'My mother will grieve for me,' the youth replied low; and, evidently wishing to suppress his emotion, or else to deceive himself, he began to whistle. He suddenly interrupted this, and cried in a voice of deep despair, 'I did not even say good-bye!'
'Then did you run away from home?'
'Yes. I thought the Germans would be beaten, so there would be better things coming for Poland.'
'And I thought the same. But now—'
Waving his hand, the old man finished speaking in a low voice, and his last words were overpowered by the roar of the wind. The night was dark. Clouds of fine rain swept past from time to time; the wood close by was black as a pall. The gale whistled round the corners of the room, and howled in the chimney like a dog. The lamp, placed high above the window to prevent the wind from extinguishing it, threw a flood of bright light into the room. But Bartek, who was standing close to it under the window, was plunged in darkness.
And it was perhaps better the prisoners should not see his face, for strange things were taking place in this peasant's mind. At first he had been filled with astonishment, and had stared hard at the prisoners, trying to understand what they were saying. So these men had set out to beat the Germans to benefit Poland, and he had beaten the French, in order that Poland might benefit! And to-morrow these two men would be shot! How was that? What was a poor fellow to think about it? But if only he could hint it to them, if only he could tell them that he was their man, that he pitied them! He felt a sudden catch in his throat. What could he do for them? Could he rescue them? Then he would be shot! Good God! what was happening to him? He was so overcome by pity that he could not remain in the room.
A strange intense longing suddenly came upon him till he seemed somewhere far off at Pognębin. Pity, hitherto an unknown guest in his soldier's heart, cried to him from the depth of his soul: 'Bartek, save them, they are your brothers!' and his heart, torn as never before, cried out for home, for Magda, for Pognębin. He had had enough of the French, enough of this war, and of battles! The voice sounded clearer and clearer: 'Bartek, save them!' Confound this war! The woods showed dark through the open window, moaning like the Pognębin pines, and even in that moan something called out, 'Bartek, save them!'
What could he do? Should he escape to the wood with them, or what? All his Prussian discipline recoiled in aversion at the thought. In the Name of the Father and the Son! He need but cross himself at it! He,—a soldier, and desert? Never!
All the while the wood was moaning more loudly, the wind whistling more mournfully.
The elder prisoner suddenly whispered, 'That wind—like the Spring at home.'