Pan Michael quotes

Pan Zagloba did not drive forward so swiftly, however, as he had promised himself and his comrades.

The nearer he was to Warsaw, the more, slowly he travelled. It was the time in which Yan Kazimir, king, statesman, and great leader, having extinguished foreign conflagration and brought the Commonwealth, as it were, from the depths of a deluge, had abdicated lordship.

When the host conducted him over the threshold and asked, “Whom have I the honor?” he merely put his hands on his hips, and sure of the effect, answered in two words,

“Zagloba sum! (I am Zagloba).”

Indeed, it never happened that after those two words a great opening of arms did not follow, and exclamations, “I shall inscribe this among my most fortunate days!” And the cries of officers or nobles, “Look at him!

“If it is better, bah! then all the more should cloisters be shunned.

Dull is the man who feeds mourning instead of keeping it hungry, so that the beast may die of famine as quickly as possible.

”

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.

Suddenly Basia’s steps were heard in the anteroom, and her childlike voice repeating, “Frost! frost! frost!”

Pan Michael sprang away from Krysia like a frightened panther from his victim

; and at that moment Basia rushed in with an uproar, repeating incessantly, “Frost! frost! frost!” Suddenly she stumbled against the drum lying in the middle of the room.

“But perhaps,” said Zagloba, looking quickly into her eyes, “you bear some hidden love in your heart. Hei?”

“A fig for love!” cried Basia.

And springing from the place, she began to repeat quickly, as if wishing to cover her confusion, “I do not want Pan Adam! I do not want Pan Adam! I do not want anyone! Why do you plague me?

for by loving, a free man becomes a captive. Just as a bird, shot by an arrow, falls it the feet of the hunter, so the man struck by love has no power to escape from the feet of the loved one.

To love is to be maimed; for a man, like one blind, does not see the world beyond his love.

To love is to mourn; for when do more tears flow, when do more sighs swell the breast? When a man loves, there are neither dresses nor hunts in his head;

Then Zagloba yawned loudly, drew a deep breath, stretched his legs, and said,

“Give command to make boots for dogs of such love!”

“But yet,” began the knight, anew, “if it is grievous to love, it is more grievous still not to love; for who without love is satisfied with pleasure, glory, riches, perfumes, or jewels?

for who without love is satisfied with pleasure, glory, riches, perfumes, or jewels? Who will not say to the loved one, ‘I choose thee rather than a kingdom, than a sceptre, than health or long life’?

And since each would give life for love willingly, love has more value than life.

” Ketling finished.

At times too, especially when she tried to close her eyes, it seemed to her that some head, beautiful as a dream, bent over her, and a low voice whispered into her ear—

“I would rather have thee than a kingdom, than a sceptre, than health, than long life!”

“Do not do that,” said Ketling, smiling.

“If I am to drown, let it seem to me, even a couple of days yet, that I am swimming.”

“I see that the Scots are fine men in battle; but in love they are useless. Against women, as against the enemy, impetus is needful. ‘I came, I saw, I conquered!’ that was my maxim.”

“I see that the Scots are fine men in battle; but in love they are useless.

Against women, as against the enemy, impetus is needful.

‘I came, I saw, I conquered!’ that was my maxim.”

Basia kissed Zagloba straightway on both cheeks, so that he was moved and said,

“Loving hearts are as dear to a man in old age as a warm place behind the stove.”

Then he was thoughtful for a while and added, “It is a wonder how I have loved the fair sex all my life; and if I had to say why, I know not myself, for often they are bad and deceitful and giddy.

While we were embracing, we entangled the chains so that we could not untangle them. The overseers came and extricated us, but the lash whistled above us for more than an hour. They beat us without looking where.

Blood flowed from me, flowed also from Didyuk; the two bloods mingled and went in one stream to the sea.

But that is nothing! it is an old story—to the glory of God!

“O Almighty God!” cried he, “

I asked a sedate, sober wife of Thee, and Thou didst give me a whirlwind!

”

“

Beads have an odor for me, and a girl for you.

I must dress your shoulders well yet, for there is nothing to drive out the Devil like a chaplet.”

“Not through piety, but through love, which is so wonderful that I’m not sure that I shall not burst from it, as a bomb bursts. What is the use in pretending, when it is true?

Flies do not trouble a horse in autumn as this affection troubles me.

