“That is the Radzeyovski Palace, formerly the Kazanovski. It is considered the ninth wonder of the world; but there is a plague on it, for in those walls began the misfortune of the Commonwealth.”
“How is that?” asked a number of voices.
“When the vice-chancellor Radzeyovski began to dispute and quarrel with his wife, the king took her part. You know, gentlemen, what people said of this; and it is true that the vice-chancellor thought that his wife was in love with the king, and the king with her; then afterward, through hatred, he fled to the Swedes, and war began. To tell the truth, I was in the country at the moment, and did not see the end of the affair, I got it from hearsay; but I know this, that she made sweet eyes, not at the king, but at some one else.”
“At whom?”
Zagloba began to twirl his mustaches: “At him to whom all are hurrying like ants to honey; but it does not beseem me to mention his name, for I have always hated boastfulness. Besides, the man has grown old, and from sweeping out the enemy of the country, I am worn as a broom; but once there was no greater beauty and love maker than I. Let Roh Kovalski—”
Here Zagloba saw that by no means could Roh remember those times; therefore he waved his hand, and said,—
“But what does he know of this affair?”
Then he pointed out the palaces of Ossolinski and Konyetspolski, palaces which were in size almost equal to the Radzeyovski; finally the splendid villa Regia; and then the sun went down, and the darkness of night began to fill the air.
The thunder of guns was heard on the walls of Warsaw, and trumpets were sounded a considerable time and prolonged, in sign that the enemy was approaching.
Sapyeha also announced his coming by firing from muskets, to give courage to the inhabitants; and that night he began to transport his army across the Vistula. First the Lauda squadron passed; second the squadron of Pan Kotvich; then Kmita’s Tartars; then Vankovich’s squadron; after that, eight thousand men. In this way the Swedes, with their accumulated plunder, were surrounded and deprived of communication; but nothing remained to Sapyeha except to wait till Charnyetski from one side, and from the other Yan Kazimir with the hetmans of the kingdom, marched up, and meanwhile to see that no reinforcements stole through to the city.