Hania

"Without seconds. I trust him; he trusts me. Why do we need seconds?"

Again I threw myself on his neck, for it was time to go. I looked back when I had gone about a third of a mile. My father was on the bridge yet, and blessed me from afar with the holy cross. The first rays of the rising sun fell on his lofty figure, encircling it with a kind of aureole. And thus in the light, with upraised hands, that veteran seemed to me like an old eagle blessing from afar its young for such a high-sounding and winged life as he himself had admired on a time.

Ah, how the heart rose in me then! I had so much confidence and faith and courage that if not one, but ten Selims had been waiting for me at Vah's cottage, I should have challenged all ten of them immediately.

I came at last to the cottage. Selim was waiting for me at the edge of the forest. I confess that when I saw him I felt in my heart something like that which a wolf feels when he sees his prey. We looked each other in the eyes threateningly, and with curiosity. Selim had changed in those two days; he had grown thin and ugly, but maybe it only seemed to me that he had grown ugly, his eyes gleamed feverishly, the corners of his mouth quivered.

We went immediately to the depth of the forest, but we did not speak a word the whole way.

At last, when I found a little opening among the pines, I stopped, and asked, —

"Here. Agreed?"

He nodded his head and began to unbutton his coat, so as to take it off before the duel.

"Choose!" said I, pointing to the pistols and the sabre.

He pointed to a sabre which he had with him: it was Turkish, a Damascus blade, much curved toward the point.

Meanwhile I threw off my coat; he followed my example, but first he took a letter from his pocket and said, —

"If I die, I beg to give this to Panna Hania."

"I will not receive it."

"This is not a confession; it is an explanation."

"Agreed! I will take it."

Thus speaking, we rolled up our shirt-sleeves. Only now did my heart begin to beat more vigorously. At last Selim seized the hilt of his sabre, straightened himself, took the position of a fencer, challenging, proud, and holding the sabre higher than his head, said briefly, —

"I am ready."

I struck on him at once, and so impetuously that he had to retreat a number of steps, and he received my blows on his sabre with difficulty; he answered, however, each blow with a blow, and with such swiftness that stroke and answer were heard almost simultaneously. A flush covered his face; his nostrils distended; his eyes stared out slantingly in Tartar fashion, and began to cast lightning.

For a while there was nothing to be heard but the clink of blades, the dry sound of steel, and the whistling breath of our breasts.

Selim soon understood that if the struggle was to continue, he must fall, for neither his lungs nor his strength would hold out. Large drops of sweat came out on his forehead; his breath grew hoarser and hoarser. But also a certain rage possessed him, a certain madness of battle. His hair, tossed around by the movement, fell on his forehead, and in his open mouth shone his white teeth. You would have said that the Tartar nature had become roused in him and grown wild when he felt the sabre in his hand and smelt blood. Still I had the advantage of equal fury with greater strength. Once he could not withstand the blow, and blood trickled from his left arm. After a few seconds, the very point of my sabre touched his forehead. He was terrible then, with that red ribbon of blood mixed with sweat and trickling down to his mouth and chin. It seemed to rouse him. He sprang up to me and sprang away like a wounded tiger. The point of his sabre circled with the terrible swiftness of a fiery thunderbolt, around my head, arms, and breast. I caught those mad blows with difficulty, all the more since I was thinking rather of giving than taking. At times we came so near each other that breast almost struck breast.

All at once, Selim sprang away; his sabre whistled right near my temple; but I warded it off with such strength that his head was for a moment undefended. I aimed a blow capable of splitting it in two, and – a thunderbolt, as it were, struck my head suddenly. I cried, "Jesus, Mary!" the sabre dropped from my hand, and I fell with my face to the earth.

CHAPTER XII

WHAT happened to me during a long time, I do not remember, nor do I know. When I woke, I was lying on my back in a chamber and on my father's bed. My father was sitting near me in an armchair, with his head bent back, pale, and with closed eyes. The blinds were shut; lights were burning on the table; and in the great stillness of the chamber, I heard only the ticking of the clock. I stared for some time at the ceiling vacantly, and was summoning my thoughts sluggishly; then I tried to move, but unendurable pain in my head prevented me. This pain reminded me a little of all that had happened, so I called in a low, weak voice, —

"Father!"

