Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 1.djvu/558

528 of the Commonwealth, in the hope that he would pour balsam on his soul.

But the starosta viewed the past differently, and said: "My gracious sir, I know not what I should have answered had this question been put when I had ruddy mustaches and a mind clouded by physical humor; but to-day I have gray mustaches, and the experience of seventy years on my shoulders, and I see future things, for I am near the grave; therefore I say that not only we, even if we should correct our errors, but all Europe, cannot break the Swedish power."

"How can that be? Where did it come from?" cried Kmita. "When was Sweden such a power? Are there not more of the Polish people on earth, can we not have a larger army? Has that army yielded at any time to Sweden in bravery?"

"There are ten times as many of our people. God has increased our produce so that in my starostaship of Sohachev more wheat is grown than in all Sweden; and as to bravery, I was at Kirchholm when three thousand hussars of us scattered in the dust eighteen thousand of the best troops of Sweden."

"If that is true," said Kmita, whose eyes flashed at remembrance of Kirchholm, "what earthly causes are there why we should not put an end to them now?"

"First, this," answered the old man, with a deliberate voice, "that we have become small and they have grown great; that they have conquered us with our own hands, as before now they conquered the Germans with Germans. Such is the will of God; and there is no power, I repeat, that can oppose them to-day."

"But if the nobles should come to their senses and rally around their ruler, — if all should seize arms, what would you advise to do then, and what would you do yourself?"

"I should go with others and fall, and I should advise every man to fall; but after that would come times on which it is better not to look."

"Worse times cannot come! As true as life, they cannot! It is impossible!" cried Kmita.

"You see," continued the starosta, "before the end of the world and before the last judgment Antichrist will come, and it is said that evil men will get the upper hand of the good. Satans will go through the world, will preach a faith opposed to the true one, and will turn men to it. With the