The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Henryk Sienkiewicz

  CHAPTER XV.

  But a few days subsequent the great traitor in the castle was lookingat the darkness coming down on the snowy shrouds and listening to thehowling of the wind.

  The lamp of his life was burning out slowly. At noon of that day he wasstill walking around and looking through the battlements, at the tentsand the wooden huts of Sapyeha's troops; but two hours later he grew soill that they had to carry him to his chambers.

  From those times at Kyedani in which he had striven for a crown, he hadchanged beyond recognition. The hair on his head had grown white,around his eyes red rings had formed, his face was swollen and flabby,therefore it seemed still more enormous, but it was the face of a halfcorpse, marked with blue spots and terrible through its expression ofhellish suffering.

  And still, though his life could be measured by hours, he had lived toolong, for not only had he outlived faith in himself and his fortunatestar, faith in his own hopes and plans, but his fall was so deep thatwhen he looked at the bottom of that precipice to which he was rolling,he would not believe himself. Everything had deceived him: events,calculations, allies. He, for whom it was not enough to be themightiest lord in Poland, a prince of the Roman Empire, grand hetman,and voevoda of Vilna; he, for whom all Lithuania was less than what hedesired and was lusting after, was confined in one narrow, small castlein which either Death or Captivity was waiting for him. And he watchedthe door every day to see which of these two terrible goddesses wouldenter first to take his soul or his more than half-ruined body.

  Of his lands, of his estates and starostaships, it was possible notlong before to mark out a vassal kingdom; now he is not master even ofthe walls of Tykotsin.

  Barely a few months before he was treating with neighboring kings;to-day one Swedish captain obeys his commands with impatience andcontempt, and dares to bend him to his will.

  When his troops left him, when from a lord and a magnate who made thewhole country tremble, he became a powerless pauper who needed rescueand assistance himself, Karl Gustav despised him. He would have raisedto the skies a mighty ally, but he turned with haughtiness from thesupplicant.

  Like Kostka Napyerski, the foot-pad, besieged on a time in Chorshtyn,is he, Radzivill, besieged now in Tykotsin. And who is besieging him?Sapyeha, his greatest personal enemy. When they capture him they willdrag him to justice in worse fashion than a robber, as a traitor.

  His kinsmen have deserted him, his friends, his connections. Armieshave plundered his property, his treasures and riches are blown intomist, and that lord, that prince, who once upon a time astonished thecourt of France and dazzled it with his luxury, he who at feastsreceived thousands of nobles, who maintained tens of thousands of hisown troops, whom he fed and supported, had not now wherewith to nourishhis own failing strength; and terrible to relate, he, Radzivill, in thelast moments of his life, almost at the hour of his death, was hungry!

  In the castle there had long been a lack of provisions; from the scantremaining supplies the Swedish commander dealt stingy rations, and theprince would not beg of him.

  If only the fever which was devouring his strength had deprived him ofconsciousness; but it had not. His breast rose with increasingheaviness, his breath turned into a rattle, his swollen feet and handswere freezing, but his mind, omitting moments of delirium, omitting theterrible visions and nightmares which passed before his eyes, remainedfor the greater part of the time clear. And that prince saw his wholefall, all his want, all his misery and humiliation; that formerwarrior-victor saw all his defeat, and his sufferings were so immensethat they could be equalled only by his sins.

  Besides, as the Furies tormented Orestes, so was he tormented byreproaches of conscience, and in no part of the world was there asanctuary to which he could flee from them. They tormented him in theday, they tormented him at night, in the field, under the roof; pridecould not withstand them nor repulse them. The deeper his fall, themore fiercely they lashed him. And there were moments in which he torehis own breast. When enemies came against his country from every side,when foreign nations grieved over its hapless condition, its sufferingsand bloodshed, he, the grand hetman, instead of moving to the field,instead of sacrificing the last drop of his blood, instead ofastonishing the world like Leonidas or Themistocles, instead of pawninghis last coat like Sapyeha, made a treaty with enemies against themother, raised a sacrilegious hand against his own king, and imbrued itin blood near and dear to him. He had done all this, and now he is atthe limit not only of infamy, but of life, close to his reckoning,there beyond. What is awaiting him?

