do the like this time, I trust, unless he has changed altogether."
CHAPTER VI
Next day, Zagloba, armed with a letter from the primate, and having a complete plan made with Ketling, rang the bell at the gate of the monastery on Mons Regius. His heart was beating with violence at this thought, "How will Michael receive me?" and though he had prepared in advance what to say, he acknowledged himself that much depended on the reception. Thinking thus, he pulled the bell a second time; and when the key squeaked in the lock, and the door opened a little, he thrust himself into it straightway a trifle violently, and said to the confused young monk, —
"I know that to enter here a special permission is needed; but I have a letter from the archbishop, which you, carissime frater, will be pleased to give the reverend prior."
"It will be done according to the wish of your grace," said the doorkeeper, inclining at sight of the primate's seal.
Then he pulled a strap hanging at the tongue of a bell, and pulled twice to call some one, for he himself had no right to go from the door. Another monk appeared at that summons, and taking the letter, departed in silence. Zagloba placed on a bench a package which he had with him, then sat down and began to puff wonderfully. "Brother," said he, at last, "how long have you been in the cloister?"
"Five years," answered the porter.
"Is it possible? so young, and five years already! Then it is too late to leave, even if you wanted to do so. You must yearn sometimes for the world; the world smells of war for one man, of feasts for another, of fair heads for a third."
"Avaunt!" said the monk, making the sign of the cross with devotion.
"How is that? Has not the temptation to go out of the cloister come on you?" continued Zagloba.
The monk looked with distrust at the envoy of the archbishop, speaking in such marvellous fashion, and answered, "When the door here closes on any man, he never goes out."
"We'll see that yet! What is happening to Pan Volodyovski? Is he well?"
"There is no one here named in that way."
"Brother Michael?" said Zagloba, on trial. "Former colonel of dragoons, who came here not long since."
"We call him Brother Yerzy; but he has not made his vows yet, and cannot make them till the end of the term."
"And surely he will not make them; for you will not believe, brother, what a woman's man he is! You could not find another man so hostile to woman's virtue in all the clois – I meant to say in all the cavalry."
"It is not proper for me to hear this," said the monk, with increasing astonishment and confusion.
"Listen, brother; I do not know where you receive visitors, but if it is in this place, I advise you to withdraw a little when Brother Yerzy comes, – as far as that gate, for instance, – for we shall talk here of very worldly matters."
"I prefer to go away at once," said the monk.
Meanwhile Pan Michael, or rather Brother Yerzy, appeared; but Zagloba did not recognize the approaching man, for Pan Michael had changed greatly. To begin with, he seemed taller in the long white habit than in the dragoon jacket; secondly, his mustaches, pointing upward toward his eyes formerly, were hanging down now, and he was trying to let out his beard, which formed two little yellow tresses not longer than half a finger; finally, he had grown very thin and meagre, and his eyes had lost their former glitter. He approached slowly, with his hands hidden on his bosom under his habit, and with drooping head.
Zagloba, not recognizing him, thought that perhaps the prior himself was coming; therefore he rose from the bench and began, "Laudetur – " Suddenly he looked more closely, opened his arms, and cried, "Pan Michael! Pan Michael!"
Brother Yerzy let himself be seized in the embrace; something like a sob shook his breast, but his eyes remained dry. Zagloba pressed him a long time; at last he began to speak, —
"You have not been alone in weeping over your misfortune. I wept; Yan and his family wept; the Kmitas wept. It is the will of God! be resigned to it, Michael. May the Merciful Father comfort and reward you! You have done well to shut yourself in for a time in these walls. There is nothing better than prayer and pious meditation in misfortune. Come, let me embrace you again! I can hardly see you through my tears."
And Zagloba wept with sincerity, moved at the sight of Pan Michael. "Pardon me for disturbing your meditation," said he, at last; "but I could not act otherwise, and you will do me justice when I give you my reasons. Ai, Michael! you and I have gone through a world of evil and of good. Have you found consolation behind these bars?"
"I have," replied Pan Michael, – "in those words which I hear in this place daily, and repeat, and which I desire to repeat till my death, memento mori. In death is consolation for me."
"H'm! death is more easily found on the battlefield than in the cloister, where life passes as if some one were unwinding thread from a ball, slowly."
"There is no life here, for there are no earthly questions; and before the soul leaves the body, it lives, as it were, in another world."
"If that is true, I will not tell you that the Belgrod horde are mustering in great force against the Commonwealth; for what interest can that have for you?"
Pan Michael's mustaches quivered on a sudden, and he stretched his right hand unwittingly to his left side; but not finding a sword there, he put both hands under his habit, dropped his head, and repeated, "Memento mori!"
"Justly, justly!" answered Zagloba, blinking his sound eye with a certain impatience. "No longer ago than yesterday Pan Sobieski, the hetman, said: 'Only let Volodyovski serve even through this one storm, and then let him go to whatever cloister he likes. God would not be angry for the deed; on the contrary, such a monk would have all the greater merit.' But there is no reason to wonder that you put your own peace above the happiness of the country, for prima charitas ab ego (the first love is of self)."
A long interval of silence followed; only Pan Michael's mustaches stood out somewhat and began to move quickly, though lightly.
"You have not taken your vows yet," asked Zagloba, at last, "and you can go out at any moment?"
"I am not a monk yet, for I have been waiting for the favor of God, and waiting till all painful thoughts of earth should leave my soul. His favor is upon me now; peace is returning to me. I can go out; but I have no wish to go, since the time is drawing near in which I can make my vows with a clear conscience and free from earthly desires."
"I have no wish to lead you away from this; on the contrary, I applaud your resolution, though I remember that when Yan in his time intended to become a monk, he waited till the country was free from the storm of the enemy. But do as you wish. In truth, it is not I who will lead you away; for I myself in my own time felt a vocation for monastic life. Fifty years ago I even began my novitiate; I am a rogue if I did not. Well, God gave me another direction. Only I tell you this, Michael, you must go out with me now even for two days."
"Why must I go out? Leave me in peace!" said Volodyovski.
Zagloba raised the skirt of his coat to his eyes and began to sob. "I do not beg rescue for myself," said he, in a broken voice, "though Prince Boguslav Radzivill is hunting me with vengeance; he puts his murderers in ambush against me, and there is no one to defend and protect me, old man. I was thinking that you – But never mind! I will love you all my life, even if you are unwilling to know
