"The heat flies down from heaven," said Zagloba. "It is feverish even in a linen coat, for there is no breeze what ever. Bogun! look here, Bogun!"
The leader gazed with his deep, dark eyes as if roused from sleep.
"Be careful, my son," said Zagloba, "that you are not devoured by melancholy, which when it leaves the liver, its proper seat, strikes the head and may soon destroy a man's reason. I did not know that you were such a hero of romance. It must be that you were born in May, which is the month of Venus, in which there is so much sweetness in the air that even one shaving begins to feel an affection for another; therefore men who are born in that month have greater curiosity in their bones for women than other men. But he has the advantage who succeeds in curbing himself; therefore I advise you to let revenge alone. You may justly cherish hatred against the Kurtsevichi; but is she the only girl in the world?"
Bogun, as if in answer not to Zagloba but to his own grief, said in a voice more like that of revery than conversation,--
"She is the one cuckoo, the only one on earth!"
"Even if that were true, if she calls for another, she is nothing to you. It is rightly said that the heart is a volunteer; under whatever banner it wants to serve, under that it serves. Remember too that the girl is of high blood, for the Kurtsevichi I hear are of princely family. Those are lofty thresholds."
"To the devil with your thresholds, families, and parchments!" Here Bogun struck with all his force on the hilt of his sword. "This is my family, this is my right and parchment, this is my matchmaker and best man! Oh, traitors! oh, cursed blood of the enemy! A Cossack was good enough for you to be a friend and a brother with whom to go to the Crimea, get Turkish wealth, divide spoils. Oh! you fondled him and called him a son, betrothed the maiden to him. Now what? A noble came, a petted Pole. You deserted the Cossack, the son, the friend,--plucked out his heart. She is for another; and do you gnaw the earth, Cossack, if you like!"
The voice of the leader trembled; he ground his teeth, and struck his broad breast till an echo came from it as from an underground cave.
Silence followed. Bogun breathed heavily. Pain and anger rent in succession the wild soul of the Cossack, which knew no restraint. Zagloba waited till he should become wearied and quiet.
"What do you wish to do, unhappy hero,--how will you act?"