“How is that? Has not the temptation to go out of the cloister come on you?” continued Zagloba.
The monk looked with distrust at the envoy of the archbishop, speaking in such marvellous fashion, and answered, “When the door here closes on any man, he never goes out.”
“We’ll see that yet! What is happening to Pan Volodyovski? Is he well?”
“There is no one here named in that way.”
“Brother Michael?” said Zagloba, on trial. “Former colonel of dragoons, who came here not long since.”
“We call him Brother Yerzy; but he has not made his vows yet, and cannot make them till the end of the term.”
“And surely he will not make them; for you will not believe, brother, what a woman’s man he is! You could not find another man so hostile to woman’s virtue in all the clois— I meant to say in all the cavalry.”
“It is not proper for me to hear this,” said the monk, with increasing astonishment and confusion.
“Listen, brother; I do not know where you receive visitors, but if it is in this place, I advise you to withdraw a little when Brother Yerzy comes,—as far as that gate, for instance,—for we shall talk here of very worldly matters.”
“I prefer to go away at once,” said the monk.