“God has given happiness to one and taken it from another,” said Kharlamp. “But the reasons of my sorrow I can tell only to you.”

Here he looked at Olenka; she, seeing that he was unwilling to speak in her presence, said to her husband, “I will send mead to you, gentlemen, and now I leave you.”

Kmita took Pan Kharlamp to the summer-house, and seating him on a bench, asked, “What is the matter? Are you in need of assistance? Count on me as on Zavisha!”[3]

“Nothing is the matter with me,” said the old soldier, “and I need no assistance while I can move this hand and this sabre; but our friend, the most worthy cavalier in the Commonwealth, is in cruel suffering. I know not whether he is breathing yet.”

“By Christ’s wounds! Has anything happened to Volodyovski?”

“Yes,” said Kharlamp, giving way to a new outburst of tears. “Know that Panna Anna Borzobogati has left this vale—”

“Is dead!” cried Kmita, seizing his head with both hands.

“As a bird pierced by a shaft.”

A moment of silence followed,—no sound but that of apples dropping here and there to the ground heavily, and of Pan Kharlamp panting more loudly while restraining his weeping. But Kmita was wringing his hands, and repeated, nodding his head,—

“Dear God! dear God! dear God!”

“Your grace will not wonder at my tears,” said Kharlamp, at last; “for if your heart is pressed by unendurable pain at the mere tidings of what happened, what must it be to me, who was witness of her death and her pain, of her suffering, which surpassed every natural measure?”

Here the servant appeared, bringing a tray with a decanter and a second glass on it; after him came Kmita’s wife, who could not repress her curiosity. Looking at her husband’s face and seeing in it deep suffering, she said straightway,—

“What tidings have you brought? Do not dismiss me. I will comfort you as far as possible, or I will weep with you, or will help you with counsel.”

“Help for this will not be found in your head,” said Pan Andrei; “and I fear that your health will suffer from sorrow.”

“I can endure much. It is more grievous to live in 

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