The nobles were dumb at the first moment, but the Swedes began to rejoice and cry “Vivat.” In the church of the Holy Ghost, in the church of the Bernardines, and in the cloister of Bernardine nuns, recently erected by Pani Muskovski, it was ordered to ring the bells. The infantry and cavalry came out on the square, from the breweries and cloth-shearing mills, in battle-array, and began to fire from cannons and muskets. Then they rolled out barrels of gorailka, mead, and beer for the army and the citizens; they burned pitch-barrels and feasted till late at night. The Swedes dragged out the inhabitants from the houses to dance with them, to rejoice and frolic; and together with throngs of soldiers straggled along nobles who drank with the cavalry, and were forced to feign joy at the fall of Cracow and the defeat of Charnyetski.
Disgust carried away Kmita, and he took refuge early in his quarters outside the town, but he could not sleep. A fever tormented him, and doubts besieged his soul. Had he not turned from the road too late, when the whole country was in the hands of the Swedes? It came into his head that all was lost now, and the Commonwealth would never rise from its fall.
“This is not a mere unlucky war,” thought he, “which may end with the loss of some province; this is accomplished ruin! This means that the whole Commonwealth becomes a Swedish province. We have caused this ourselves, and I more than others.”
This thought burned him, and conscience gnawed. Sleep fled from him. He knew not what to do,—to travel farther, remain in the place, or return. Even if he collected a party and harried the Swedes, they would hunt him as a bandit, and not treat him as a soldier. Besides, he is in a strange region, where no one knows who he is. Who will join him? Fearless men rallied to him in Lithuania, where he, the most famous, called them together; but here, even if some had heard of Kmita, they held him a traitor and a friend of the Swedes, but surely no one had ever heard of Babinich.
All is useless! It is useless to go to the king, for it is too late; it is useless to go to Podlyasye, for the Confederates think him a traitor; it is useless to go to Lithuania, for there the Radzivills own all; it is useless to stay where he is, for there he has nothing to do. The best would be to drive out the soul, and not look on this world, but flee from remorse.
But will it be better in that world for those who having sinned their fill in this life, have not effaced their sins in any way, and will stand before judgment beneath the whole weight of these sins? Kmita struggled in his bed, as if lying on a bed of torture. Such unendurable torments he had not passed through, even in the forest cabin of the Kyemliches.
He felt strong, healthy, enterprising,—the soul in him was rushing out to begin something, to do something,—and here every road was blocked; even knock the head against a wall,—there is no issue, no salvation, no hope.
After he had tossed during the night on his bed, he sprang up before daybreak, roused his men, and rode on. They went toward Warsaw, but he knew not himself wherefore or why. He would have escaped to the Saitch in despair, if times had not changed, and if Hmelnitski, together with Buturlin, had not just overborne the grand hetman of the kingdom, at Grodek, carrying at the same time fire and sword through the southwestern regions of the Commonwealth, and sending predatory bands as far as Lublin.
Along the roads to Pultusk, Pan Andrei met at all points Swedish parties, escorting wagons with provisions, grain, bread, beer, and herds of every kind of cattle. With the herds and wagons went crowds of peasants, small nobles, weeping and groaning, for they were dragged away numbers of miles with the wagons. Happy the man who was allowed to return home with his wagon; and this did not happen in every case, for after they had brought the supplies peasants and petty nobles were forced to labor at repairing castles, building sheds and magazines.
Kmita saw also that in the neighborhood of Pultusk the Swedes acted more harshly with the people than in Pjasnysh; and not being able to understand the cause, he inquired about it of the nobles whom he met on the road.