Only on the ninth day after Jagienka's departure did Zbyszko reach the border of Spychów, but Danuśka was already so close to death that he had completely lost hope of bringing her alive to her father. The very next day, when she began answering incoherently, he realized that not only was her mind unhinged, but her body was also gripped by some illness against which the child—worn out by captivity, imprisonment, torment, and constant fear—had no strength left. It might have been that the sounds of the desperate fight Zbyszko and Macko had fought with the Krzyżacy filled her cup of terror to overflowing, and that the sickness struck her precisely at that moment; in any case, fever never left her from then on almost until the end of the journey. This was in some ways a fortunate circumstance, for through the terrible wilderness, amid immense hardships, Zbyszko carried her like a dead thing—unconscious, knowing nothing.
After crossing the forests, when they entered the "grain-bearing" country among peasant and noble settlements, the dangers and hardships ended. People, learning that it was a Polish child traveling, rescued from the Krzyżacy, and moreover the daughter of the famous Jurand, about whom the minstrels had sung so many songs in castles, manor houses, and huts, vied with one another in offering service and help. Supplies and horses were provided. Every door stood open. Zbyszko no longer had to carry Danuśka in a cradle between horses, for strong young men carried her on a stretcher from village to village, as carefully and gently as if bearing some holy relic. Women surrounded her with the most tender care. Men, hearing the story of her wrongs, ground their teeth, and more than one donned armor, grabbed sword, axe, or spear, and rode on with Zbyszko to avenge her "with interest," for that vengeful generation considered it insufficient to pay wrong for wrong.
But Zbyszko thought at that moment not of vengeance, but only of Danuśka. He lived between flashes of hope, when the sick woman briefly improved, and dull despair when her condition visibly worsened. And he could no longer delude himself about that. Often at the beginning of the journey a superstitious thought crossed his mind: that perhaps somewhere along the trackless ways they were traveling, Death followed them step by step, waiting only for the right moment to throw itself on Danuśka and suck out the last of her life. That vision—or rather that feeling—grew so vivid, especially on dark nights, that he was often seized by a desperate desire to turn back, to challenge the pale specter as one challenges a knight, and fight it to the last breath.
But at the end of the road it was even worse, for he felt Death not behind the procession, but among it—invisible, yet so close that its icy breath wafted over them. And he understood now that against this enemy, courage was useless, a strong hand useless, weapons useless; that he would have to give up his dearest head as helpless prey, without a fight.
And that was the most terrible feeling, for it was joined by a grief as unbridled as the wind, as bottomless as the sea. How could his soul not groan, not tear in anguish, when looking at his beloved he said to her, as if in involuntary reproach: "For this I loved you, for this I found you and rescued you—so that tomorrow you might be covered with earth and I might never see you again?" And saying so, he looked at her cheeks flushed with fever, at her cloudy, unconscious eyes, and asked her again: "Will you leave me? Do you not regret it? Do you prefer to be away from me than with me?" And then he thought that surely he himself would go mad; his chest was bursting with an immense weeping, but it was seared and could not break out, because it was blocked by a kind of fury and anger at that merciless force that had visited itself on an innocent child—blind and cold. If a hostile Krzyżak had been in the procession at that moment, he would have torn him apart like a wild beast.
When he reached the Forest Manor, he wanted to stop, but in spring it stood empty. From the caretakers he also learned that both prince and duchess had gone to their brother Ziemowit in Plock, so he gave up the idea of going to Warsaw, where a court physician might have saved the sick woman. He had to continue on to Spychów, which was terrifying, for it seemed to him that everything was ending and that he would bring only a corpse to Jurand.
But just a few hours before Spychów, a brighter ray of hope fell on his heart again. Danuśka's cheeks began to pale, her eyes grew less cloudy, her breathing less loud and hurried. Zbyszko noticed it immediately and after a while ordered a final halt so that she could breathe more calmly. They were perhaps a mile from Spychów, far from human dwellings, on a narrow road between a field and a meadow. But a wild pear tree standing nearby provided shelter from the sun, so they stopped under its branches. The grooms, dismounting, unbridled their horses so they could graze more easily. The two women hired to tend Danuśka and the young men who had carried her, tired from the road and the heat, lay down in the shade and fell asleep; only Zbyszko kept vigil by the stretcher, and, sitting on the pear tree's roots, never took his eyes off the sick woman.
She lay in the midday stillness, calm, with half-closed eyelids. Zbyszko thought, however, that she was not asleep. In fact, when at the far end of the wide meadow a mowing peasant stopped and began to whet his scythe with a stone, she stirred slightly and opened her eyes for a moment, then closed them again; her breast rose as if with a deeper breath, and a barely audible whisper escaped her lips:
"The flowers smell…"
These were the first words without fever or delirium that she had spoken since the beginning of the journey, for from the sun-heated meadow a breeze carried a strong scent of hay and honey and various fragrant herbs. So Zbyszko's heart trembled with joy at the thought that her consciousness was returning. In his first impulse he wanted to throw himself at her feet, but for fear of frightening her, he held back, knelt only by the stretcher, leaned over her, and began to call softly:
"Danuśka, Danuśka!"
