"Why?" asked Pan Michael, with astonishment.
"She is beautiful, assentior (I agree)," answered Zagloba, "but she is distinguished in person, and there is no proportion whatever between you. You might sit on her shoulder, like a canary-bird, and peck sugar out of her mouth. She might carry you like a falcon on her glove, and let you off against every enemy, for though you are little you are venomous like a hornet."
"Well, have you begun?" asked Volodyovski.
"If I have begun, then let me finish. There is one woman as if created for you, and she is precisely that kernel — What is her name? That one whom Podbipienta was to marry?"
"Anusia Borzobogati!" cried Pan Yan. "She is indeed an old love of Michael's."
"A regular grain of buckwheat, but a pretty little rogue; just like a doll," said Zagloba, smacking his lips.
Volodyovski began to sigh, and to repeat time after time what he always repeated when mention was made of Anusia: "What is happening to the poor girl? Oh, if she could only be found!"
"You would not let her out of your hands, for, God bless me, I have not seen in ray life any man so given to falling in love. You ought to have been born a rooster, scratch the sweepings in a house-yard, and cry, 'Co, co, co,' at the top-knots."
"Anusia! Anusia!" repeated Pan Michael. "If God would send her to me — But perhaps she is not in the world, or perhaps she is married —"
"How could she be? She was a green turnip when I saw her, and afterward, even if she ripened, she may still be in the maiden state. After such a man as Podbipienta she could not take any common fellow. Besides, in these times of war few are thinking of marriage."
"You did not know her well," answered Pan Michael. "She was wonderfully honest; but she had such a nature that she let no man pass without piercing his heart. The Lord God created her thus. She did not miss even men of lower station; for example. Princess Griselda's physician, that Italian, who was desperately in love with her. Maybe she has married him and he has taken her beyond the sea."
"Don't talk such nonsense, Michael!" cried Zagloba, with indignation. "A doctor, a doctor, — that the daughter of a
