot even imagine how I love that lady. Not that I have forgotten the beloved dead one; I pray for her every day. But to this one my heart has grown fixed like fungus to a tree; she is my love. What have I thought of her away off there in the grasses, morning and evening and midday! At last I began to talk to myself, since I had no confidant. As God is dear to me, when I had to chase after the horde in the reeds, I was thinking of her when rushing at full speed.”
“I believe it. From weeping for a certain maiden in my youth one of my eyes flowed out, and what of it did not flow out was covered with a cataract.”
“Do not wonder; I came here, the breath barely in my body; the first word I hear,—the cloister. But still I have trust in persuasion and in her heart and her word. How did you state it? ‘A habit is good’—but made of what?”
“But not when made of injustice to others.”
“Splendidly said! How is it that I have never been able to make maxims? In the stanitsa it would have been a ready amusement. Alarm sits in me continually, but you have given me consolation. I agreed with her, it is true, that the affair should remain a secret; therefore it is likely that the maiden might speak of the habit only for appearance’ sake. You brought forward another splendid argument, but I cannot remember it. You have given me great consolation.”
“Then come to me, or give command to bring the decanter to this place. It is good after the journey.”
They went, and sat drinking till late at night.
Next day Pan Michael arrayed his body in fine garments and his face in seriousness, armed himself with all the arguments which came to his own head, and with those which Zagloba had given him; thus equipped, he went to the dining-room, where all met usually at meal-time. Of the whole company only Krysia was absent, but she did not let people wait for her long; barely had the little knight swallowed two spoonfuls of soup when through the open door the rustle of a robe was heard, and the maiden came in.
She entered very quickly, rather rushed in. Her cheeks were burning; her lids were dropped; in her face were mingled fear and constraint. Approaching Pan Michael, she gave him both hands, but did not raise her eyes at all, and when he began to kiss those hands with eagerness, she grew very pale; besides, she did not find one word for greeting. But his heart filled with love, alarm, and rapture at sight of her face, delicate and changeful as a wonder-working image, at sight of that form shapely and beautiful, from which the warmth of recent sleep was still beating; he was moved even by that confusion and that fear depicted in her face.
“Dearest flower!” thought he, in his soul, “why do you fear? I would give even my life and blood for you.” But he did not say this aloud, he only pressed his pointed mustaches so long to her hands that red traces were left on them. Basia, looking at all this, gathered over her forehead her yellow forelock of purpose, so that no one might notice her emotion; but no one gave attention to her at that time; all were looking at the pair, and a vexatious silence followed.