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Meanwhile an evil spirit assailed him with a new temptation, to listen to what Zosia was saying to the Count. The girl, captivated by the Count’s affability, at first blushed, lowering her eyes; then they began to laugh, and finally to talk about a certain unexpected meeting in the garden, about a certain stepping over the burdocks and the vegetable beds.
Telimena could not understand what all this meant; shrugging her shoulders, she thought, “He’s showing off!” After all she was rather glad of the Count’s new courtship, and turned her attention to her other neighbour. Thaddeus, also gloomy, ate nothing and drank nothing; he seemed to be listening to the conversation, and glued his eyes on his plate.
In one of the empty rooms he had chosen a habitation for himself; though he might have lived at the Count’s mansion on alms, he refused, for he pined away everywhere else, and felt out of sorts unless he was breathing the air of the castle.
At once Rykov cried, “Platoon fire!” A fiery thread flew along over the locks, and from the black levelled barrels three hundred bullets whistled. Three riders fell wounded, and one lay dead. The Count’s steed fell, and the Count with it; with a cry the Warden ran to the rescue, for he saw that the yagers had aimed at the last of the Horeszkos—though in the female line.
The Monk mounted a vehicle standing by the threshold, lashed the horses with the whip, tickled their sides with the reins, and the carriage flew off and vanished in billows of fog; only now and then the grey cowl of the Monk rose above the mist like a vulture above the clouds. The Apparitor had long ago arrived at the Count’s house.
The frightened women began to beseech and weep; Telimena, with a cry of “Alas!” lifted her eyes, rose, and fell in a faint; and, inclining her neck over the Count’s shoulder, laid upon his breast her swan’s breast. The Count, infuriated though he was, checked himself in his mad career, and began to revive her and chafe her.
Gerwazy called to mind the days of old, and bade them give him the belts from their kontuszes, and with them he drew from the Soplicas’ cellar casks of old brandy, mead, and beer. Some they broached at once; others the gentry, thick as ants, seized with a will and rolled to the castle. There the whole throng gathered for the night encampment; there were established the Count’s headquarters.
He was really a handsome gentleman; of tall stature, with an oval face, fair and with rosy cheeks; he had mild blue eyes and long blonde hair. The leaves and tufts of grass in the Count’s hair, which he had torn off in crawling over the borders, showed green like a disordered wreath.
Then, turning a feeling glance on Telimena, he added, “What remains?” and she said to him, “Remembrance”; and, desiring somewhat to relieve the Count’s sadness, she gave him a forget-me-not that she had plucked. The Count kissed it and pinned it on his bosom. Thaddeus on the other side separated the branches of a shrub, seeing that through the greenery something white was stealing towards him.
Such were the queer habits of the Count; everybody said that there was some screw loose in him. Yet they respected him, for he was a gentleman of ancient lineage, rich, kind to his peasants, and affable and friendly with his neighbours, even with the Jews. The Count’s horse, which he had turned off the road, trotted straight across the field to the threshold of the castle.
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