Fire in the Steppe (8 page)

"Permit me, sister," repeated Volodyovski.

"But where do you live, Michael? You must help me to find lodgings, for you have experience in Warsaw."

"I have lodgings ready," interrupted Pan Michael, "and such good ones that a senator might occupy them with his retinue. I live with my friend, Captain Ketling, and will take you with me at once."

"But remember that there are three of us, and two servants and four attendants. But for God's sake! I have not made you acquainted with the company." Here she turned to her companions. "You know, young ladies, who he is, but he does not know you; make acquaintance even in the dark. The host has not heated the stove for us yet. This is Panna Krystina Drohoyovski, and that Panna Barbara Yezorkovski. My husband is their guardian, and takes care of their property; they live with us, for they are orphans. To live alone does not beseem such young ladies."

While his sister was speaking, Pan Michael bowed in soldier fashion; the young ladies, seizing their skirts with their fingers, courtesied, wherewith Panna Barbara nodded like a young colt.

"Let us take our seats in the carriage, and drive on!" said the little knight. "Pan Zagloba lives with me. I asked him to have supper prepared for us."

"That famous Pan Zagloba?" asked Panna Basia, all at once.

"Basia, be quiet!" said the lady. "I am afraid that there will be annoyance."

"Oh, if Pan Zagloba has his mind on supper," said the little knight, "there will be enough, even if twice as many were to come. And, young ladies, will you give command to carry out the trunks? I brought a wagon too for things, and Ketling's carriage is so wide that we four can sit in it easily. See what comes to my head; if your attendants are not drunken fellows, let them stay here till morning with the horses and larger effects. We'll take now only what things are required most."

"We need leave nothing," said the lady, "for our wagons are still unpacked; just attach the horses, and they can move at once. Basia, go and give orders!"

Basia sprang to the entrance; and a few "Our Fathers" later she returned with the announcement that all was ready.

"It is time to go," said Pan Michael.

After a while they took their seats in the carriage and moved on toward Mokotov. Pan Michael's sister and Panna Krysia occupied the rear seats; in front sat the little knight at the side of Basia. It was so dark already that they could not see one another's features.

"Young ladies, do you know Warsaw?" asked Pan Michael, bending toward Panna Krysia, and raising his voice above the rattle of the carriage.

"No," answered Krysia, in a low but resonant and agreeable voice. "We are real rustics, and up to this time have known neither famous cities nor famous men."

Saying this, she inclined her head somewhat, as if giving to understand that she counted Pan Michael among the latter; he received the answer thankfully. "A polite sort of maiden!" thought he, and straightway began to rack his head over some kind of compliment to be made in return.

"Even if the city were ten times greater than it is," said he at last, "still, ladies, you might be its most notable ornament."

"But how do you know that in the dark?" inquired Panna Basia, on a sudden.

"Ah, here is a kid for you!" thought Pan Michael.

But he said nothing, and they rode on in silence for some time; Basia turned again to the little knight and asked, "Do you know whether there will be room enough in the stable? We have ten horses and two wagons."

"Even if there were thirty, there would be room for them."

"Hwew! hwew!" exclaimed the young lady.

"Basia! Basia!" said Pani Makovetski, persuasively.

"Ah, it is easy to say, 'Basia, Basia!' but in whose care were the horses during the whole journey?"

Conversing thus, they arrived before Ketling's house. All the windows were brilliantly lighted to receive the lady. The servants ran out with Pan Zagloba at the head of them; he, springing to the wagon and seeing three women, inquired straightway,—

"In which lady have I the honor to greet my special benefactress, and at the same time the sister of my best friend, Michael?"

"I am she!" answered the lady.

Then Zagloba seized her hand, and fell to kissing it eagerly, exclaiming, "I beat with the forehead,—I beat with the forehead!"

Then he helped her to descend from the carriage, and conducted her with great attention and clattering of feet to the ante-room. "Let me be permitted to give greeting once more inside the threshold," said he, on the way.

