All this flashed past the astonished eyes of Pan Kmita like jugglery; but he did not warm his place long in Warsaw, for not knowing any man he had no one before whom to open his soul. Even with those Polish nobles who were stopping in the city and living in public houses built during the reign of King Sigismund III. on Dluga Street, Pan Andrei did not associate closely. He conversed, it is true, with this one and that, to learn the news; but all were fanatical adherents of the Swedes, and waiting for the return of Karl Gustav, clung to Radzeyovski and the Swedish officers with the hope of receiving starostaships, confiscated private estates, and profits from church and other recoupments. Each man of them would have been served rightly had some one spat in his eyes, and from this Kmita did not make great effort to restrain himself.
From the townspeople Kmita only heard that they regretted past times, and the good king of the fallen country. The Swedes persecuted them savagely, seized their houses, exacted contributions, imprisoned them. They said also that the guilds had arms secreted, especially the linen-weavers, the butchers, the furriers, and the powerful guild of tailors; that they were looking continually for the return of Yan Kazimir, did not lose hope, and with assistance from outside were ready to attack the Swedes.
Hearing this, Kmita did not believe his own ears. It could not find place in his head that men of mean station and rank should exhibit more love for the country and loyalty to their lawful king than nobles, who ought to bring those sentiments into the world with their birth.
But it was just the nobles and magnates who stood by the Swedes, and the common people who for the greater part wished to resist; and more than once it happened that when the Swedes were driving common people to work at fortifying Warsaw, these common people chose to endure flogging, imprisonment, even death itself, rather than aid in confirming Swedish power.
Beyond Warsaw the country was as noisy as in a beehive. All the roads, the towns, and the hamlets were occupied by soldiers, by attendants of great lords and nobles, and by lords and nobles serving the Swedes. All was captured, gathered in, subdued; everything was as Swedish as if the country had been always in their hands.
Pan Andrei met no people save Swedes, adherents of the Swedes, or people in despair, indifferent, who were convinced to the depth of their souls that all was lost. No one thought of resistance; commands were carried out quietly and promptly one half or a tenth part of which would have been met in times not long past with opposition and protest. Fear had reached that degree that even those who were injured praised loudly the kind protector of the Commonwealth.
Formerly it happened often enough that a noble received his own civil and military deputies of exaction with gun in hand, and at the head of armed servants; now such tributes were imposed as it pleased the Swedes to impose, and the nobles gave them as obediently as sheep give their wool to the shearer. It happened more than once that the same tribute was taken twice. It was vain to use a receipt as defence; it was well if the executing officer did not moisten it in wine and make the man who showed it swallow the paper. That was nothing! “Vivat protector!” cried the noble; and when the officer had departed he ordered his servant to crawl out on the roof and see if another were not coming. And well if only all were ended with Swedish contributions; but worse than the enemy were, in that as in every other land, the traitors. Old private grievances, old offences were brought up; ditches were filled, meadows and forests were seized, and for the friend of the Swedes everything went unpunished. Worst, however, were the dissidents; and they were not all. Armed bands were formed of unfortunates, desperadoes, ruffians, and gamblers. Assisted by Swedish marauders, Germans, and disturbers of all kinds, these bands fell upon peasants and nobles. The country was filled with fires; the armed hand of the soldier was heavy on the towns; in the forest the robber attacked. No one thought of curing the Commonwealth; no one dreamed of rescue, of casting off the yoke; no one had hope.
It happened that Swedish and German plunderers near Sohachev besieged Pan Lushchevski, the starosta of that place, falling upon him at Strugi, his private estate. He, being of a military turn, defended himself vigorously, though an old man. Kmita came just then; and since his patience had on it a sore ready to break at any cause, it broke at Strugi. He permitted the Kyemliches, therefore, “to pound,” and fell upon the invaders himself with such vigor that he scattered them, struck them down; no one escaped, even prisoners were drowned at his command. The starosta, to whom the aid was as if it had fallen from heaven, received his deliverer with thanks and honored him at once. Pan Andrei, seeing before him a personage, a statesman, and besides a man of old date, confessed his hatred of the Swedes, and inquired of the starosta what he thought of the future of the Commonwealth, in the hope that he would pour balsam on his soul.
But the starosta viewed the past differently, and said: “My gracious sir, I know not what I should have answered had this question been put when I had ruddy mustaches and a mind clouded by physical humor; but to-day I have gray mustaches, and the experience of seventy years on my shoulders, and I see future things, for I am near the grave; therefore I say that not only we, even if we should correct our errors, but all Europe, cannot break the Swedish power.”
“How can that be? Where did it come from?” cried Kmita. “When was Sweden such a power? Are there not more of the Polish people on earth, can we not have a larger army? Has that army yielded at any time to Sweden in bravery?”