  The hair rose on his head when he thought of that. For he had raisedhis hand against his country, he had appeared to himself great inrelation to that country, and now all had changed. Now he had becomesmall, and the Commonwealth, rising from dust and blood, appeared tohim something great and continually greater, invested with a mysteriousterror, full of a sacred majesty, awful. And she grew, increasedcontinually in his eyes, and became more and more gigantic. In presenceof her he felt himself dust as prince and as hetman, as Radzivill. Hecould not understand what that was. Some unknown waves were risingaround him, flowing toward him, with roaring, with thunder, flowingever nearer, rising more terribly, and he understood that he must bedrowned in that immensity, hundreds such as he would be drowned. Butwhy had he not seen this awfulness and this mysterious power at first;why had he, mad man, rushed against it? When these ideas roared in hishead, fear seized him in presence of that mother, in presence of thatCommonwealth; for he did not recognize her features, which formerlywere so kind and so mild.

  The spirit was breaking within him, and terror dwelt in his breast. Atmoments he thought that another country altogether, another people,were around him. Through the besieged walls came news of everythingthat men were doing in the invaded Commonwealth, and marvellous andastonishing things were they doing. A war of life or death against theSwedes and traitors had begun, all the more terrible in that it had notbeen foreseen by any man. The Commonwealth had begun to punish. Therewas something in this of the anger of God for the insult to majesty.

  When through the walls of Tykotsin came news of the siege ofChenstohova, Radzivill, a Calvinist, was frightened; and fright did notleave his soul from that day, for then he perceived for the first timethose mysterious waves which, after they had risen, were to swallow theSwedes and him; then the invasion of the Swedes seemed not an invasion,but a sacrilege, and the punishment of it inevitable. Then for thefirst time the veil dropped from his eyes, and he saw the changed faceof the Commonwealth, no longer a mother, but a punishing queen.

  All who had remained true to her and served with heart and soul, roseand grew greater and greater; whoso sinned against her went down. "Andtherefore it is not free to any one to think," said the prince tohimself, "of his own elevation, or that of his family, but he mustsacrifice life, strength, and love to her."

  But for him it was now too late; he had nothing to sacrifice; he had nofuture before him save that beyond the grave, at sight of which heshuddered.

  From the time of besieging Chenstohova, when one terrible cry was tornfrom the breast of an immense country, when as if by a miracle therewas found in it a certain wonderful, hitherto unknown and notunderstood power, when you would have said that a mysterious hand frombeyond this world rose in its defence, a new doubt gnawed into the soulof the prince, and he could not free himself from the terrible thoughtthat God stood with that cause and that faith.

  And when such thoughts roared in his head he doubted his own faith, andthen his despair passed even the measure of his sins. Temporal fall,spiritual fall, darkness, nothingness,--behold to what he had come,what he had gained by serving self.

  And still at the beginning of the expedition from Kyedani againstPodlyasye he was full of hope. It is true that Sapyeha, a leaderinferior to him beyond comparison, had defeated him in the field, andthe rest of the squadrons left him, but he strengthened himself withthe thought that any day Boguslav might come with assistance.
Thatyoung eagle of the Radzivills would fly to him at the head of PrussianLutheran legions, who would not pass over to the papists like theLithuanian squadrons; and at once he would bend Sapyeha in two, scatterhis forces, scatter the confederates, and putting themselves on thecorpse of Lithuania, like two lions on the carcass of a deer, withroaring alone would terrify all who might wish to tear it away fromthem.

  But time passed; the forces of Prince Yanush melted; even the foreignregiments went over to the terrible Sapyeha; days passed, weeks,months, but Boguslav came not.

  At last the siege of Tykotsin began.

  The Swedes, a handful of whom remained with Yanush, defended themselvesheroically; for, stained already with terrible cruelty, they saw thateven surrender would not guard them from the vengeful hands of theLithuanians. The prince in the beginning of the siege had still thehope that at the last moment, perhaps, the King of Sweden himself wouldmove to his aid, and perhaps Pan Konyetspolski, who at the head of sixthousand cavalry was with Karl Gustav. But his hope was vain. No onegave him a thought, no one came with assistance.

  "Oh, Boguslav! Boguslav!" repeated the prince, walking through thechambers of Tykotsin; "if you will not save a cousin, save at least aRadzivill!"

  At last in his final despair Prince Yanush resolved on taking a step atwhich his pride revolted fearfully; that was to implore Prince MichaelRadzivill of Nyesvyej for rescue. This letter, however, was interceptedon the road by Sapyeha's men; but the voevoda of Vityebsk sent toYanush in answer a letter which he had himself received from PrinceMichael a week before.

