Chapter 14 Chapter Twelve

As Matsko's condition worsened, Zbyszko went to hunt the bear as originally planned.When Matsko first arrived in Pogedanets, because he was happy in his heart, and because he was busy arranging the loins as soon as he got home, his body finally survived; but on the third day, he had a fever again, and the pain was severe. Had to lie down on the bed.Zbyszko went to Bazi once during the day to inspect it, and saw bear's footprints in the wet mud there.He consulted with Wafflek, the beekeeper in the forest, who lived in a hut not far away with his two ferocious Pothar dogs, but now that it was cold, he I'm going back to the village.

① Note to the English translation: Pothar is part of the Carpathian Mountains. They tore down the hut, and Wafflek led the two dogs.They first smeared honey all over the trees, so that the scent would attract the beasts.Zbyszko went home to prepare for action.He wore a warm reindeer-skin waistcoat; on his head a cap made of wire; and, lastly, a sharp fork and a broad steel axe.Before sunset he had chosen his place, crossed himself, sat down and waited. The red light of the setting sun still shone among the great pine branches.Crows flew over the treetops, croaking and flapping their wings; here and there a hare leaped to the water's edge, rustling the dead leaves on the ground; now and then a swift marten scuttled by.In the jungle, the chirping of birds was also heard—and then gradually died down.

As the sun went down, the forest began to be noisy again.Immediately a herd of boars hurried and snorted past Zbyszko; then a herd of elk galloped by, each with its head on the tail of the one in front.The dead branches clattered under their feet, and the forest reverberated; and at night they ran toward the swamp, where it was cool and peaceful.At last an evening haze appeared in the sky, and the tops of the pine-trees were illuminated by it as if they were on fire; and all was gradually quiet again.The forest was silent.Dusk rose from the earth and met the light of the sky; the light became weaker and weaker, then darkened, darkened, and finally disappeared.

"Now all will be silent until the wolf howls," thought Zbyszko. He regretted not bringing his crossbow, otherwise he could have easily shot a wild boar or an elk.At this time, there was a vague sound from the swamp, which seemed to be heavy breathing and whistling.Zbyszko looked at the swamp with some apprehension, because there used to be a farmer Ratzek who lived here in a small mud hut, and then his family suddenly disappeared, as if swallowed by the earth.Some said they had been kidnapped by robbers; but others saw strange footprints that were neither human nor beast around the hut.People shook their heads a lot at the mention of it, and even talked of getting a priest from Kirsisnia to exorcise the hut.But they didn't do that, because no one wanted to live in that hut, and since then the hut has had a reputation of being a haunted house, and in fact, the woodland beekeeper, Wafflek, was very impressed with those words. don't care.

Zbyszko was not afraid of wild animals, as he had fork and axe; but he still felt a little uneasy at the thought of the ghosts, and was glad when the noise ceased. The last echoes also ceased, and there was complete silence.The wind had died down, not even the usual whistling from the tops of the pine trees.Now and then a pine cone fell, making quite a noise in the deep silence; then everything was silent again, and Zbyszko could only hear his own breathing. He sat like this for a long time in silence, thinking first of the bear, and then of Danusia.He remembered how he had held the Duchess in his arms, how she had cried when he said goodbye; he remembered her golden hair, her bright face, her buttercup wreath, her singing, her deep Lipstick shoes, and everything that had happened since he first saw her.He was so eager to see her that he forgot that he was waiting for the bear in the forest; and he said to himself:

"I must see you, because I cannot live without you." He felt that he must go to Masovia; if he stayed in Bogdaniec he would get nowhere.He thought of Jurand and his strange dissent; and he thought all the more of going there, to find out what was the obstacle, and whether a challenge to a duel would not remove it?At last he seemed to see Danusia stretching out her hands to him, and crying: "Come, Zbyscigu! Come!" How could he refuse? He didn't fall asleep, but he saw her clearly as if in a dream.She was just ahead, riding beside the Duchess, playing her little lute, humming and thinking of him.He thought she would see him in a moment, and maybe, she would look back at him.

At this moment Zbyszko came to himself and listened carefully, for he heard a rustling behind him.He gripped the fork tighter, craned his neck, and listened carefully. The rustling was approaching, and very distinct.As if something's feet were walking carefully, the dead branches made a clicking sound, and the fallen leaves rustled.Something is coming. The rustling came and stopped, as if the beast had stopped under the tree; then it was so still that Zbyszko's ears began to ring; a moment later the slow, cautious step was heard again.Zbyszko couldn't help being a little surprised that the thing came so discreetly.

"I'm sure 'the old fellow' must have been afraid of the two dogs that used to be in this hut," he thought, "but maybe it's a wolf that has sniffed me out." ① bear's nickname. Now the footsteps are no longer heard.But Zbyszko decided that something must have stopped twenty or thirty paces behind him. Once or twice he looked round; though he could see the trunk quite clearly, he could see nothing else.He just had to wait there. After waiting a long, long time, Zbyszko was surprised again. "A bear wouldn't come and sleep under 'Barzi'; a wolf wouldn't wait until morning if he had sniffed out me."

