"Good health!" answered Kmita, "I give thanks from my heart."
"To the bottom, to the bottom! It is time for you to mount, and service calls us. May God lead you forth and bring you home."
"Farewell!"
"Throw the red ribbon behind," said Kharlamp, "or at the first resting-place put out the fire yourself with a bucket of water; that is, if you wish to forget."
"Be with God!"
"We shall not soon see one another."
"Perhaps somewhere on the battlefield," added Ganhoff.
"God grant side by side, not opposed."
"Of course not opposed," said Kmita.
And the officers went out.
The clock on the tower struck seven. In the yard the horses were pawing the stone pavement with their hoofs, and through the window were to be seen the men waiting. A wonderful disquiet seized Pan Andrei. He was repeating to himself, "I go, I go!" Imagination placed before his eyes unknown regions, and a throng of strange faces which he was to see, and at the same time wonder seized him at the thought of the journey, as if hitherto it had never been in his mind.
He must mount and move on. "What happens, will happen. What will be, will be!" thought he to himself.
When, however, the horses were snorting right there at the window, and the hour of starting had struck, he felt that the new life would be strange, and all with which he had lived, to which he had grown accustomed, to which he had become attached heart and soul, would stay in that region, in that neighborhood, in that place. The former Kmita would stay there as well. Another man as it were would go hence, — a stranger to all outside, as all outside were strangers to him. He would have to begin there an entirely new life. God alone knew whether there would be a desire for it.
Pan Andrei was mortally wearied in soul, and therefore at that moment he felt powerless in view of those new scenes and new people. He thought that it was bad for him here, that it would be bad for him there, at least it would be burdensome.
But it is time, time. He must put his cap on his head and ride off.
