Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - In Vain.djvu/153

Rh steppe and of battle. He waved his hand, and the steppes were cleared of Tartars. One might say, "I can see the Crimea and the blue waves beyond." Hei! the usual dreams of a maiden! As wide as the steppes are, so many are the songs of his actions; and then he is so covered with glory, though youthful; so bloody, though so beloved. He bent his forehead before some female figure. The usual dream of a magnate’s daughter! That female figure is she; he a Herburt or a Koretski.

And as she was reared, so did she imagine; and these imaginings had no use, nay, they were perhaps harmful, though attractive. So, when the old man finished the stories, and remembering the present, added with bitterness, "My fault, my fault!" she wound her arms around his neck, then, saying usually, "Not thy fault, papa; those times will return again."

But those times did not return. The old man died, and no knight appeared as a guardian, no knight cut from the blackened background of a picture. The form which appeared had nothing in common with knighthood. That head with severe face and broad forehead, the cold face of a modern thinker, in no manner, even in the dreams of a maiden, did it fit to a bronze helmet with ostrich plumes.