"I was not in league with them," answered Jacek in a voice full of sorrow.
"Seize her by force? I might have; from behind gratings and locks I would have s.n.a.t.c.hed her; I would have shattered this castle of his into dust! I had behind me Dobrzyn and four other hamlets. Ah, would that she had been such as our plain gentlewomen, strong and vigorous! Would that she had not dreaded flight and the pursuit and could have borne the sound of clashing arms! But the poor child! Her parents had shielded her so carefully that she was frail and timid! She was but a little spring caterpillar-the larva of a b.u.t.terfly! And to s.n.a.t.c.h her thus, to touch her with an armed hand, would have been to kill her. I could not! No!
"To avenge myself openly, and tumble the castle into ruins by an a.s.sault, I was ashamed, for they would have said that I was avenging myself for my rejection! Warden, your honest heart cannot feel what h.e.l.l there is in wounded pride.
"The demon of pride began to suggest to me better plans: to take a b.l.o.o.d.y revenge, but to hide the reason for my vengeance; to frequent the castle no more and to root out my love from my heart; to dismiss Eva from my memory and to marry another; and then later to find some pretext for a quarrel, and to take vengeance.
"At first I thought that I had succeeded in overcoming my heart, and I was glad of that fancied change, and-I married the first poor girl that I met!
I did evil, and how cruelly was I punished for it! I loved her not, Thaddeus"s poor mother, my most devoted wife and the most upright soul-but I was strangling in my heart my former love and my anger. I was like a madman; in vain I forced myself to work at farming or at business; all was of no avail. Possessed by the demon of vengeance, morose and pa.s.sionate, I could find no comfort in anything in the world-and thus I pa.s.sed from one sin to another; I began to drink.
"And so in no long time my wife died of grief, leaving me that child; and despair consumed me!
"How ardently I must have loved that poor girl! for so many years! Where have I not been! And yet I have never been able to forget her, and still does her beloved form stand before mine eyes as if painted! I drank, but I have not been able to drink down her memory for one instant; nor to free myself from it, though I have traversed so many lands! Now I am in the dress of G.o.d"s servant, on my bed, and bleeding-I have spoken of her so long-at this moment to speak of such things! G.o.d will forgive me! You must learn now in what sorrow and despair I committed--
"That was but a short time after her betrothal. Everywhere the talk was of nothing but her betrothal; they said that when Eva took the ring from the hand of the Wojewoda she swooned, that she had been seized with a fever, that she had symptoms of consumption, that she sobbed continually; they conjectured that she was secretly in love with some one else. But the Pantler, calm and gay as ever, gave b.a.l.l.s in his castle and a.s.sembled his friends; me he no longer invited-in what way could I be useful to him? My scandalous life at home, my misery, my disgraceful habits had brought upon me the contempt and mockery of the world! Me, who once, I may say, had made all the district tremble! Me, whom Radziwill had called "my dear"!
Me, who, when I rode forth from my hamlet, had led with me a train more numerous than a prince"s! And when I drew my sabre, then many thousand sabres had glittered round about, striking terror to the lords"
castles,-But now the very children of the peasant boors laughed at me! So paltry had I quickly made myself in the eyes of men! Jacek Soplica! He who knows the feeling of pride--"
Here the Bernardine grew weak and fell back on the bed, and the Warden said, deeply moved:-
"Great are the judgments of G.o.d! It is the truth! the truth! So is it you?
and are you Jacek? the Soplica? in a monk"s cowl? Have you been living a beggar"s life! You, whom I remember when you were strong and rosy, a handsome gentlemen, when lords flattered you, when women went mad over you! The mustachioed champion! That was not so long ago! it is grief that has aged you thus! How could I fail to recognise you from that shot, when you hit the bear with so sure an aim? For our Lithuania had no better marksman than you, and next to Maciek you were also the foremost swordsman! It is the truth! Once the gentlewomen sang of you:-
When Jacek twirls his whisker, men tremble far and near; "Gainst whom he knots his whisker, that man feels mortal fear- Though he be Prince Radziwill, to fight he will not dare.
You tied a knot against my lord! Unhappy man! And is it you? Fallen to such a state! The mustachioed Jacek a monkish alms-gatherer! Great are the judgments of G.o.d! And now! ha! you cannot escape the penalty; I have sworn, he who has shed a drop of the h.o.r.eszkos" blood--"
Meanwhile the Monk had raised himself to a sitting posture on the bed; and he thus concluded:-
"I rode around the castle; who can tell the names of all the devils that filled my head and heart! The Pantler? Is he slaying his own child as he has already slain and ruined me?-I rode up to the gate; a demon enticed me there. Look how he revels! Every day a drinking bout in the castle! How many candles there are in the windows, what music peals through the halls!
And shall not this castle crash down upon his bald head?
"Think of vengeance, and a demon will at once furnish you a weapon. Hardly had I thought of it, when the demon sent the Muscovites. I stood gazing; you know how they stormed your castle.