  Prince Yanush found in it the following passage:--

  "If news has come to you, gracious lord, that I intend to go withsuccor to my relative, the voevoda of Vilna, believe it not, for I holdonly with those who endure in loyalty to the country and our king, andwho desire to restore the former liberties of this most illustriousCommonwealth. This course will not, as I think, bring me to protecttraitors from just and proper punishment. Boguslav too will not come,for, as I hear, the elector prefers to think of himself, and does notwish to divide his forces; and _quod attinet_ (as to) Konyetspolski,since he will pay court to Prince Yanush's widow, should she becomeone, it is to his profit that the prince voevoda be destroyed with allspeed."

  This letter, addressed to Sapyeha, stripped the unfortunate Yanush ofthe remnant of his hope, and nothing was left him but to wait for theaccomplishment of his destiny.

  The siege was hastening to its close.

  News of the departure of Sapyeha passed through the wall almost thatmoment; but the hope that in consequence of his departure hostile stepswould be abandoned were of short duration, for in the infantryregiments an unusual movement was observable. Still some days passedquietly enough, since the plan of blowing up the gate with a petardresulted in nothing; but December 31 came, on which only theapproaching night might incommode the besiegers, for evidently theywere preparing something against the castle, at least a new attack ofcannon on the weakened walls.

  The day was drawing to a close. The prince was lying in the so-called"Corner" hall situated in the western part of the castle. In anenormous fireplace were burning whole logs of pine wood which cast alively light on the white and rather empty walls. The prince was lyingon his back on a Turkish sofa, pushed out purposely into the middle ofthe room, so that the warmth of the blaze might reach it. Nearer to thefireplace, a little in the shade, slept a page, on a carpet; near theprince were sitting, slumbering in arm-chairs, Pani Yakimovich,formerly chief lady-in-waiting at Kyedani, another page, a physician,also the prince's astrologer, and Kharlamp.

  Kharlamp had not left the prince, though he was almost the only one ofhis former officers who had remained. That was a bitter service, forthe heart and soul of the officer were outside the walls of Tykotsin,in the camp of Sapyeha; still he remained faithful at the side of hisold leader. From hunger and watching the poor fellow had grown as thinas a skeleton. Of his face there remained but the nose, which nowseemed still greater, and mustaches like bushes. He was clothed incomplete armor, breastplate, shoulder-pieces, and morion, with a wirecape which came down to his shoulders. His cuirass was battered, for hehad just returned from the walls, to which he had gone to makeobservations a little while before, and on which he sought death everyday. He was slumbering at the moment from weariness, though there was aterrible rattling in the prince's breast as if he had begun to die, andthough the wind howled and whistled outside.

  Suddenly short quivering began to shake the gigantic body of Radzivill,and the rattling ceased. Those who were around him woke at once andlooked quickly, first at him and then at one another. But he said,--

  "It is as if something had gone out of my breast; I feel easier."

  He turned his head a little, looked carefully toward the door, at lasthe said, "Kharlamp!"

  "At the service of your highness!"

  "What does Stahovich want here?"

  The legs began to tremble under poor Kharlamp, for unterrified as hewas in battle he was superstitious in the same degree; therefore helooked around quickly, and said in a stifled voice,--

  "Stahovich is not here; your highness gave orders to shoot him atKyedani."

  The prince closed his eyes and answered not a word.

  For a time there was nothing to be heard save the doleful andcontinuous howling of the wind.

  "The weeping of people is heard in that wind," said the prince, againopening his eyes in perfect consciousness. "But I did not bring in theSwedes; it was Radzeyovski."

  When no one gave answer, he said after a short time,--

  "He is most to blame, he is most to blame, he is most to blame."

  And a species of consolation entered his breast, as if the remembrancerejoiced him that there was some one more guilty than he.

  Soon, however, more grievous thoughts must have come to his head, forhis face grew dark, and he repeated a number of times,--

  "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"

  And again choking attacked him; a rattling began in his throat moreterrible than before. Meanwhile from without came the sound ofmusketry, at first infrequent, then more frequent; but amidst thedrifting of the snow and the howling of the whirlwind they did notsound too loudly, and it might have been thought that that was somecontinual knocking at the gate.

  "They are fighting!" said the prince's physician.

  "As usual!" answered Kharlamp. "People are freezing in the snow-drifts,and they wish to fight to grow warm."

