The Deluge. Vol. 2

Boguslav, with shoulders leaning against the arms of the chair, looked at him attentively; but his look became colder each moment, and he struck the cane against his boots more and more quickly. Had the sword-bearer known the prince better, he would have known that he was bringing down terrible danger on his own head.

Relations with Boguslav were simply dreadful. It was never known when the courteous cavalier, the diplomat accustomed to self-control, would be overborne by the wild and unrestrained magnate who trampled every resistance with the cruelty of an Eastern despot. A brilliant education and refinement, acquired at the first courts of Europe; reflection and studied elegance, which he had gained in intercourse with men, – were like wonderful and strong flowers under which was secreted a tiger.

But the sword-bearer did not know this, and in his angry blindness shouted on, —

"Your highness, dissemble no further, for you are known! And have a care, for neither the King of Sweden nor the elector, both of whom you are serving against your own country, nor your princely position, will save you before the law; and the sabres of nobles will teach you manners, young man!"

Boguslav rose; in one instant he crushed the cane in his iron hands, and throwing the pieces at the feet of the sword-bearer, said with a terrible, suppressed voice, —

"That is what your rights are for me! That your tribunals! That your privileges!"

"Outrageous violence!" cried Billevich.

"Silence, paltry noble!" cried the prince. "I will crush you into dust!" And he advanced to seize the astonished man and hurl him against the wall.

Now Panna Aleksandra stood between them. "What do you think to do?" inquired she.

The prince restrained himself. But she stood with nostrils distended, with flaming face, with fire in her eyes like an angry Minerva. Her breast heaved under her bodice like a wave of the sea, and she was marvellous in that anger, so that Boguslav was lost in gazing at her; all his desires crept into his face, like serpents from the dens of his soul.

After a time his anger passed, presence of mind returned; he looked awhile yet at Olenka. At last his face grew mild; he bent his head toward his breast, and said, —

"Pardon, angelic lady! I have a soul full of gnawing and pain, therefore I do not command myself." Then he left the room.

Olenka began to wring her hands; and Billevich, coming to himself, seized his forelock, and cried, —

"I have spoiled everything; I am the cause of your ruin!"

The prince did not show himself the whole day. He even dined in his own room with Sakovich. Stirred to the bottom of his soul, he could not think so clearly as usual. Some kind of ague was wasting him. It was the herald of a grievous fever which was to seize him soon with such force that during its attacks he was benumbed altogether, so that his attendants had to rub him most actively. But at this time he ascribed his strange state to the power of love, and thought that he must either satisfy it or die. When he had told Sakovich the whole conversation with the sword-bearer, he said, —

"My hands and feet are burning, ants are walking along my back, in my mouth are bitterness and fire; but, by all the horned devils, what is this? Never has this attacked me before!"

"Your highness is as full of scruples as a baked capon of buckwheat grits. The prince is a capon, the prince is a capon. Ha, ha!"

"You are a fool!"

"Very well."

"I don't need your ideas."

"Worthy prince, take a lute and go under the windows of the maiden. Billevich may show you his fist. Tfu! to the deuce! is that the kind of bold man that Boguslav Radzivill is?"

"You are an idiot!"

"Very well. I see that your highness is beginning to speak with yourself and tell the truth to your own face. Boldly, boldly! Pay no heed to rank."

"You see, Sakovich, that my Castor is growing familiar with me; as it is, I kick him often in the ribs, but a greater accident may meet you."

Sakovich sprang up as if red with anger, like Billevich a little while before; and since he had an uncommon gift of mimicry, he began to cry in a voice so much like that of Billevich that any one not seeing who was talking, might have been deceived.

"What! is this captivity? Do they wish to oppress a free citizen, to trample on cardinal rights?"

"Give us peace! give us peace!" said the prince, fretfully. "She defended that old fool with her person, but here there is one to defend you."

"If she defended him, she should have been taken in pawn!"

"There must be some witchcraft in this place! Either she must have given me something, or the constellations are such that I am simply leaving my mind. If you could have seen her when she was defending that mangy old uncle of hers! But you are a fool! It is growing cloudy in my head. See how my hands are burning! To love such a woman, to gain her – with such a woman to – "

"To have posterity!" added Sakovich.

"That's so, that's so! – as if you knew that must be; otherwise I shall burst as a bomb. For God's sake! what is happening to me? Must I marry, or what, by all the devils of earth and hell?"

Sakovich grew serious. "Your princely highness, you must not think of that!"

"I am thinking of just that, precisely because I wish it. I will do that, though a regiment of Sakoviches repeated a whole day to me, 'Your princely highness must not think of that!'"

"Oh, I see this is no joke."

"I am sick, enchanted."

"Why do you not follow my advice at last?"

"I must follow it, – may the plague take all the dreams, all the Billeviches, all Lithuania with the tribunals, and Yan Kazimir to boot! I shall not succeed otherwise; I see that I shall not! I have had enough of this, have I not? A great question! And I, the fool, was considering both sides hitherto; was afraid of dreams, of Billeviches, of lawsuits, of the rabble of nobles, the fortune of Yan Kazimir. Tell me that I am a fool! Do you hear? I command you to tell me that I am a fool!"

"But I will not obey, for now you are really Radzivill, and not a Calvinist minister. But in truth you must be ill, for I have never seen you so changed."

"True! In the most difficult positions I merely waved my hand and whistled, but now I feel as if some one were thrusting spurs into my sides."

"This is strange, for if that maiden has given you something designedly, she has not done so to run away afterward; but still, from what you say, it seems that they wish to flee in secret."

"Ryff told me that this is the influence of Saturn, on which burning exhalations rise during this particular month."

"Worthy prince, rather take Jove as a model, for he was happy without marriage. All will be well; only do not think of marriage, unless of a counterfeit one."

All at once the starosta of Oshmiana struck his forehead.

"But wait, your highness! I have heard of such a case in Prussia."

"Is the Devil whispering something into your ear? Tell me!"

But Sakovich was silent for a long time; at last his face brightened, and he said, —

"Thank the fortune that gave you Sakovich as friend."

"What news, what news?"

"Nothing. I will be your highness's best man" (here Sakovich bowed), – "no small honor for such a poor fellow!"

"Don't play the jester; speak quickly!"