Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/522

492 with him his youth and a blind faith in the future. In him the line of Birji was to be renewed, for him alone was Prince Yanush toiling.

When he heard that Boguslav was coming, the hetman wished to go out to meet him, but etiquette did not permit him to go forth to meet a younger cousin; he sent therefore a gilded carriage, and a whole squadron as escort, and from the breastworks raised by Kmita and from the castle itself mortars were fired at his command, just as at the coming of a king.

When the cousins, after a ceremonial greeting, were left alone at last, Yanush seized Boguslav in his embrace and began to repeat, with a voice of emotion, —

"My youth has returned! My health has returned in a moment!"

But Boguslav looked at him carefully and asked, —

"What troubles your highness?"

"Let us not give ourselves titles if no one obeys us. What troubles me? Sickness irritates me so that I am falling like a rotten tree. But a truce to this! How is my wife and Maryska?"

"They have gone from Taurogi to Tyltsa. They are both well, and Marie is like a rosebud; that will be a wonderful rose when it blooms. Ma foi! more beautiful feet there are not in the world, and her tresses flow to the very ground."

"Did she seem so beautiful to you? That is well. God inspired you to come; I feel better in spirit when I see you. But what do you bring touching public affairs? What is the elector doing?"

"You know that he has made a league with the Prussian towns?"

"I know."

"But they do not trust him greatly. Dantzig will not receive his garrisons. The Germans have a good sniff."

"I know that too. But have you not written to him? What are his plans touching us?"

"Touching us?" repeated Boguslav, inattentively.

He cast his eyes around the room, then rose. Prince Yanush thought that he was looking for something; but he hurried to a mirror in the corner, and withdrawing a proper distance, rubbed his whole face with a finger of his right hand; at last he said, —

"My skin is chapped a little from the journey, but before