  "This is the sixth day of the whirlwind and the snow," answered thedoctor. "Great changes will come in the kingdom, for this is an unheardof thing."

  "God grant it!" said Kharlamp. "It cannot be worse."

  Further conversation was interrupted by the prince, to whom a newrelief had come.

  "Kharlamp!"

  "At the service of your highness!"

  "Does it seem to me so from weakness, or did Oskyerko try to blow upthe gate with a petard two days since?"

  "He tried, your highness; but the Swedes seized the petards and woundedhim slightly, and Sapyeha's men were repulsed."

  "If wounded slightly, then he will try again. But what day is it?"

  "The last day of December, your highness."

  "God be merciful to my soul! I shall not live to the New Year. Long agoit was foretold me that every fifth year death is near me."

  "God is kind, your highness."

  "God is with Sapyeha," said the prince, gloomily.

  All at once he looked around and said: "Cold comes to me from it. I donot see it, but I feel that it is here."

  "What is that, your highness?"

  "Death!"

  "In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!"

  A moment of silence followed; nothing was heard but the whispered "OurFather," repeated by Pani Yakimovich.

  "Tell me," said the prince, with a broken voice, "do you believe thatoutside of your faith no one can be saved?"

  "Even in the moment of death it is possible to renounce errors," saidKharlamp.


  The sound of shots had become at that moment more frequent. The thunderof cannon began to shake the windowpanes, which answered each reportwith a plaintive sound.

  The prince listened a certain time calmly, then rose slightly on thepillow; his eyes began slowly to widen, his pupils to glitter. He satup; for a moment he held his head with his hand, then cried suddenly,as if in bewilderment,--

  "Boguslav! Boguslav! Boguslav!"

  Kharlamp ran out of the room like a madman.

  The whole castle trembled and quivered from the thunder of cannon.

  All at once there was heard the cry of several thousand voices; thensomething was torn with a ghastly smashing of walls, so that brands andcoals from the chimney were scattered on the floor. At the same timeKharlamp rushed into the chamber.

  "Sapyeha's men have blown up the gate!" cried he. "The Swedes have fledto the tower! The enemy is here! Your highness--"

  Further words died on his lips. Radzivill was sitting on the sofa witheyes starting out; with open lips he was gulping the air, his teethbared like those of a dog when he snarls; he tore with his hands thesofa on which he was sitting, and gazing with terror into the depth ofthe chamber, cried, or rather gave out hoarse rattles between onebreath and another,--

  "It was Radzeyovski--Not I--Save me!--What do you want? Take thecrown!--It was Radzeyovski--Save me, people! Jesus! Jesus! Mary!"

  These were the last words of Radzivill.

  Then a terrible coughing seized him; his eyes came out in still moreghastly fashion from their sockets; he stretched himself out, fell onhis back, and remained motionless.

  "He is dead!" said the doctor.

  "He cried Mary, though a Calvinist, you have heard!" said PaniYakimovich.

  "Throw wood on the fire!" said Kharlamp to the terrified pages.

  He drew near to the corpse, closed the eyelids; then he took from hisown armor a gilded image of the Mother of God which he wore on a chain,and placing the hands of Radzivill together on his breast, he put theimage between the dead fingers.

  The light of the fire was reflected from the golden ground of theimage, and that reflection fell upon the face of the voevoda and madeit cheerful so that never had it seemed so calm.

  Kharlamp sat at the side of the body, and resting his elbows on hisknees, hid his face in his hands.

  The silence was broken only by the sound of shots.

  All at once something terrible took place. First of all was a flash ofawful brightness; the whole world seemed turned into fire, and at thesame time there was given forth such a sound as if the earth had fallenfrom under the castle. The walls tottered; the ceilings cracked with aterrible noise; all the windows tumbled in on the floor, and the paneswere broken into hundreds of fragments. Through the empty openings ofthe windows that moment clouds of snow drifted in, and the whirlwindbegan to howl gloomily in the corners of the chamber.

  All the people present fell to the floor on their faces, speechlessfrom terror.

  Kharlamp rose first, and looked directly on the corpse of the voevoda;the corpse was lying in calmness, but the gilded image had slipped alittle in the hands.

  Kharlamp recovered his breath. At first he felt certain that that wasan army of Satans who had broken into the chamber for the body of theprince.

  "The word has become flesh!" said he. "The Swedes must have blown upthe tower and themselves."

