Page:Henryk Sienkiewicz - Potop - The Deluge (1898 translation by Jeremiah Curtin) - Vol 2.djvu/263

Rh in his time was well-nigh the greatest in the Commonwealth, who nevertheless had lost his whole immense fortune in the time of the Cossack incursion, so that the princess was now living at Zamost, on the bounty of her brother Yan.

But that lady was so full of grandeur, of majesty and virtue, that her brother was the first to blow away the dust from before her; and moreover he feared her like fire. There was no case in which he did not gratify her wishes, nor an affair the most important concerning which he did not advise with her. The people of the castle said that the princess ruled Zamost, the army, the treasury, and her brother; but she did not wish to take advantage of her preponderance, being given with her whole soul to grief for her husband and to the education of her son.

That son had recently returned for a short time from the court of Vienna and was living with her. He was a youth in the springtime of life; but in vain did Kmita seek inhim those marks which the son of the great Yeremi should bear in his features.

The figure of the young prince was graceful; but he had a large, full face, and protruding eyes with a timid look; he had coarse lips, moist, as with people inclined to pleasures of the table; an immense growth of hair, black as a raven's wing, fell to his shoulders. He inherited from his father only that raven hair and dark complexion.

Pan Andrei was assured by those who were more intimate with the prince that he had a noble soul, unusual understanding, and a remarkable memory, thanks to which he was able to speak almost all languages; and that a certain heaviness of body and temperament with a native greed for food were the only defects of that otherwise remarkable young man.

In fact, after he had entered into conversation with him Pan Andrei became convinced that the prince not only had an understanding mind and a striking judgment touching everything, but the gift of attracting people. Kmita loved him after the first conversation with that feeling in which compassion is the greatest element. He felt that he would give much to bring back to that orphan the brilliant future which belonged to him by right of birth.

Pan Andrei convinced himself at the first dinner that what was said of the gluttony of Michael Vishnyevetski was true. The young prince seemed to think of nothing save eating. His prominent eyes followed each dish un-