And she opened her eyes again; for a while she looked at him, then a smile brightened her face, and just as before in the charcoal burners' hut, but far more consciously, she spoke his name!
"Zbyszko!"
She tried to reach out her hands to him, but was too weak to do so; he, however, wrapped his arms around her, his heart so full as if he were thanking her for some immense grace.
"You've woken up!" he said. "Oh, glory to God… to God…"
Then his voice failed him, and for a while they looked at each other in silence. The field's stillness was disturbed only by the fragrant breeze from the meadow, rustling in the pear leaves, the chirping of crickets in the grass, and the distant, indistinct singing of the mower.
Danuśka looked more and more conscious and did not stop smiling, like a child dreaming of an angel. But gradually a certain wonder began to appear in her eyes.
"Where am I?" she said.
Then a whole rush of short, joy-interrupted answers burst from his lips:
"You're with me! Near Spychów! We're going to your father! Your suffering is over! Oh, my Danuśka! Oh, my Danuśka! I searched for you and rescued you. You're no longer in the hands of the Krzyżacy. Don't be afraid! Spychów will be here soon. You were ill, but the Lord Jesus had mercy. How much pain, how much weeping! Danuśka! Now it's all right! Nothing but happiness lies ahead of you. Oh, how I searched! How I wandered! Oh, mighty God! Oh!"
And he breathed deeply, almost with a groan, as if casting the last weight of sorrow from his chest.
Danuśka lay still, remembering something, considering something, and at last asked:
"So you didn't forget me?"
And two tears, welling in her eyes, rolled slowly down her face onto the pillow.
"I forget you?" cried Zbyszko.
And there was more power in that muffled cry than in the greatest oaths and vows, for he had always loved her with all his soul, and since he had regained her, she had become dearer to him than the whole world.
But meanwhile silence fell again; only in the distance the peasant stopped singing and began to sharpen his scythe a second time.
Danuśka's lips began to move again, but in a whisper so faint that Zbyszko could not hear her, so he leaned over and asked:
"What are you saying, little berry?"
And she repeated:
"The flowers smell…"
"Because we're near a meadow," he answered. "But we'll ride on soon… to your father, who has also been freed from captivity. And you'll be mine until death. Do you hear me well? Do you understand?"
Suddenly a sharp unease seized him, for he saw that her face was becoming pale, paler, and fine drops of sweat were gathering thickly on it.
"What's wrong?" he asked in terrible fear.
And he felt his hair stand on end and a chill pass through his bones.
"What's wrong? Tell me!" he repeated.
"It's dark," she whispered.
"Dark? The sun is shining, and it's dark to you?" he asked in a breathless voice. "Just now you were speaking sensibly! In God's name, say even one word!"
She moved her lips again, but could no longer even whisper. Zbyszko only guessed that she was saying his name and calling him. Then her wasted hands began to tremble and flutter on the blanket covering her.
It lasted a moment. There was no longer any illusion: she was dying.
And he, in terror and despair, began to beg her, as if a plea could achieve anything:
"Danuśka! O merciful Jesus! Wait at least until Spychów! Wait, wait! O Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!"
During this entreaty the women woke up and the grooms, who had been at the horses on the meadow, ran over. But understanding at first glance what was happening, they knelt and began to recite the litany aloud.
The breeze died, the leaves on the pear tree stopped rustling, and only the words of the prayer resounded in the great field stillness.
Just before the end of the litany, Danuśka opened her eyes once more, as if to look for the last time at Zbyszko and the sunny world, then immediately fell into eternal sleep.
The women closed her eyelids, then went to the meadow for flowers. The grooms followed them, and so they walked in the sunlight among the lush grass, like field spirits, bending every now and then and weeping, for their hearts were full of pity and sorrow. Zbyszko knelt in the shade by the stretcher, his head on Danuśka's knees, motionless and silent, himself like a dead man, while they circled nearer and farther, picking golden buttercups, bluebells, abundant pink catchfly, and the small white honey-scented flowers. In damp hollows they also found field lilies, and on the balk beside the fallow, juniper. When they had full armfuls, they surrounded the stretcher in a mournful procession and began to deck it. They covered the dead girl's body almost entirely with flowers and herbs, leaving only her face uncovered, which among the bluebells and lilies shone white, quiet, soothed by unending sleep, serene, and quite simply angelic.
It was not even a mile to Spychów, so after a while, when their sadness and grief had flowed away in tears, they lifted the stretcher and moved toward the forests that marked the beginning of Jurand's lands.
The grooms led the horses behind the procession. Zbyszko himself carried the head of the stretcher, while the women, burdened with remaining bundles of herbs and flowers, sang pious hymns at the front—and so they slowly walked and walked between the green meadow and the gray fallow, like a mournful procession.
On the blue sky there was not a single cloud, and the whole world basked in the golden glow of the sun.
END OF PART EIGHT