Anusia saw the suffering of her companion, and understood the cause; for the old sword-bearer had detailed the whole history to her previously. Since she had a kind heart, she came up to Panna Billevich, and throwing her arms around her neck, said,—
“Olenka, you are writhing from pain in this house.”
Olenka at first did not wish to speak; then her whole body trembled like an aspen leaf, and at last a terrible, despairing cry burst from her bosom. Seizing Anusia’s hand convulsively, she rested her bright head on that maiden’s shoulder; sobbing now tore her as a whirlwind tears a thicket.
Anusia had to wait long before it passed; at last she whispered when Olenka was pacified somewhat, “Let us pray for him.”
Olenka covered her eyes with both hands. “I—cannot,” said she, with an effort.
After a while, gathering back feverishly the hair which had fallen on her forehead, she began to speak with a gasping voice,—
“You see—I cannot— You are happy; your Babinich is honorable, famous, before God and the country. You are happy; I am not free even to pray— Here, everywhere, is the blood of people, and here are burned ruins. If at least he had not betrayed the country, if he had not undertaken to sell the king! I had forgiven everything before, in Kyedani; for I thought—for I loved him with my whole heart. But now I cannot—O merciful God! I cannot! I could wish not to live myself, and that he were not living.”
“It is permitted to pray for every soul,” said Anusia; “for God is more merciful than men, and knows reasons which often men do not know.”
When she had said this, Anusia knelt down to pray, and Olenka threw herself on the floor in the form of a cross, and lay thus till daybreak.
Next morning the news thundered through the neighborhood that Pan Billevich was in Lauda. At that news all who were living came forth with greeting. Therefore out of the neighboring forests issued decrepit old men, and women with small children. For two years no one had sowed any seed, no one had ploughed any land. The villages were partly burned and were deserted. The people lived in the forests. Men in the vigor of life had gone with Volodyovski or to various parties; only youths watched and guarded the remnant of cattle, and guarded well, but under cover of the wilderness.