Meanwhile Pan Michael was helping the young ladies to descend. Since the carriage was high, and it was difficult to find the steps in the darkness, he caught Panna Krysia by the waist, and bearing her through the air, placed her on the ground; and she, without resisting, inclined during the twinkle of an eye her breast on his, and said, "I thank you."

Pan Michael turned then to Basia; but she had already jumped down on the other side of the carriage, therefore he gave his arm to Panna Krysia. In the room acquaintance with Zagloba followed. He, at sight of the two young ladies, fell into perfect good-humor, and invited them straightway to supper. The platters were steaming already on the table; and as Pan Michael had foreseen, there was such an abundance that it would have sufficed for twice as many persons.

They sat down. Pan Michael's sister occupied the first place; next to her, on the right, sat Zagloba, and beyond him Panna Basia. Pan Michael sat on the left side near Panna Krysia. And now for the first time the little knight was able to have a good look at the ladies. Both were comely, but each in her own style. Krysia had hair as black as the wings of a raven, brows of the same color, deep-blue eyes; she was a pale brunette, but of complexion so delicate that the blue veins on her temples were visible. A barely discernible dark down covered her upper lip, showing a mouth sweet and attractive, as if put slightly forward for a kiss. She was in mourning, for she had lost her father not long before, and the color of her garments, with the delicacy of her complexion and her dark hair, lent her a certain appearance of pensiveness and severity. At the first glance she seemed older than her companion; but when he had looked at her more closely, Pan Michael saw that the blood of first youth was flowing under that transparent skin. The more he looked, the more he admired the distinction of her posture, the swanlike neck, and those proportions so full of maiden charms.

"She is a great lady," thought he, "who must have a great soul; but the other is a regular tomboy."

In fact, the comparison was just. Basia was much smaller than her companion, and generally minute, though not meagre; she was ruddy as a bunch of roses, and light-haired. Her hair had been cut, apparently after illness, and she wore it gathered in a golden net. But the hair would not sit quietly on her restless head; the ends of it were peeping out through every mesh of the net, and over her forehead formed an unordered yellow tuft which fell to her brows like the tuft of a Cossack, which, with her quick, restless eyes and challenging mien, made that rosy face like the face of a student who is only watching to embroil some one and go unpunished himself. Still, she was so shapely and fresh that it was difficult to take one's eyes from her; she had a slender nose, somewhat in the air, with nostrils dilating and active; she had dimples in her cheeks and a dimple in her chin, indicating a joyous disposition. But now she was sitting with dignity and eating heartily, only shooting glances every little while, now at Pan Zagloba, now at Volodyovski, and looking at them with almost childlike curiosity, as if at some special wonder.

Pan Michael was silent; for though he felt it his duty to entertain Panna Krysia, he did not know how to begin. In general, the little knight was not happy in conversation with ladies; but now he was the more gloomy, since these maidens brought vividly to his mind the dear dead one.

Pan Zagloba entertained Pani Makovetski, detailing to her the deeds of Pan Michael and himself. In the middle of the supper he fell to relating how once they had escaped with Princess Kurtsevich and Jendzian, four of them, through a whole chambul, and how, finally, to save the princess and stop the pursuit, they two had hurled themselves on the chambul.

Basia stopped eating, and resting her chin on her hand, listened carefully, shaking her forelock, at moments blinking, and snapping her fingers in the most interesting places, and repeating, "Ah, ah! Well, what next?" But when they came to the place where Kushel's dragoons rushed up with aid unexpectedly, sat on the necks of the Tartars, and rode on, slashing them, for three miles, she could contain herself no longer, but clapping her hands with all her might, cried, "Ah, I should like to be there, God knows I should!"

"Basia!" cried the plump little Pani Makovetski, with a strong Russian accent, "you have come among polite people; put away your 'God knows.' O Thou Great God! this alone is lacking, Basia, that you should cry, 'May the bullets strike me!'"

The maiden burst out into fresh laughter, resonant as silver, and cried, "Well, then, auntie, may the bullets strike me!"

"O my God, the ears are withering on me! Beg pardon of the whole company!" cried the lady.

