Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/399

Rh not an attendant; I am a colonel from the time that I brought my own squadron to the prince hetman."

"Kmita!" cried the prince, "that same Kmita, famous in the last war, who harried Hovanski, and later on managed not worse on his own account? I have heard much about you."

Having said this, the prince began to look more carefully and with a certain pleasure at Pan Andrei, for from what he had heard he thought him a man of his own cut.

"Sit down," said he, "I am glad to know you more intimately. And what is to be heard in Kyedani?"

"Here is a letter from the prince hetman," answered Kmita. The servants, having finished buckling the prince's boots, went out. The prince broke the seal and began to read. After a while there was an expression of weariness and dissatisfaction on his face. He threw the letter under the mirror and said, —

"Nothing new! The prince voevoda advises me to go to Prussia, to Tyltsa or to Taurogi, which, as you see, I am just doing. Ma foi, I do not understand my cousin. He reports to me that the elector is in Brandenburg, and that he cannot make his way to Prussia through the Swedes, and he writes at the same time that the hairs are standing on his head because I do not communicate with him, either for health or prescription; and how can I? If the elector cannot make his way through the Swedes, how can my messenger do so? I am in Podlyasye, for I have nothing else to do. I tell you, my cavalier, that I am as much bored as the devil doing penance. I have speared all the bears near Tykotsin; the fair heads of that region have the odor of sheepskin, which my nostrils cannot endure. But — Do you understand French or German?"

"I understand German," answered Kmita. "Praise be to God for that! I will speak German, for my lips fly off from your language."

When he had said this the prince put out his lower lip and touched it with his fingers, as if wishing to be sure that it had not gone off: then he looked at the mirror and continued, —

"Report has come to me that in the neighborhood of Lukovo one Skshetuski, a noble, has a wife of wonderful beauty. It is far from here; but I sent men to carry her ::VOL. I. — 24