Late at night, when alone with Longin in their sleeping-room, the lieutenant, instead of going to rest, sat on the wooden bedstead and began: "You will go to Lubni tomorrow with another man."
Podbipienta, who had just finished his prayers, opened wide his eyes and asked: "How is that? Are you going to stay here?"
"I shall not stay, but my heart will remain, and only the dulcis recordatio will go with me. You see in me a great change, since from tender desires I am scarcely able to listen to a thing."
"Then you have fallen in love with the princess?"
"Nothing else, as true as I am alive before you. Sleep flees from my lids, and I want nothing but sighs, from which I am ready to vanish into vapor. I tell you this, because, having a tender heart famishing for love, you will easily understand my torture."
Pan Longin began to sigh, in token that he understood the torments of love, and after a time he inquired mournfully: "Maybe you have also made a vow of celibacy?"
"Your inquiry is pointless, for if all made such vows the genus humanum would soon be at an end."
The entrance of a servant interrupted further conversation. It was an old Tartar, with quick black eyes and a face as wrinkled as a dried apple. After he came in he cast a significant look at Pan Yan and asked,--
"Don't you wish for something? Perhaps a cup of mead before going to bed?"
"No, 'tis not necessary."