Then Basia, wishing to begin with her aunt, sprang up from her place, but at the same time dropped the knife and the spoons under the table, and then dived down after them herself.

The plump little lady could restrain her laughter no longer; and she had a wonderful laugh, for first she began to shake and tremble, and then to squeak in a thin voice. All had grown joyous. Zagloba was in raptures. "You see what a time I have with this maiden," said Pani Makovetski.

"She is a pure delight, as God is dear to me!" exclaimed Zagloba.

Meanwhile Basia had crept out from under the table; she had found the spoons and the knife, but had lost her net, for her hair was falling into her eyes altogether. She straightened herself, and said, her nostrils quivering meanwhile, "Aha, lords and ladies, you are laughing at my confusion. Very well!"

"No one is laughing," said Zagloba, in a tone of conviction, "no one is laughing,—no one is laughing! We are only rejoicing that the Lord God has given us delight in the person of your ladyship."

After supper they passed into the drawing-room. There Panna Krysia, seeing a lute on the wall, took it down and began to run over the strings. Pan Michael begged her to sing.

"I am ready, if I can drive sadness from your soul."

"I thank you," answered the little knight, raising his eyes to her in gratitude.

After a while this song was heard:—

"I do not indeed know how to thank you," said Zagloba, sitting at a distance with Pan Michael's sister, and kissing her hands, "for coming yourself and bringing with you such elegant maidens that the Graces themselves might heat stoves for them. Especially does that little haiduk please my heart, for such a rogue drives away sorrow in such fashion that a weasel could not hunt mice better. In truth, what is grief unless mice gnawing the grains of joyousness placed in our hearts? You, my benefactress, should know that our late king, Yan Kazimir, was so fond of my comparisons that he could not live a day without them. I had to arrange for him proverbs and wise maxims. He used to have these repeated to him before bed-time, and by them it was that he directed his policy. But that is another matter. I hope too that our Michael, in company with these delightful girls, will forget altogether his unhappy misfortune. You do not know that it is only a week since I dragged him out of the cloister, where he wished to make vows; but I won the intervention of the nuncio himself, who declared to the prior that he would make a dragoon of every monk in the cloister if he did not let Michael out straightway. There was no reason for him to be there. Praise be to God! Praise be to God! If not to-day, to-morrow some one of those two will strike such sparks out of him that his heart will be burning like punk."

Meanwhile Krysia sang on:—

"The fair heads have as much fear of those shafts as a dog has of meat," whispered Zagloba to Pan Michael's sister. "But confess, my benefactress, that you did not bring these titmice here without secret designs. They are maidens in a hundred!—especially that little haiduk. Would that I were as blooming as she! Ah, Michael has a cunning sister."

Pani Makovetski put on a very artful look, which did not, however, become her honest, simple face in the least, and said, "I thought of this and that, as is usual with us; shrewdness is not wanting to women. My husband had to come here to the election; and I brought the maidens beforehand, for with us there is no one to see unless Tartars. If anything lucky should happen to Michael from this, I would make a pilgrimage on foot to some wonder-working image."

"It will come; it will come!" said Zagloba.

"Both maidens are from great houses, and both have property; that, too, means something in these grievous times."

"There is no need to repeat that to me. The war has consumed Michael's fortune, though I know that he has some money laid up with great lords. We took famous booty more than once, gracious lady; and though that was placed at the hetman's discretion, still, a part went to be divided 'according to sabres,' as the saying is in our soldier speech. So much came to Michael's share more than once that if he had saved all his own, he would have to-day a nice fortune. But a soldier has no thought for to-morrow; he only frolics to-day. And Michael would have frolicked away all he had, were it not that I restrained him on every occasion. You say, then, gracious lady, that these maidens are of high blood?"

"Krysia is of senatorial blood. It is true that our castellans on the border are not castellans of Cracow, and there are some of whom few in the Commonwealth have heard; but still, whoso has sat once in a senator's chair bequeaths to posterity his splendor. As to relationship, Basia almost surpasses Krysia."