Thinking of this, he suddenly shivered all over his body: "What if something terrible came across the moor, trying to scare me from behind! If a drowned man grabbed me with slippery arms, or a ghost looked straight into my eyes with green eyes, And the face! What if a blue head came out from behind a tree on spider legs, and laughed!" He felt his hair stand on end under his beanie. But after a while there was another rustling in front of him, more clearly than before.Zbyszko breathed more easily; he thought the "monster" had circled him and was now coming in front; he preferred that.Holding the fork firmly, he stood up silently and waited.

Suddenly he heard the rustle of the pines overhead, felt a wind blowing in his face from the moor, and smelled a bear. There is no doubt at all, it is a "Miss" ① coming! ① bear's common name. Zbyszko was no longer afraid, he listened and watched intently with his head on one side.The heavy, distinct footsteps came closer; the smell became stronger; then there was a whistling and a humming. "I hope they don't come together!" thought Zbyszko. But then he saw before him the great black form of the beast, which was coming in the direction of the wind, and could not smell him; its attention, too, was attracted by the smell of honey from the trees.

"Come on, old man!" cried Zbyszko, coming out from under the pine tree. The bear gave a short growl, as if startled by an unexpected apparition; but it was too close to escape; so, for an instant, it reared up on its hind legs, and spread its front legs apart, as if about to press Like hugging him.This was right in Zbyszko's arms; and with all his strength he sprang across like lightning, and with all the strength of his strong arms and whole body he thrust his fork straight into the beast's chest. Horrifying roars resounded throughout the forest.The bear seized the fork with its paws, and tried to pull it out, but the prongs went in too far; so that the pain made it growl more terribly.In order to catch Zbyszko, it leaned on the fork and threw itself on him, which drove the fork deeper.Zbyszko didn't know he had pierced deep enough, but he still held on tightly to the handle of the fork.Man and beast fought.Roars of anger and despair resounded through the forest. Zbyszko had to drive the point of the fork handle into the ground before he could use the axe.But the bear took hold of the handle and shook it like Zbyszko.Although the prongs pricked deeper and made it more and more painful, it still refused to "push" itself to the ground.Thus continued the terrible struggle, and Zbyszko at last felt exhausted.If he should fall, it would be his end; so he mustered all his strength, and with all the strength of his arms, planted his heels, and bent his back like a bow, so as not to be thrown backward; During the fight, he gritted his teeth and said over and over again: "Either you die, or I die!" Anger burned through him, and at that moment he would rather die than let the beast go.At last one of his feet got caught in a tree root; he staggered, and if, at that critical moment, a black figure had not appeared before him, and another fork had not "shot" the beast, he would have would fall; and then a voice in his ear cried: "Use an axe!" Zbyszko was fighting so vigorously that he didn't even think about how he managed to survive; he just took up the ax and drove it down with all his strength.The beast fell, and the fork, unable to withstand its weight and the toss of its death, broke with a snap.During a long silence, only Zbyszko's loud breathing was heard.After a while, he raised his head, looked at the figure standing beside him, and became frightened, thinking: probably it can't be a person. "Who are you?" he asked uneasily. "Jagienka!" answered a thin female voice. Zbyszko was speechless with astonishment; he could hardly believe his eyes.But he didn't wonder for a long time, and Jagienka's voice sounded again: "I'll make a fire." Immediately, there was a clash of steel and stone, and sparks exploded; in the light of the sparks, Zbyszko saw clearly the girl's white forehead, black eyebrows, and bright red lips, who were blowing With burning tinder.Only then did it become clear to him that she had come to the forest to help him, and that without her help he would have died.He was so grateful to her that he couldn't help hugging her waist and kissing her cheeks. The tinder and tinder fell to the ground. "Let go of me!" she whispered; but she let him kiss her anyway, and even brought her lips to Zbyszko's as if they had come together by chance.He let go of her and said: "May God reward you. I don't know what would have happened without your help." While looking for velvet and flint steel, Jagienka confessed to herself: "I'm worried about you, because Bezdukh also went hunting bears with a fork and an axe, and the bears tore them to pieces. Macko will be very miserable if this happens to you, he It's dying now. So I got a fork and came." "Then the voice I heard behind the pine tree was you?" "yes." "I thought it was a ghost." "I'm also afraid, because around the Radekovsky Moor it's dangerous without a fire." "Then why didn't you call me?" "Because I was afraid you would send me away." As she spoke, she struck sparks again on the lighter steel, and put a bunch of hemp on the tinder, and it started to burn. "I have two tallow sticks," she said. "Go get some dry sticks, and we'll have a fire in no time." Sure enough, within a moment, a bright fire was burning, illuminating the huge brown bear carcass lying in a pool of blood. "Hey, what a horrible beast!" said Zbyszko, not without conceit. "You split its head completely! Jesus!" So she stooped down to feel the bear's carcass to see if it was fat enough; then she rose brightly, and said: "There's enough fat for two years." "But the fork is broken, and lo and behold!" "That's too bad; what am I going to tell them when I go home?" "Say what?" "'Daddus' wouldn't let me come into the forest, so I had to wait until the family was asleep." After a while she said again: "You must not say that I have been here, for they will laugh at me." "I'll take you home; I'm afraid some wolves will come upon you, and you don't have a fork." "it is good!" So they sat and talked for a while by the bright fire, looking like two elves in the woods. Looking at the girl's beautiful face illuminated by the fire, Zbyszko could not help saying admiringly: "There is no other brave girl like you in the world. You should go to war!" She looked straight into his face, and then answered almost sadly: "I know, but you must not laugh at me."