"Better, I'll not permit."
"Then I will not ask. In Orsha we say, 'Ask; but if they don't give, take it thyself.'"
Here Pan Andrei clung to the hand of the lady and began to kiss it; and the lady did not resist too greatly, lest she might exhibit ill-will.
Just then Fanna Kulvyets came in. When she saw what was going on, she raised her eyes. That intimacy did not please her, but she dared not scold. She gave invitation to supper.
Both went to the supper-room, holding each the other's hand as if they were related. In the room stood a table covered, and on it an abundance of all kinds of food, especially choice smoked meats and a mouldy thick bottle of strength-giving wine. It was pleasant for the young people with each other, gladsome, vivacious. The lady had supped already; therefore Kmita sat alone, and began to eat with animation equal to that with which he had just been conversing.
Olenka looked at him with sidelong glance, glad that he was eating and drinking. When he had appeased his first hunger, she began again to inquire, —
"Then you are not direct from Orsha?"
"Scarcely do I know whence I come, — here to-day, tomorrow in another place. I prowled near the enemy as a wolf around sheep, and what was possible to seize I seized."
"And how had you daring to meet such a power, before which the grand hetman himself had to yield ? "
"How had I daring? I am ready for all things, such is the nature within me."
"That is what my grandfather said. Great luck that you were not killed!"
"Ai, they covered me with cap and with hand as a bird is covered on the nest; but I, whom they covered, sprang out and bit them in another place. I made it so bitter for them that there is a price on my head — A splendid half- goose!"
"In the name of the Father and the Son!" cried Olenka, with unfeigned wonder, gazing with homage on that young man who in the same moment mentions the price on his head and the half-goose. "Had you many troops for defence?"
"I had, of course, my poor dragoons, — very excellent men, but in a month they were all hacked to bits. Then
