“So Pan Kmita did not get thee from Trubetskoi?”
“Most of the other men had served before with Trubetskoi and Hovanski, but they had run away too and taken to the road.”
“Why did you go with Pan Kmita?”
“Because he is a splendid ataman. We were told that when he called on any one to go with him, thalers as it were flowed out of a bag, to that man. That’s why we went. Well, God did not give us good luck!”
Volodyovski began to rack his head, and to think that they had blackened Kmita too much; then he looked at the pale attendant boyar and again racked his head.
“And so thou art in love with her?”
“Oi, so much!”
Volodyovski walked away, and while going he thought: “That is a resolute man. He did not break his head; he fell in love and remained. Such men are best. If he is really an attendant boyar, he is of the same rank as the village nobles. When he digs up his gold pieces, perhaps the old man will give him Maryska. And why? Because he did not go to drumming with his fingers, but made up his mind that he would get her. I’ll make up my mind too.”
Thus meditating, Volodyovski walked along the road in the sunshine. Sometimes he would stop, fix his eyes on the ground or raise them to the sky, then again go farther, till all at once he saw a flock of wild ducks flying through the air. He began to soothsay whether he should go or not. It came out that he was to go.
“I will go; it cannot be otherwise.”