He was now seventeen, and would have been ready to pass into the university, even if the authorities of the gymnasium had not repeatedly hinted that his withdrawal would be in every way desirable. Even his kindly aunt, who had carefully avoided referring to the rumour through which she herself suffered keenly, had, as mercifully as she knew how, spoken to him about the advisability of his going somewhere else to finish his studies.
Under other circumstances, his pride, his zeal for fair play and his own honour, would have rebelled against this unjust dismissal. But now, in his unspeakable bitterness, he cherished only one wish, and that was to hide away somewhere with his disgrace, and be seen by no human eye.
And in this mood he stood one day face to face with his father.
The baron had come to town, to call in the aid of the law in dealing with his rebellious peasants, but had found every door shut in his face. His fury knew no bounds; he appeared to have lost all control over himself, and his demeanour was one of desperate defiance.
At the sight of the short, stubborn figure, the bull-neck and the grey, fiery eyes rolling in their red sockets, Boleslav was seized with the old boyish terror. He had to pull himself together with a tremendous effort before he could bring the fatal question over his lips.
"Father, is it true what people are saying, that----"
Suspicion blazed up in the small grey eyes.
"Eh?--what are people saying?" he interrupted.
"That it was through you that the French found out the path by the Cats' Bridge."
"And what if it was through me, you Hottentot? What if I did avenge the wrongs of the down-trampled Pole on this pack of cowardly Russian thieves? These hulking, stupid, lazy serfs, who would only get their deserts if the great Napoleon extirpated them altogether from off the face of the earth. Don't gape at me like that, clown! What I did was done as a sacred duty. Heavily chained, scourged human beings cried out imploringly to me, 'Save us, save us!' I could not save them, it is true; that work was reserved for a greater than I--but I could at least help, help him, who like an avenging angel swept over Europe and laid it waste--help to annihilate a handful of ruffians I saw providentially delivered into my hand."