Fire in the Steppe (38 page)

Pan Bogush began then to look with another eye on Azya, and to wonder more and more how such thoughts could be hatched in his head. And the sweat was in drops like pearl on the forehead of the knight, so immense did those thoughts seem to him. Still, doubt remained yet in his soul; therefore he said, after a while,—

"And do you know that there would have to be war with Turkey over such a question?"

"There will be war as it is. Why did they command the horde to march to Adrianople? There will be war unless dissensions rise in the Sultan's dominions; and if it comes to taking the field, half the horde will be on our side."

"For every point the rogue has an argument," thought Pan Bogush. "It turns one's head," said he, after a while, "You see, Azya, in every case it is not an easy thing. What would the king say, what the chancellor, the estates, and all the nobles, for the greater part hostile to the hetman?"

"I need only the permission of the hetman on paper; and when we are once here, let them drive us out! Who will drive us out, and with what? You would be glad to squeeze the Zaporojians out of the Saitch, but you cannot in any way."

"The hetman will dread the responsibility."

"Behind the hetman will be fifty thousand sabres of the horde, besides the troops which he has in hand."

"But the Cossacks? Do you forget the Cossacks? They will begin opposition at once."

"We are needed here specially to keep a sword hanging over the Cossack neck. Through whom has Doroshenko support? Through the Tartars! Let me take the Tartars in hand, Doroshenko must beat with his forehead to the hetman."

Here Azya stretched out his palm and opened his fingers like the talons of an eagle; then he grasped after the hilt of his sabre. "This is the way we will show the Cossacks law! They will become serfs, and we will hold the Ukraine. Do you hear, Pan Bogush? You think that I am a small man; but I am not so small as it seems to Novoveski, the commandant of this place, and you, Pan Bogush. Behold, I have been thinking over this day and night, till I have grown thin, till my face is sunken. Look at it, your grace; it has grown black. But what I have thought out, I have thought out well; and therefore I tell you that in me there are resources and power. You see yourself that these are great things. Go to the hetman, but go quickly. Lay the question before him; let him give me a letter touching this matter, and I shall not care about the estates. The hetman has a great soul; the hetman will know that this is power and resource. Tell the hetman that I am Tugai Bey's son; that I alone can do this. Lay it before him, let him consent to it; but in God's name, let it be done in time, while there is snow on the steppe, before spring, for in spring there will be war! Go at once and return at once, so that I may know quickly what I am to do."

Pan Bogush did not observe even that Azya spoke in a tone of command, as if he were a hetman giving instructions to his officer. "To-morrow I will rest," said he; "and after to-morrow I will set out. God grant me to find the hetman in Yavorov! Decision is quick with him, and soon you will have an answer."

"What does your grace think,—will the hetman consent?"

"Perhaps he will command you to come to him; do not go to Rashkoff, then, at present,—you can go more quickly to Yavorov from this place. Whether he will agree, I know not; but he will take the matter under prompt consideration, for you present powerful reasons. By the living God, I did not expect this of you; but I see now that you are an uncommon man, and that the Lord God predestined you to greatness. Well, Azya, Azya! Lieutenant in a Tartar squadron, nothing more, and such things are in his head that fear seizes a man! Now I shall not wonder even if I see a heron-feather in your cap, and a bunchuk above you. I believe now what you tell me,—that these thoughts have been burning you in the nighttime. I will go at once, the day after to-morrow; but I will rest a little. Now I will leave you, for it is late, and my head is as noisy as a saw-mill. Be with God, Azya! My temples are aching as if I had been drunk. Be with God, Azya, son of Tugai Bey!"

Here Pan Bogush pressed the thin hand of the Tartar, and turned toward the door; but on the threshold he stopped again, and said, "How is this? New troops for the Commonwealth; a sword ready above the neck of the Cossack; Doroshenko conquered; dissension in the Crimea; the Turkish power weakened; an end to the raids against Russia,—for God's sake!"

When he had said this. Pan Bogush went out. Azya looked after him a while, and whispered, "But for me a bunchuk, a baton, and, with consent or without, she. Otherwise woe to you!"

Then he finished the gorailka, and threw himself on to the bed, covered with skins. The fire had gone down in the chimney; but through the window came in the clear rays of the moon, which had risen high in the cold wintry sky. Azya lay for some time quietly, but evidently was unable to sleep. At last he rose, approached the window, and looked at the moon, sailing like a ship through the infinite solitudes of heaven. The young Tartar looked at it long; at last he placed his fists on his breast, pointed both thumbs upward, and from the mouth of him who barely an hour before had confessed Christ, came, in a half-chant, a half-drawl, in a melancholy key,—

"La Allah illa Allah! Mahomet Rossul Allah!"