  But from without there came no sound. Evidently the troops of Sapyehawere standing in dumb wonder, or perhaps in fear that the whole castlewas mined, and that there would be explosion after explosion.

  "Put wood on the fire!" said Kharlamp to the pages.

  Again the room was gleaming with a bright, quivering light. Round abouta deathlike stillness continued; but the fire hissed, the whirlwindhowled, and the snow rolled each moment more densely through the windowopenings.

  At last confused voices were heard, then the clatter of spurs and thetramp of many feet; the door of the chamber was opened wide, andsoldiers rushed in.

  It was bright from the naked sabres, and more and more figures ofknights in helmets, caps, and kolpaks crowded through the door. Manywere bearing lanterns in their hands, and they held them to the light,advancing carefully, though it was light in the room from the fire aswell.

  At last there sprang forth from the crowd a little knight all inenamelled armor, and cried,--

  "Where is the voevoda of Vilna?"

  "Here!" said Kharlamp, pointing to the body lying on the sofa.

  Volodyovski looked at him, and said,--

  "He is not living!"

  "He is not living, he is not living!" went from mouth to mouth.

  "The traitor, the betrayer is not living!"

  "So it is," said Kharlamp, gloomily. "But if you dishonor his body andbear it apart with sabres, you will do ill, for before his end hecalled on the Most Holy Lady, and he holds Her image in his hand."

  These words made a deep impression. The shouts were hushed. Then thesoldiers began to approach, to go around the sofa, and look at the deadman. Those who had lanterns turned the light of them on his eyes; andhe lay there, gigantic, gloomy, on his face the majesty of a hetman andthe cold dignity of death.

  The soldiers came one after another, and among them the officers;therefore Stankyevich approached, the two Skshetuskis, Horotkyevich,Yakub Kmita, Oskyerko, and Pan Zagloba.

  "It is true!" said Zagloba, in a low voice, as if he feared to rousethe prince. "He holds in his hands the Most Holy Lady, and the shiningfrom Her falls on his face."

  When he said this he removed his cap. That instant all the others baredtheir heads. A moment of silence filled with reverence followed, whichwas broken at last by Volodyovski.

  "Ah!" said he, "he is before the judgment of God, and people havenothing to do with him." Here he turned to Kharlamp: "But you,unfortunate, why did you for his sake leave your country and king?"

  "Give him this way!" called a number of voices at once.

  Then Kharlamp rose, and taking off his sabre threw it with a clatter onthe floor, and said,--

  "Here I am, cut me to pieces! I did not leave him with you, when he waspowerful as a king, and afterward it was not proper to leave him whenhe was in misery and no one stayed with him. I have not grown fat inhis service; for three days I have had nothing in my mouth, and thelegs are bending under me. But here I am, cut me to pieces! for Iconfess furthermore [here Kharlamp's voice trembled] that I loved him."

  When he had said this he tottered and would have fallen; but Zaglobaopened his arms to him, caught him, supported him, and cried,--

  "By the living God! Give the man food and drink!"

  That touched all to the heart; therefore they took Kharlamp by the armsand led him out of the chamber at once. Then the soldiers began toleave it one after another, making the sign of the cross with devotion.

  On the road to their quarters Zagloba was meditating over something. Hestopped, coughed, then pulled Volodyovski by the skirt. "Pan Michael,"said he.

  "Well, what?"

  "My anger against Radzivill is passed; a dead man is a dead man! Iforgive him from my heart for having made an attempt on my life."

  "He is before the tribunal of heaven," said Volodyovski.

  "That's it, that's it! H'm, if it would help him I would even give fora Mass, since it seems to me that he has an awfully small chance upthere."

  "God is merciful!"

  "As to being merciful, he is merciful; still the Lord cannot lookwithout abhorrence on heretics. And Radzivill was not only a heretic,but a traitor. There is where the trouble is!"

  Here Zagloba shook his head and began to look upward.

  "I am afraid," said he, after a while, "that some of those Swedes whoblew themselves up will fall on my head; that they will not be receivedthere in heaven is certain."

  "They were good men," said Pan Michael, with recognition; "theypreferred death to surrender, there are few such soldiers in theworld."

  All at once Volodyovski halted: "Panna Bi
llevich was not in thecastle," said he.

  "But how do you know?"

  "I asked those pages. Boguslav took her to Taurogi."

  "El!" said Zagloba, "that was as if to confide a kid to a wolf. But itis not your affair; your predestined is that kernel!"