“Have I done all this?” asked he of himself; and the hair stood on his head.
“Impossible! It must be that fever is shaking me yet,” cried he. “Mother of God, this is not possible!”
“Blind, foolish quarreller,” said his conscience, “this would not have come to thee in fighting for the king and the country, nor if thou hadst listened to Olenka.”
And sorrow tore him like a whirlwind. Hei! if only he could say to himself: “The Swedes against the country, I against them! Radzivill against the king, I against him!” Then it would be clear and transparent in his soul. Then he might collect a body of cut-throats from under a dark star and, frolic with them as a gypsy at a fair, fall upon the Swedes, and ride over their breasts with pure heart and conscience; then he might stand in glory as in sunlight before Olenka, and say,—
“I am no longer infamous, but defensor patriæ (a defender of the country); love me, as I love thee.”
But what was he now? That insolent spirit, accustomed to self-indulgence, would not confess to a fault altogether at first. It was the Radzivills who (according to him) had pushed him down in this fashion; it was the Radzivills who had brought him to ruin, covered him with evil repute, bound his hands, despoiled him of honor and love.
Here Pan Kmita gnashed his teeth, stretched out his hands toward Jmud, on which Yanush, the hetman, was sitting like a wolf on a corpse, and began to call out in a voice choking with rage,—
“Vengeance! Vengeance!”
Suddenly he threw himself in despair on his knees in the middle of the room, and began to cry,—
“I vow to thee, O Lord Christ, to bend those traitors and gallop over them with justice, with fire, and with sword, to cut them, while there is breath in my throat, steam in my mouth, and life for me in this world! So help me, O Nazarene King! Amen!”