“Stop a bit, Prince,” I begged, addressing the driver of the cart.
“Stop a bit—”
“Eh bien! There’s time enough.”
“What are days anyway? What are weeks? Time is merely a stop-watch for people who calculate in an office.”
And the man sitting upon the milestone was saying: Beloved swine, my brethren—Pan Strahinja’s life has now reached its zenith, just as a wanderer reaches the summit of the mountains, or the sun the zenith of the heaven, and the mid-day had bleached his head. But do not think for a moment that the fire within his falcon eyes had lessened. They were still glowing coals, they were the gleaming heads of bunched swords, and they sparkled like the great gem on the middle finger of his long white hand. You remember it, my swine.
It was on a night in the sixth decade of his life. A sultry night, a scent-heavy night of high summer. Pan Strahinja lay upon his couch, in a tent richly hung with rugs and embroideries, whose gold-threaded walls gleamed in the reflection of a swinging lamp of bronze. He had just put aside his weapons, his robe of state, and slept—exhausted—after the princely meal he had just given in honor of a Turk.
Do not believe, my dear swine, that the great Pan Strahinja had sought out a Turk for a friend, or—No! You must understand—eh, my swine?—that great people have obligations. The Turk had just been his guest. But I suppose you do not understand that, do you? Anyway it doesn’t make any difference.
Well, as I said before, Pan Strahinja lay upon his couch and slept. And beside him lay a woman. She lay there naked, playing with her long, unbound, golden hair—holding it up and looking through it at the swinging lamp of bronze.
On a chain of pallid silver about her neck she wore a great shining gem which was the color of the sea. The stone lay between her breasts, just as if one had dipped up ocean water in one’s hollow hand and let it drip down there, and as if she dare not move lest it should slip away.
Now she folded her arms under her head in order to lift herself up a little, and she looked from time to time toward the door of the tent, and then toward Pan Strahinja, who slept beside her. And now see what happens, my swine! Pan Strahinja slept there, and so might he have kept on sleeping for hours. All of a sudden a great thought slipped across his sleeping brain, and in order properly to consider the thought, he opened his eyes. Pan Strahinja opened his eyes, and as he slowly turned them upon the rich walls of his tent, with a superb indifference—he finds—What in the name of the three devils is it that he finds? He finds the place beside him empty. Now what do you say to that, my swine? The woman was gone. There was no use of thinking about it more; the woman was gone.