Pan Adam slipped aside and squirmed as if laughing; but he was greatly confused, and the old man pursued him and struck him continually.
“Oh, such a Turk! oh, Tartar! here it is for you; here it is for you! I exorcise you! Where are your morals? You want to see a woman? Here it is for you; here it is for you!”
“My benefactor,” cried Pan Adam, “it is not right to make a whip out of holy beads. Let me go, for I had no sinful intention.”
“You say it is not right to strike with a rosary? Not true! The palm on Palm Sunday is holy, and still people strike with it. Ha! these were Pagan beads once and belonged to Suban Kazi; but I took them from him at Zbaraj, and afterward the apostolic nuncio blessed them. See, they are genuine sandalwood!”
“If they are real sandalwood, they have an odor.”
“Beads have an odor for me, and a girl for you. I must dress your shoulders well yet, for there is nothing to drive out the Devil like a chaplet.”
“I had no sinful intention; upon my health I had not!”
“Was it only through piety that you were opening a chink?”
“Not through piety, but through love, which is so wonderful that I’m not sure that I shall not burst from it, as a bomb bursts. What is the use in pretending, when it is true? Flies do not trouble a horse in autumn as this affection troubles me.”
“See that this is not sinful desire; for when I came in here you could not stand still, but were striking heel against heel as if you were standing on a firebrand.”