Pan Michael

"Is it possible? so young, and five years already! Then it is too late to leave, even if you wanted to do so. You must yearn sometimes for the world; the world smells of war for one man, of feasts for another, of fair heads for a third."

"Avaunt!" said the monk, making the sign of the cross with devotion.

"How is that? Has not the temptation to go out of the cloister come on you?" continued Zagloba.

The monk looked with distrust at the envoy of the archbishop, speaking in such marvellous fas.h.i.+on, and answered, "When the door here closes on any man, he never goes out."

"We'll see that yet! What is happening to Pan Volodyovski? Is he well?"

"There is no one here named in that way."

"Brother Michael?" said Zagloba, on trial. "Former colonel of dragoons, who came here not long since."

"We call him Brother Yerzy; but he has not made his vows yet, and cannot make them till the end of the term."

"And surely he will not make them; for you will not believe, brother, what a woman's man he is! You could not find another man so hostile to woman's virtue in all the clois-- I meant to say in all the cavalry."

"It is not proper for me to hear this," said the monk, with increasing astonishment and confusion.

"Listen, brother; I do not know where you receive visitors, but if it is in this place, I advise you to withdraw a little when Brother Yerzy comes,--as far as that gate, for instance,--for we shall talk here of very worldly matters."

"I prefer to go away at once," said the monk.

Meanwhile Pan Michael, or rather Brother Yerzy, appeared; but Zagloba did not recognize the approaching man, for Pan Michael had changed greatly. To begin with, he seemed taller in the long white habit than in the dragoon jacket; secondly, his mustaches, pointing upward toward his eyes formerly, were hanging down now, and he was trying to let out his beard, which formed two little yellow tresses not longer than half a finger; finally, he had grown very thin and meagre, and his eyes had lost their former glitter. He approached slowly, with his hands hidden on his bosom under his habit, and with drooping head.

Zagloba, not recognizing him, thought that perhaps the prior himself was coming; therefore he rose from the bench and began, "Laudetur--"

Suddenly he looked more closely, opened his arms, and cried, "Pan Michael! Pan Michael!"

Brother Yerzy let himself be seized in the embrace; something like a sob shook his breast, but his eyes remained dry. Zagloba pressed him a long time; at last he began to speak,--

"You have not been alone in weeping over your misfortune. I wept; Yan and his family wept; the Kmitas wept. It is the will of G.o.d! be resigned to it, Michael. May the Merciful Father comfort and reward you! You have done well to shut yourself in for a time in these walls.

There is nothing better than prayer and pious meditation in misfortune.

Come, let me embrace you again! I can hardly see you through my tears."

And Zagloba wept with sincerity, moved at the sight of Pan Michael.

"Pardon me for disturbing your meditation," said he, at last; "but I could not act otherwise, and you will do me justice when I give you my reasons. Ai, Michael! you and I have gone through a world of evil and of good. Have you found consolation behind these bars?"

"I have," replied Pan Michael,--"in those words which I hear in this place daily, and repeat, and which I desire to repeat till my death, _memento mori_. In death is consolation for me."

"H'm! death is more easily found on the battlefield than in the cloister, where life pa.s.ses as if some one were unwinding thread from a ball,

"There is no life here, for there are no earthly questions; and before the soul leaves the body, it lives, as it were, in another world."

"If that is true, I will not tell you that the Belgrod horde are mustering in great force against the Commonwealth; for what interest can that have for you?"

Pan Michael's mustaches quivered on a sudden, and he stretched his right hand unwittingly to his left side; but not finding a sword there, he put both hands under his habit, dropped his head, and repeated, "Memento mori!"

"Justly, justly!" answered Zagloba, blinking his sound eye with a certain impatience. "No longer ago than yesterday Pan Sobieski, the hetman, said: 'Only let Volodyovski serve even through this one storm, and then let him go to whatever cloister he likes. G.o.d would not be angry for the deed; on the contrary, such a monk would have all the greater merit.' But there is no reason to wonder that you put your own peace above the happiness of the country, for _prima charitas ab ego_ (the first love is of self)."

A long interval of silence followed; only Pan Michael's mustaches stood out somewhat and began to move quickly, though lightly.

"You have not taken your vows yet," asked Zagloba, at last, "and you can go out at any moment?"

