Here he sprang from his seat, pulled his hair, stamped with his feet, crying that there must be war, for he had already received absolution and a blessing for it; he had nothing to do with commissions and commissioners, he would not allow a suspension of arms.
Seeing at length the terror of the commissioners, and recollecting that if they went away at once, war would begin in the winter, consequently at a time when the Cossacks, not being able to entrench themselves, fought badly in the open field, he calmed down a little and again sat on the bench, dropped his head on his breast, rested his hands on his knees, and breathed hoarsely. Finally he took a glass of vudka.
"To the health of the king!" cried he.
"To his glory and health!" repeated the colonels.
"Now, Kisel, don't be gloomy," said the hetman, "and don't take to heart what I say, for I've been drinking. Fortune-tellers inform me that there must be war, but I'll wait till next grass. Let there be a commission then; I will free the captives at that time. They tell me that you are ill, so let this be to your health!"
Again Hmelnitski dropped into momentary tenderness, and resting his hand on the shoulder of the voevoda brought his enormous red face to the pale, emaciated cheeks of Kisel.
After him came other colonels, and approaching the commissioners with familiarity shook their hands, clapped them on the shoulders, repeated after the hetman: "Till next grass." The commissioners were in torment. The peasant breaths, filled with the odor of gorailka, came upon the faces of those nobles of high birth, for whom the pressure of those sweating hands was as unendurable as an affront. Threatenings also were not lacking among the expressions of vulgar cordiality. Some cried to the voevoda: "We want to kill Poles, but you are our man!" Others said: "Well, in times past, you killed our people, now you ask favors! Destruction to you!" "You white hands!" cried Ataman Vovk, formerly miller in Nestervar, "I slew my landlord. Prince Chertvertinski." "Give us Yeremi," said Yashevski, rolling along, "and we will let you off!"
It became stifling in the room and hot beyond endurance. The table covered with remnants of meat, fragments of bread, stained with vudka and mead, was disgusting. At last the fortune-tellers came in,--conjurers with whom the hetman usually drank till late at night, listening to their predictions,--strange forms, old, bent, yellow, or in the vigor of youth, soothsaying from wax, grains of wheat, fire, water, foam, from the bottom of a flask or from human fat. Among the colonels and the youngest of them there was frolicking and laughing. Kisel came near fainting.
"We thank you, Hetman, for the feast, and we bid you good-by," said he, with a weak voice.
"Kisel, I will come to you to-morrow to dine," answered Hmelnitski, "and now return home. Donyéts with his men will attend you, so that nothing may happen to you from the crowd."