"For it is false that I was in any league with the Muscovites.
"I gazed; various thoughts pa.s.sed through my head: at first with a stupid laugh I gazed as a child upon a burning house; then I felt a murderous joy, expecting that speedily it would begin to blaze and totter; at times I was prompted to leap in and save her-even the Pantler--
"Your defence, as you know, was vigorous and prompt. I was amazed; the Muscovites kept falling close by me; the beasts aimed poorly.-At the sight of their overthrow hatred again overcame me.-That Pantler a victor! And shall he prosper thus in his every purpose? And shall he triumph even over this fearful a.s.sault? I was riding away, smitten with shame.-Day was just dawning; suddenly I beheld him and recognised him; he stepped out on the balcony and his diamond buckle glittered in the sun; proudly he twirled his mustache and proudly gazed around; and it seemed to me that he mocked at me above all others, that he had recognised me and that thus he pointed his hand at me, scoffing and threatening,-I seized a carbine from a Muscovite; I barely raised it to my shoulder, scarcely aimed-it went off!
You know the rest!
"Cursed firearms! He who slays with the sword must take his stand and press on; he parries and flourishes; he may disarm his enemy and check his sword halfway. But with these firearms it is enough to hold the gun; an instant, a single spark--
"Did I flee when you aimed at me from above? I levelled my eyes at the two barrels of your gun. What despair! A strange grief pinned me to the earth!
Why, Gerwazy, ah why did you miss at that time? You would have done me a kindness!-evidently as a penance for my sin I must needs--"
Here his breath failed him once more.
"G.o.d knows," said the Warden, "I sincerely wished to hit you! How much blood did you shed by your one shot! How many disasters have fallen upon us and upon your family, and all of them through your guilt alone, Pan Jacek! And yet to-day, when the yagers aimed at the Count (the last of the h.o.r.eszkos, though in the female line), you preserved him; and when the Muscovites shot at me you threw me on the ground, so that you have been the saviour of us both. If it is true that you are a monk, in holy orders, then your habit shields you from my penknife. Farewell, I will set foot no more upon your threshold; our account is clear-let us leave the rest to the Lord."
Jacek stretched out his hand-but Gerwazy started back.
"Without dishonour to my n.o.ble blood," he said, "I cannot touch a hand denied by such a murder, committed for private vengeance, and not _pro publico bono_."
But Jacek, sinking from the pillows into the bed, turned to the Judge and grew more and more pale; he eagerly asked for the parish priest, and cried to the Warden:-
"I implore you to remain; in a moment more I shall finish; hardly have I strength to conclude-Warden-I shall die this night."
"What, brother?" cried the Judge, "I have seen your wound; it is trifling: why do you say this? Send for the priest! Perhaps it has been ill tended: I will send for the doctor; he is at the apothecary"s."
"It is too late, brother," interrupted the Monk. "In the same place I have an earlier gunshot wound; I received it at Jena. It was ill healed, and now it has been irritated-there is gangrene there already. I am familiar with wounds; see how black the blood is, like soot; a doctor could do nothing. But this is a trifle; we die but once; to-morrow or to-day we must yield up our souls. Warden, thou wilt forgive me; I must die!
"There is merit in refusing to betray your country, though your own people proclaim you a traitor! Especially for a man who had such pride as mine!
"The name of traitor clove to me like a pestilence. The neighbours turned their faces from me, my former friends fled from me, the timid greeted me from afar and turned aside; even a mere peasant boor or a Jew, though he bowed, would, as he pa.s.sed by, smite me with a sneering laugh. The word "traitor" rang in my ears and echoed through my house and over my fields; that word from morn till dark hovered before me like a spot before a sick man"s eye. And yet I was _not_ a traitor to my country.
"The Muscovites showed by acts of violence that they regarded me as one of their partisans: they gave the Soplicas a considerable part of the dead man"s estates; later the Targowica confederates wished to bestow an office upon me.176 If I had then consented to turn Muscovite!-Satan counselled it-I was already influential and rich; but if I had become a Muscovite?-The foremost magnates would have sought my favour; even my brother gentlemen-even the mob, which is so ready to disparage those of its own number, is p.r.o.ne to forgive those happier men who serve the Muscovites! I knew this, and yet-I could not.
"I fled from my country! Where have I not been! what have I not suffered!
"At last G.o.d deigned to reveal to me the one true remedy: I must reform myself and repair as much as possible what--
"The Pantler"s daughter and her husband the Wojewoda had been transported to some place in Siberia; there she died young, leaving here behind her a daughter, little Zosia. I had her brought up.
"Perchance I slew him more through stupid arrogance than through disappointed love; so I humbly became a monk. I, once proud of my birth, I who was once a warlike hero, I bowed my head, I became a gatherer of alms, and took the name of Robak, the Worm, since like a worm in the dust--
"The evil example that I had set my countrymen, that invitation to treason, I must redeem by setting a good example, by blood and by self-sacrifice.