CHAPTER XVI.
The "foolish Zbyshko" had ridden out of Bogdanets with a heavy heart, really. First, he felt strange somehow and awkward without his uncle, from whom during many years he had not parted, and to whom he was so accustomed that he did not know well how to live without him either on the road or in war. Second, he regretted Yagenka; for, though he said to himself that he was going to Danusia, whom he loved with all his soul, it had been so pleasant for him near Yagenka that he felt now for the first time what delight there had been in her company, and what sadness there might be without her. And he wondered at his regret, and was even disturbed by it. Had he been longing for Yagenka as a brother for a sister it would be nothing; but he saw that he wanted to grasp her by the waist and seat her on the horse, or take her from the saddle, to carry her through streams, squeeze water from her hair, go with her through the forests, look at her, and take "counsel" with her. So accustomed had he grown to this, and so pleasant was it to him that now, when he began to think of it, he forgot straightway and entirely that he was journeying on a long road to Mazovia, and immediately that moment was present to his eyes when Yagenka gave him aid in the forest while he was struggling with the bear. And it seemed to him that that was yesterday, as also it was yesterday when they were going to find the beaver in Odstayani Lake. He had not seen her when she swam in after the beaver, but now it seemed to him that he saw her, and at once those same shivers seized him which had seized him a couple of weeks earlier, when the wind played too freely with Yagenka's clothing. Then he remembered how she had gone to church in Kresnia dressed splendidly, and he had wondered that a simple maiden seemed to him like some lady of high lineage on a journey with her court.
All this was the cause that around his heart something began to make a disturbance, at once sweet and sad and full of desire, and if he thought besides that he might have done what he wished with her, that she was drawn to him also, if he remembered how she gazed into his eyes, how he nestled
