With Fire and Sword: An Historical Novel of Poland and Russia

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

The old man puffed for a long time yet, and smoothing his milk-white hair, muttered: "Red, h'm! red,--that's news. In the head of him who invented that it is green, and not red!"

A moment of silence followed, but through the windows came the uproar of the revelling nobles. Little Volodyovski broke the silence reigning in the room.

"Well, father, what do you think can be the matter with our prince?"

"H'm!" said the old man, "I am not his confidant, therefore I do not know. He is thinking of something, he is struggling with himself,--a hot battle of some kind,--it cannot be otherwise; and the greater the soul, the fiercer the torture."

The old knight was not mistaken; for in that same hour the prince, the leader, the conqueror, lay in the dust in his own quarters, before the crucifix, and was fighting one of the most desperate battles of his life.

The guards at the castle of Zbaraj called out midnight, but Yeremi was still conversing with God and with his own lofty soul. Reason, conscience, love of country, pride, perception of his own power and great destiny, were turned into combatants within his breast, and fought a stubborn battle with one another, from which his breast was bursting, his head was bursting, and pain contorted all his limbs. Now, in spite of the primate, the chancellor, the senate, the generals, against the will of the government, the regular soldiers, the nobles, the foreign troops in private service, were going over to that conqueror,--in one word, the whole Commonwealth was placing itself in his hands, taking refuge under his wings, committing its fortune to his genius, and in the person of its choicest sons was crying: "Save, for you alone can save!" In one month or in two there will be at Zbaraj one hundred thousand warriors, ready for a struggle to the death with the serpent of civil war. Here pictures of a future surrounded with light immeasurable, of glory and power, began to pass before the eyes of the prince. Those who wished to pass him by and subdue him are trembling, and he takes those iron legions and leads them into the steppes of the Ukraine, to victories and triumphs such as history has not yet known. The prince feels in himself corresponding power, and from his shoulders wings shoot forth like the wings of the archangel Michael. And at that moment he turns into such a giant that the whole castle, all Zbaraj, all Russia, cannot contain him. As God lives, he will rub out Hmelnitski, he will trample the rebellion, he will bring back peace to the fatherland! He sees extended plains, legions of troops; he hears the roar of artillery. A battle! a battle! Victory unheard of, unparalleled! Legions of bodies, hundreds of banners, cover the blood-stained steppe, and he tramples on the body of Hmelnitski, and the trumpets sound victory, and that sound flies from sea to sea. The prince rises, rushes up, extends his hands to Christ, around whose head is a mild purple light. "Oh, Christ, Christ!" he cries, "thou knowest, thou seest that I can; tell me that I should do this."

But Christ hung his head on his breast, and was as silent, as sorrowful as if he had been crucified the moment before.

"To thee be the praise!" cried the prince. "Non mihi, non mihi, sed nomini tuo da gloriam! To the glory of the faith of the Church and of all Christianity! Oh, Christ, Christ!" And a new image opened before the eyes of the hero. That career was not ended by the victory over Hmelnitski. The prince, having destroyed the rebellion, grows strong on its body. He becomes gigantic in power. Legions of Cossacks are joined to legions of Poles, and he goes farther,--strikes the Crimea, reaches the terrible dragon in his den; he erects the cross where hitherto bells had never called the faithful to prayer. He will go also to those lands which the princes Vishnyevetski have already trampled with the hoofs of their horses, and will extend the boundaries of the Commonwealth, and with them the Church, to the remotest corners of the earth. Where then is the limit to this impetus, where the bounds to this glory, power, and strength? There are none whatever.

The pale light of the moon falls into the chamber of the castle, but the clock beats a late hour, and the cocks are crowing. It will soon be day; but will it be a day in which with the sun in heaven a new sun will shine upon earth?

Yes, it will. The prince would be a child and not a man if he did not do this, if for any reasons whatever he drew back before the voice of these destinies. Now he feels a certain calm, which the merciful Christ had evidently poured on him,--praise to him for that! His mind has become more sober; he takes in more easily too with the eyes of his soul the condition of the country and all its affairs. The policy of the chancellor and those magnates in Warsaw, as well as of the voevoda of Bratslav, is evil, and destructive for the country. To trample the Zaporojie first, and squeeze an ocean of blood out of it, break it, annihilate it, bend, and conquer, and then only acknowledge that everything is finished; to restrain all oppression; to introduce order, peace; being able to kill, to restore to life,--that was the only path worthy of that great, that lordly Commonwealth. It might have been possible perhaps to choose another path long before, but not now. What in truth could negotiations lead to then? Armed legionaries stand against one another in thousands; and even if negotiations were concluded, what power could they have! No, no! those are dream visions, shadows, a war extended over whole ages, a sea of tears and blood for the future. Let them take the only course which is great, noble, full of power, and he will wish and ask for nothing more. He will settle again in Lubni, and will wait quietly till the terrible trumpets call him to action again.