Meanwhile Basia was holding counsel from early morning with her husband and Pan Zagloba how to unite two loving and straitened hearts. The two men laughed at her enthusiasm, and did not cease to banter her; still, yielding to her usually in everything, as to a spoiled child, they promised at last to assist her.

"The best thing," said Zagloba, "is to persuade old Novoveski not to take the girl with him to Rashkoff; tell him that the frosts have come, and that the road is not perfectly safe. Here the young people will see each other often, and fall in love with all their might."

"That is a splendid idea," cried Basia.

"Splendid or not," said Zagloba, "do not let them out of your sight. You are a woman, and I think this way,—you will solder them at last, for a woman carries her point always; but see to it that the Devil does not carry his point in the mean while. That would be a shame for you, since the affair is on your responsibility."

Basia began first of all to spit at Pan Zagloba, like a cat; then she said, "You boast that you were a Turk in your youth, and you think that every one is a Turk. Azya is not that kind."

"Not a Turk, only a Tartar. Pretty image! She would vouch for Tartar love."

"They are both thinking more of weeping, and that from harsh sorrow. Eva, besides, is a most honest maiden."

"Still, she has a face as if some one had written on her forehead, 'Here are lips for you!' Ho! she is a daw. Yesterday I fixed it in my mind that when she sits opposite a nice fellow, her sighs are such that they drive her plate forward time after time, and she must push it back again. A real daw, I tell you."

"Do you wish me to go to my own room?" asked Basia.

"You will not go when it is a question of match-making. I know you,—you'll not go! But still 'tis too early for you to make matches; for that is the business of women with gray hair. Pani Boski told me yesterday that when she saw you returning from the battle in trousers, she thought that she was looking at Pani Volodyovski's son, who had gone to the woods on an expedition. You do not love dignity; but dignity, too, does not love you, which appears at once from your slender form. You are a regular student, as God is dear to me! There is another style of women in the world now. In my time, when a woman sat down, the chair squeaked in such fashion that you might think some one had sat on the tail of a dog; but as to you, you might ride bareback on a tom-cat without great harm to the beast. They say, too, that women who begin to make matches will have no posterity."

"Do they really say that?" asked the little knight, alarmed.

But Zagloba began to laugh; and Basia, putting her rosy face to the face of her husband, said, in an undertone, "Ah, Michael, at a convenient time we will make a pilgrimage to Chenstohova; then maybe the Most Holy Lady will change matters."

"That is the best way indeed," said Zagloba.

Then they embraced at once, and Basia said, "But now let us talk of Azya and poor Eva, of how we are to help them. We are happy; let them be happy."

"When Novoveski goes away, it will be easier for them," said the little knight; "for in his presence they could not see each other, especially as Azya hates the old man. But if the old man were to give him Eva, maybe, forgetting former offences, they would begin to love each other as son-in-law and father-in-law. According to my head, it is not a question of bringing the young people together, for they love each other already, but of bringing over the old man."

"He is a misanthrope!" said Basia.

"Baska," said Zagloba, "imagine to yourself that you had a daughter, and that you had to give her to some Tartar—"

"Azya is a prince."

"I do not deny that Tugai Bey comes of high blood. Ketling was a noble; still Krysia would not have married him if he had not been naturalized."

"Then try to obtain naturalization for Azya."

"Is that an easy thing? Though some one were to admit him to his escutcheon, the Diet would have to confirm the choice; and for that, time and protection are necessary."

"I do not like this,—that time is needed,—for we could find protection. Surely the hetman would not refuse it to Azya, for he loves soldiers. Michael, write to the hetman. Do you want ink, pen, paper? Write at once! I'll bring you everything, and a taper and the seal; and you will sit down and write without delay."

"O Almighty God!" cried he, "I asked a sedate, sober wife of Thee, and Thou didst give me a whirlwind!"

"Talk that way, talk; then I'll die."

"Ah, your impatience!" cried the little knight, with animation,—"your impatience, tfu! tfu! a charm for a dog!" Here he turned to Zagloba: "Do you not know the words of a charm?"

"I know them, and I've told them," said Zagloba.