”

and seeing that I could travel quickly by smearing with that tar, I not only concealed nothing, but lied a little, though usually I will not over-color, for I think thus to myself:

‘Truth is oats, and lying chopped straw.’

My father bethought himself, and now for plans: ‘This or that [land] might have been bought,’ said he; ‘this or that lawsuit might have been kept up,’ said he;

“Without doubt the news would be first in Hreptyoff,” said Azya; “let your grace have no fear.”

Basia raised her bright face to the Tartar, and her nostrils quivered.

“I have fear! That is excellent; what is in your head? Do you hear, Eva?—I have fear!”

So did Basia when she saw that smoke indicating a habitation of people; following involuntarily the first impulse of her heart, she wished to rush to it, greet the inhabitants with God’s name, and rest her wearied head under their roof.

But cruel reality bared its teeth at her quickly, like a fierce dog.

Hence her heart was filled with bitterness; tears of sorrow and disappointment came to her eyes.

But cruel reality bared its teeth at her quickly, like a fierce dog. Hence her heart was filled with bitterness; tears of sorrow and disappointment came to her eyes.

“Help from no one but God,” thought she; “may I meet no person again.”

Then she fell to thinking why that man had begun to imitate a quail. “There must be others there surely, and he wanted to call them.”

besides, soaked through repeatedly at crossings, and kept damp by the warmth of her feet now inflamed from fever, these boots were torn easily in the forest.

“I will go barefoot to Hreptyoff or to death!” thought Basia.

And a sad smile lighted her face, for she found comfort in this, that she went so enduringly; and that if she should be frozen on the road, Michael would have nothing to cast at her memory.

But here the forest grows thin, the snowfields open, and with them the slope, from which a number of glittering eyes are looking on the running Basia.

But those were not wolves’ eyes⁠—ah, those were Hreptyoff windows looking with sweet, bright, and saving light!

That is the “fortalice” there on the eminence, just that eastern side turned to the forest!

For a whole day death hovered over Basia.

Like a spider, which secreted in some gloomy corner of the ceiling crawls out at times to the light, and lets itself down on an unseen web, death seemed at times to come down right there over Basia’s head

; and more than once it seemed to those present that his shadow was falling on her forehead, that that bright soul was just opening its wings to fly away out of Hreptyoff, somewhere into endless space, to the other side of life.

… as he thought, but was brought in that fashion to a patient, after a passing faintness he went to the rescue at once, especially as Zagloba held before him in one hand a purse filled with coin, in the other a loaded pistol, and said—

“Here is the fee for life, and there is the fee for death.”

That same night, about daybreak, the spider of ill-omen hid away somewhere for good; thereupon the decision of the doctor, “She will be sick a long time, but she will recover,” sounded with joyful echo through Hreptyoff.

I know, I know, you are ready at command to put her in with forks, if it appears that she is unable to sit in the wagon with her own strength. May the hangman take you with such discipline!

In old times a man did what he could, and what he couldn’t he didn’t do.

You have kindness on your lips, but just let them cry, ‘Haida on the Turk!’ then you’ll spit out your kindness as you would a peachstone, and you will take that unfortunate woman on horseback with a lariat.”

“

I confess that when she puts her fists in her eyes and begins to cry, or just let her pretend to cry, the heart in me is like butter on a frying-pan.

It must be that she has given me some herb. As to sending her, I will send her, for her safety is dearer to me than my own life;

“And I to see them,” replied the old man. “But this is how it is: if I am here, I am sad without them; if I go there, I shall be sad without this weasel.

Such is human life; if the wind doesn’t blow into one ear it will into the other.

But it is worse for the lone man, for if I had children I should not be loving a stranger.”

“Cannot you think out something?”

“Since you fear your wife, what can I think out for you? Get the blacksmith to shoe you⁠—that’s what!”

… and rule half the world, or to take her in his arms, feel with his heart the warmth of her blood, the breath of her face, her lips with his lips, he would prefer her to Tsargrad, to the Bosphorus, to the title of Khalif.

He wanted her because he loved her; he wanted her because he hated her.

The more she was foreign to him, the more he wanted her; the more she was pure, faithful, untainted, the more he wanted her.

He wanted her because he loved her; he wanted her because he hated her.

The more she was foreign to him, the more he wanted her; the more she was pure, faithful, untainted, the more he wanted her.

