Olenka began to wring her hands; and Billevich, coming to himself, seized his forelock, and cried,—
“I have spoiled everything; I am the cause of your ruin!”
The prince did not show himself the whole day. He even dined in his own room with Sakovich. Stirred to the bottom of his soul, he could not think so clearly as usual. Some kind of ague was wasting him. It was the herald of a grievous fever which was to seize him soon with such force that during its attacks he was benumbed altogether, so that his attendants had to rub him most actively. But at this time he ascribed his strange state to the power of love, and thought that he must either satisfy it or die. When he had told Sakovich the whole conversation with the sword-bearer, he said,—
“My hands and feet are burning, ants are walking along my back, in my mouth are bitterness and fire; but, by all the horned devils, what is this? Never has this attacked me before!”
“Your highness is as full of scruples as a baked capon of buckwheat grits. The prince is a capon, the prince is a capon. Ha, ha!”
“You are a fool!”
“Very well.”
“I don’t need your ideas.”
“Worthy prince, take a lute and go under the windows of the maiden. Billevich may show you his fist. Tfu! to the deuce! is that the kind of bold man that Boguslav Radzivill is?”
“You are an idiot!”