IV

IV.

Old Maćko had guessed correctly, but only halfway. One part of Zbyszko's life had indeed come to a complete end. Every time he remembered Danusia, he felt sorrow, but he himself said that she must be better off in the heavenly court than she had been at the prince's. He had grown used to the thought that she was no longer in the world, had become accustomed to it, and considered that it simply could not have been any different. Once in Krakow he had greatly admired the figures of various holy maidens cut from glass and set in lead on the church windows—colorful, shining in the sun. Now he imagined Danusia in the same way.

He saw her as blue, transparent, turned sideways, with her little hands folded, her eyes raised, playing a lute among various blessed little fiddles of God who in heaven play for the Mother of God and the Christ Child. There was nothing earthly left in her; she had become for him a spirit so pure and bodiless that when he sometimes remembered how in the forest manor she had served the duchess, laughed, talked, sat at table with others—he was seized with something like astonishment that such a thing could have been. Already during the campaign with Prince Witold, when military matters and battles absorbed his attention, he had stopped yearning for his departed one as a husband yearns for his wife, and thought only as a pious man thinks of his patron saint. In this way his love, gradually losing its earthly elements, changed more and more into only a sweet, as blue as the very sky, memory—and simply into devout veneration.

If he had been a man of frail body and deeper thought, he would have become a monk—and in the quiet monastic life he would have preserved that heavenly memory as a holy thing until the moment when the spirit flies from the bonds of the flesh into infinite space, like a bird from a cage. But he was barely entering his third decade—and he could squeeze juice from a raw wood shaving in his fist, and could squeeze the breath out of a horse by gripping it with his thighs. He was such as the nobles and yeomen commonly were in those days—who, if they did not die in childhood or become priests, then, knowing no bounds or measure in their carnal impulses and strength, either turned to robbery, debauchery, and drunkenness—or else, marrying young, when the call to war went out, they stood with twenty-four or even more sons, similar in strength to wild boars.

But he did not know he was like that—all the more so because at first he was ill. Slowly, however, the poorly set ribs healed, forming only a barely noticeable protrusion on his side, which did not hinder him at all, and which not only armor but ordinary clothing could completely cover. The fatigue passed. His thick, fair hair, cut as a sign of mourning for Danusia, grew back down to the middle of his back. His former extraordinary beauty returned. When a few years earlier in Krakow he had walked to his death at the executioner's hand, he had looked like a boy from a great house—but now he had become even more handsome, a veritable prince, with shoulders, chest, loins, and arms like a giant, and a face like a maiden. Strength and life seethed in him like boiling water in a pot—and, enhanced by purity and long rest, coursed through his bones like flame. He, not knowing what it was, thought he was still ill, and lay in bed, glad that Macko and Jagienka guarded him, watched over him, and gratified him in everything. At times it seemed to him that he was as well as in heaven, at other times—especially when Jagienka was not with him—that he was bad, sad, and unbearable. Then yawning, restlessness, and fever would seize him, and he would announce to Macko that once he regained his health, he would again go to the end of the world, against the Teutonic Knights, against the Tatars—or against some other similar savagery—just to get rid of life, which weighed on him dreadfully. But Macko, instead of objecting, nodded his head, assented—but meanwhile he sent for Jagienka, at whose arrival Zbyszko's thoughts of new military expeditions immediately melted away, just as snow melts when the spring sun warms it.

She, however, came readily, both when summoned and of her own free will—for she loved Zbyszko with all the strength of her soul and heart. During her stay at the bishop's and prince's court in Plock, she had seen knights equally handsome, equally famous for strength and valor, who had often knelt before her, vowing faithfulness unto death—but he was her chosen one, him she had loved in the dawn of her years with her first love, and the misfortunes he had gone through only increased her love to such a degree that he was dearer and a hundred times more precious to her not only than all knights, but than all the princes of the earth. Now, as he recovered and became more wonderful day by day, her love turned almost into frenzy and obscured the whole world for her.

But she did not admit it even to herself, and from Zbyszko she concealed it as carefully as possible for fear that he would despise her again. Even with Macko, whereas before she had been quick to confide, now she became cautious and silent. Only the solicitude she showed in nursing Zbyszko could betray her, but even that solicitude she tried to give a different appearance—and to that end, one day she spoke cunningly to Zbyszko:

"Well, the reason I look after you a bit is only out of goodwill toward Macko, and you immediately thought something, didn't you? Tell me!"

And pretending to adjust the hair on her forehead, she covered her face with her hand and began to look at him intently through her fingers, while he, taken aback by the unexpected question, blushed like a maiden and only after a while replied:

"I didn't think anything. You're different now."

There was another moment of silence.

"Different?" the girl finally asked in a quiet, soft voice. "Well! Certainly different. But that I should dislike you completely—God forbid that too!"

"God reward you for that too," replied Zbyszko.

And from then on they got along well together, but somehow awkwardly and slowly. Often it seemed that both were talking about one thing and thinking about another. Silence frequently fell between them. Zbyszko, still lying in bed, followed her with his eyes wherever she moved, keeping Macko's words in mind, because at times especially she seemed so wondrous to him that he could not get enough of looking at her. It also happened that their gazes would suddenly meet, and then their faces would flush, and the girl's prominent breast would heave with rapid breathing, and her heart would beat as if in anticipation of hearing something that would make her soul melt and dissolve. But Zbyszko was silent, for he had completely lost his former boldness with her and was afraid to frighten her off with an unguarded word. And contrary to what his eyes saw, he convinced himself that she was only showing him sisterly affection out of friendship for Macko.

And once he began to talk with Macko. He tried to speak calmly, even indifferently, and did not notice how his words became more and more like a half-bitter, half-sad complaint. Macko, however, listened patiently to everything, and in the end said only one single word:

"You're stupid!"

And he left the room.

But in the cattle yard he began to rub his hands and slap his thighs in great joy.

"Ha!" he said to himself. "Back then when she could have come cheaply, you didn't even want to look at her. Now eat your fill of fear, you fool. I'll be building the keep, and you'll be licking your lips in the meantime. I won't say a word to you, and I won't remove the scales from your eyes, even if you neigh louder than all the horses in Bogdaniec. Where wood chips lie on embers, sooner or later the flame will burst out anyway, but I won't blow on the embers for you, because I think it's not necessary."

And not only did he not blow, but he even contradicted Zbyszko and teased him, like an old rogue who likes to play with youthful inexperience. So one day, when Zbyszko repeated to him that he would probably go on some distant expedition to rid himself of his unbearable life, he said to him:

"As long as you were still beardless, I ruled you, but now—it's your will! If you insist on trusting only your own reason and going—then go."

And Zbyszko even jumped up in surprise and sat up on the bed.

"What? You won't even oppose that?"

"Why should I oppose it? I only feel terribly sorry for the lineage, which would perish along with you, but even for that there may be a remedy."

"What remedy?" asked Zbyszko anxiously.

"What? Well, no need to say that my years are worthy—but also there's no lack of strength in my bones. Of course, Jagienka would need a younger fellow—but since I was a friend to her deceased father—who knows..."

"You were her father's friend," replied Zbyszko, "but you never had any goodwill for me—never! never!..."

And he broke off, because his chin began to tremble, and Macko said:

"Well! If you absolutely want to die—then what am I supposed to do?"

"Fine! Do what you want—and I'll leave the world today!"

"You're stupid," repeated Macko.

And he again left the room to oversee the peasants: those from Bogdaniec and those whom Jagienka had borrowed from Zgorzelice and Moczydoly to help dig the ditch that was to surround the keep.