More than once when he remembered in his tent that he had kissed those eyes one time in his life, in the ravine after the battle with Azba Bey, and that at Rashkoff he had felt her breast on his, the madness of desire carried …

At last the dragoons scattered the remnant of them completely, and slew them in the flight, taking no prisoners, and pursuing without mercy till the trumpets called them back from pursuit.

Never had an attack been more unexpected, and never a defeat more terrible.

Three hundred men had scattered to the four winds of the world nearly two thousand cavalry, surpassing incomparably in training the ordinary chambuls. The greater part of them were lying flat in red pools of blood and rain.

He described then the death which Azya had died, and they listened with terror, but without pity.

“That the Lord God pursues crime is known,” said Zagloba at last; “but it is a wonder that the Devil protects his servants so poorly.”

Basia sighed piously, raised her eyes, and after a short meditation answered—

The giant was silent for a time, as if struggling with his own thoughts; at last he said, as if in great wonderment, and so quietly that he was almost whispering—

“Imagine to yourself, as God is dear to me, I thought that I should feel better if I were to destroy him. I saw him on the stake, I saw him when his eye was bored out, I said to myself that I felt better; but it is not true, not true.”

Here Pan Adam embraced his hapless head with his hands, and said through his set teeth—

“There is no consolation for him now,” said Basia.

“Often it would be better for a man not to have memory,” remarked Pan Mushalski; “but even animals are not free from it.”

Here the old man called the famous bowman to account for that remark.

The little knight flew farther toward horsemen racing through the field, and began to spread dreadful disaster.

As when after Mass a boy comes in with a pewter extinguisher fixed to a staff, and quenches one after another the candles on the altar, and the altar is buried in shadow, so Pan Michael quenched right and left brilliant horsemen, Egyptian and Turkish, and they sank in the darkness of death.

The Pagans recognized a master above masters, and their hearts sank within them. One and another withdrew his horse, so as not to meet with the terrible leader;

In fact, it had small chance of success, not only in view of the Turkish power, but in view of themselves. Pan Volodyovski was an incomparable soldier and very famous, but he had not the majesty of greatness.

Whoso bears the sun in himself is able to warm all everywhere; but whoso is a flame, even the most ardent, warms only those who are nearest.

So it was with the little knight. He did not know how to pour his spirit into others, and could not, just as he could not give his own skill with the sword.

He had begun to be angry indeed, and had cried, “Basia, you have no fear of God!” but sudden tenderness seized him, his voice stuck in his throat; and only when that dearest bright head was resting on his breast, did he say—

“You are my faithful friend until death;” and he embraced her.

But Zagloba, pressing up to the wall, said to Ketling: “And yours wished to come, but we deceived her, saying that we were not coming. How could she come in such a condition? A general of artillery will be born to you.

Pan Michael conducted Basia away before the morning kindya to the bridge joining the old castle with the town. In parting, he said—

“This life is nothing! remember that, Basia.”

If the gate is blown up, we will defend ourselves behind the wall; if the wall is blown up, we’ll have a second one made previously, and so on, as long as we feel an ell of ground under our feet.”

“But when the ell is gone, what then?” asked the starosta.

“Then we shall be gone too,” said the little knight.

“But when the ell is gone, what then?” asked the starosta.

“Then we shall be gone too,” said the little knight.

Meanwhile he gave command to hurl hand-grenades at the enemy; these caused much damage. Most effective in this work was Lieutenant Dembinski, who killed Turks without number, until a grenade ignited too soon, burst in his hand, and tore it off.

And, in fact, it was.

As, when one dog barks in the middle of a still night, others begin to accompany, and at last the whole village is filled with barking, so one cannon in the Turkish trenches roused all the neighboring guns, and a crown of bombs encircled the besieged place.

This time, however, the enemy fired at the town, not the castle; but from three sides was heard the piercing of mines.

The wearied crowds of janissaries left the trenches in the first moments. They did not play the kindya. The vizir himself appeared at the head of new legions; but evidently doubt had crept even into his heart, for the pashas heard how he muttered—

“Battle is sweeter to those men than sleep. What kind of people live in that castle?”

In the army were heard on all sides alarmed voices repeating, “The little dog is beginning to bite! The little dog is beginning to bite!”

“Battle is sweeter to those men than sleep. What kind of people live in that castle?”

In the army were heard on all sides alarmed voices repeating, “The little dog is beginning to bite! The little dog is beginning to bite!”