My father quivered and bent over me. Joy and tenderness were expressed on his face, and he said, —

"O God! thanks to Thee! He has recovered consciousness. What son? what?"

"Father, I fought with Selim."

"Yes, my love! Do not think of that."

Silence continued for a while, then I asked, —

"Father, but who brought me to this room from the forest?"

"I brought thee in my arms; but do not say anything, do not torment thyself."

Not five minutes had passed when I inquired again. I spoke very slowly, —

"Father?"

"What, my child?"

"But what happened to Selim?"

"He fainted also from loss of blood. I had him carried to Horeli."

I wanted to inquire about Hania and my mother, but I felt that consciousness was leaving me again. I thought that black and yellow dogs were dancing on their hind legs around my bed, and I looked at them. Then again I seemed to hear the sounds of village fifes; at moments, instead of the clock which hung opposite my bed, I saw a face look out of the wall and draw back again. That was not a condition of complete unconsciousness, but of fever and a scattering of thought; but it must have lasted rather long.

At times I was a little better, and then I half recognized the faces around my bed, – now my father, now the priest, now Kazio, now Doctor Stanislav. I remember that among those faces was lacking one. I could not make out which; but I know that I felt that lack, and I sought that face instinctively.

One night when I had slept very soundly, I woke toward morning. The lights were burning on the table. I was very, very weak. All at once I discerned a person bent over the bed whom I did not know at first, but at sight of whom I felt as well as if I had died and was taken into heaven. That was a kind of angelic face; but so angelic, so sacred, kind, with tears flowing out of its eyes, that I felt as though I were preparing to weep. Then a spark of consciousness returned to me; it grew bright in my eyes; and I called weakly in a low voice, —

"Mamma!"

The angelic face bent to my emaciated hand, lying motionless on the coverlet, and pressed lips to it. I tried to raise myself, but felt pain again in my temples; hence I exclaimed only, —

"Mamma! it pains!"

My mother, for it was she, had begun to change the bandages with ice, which were on my head. That process had caused me no little suffering; but now those sweet, beloved hands with careful delicacy began to move around my poor slashed head, so that, not feeling the least pain, I whispered, —

"Pleasant! Oh, pleasant!"

Thenceforward I had more consciousness; only toward evening I fell into a fever; then I saw Hania, though when I was conscious I never saw her near me. But I saw her always in some danger. At one time a wolf with red eyes was rushing at her; again some one was carrying her away, – as it were, Selim, as it were, not Selim, but with a face grown over with black bristles and with horns on his head. Then I cried out sometimes; and sometimes I begged that wolf, or that horned one, very politely and humbly, not to carry her away. At those moments my mother placed her hands on my forehead, and the evil visions vanished immediately.

At last the fever left me for good. I regained perfect consciousness. That did not mean that I was in better health. Some other kind of sickness attached itself, a certain unheard of weakness, under the influence of which I was evidently sinking.

During whole days and nights I looked at one point in the ceiling. I was as if conscious, but indifferent to all things; I cared not for life, nor death, nor the persons watching over my bed. I received impressions, saw everything that was passing around me, remembered everything, but I had not strength to collect my thoughts, I had not strength to feel.

One evening it seemed evident that I was dying. A great yellow candle was placed near my bed; then I saw Father Ludvik in his vestments. He gave me the sacrament, then he put the holy oil on me, and after that he sobbed so that he came near losing consciousness. They carried my mother out in a faint. Kazio was howling at the wall and tearing his hair. My father was sitting with clasped hands; he was just as if petrified. I saw all of this perfectly, but was perfectly indifferent; and I looked as usual with dead, glassy eyes on the ceiling, on the edge of the bed or the foot of it, or at the window, through which were coming in milky and silvery bundles of moonlight.

Then, through all doors, the servants began to push into the room, crying, sobbing, and howling. Kazio led them in, and they filled the whole room; but my father sat there as stony as before. At last when all had knelt down, the priest began the Litany, but stopped, for he could not go on from tears. My father sprang up suddenly, and bellowing, "O Jesus! O Jesus!" threw himself his whole length on the floor.

At that moment I felt that the points of my toes and my feet were beginning to grow cold; a certain wonderful drowsiness seized me, and a yawning. "Ah! now I am dying!" thought I, and fell asleep.