Отрывок из книги
Henryk Sienkiewicz
An Historical Novel of Poland, the Ukraine, and Turkey
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"I know Michael through and through; and God is my witness that I have no wish to find fault with him now, but it seems to me that he grieves more for the loss of the marriage than of the maiden. It is nothing that terrible despair has come, though that too, especially for him, is a misfortune above misfortunes. You cannot even imagine what a wish that man had to marry. There is not in him greed or ambition of any kind, or selfishness: he has left what he had, he has as good as lost his own fortune, he has not asked, for his salary; but in return for all his labors and services he expected, from the Lord God and the Commonwealth, only a wife. And he reckoned in his soul that such bread as that belonged to him; and he was about to put it to his mouth, when right there, as it were, some one sneered at him, saying, 'You have it now! Eat it!' What wonder that despair seized him? I do not say that he did not grieve for the maiden; but as God is dear to me, he grieved more for the marriage, though he would himself swear to the opposite."
"That may be true," said Pan Yan.
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