“But you will not ruin the army, bring disobedience, and give an evil example?”
“I will not, Pan Michael, I will not for your sake.”
“God grant us to take Tykotsin; whose affair is it what I seek behind the walls of the fortress? Why should any man jeer at me?”
Struck by that question, Zagloba began to put the ends of his mustaches in his mouth and gnaw them; at last he said: “Pan Michael, I love you as the apple of my eye, but drive that Panna Billevich out of your head.”
“Why?” asked Pan Michael, with astonishment.
“She is beautiful, assentior (I agree),” answered Zagloba, “but she is distinguished in person, and there is no proportion whatever between you. You might sit on her shoulder, like a canary-bird, and peck sugar out of her mouth. She might carry you like a falcon on her glove, and let you off against every enemy, for though you are little you are venomous like a hornet.”
“Well, have you begun?” asked Volodyovski.
“If I have begun, then let me finish. There is one woman as if created for you, and she is precisely that kernel— What is her name? That one whom Podbipienta was to marry?”
“Anusia Borzobogati!” cried Pan Yan. “She is indeed an old love of Michael’s.”
“A regular grain of buckwheat, but a pretty little rogue; just like a doll,” said Zagloba, smacking his lips.