"Write!" cried Basia, "or I shall jump out of my skin."

"I would write twelve letters, to please you, though I know not what good that would be, for in this case the hetman himself can do nothing; even with protection, Azya can appear only at the right time. My Basia, Panna Novoveski has revealed her secret to you,—very well! But you have not spoken to Azya, and you do not know to this moment whether he is burning with love for Eva or not."

"He not burning! Why shouldn't he be burning, when he kissed her in the storehouse? Aha!"

"Golden soul!" said Zagloba, smiling. "That is like the talk of a newly born infant, except that you turn your tongue better. My love, if Michael and I had to marry all the women whom we happened to kiss, we should have to join the Mohammedan faith at once, and I should be Sultan of Turkey, and he Khan of the Crimea. How is that, Michael, hei?"

"I suspected Michael before I was his," said Basia; and thrusting her finger up to his eye, she began to tease him. "Move your mustaches; move them! Do not deny! I know, I know, and you know—at Ketling's."

The little knight really moved his mustaches to give himself courage, and at the same time to cover his confusion; at last, wishing to change the conversation, he said, "And so you do not know whether Azya is in love with Panna Eva?"

"Wait; I will talk to him alone and ask him. But he is in love, he must be in love! Otherwise I don't want to know him."

"In God's name! she is ready to talk him into it," said Zagloba.

"And I will persuade him, even if I had to shut myself in with him daily."

"Inquire of him, to begin with," said the little knight. "Maybe at first he will not confess, for he is shy; that is nothing. You will gain his confidence gradually; you'll know him better; you'll understand him, and then only can you decide what to do." Here the little knight turned to Zagloba: "She seems giddy, but she is quick."

"Kids are quick," said Zagloba, seriously.

Further conversation was interrupted by Pan Bogush, who rushed in like a bomb, and had barely kissed Basia's hands when he exclaimed, "May the bullets strike that Azya! I could not close my eyes the whole night. May the woods cover him!"

"What did Pan Azya bring against your grace?" asked Basia.

"Do you know what we were making yesterday?" And Pan Bogush, staring, began to look around on those present.

"What?"

"History! As God is dear to me, I do not lie."

"What history?"

"The history of the Commonwealth; that is, simply a great man. Pan Sobieski himself will be astonished when I lay Azya's ideas before him. A great man, I repeat to you; and I regret that I cannot tell you more, for I am sure that you would be as much astonished as I. I can only say that if what he has in view succeeds, God knows what he will be."

"For example," asked Zagloba, "will he be hetman?"

Pan Bogush put his hands on his hips: "That is it,—he will be hetman. I am sorry that I cannot tell you more. He will be hetman, and that's enough."

"Perhaps a dog hetman, or he will go with bullocks. Chabans have their hetmans also. Tfu! what is this that your grace is saying. Pan Under-Stolnik? That he is the son of Tugai Bey is true; but if he is to become hetman, what am I to become, or what will Pan Michael become, or your grace? Shall we become three kings at the birth of Christ, waiting for the abdication of Caspar, Melchior, and Baltazar? The nobles at least created me commander; I resigned the office, however, out of friendship for Pavel,
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but, as God lives, I don't understand your prediction."

"But I tell you that Azya is a great man."

"I said so," exclaimed Basia, turning toward the door, through which other guests at the stanitsa began to enter.

First came Pani Boski with the blue-eyed Zosia, and Pan Novoveski with Eva, who, after a night of bad sleep, looked more charming than usual. She had slept badly, for strange dreams had disturbed her; she dreamed of Azya, only he was more beautiful and insistent than of old. The blood rushed to her face at thought of this dream, for she imagined that every one would guess it in her eyes. But no one noticed her, since all had begun to say "good-day" to Pani Volodyovski. Then Pan Bogush resumed his narrative touching Azya's greatness and destiny; and Basia was glad that Eva and Pan Novoveski must listen to it. In fact, the old noble had blown off his anger since his first meeting with the Tartar, and was notably calmer. He spoke of him no longer as his man. To tell the truth, the discovery that he was a Tartar prince and a son of Tugai Bey imposed upon him beyond measure. He heard with wonder of Azya's uncommon bravery, and how the hetman had intrusted such an important function to him as that of bringing back to the service of the Commonwealth all the Lithuanian and Podolian Tartars. At times it seemed even to Pan Novoveski that they were talking of some one else besides Azya, to such a degree had the young Tartar become uncommon.