Page:Adama Mickiewicza Konrad Wallenrod i Grazyna.djvu/31

Rh rewards, the song of the minstrel and the favour of beauty, did not touch his icy heart.

Wallenrod listened to praise with indifference, avoided the sight of rosy cheeks, and closed his ear to the en chanting sounds that flow from the lips of beauty.

Was he haughty and unfeeling by nature or from age, it were difficult to say; for, though young, his hair was grey, and his faded countenance was furrowed by long and deep suffering. Sometimes he mixed in the sprightly crowd of the young and gay—listened even with pleasure to the talk of women—wittily retorted the courtier's jest, and bestowed on the ladies a thousand flatteries, with a smile as indifferent as if he had been caressing children.

Few were these moments of forgetfulness; and soon some word, without meaning to others, moved him deeply. Fatherland, duty, love, a mention of the crusades, or of Lithuania, poisoned at once Wallenrod's pleasures. Such sounds again spread gloom over his brow and his soul, and plunged him into secret melancholy musings. Perhaps it was the remembrance of the sanctity of his calling that made him reject the sweets of life.