"I am not a monk yet, for I have been waiting for the favor of G.o.d, and waiting till all painful thoughts of earth should leave my soul. His favor is upon me now; peace is returning to me. I can go out; but I have no wish to go, since the time is drawing near in which I can make my vows with a clear conscience and free from earthly desires."

"I have no wish to lead you away from this; on the contrary, I applaud your resolution, though I remember that when Yan in his time intended to become a monk, he waited till the country was free from the storm of the enemy. But do as you wish. In truth, it is not I who will lead you away; for I myself in my own time felt a vocation for monastic life.

Fifty years ago I even began my novitiate; I am a rogue if I did not.

Well, G.o.d gave me another direction. Only I tell you this, Michael, you must go out with me now even for two days."

"Why must I go out? Leave me in peace!" said Volodyovski.

Zagloba raised the skirt of his coat to his eyes and began to sob. "I do not beg rescue for myself," said he, in a broken voice, "though Prince Boguslav Radzivill is hunting me with vengeance; he puts his murderers in ambush against me, and there is no one to defend and protect me, old man. I was thinking that you-- But never mind! I will love you all my life, even if you are unwilling to know me. Only pray for my soul, for I shall not escape Boguslav's hands. Let that come upon me which has to come; but another friend of yours, who shared every morsel of bread with you, is now on his death-bed, and wishes to see you without fail. He is unwilling to die without you; for he has some confession to make on which his soul's peace depends."

Pan Michael, who had heard of Zagloba's danger with great emotion, sprang forward now, and seizing him by the arms, inquired, "Is it Pan Yan?"

"No, not Yan, but Ketling!"

"For G.o.d's sake! what has happened to him?"

"He was shot by Prince Boguslav's ruffians while defending me; I know not whether he will be alive in twenty-four hours. It is for you, Michael, that we have both fallen into these straits, for we came to Warsaw only to think out some consolation for you. Come for even two days, and console a dying man. You will return later; you will become a monk. I have brought the recommendation of the primate to the prior to raise no impediment against you. Only hasten, for every moment is precious."

"For G.o.d's sake!" cried Pan Michael; "what do I hear? Impediments cannot keep me, for so far I am here only on meditation. As G.o.d lives, the prayer of a dying man is sacred! I cannot refuse that."

"It would be a mortal sin!" cried Zagloba.

"That is true! It is always that traitor, Boguslav--But if I do not avenge Ketling, may I never come back! I will find those ruffians, and I will split their skulls! O Great G.o.d! sinful thoughts are already attacking me! _Memento mori!_ Only wait here till I put on my old clothes, for it is not permitted to go out in the habit."

"Here are clothes!" cried Zagloba, springing to the bundle, which was lying there on the bench near them. "I foresaw everything, prepared everything! Here are boots, a rapier, a good overcoat."

"Come to the cell," said the little knight, with haste.

They went to the cell; and when they came out again, near Zagloba walked, not a white monk, but an officer with yellow boots to the knees, with a rapier at his side, and a white pendant across his shoulder. Zagloba blinked and smiled under his mustaches at sight of the brother at the door, who, evidently scandalized, opened the gate to the two.

Not far from the cloister and lower down, Zagloba's wagon was waiting, and with it two attendants. One was sitting on the seat, holding the reins of four well-attached horses; at these Pan Michael cast quickly the eye of an expert. The other stood near the wagon, with a mouldy, big-bellied bottle in one hand, and two goblets in the other.

"It is a good stretch of road to Mokotov," said Zagloba; "and harsh sorrow is waiting for us at the bedside of Ketling. Drink something, Michael, to gain strength to endure all this, for you are greatly reduced."

Saying this, Zagloba took the bottle from the hands of the man and filled both gla.s.ses with Hungarian so old that it was thick from age.

"This is a goodly drink," said Zagloba, placing the bottle on the ground and taking the goblets. "To the health of Ketling!"

"To his health!" repeated Pan Michael. "Let us hurry!"

They emptied the gla.s.ses at a draught.

"Let us hurry," repeated Zagloba. "Pour out, man!" said he, turning to the servant. "To the health of Pan Yan! Let us hurry!"

They emptied the goblets again at a draught, for there was real urgency.