AT Belchantska it was not only evil for the young woman, but worse and worse daily. A good deal of time had passed since that moment in which old Pan Gideon had noticed that Martsian gazed at the young girl with too much of a "goat's look," and had driven him from the mansion. Later on, Martsian saw her at church, and sometimes at the houses of neighbors, and always her beauty of springtime roused fresh desires in him. Now when he was living under one roof with her, when he saw her daily, he fell in love in his own way, that is, with the beastlike desire, and that feeling of which he was alone capable. A change had taken place in his wishes. His first intent had been to bring the girl to shame, and then marry her only in case that a will should be found in her favor. Now he was ready to go with her to the altar, if he could in any case have and possess her forever. Reason, which when urged by desire becomes its obedient assistant, told him, moreover, that a young lady bearing the name of Sieninski was, although dowerless, a match of great moment. But even if reason had told him the opposite, Martsian would not have listened, for as each day appeared he lost some part of his self-mastery. He burnt, he raged, and if up to that time he had restrained himself from violence it was only because desire, even the most urgent, craves and yearns for a willing surrender, and is charmed with the thought of mutuality in which it sees the highest pleasure, and deceives itself even when there is no cause whatever for doing so. Thus Krepetski deceived himself, and thus he pampered his wishes with pictures of that blissful moment in which the young lady would herself, radiant and willing, incline to his embraces. But he dreaded to lose should he risk all on the hazard of a trial, and when he put to himself in spirit this question, What would follow? fear seized him in presence of himself, and in presence of the terror which would threaten him; for the laws of the Commonwealth guarding the honor of woman were pitiless, and around him were sabres of nobles by the hundred, which would flash above his head most unfailingly. But he felt also that the hour might come in which he would care for nothing, since in his insolent, wild spirit there was hidden a craving for battle, and a hunger for peril; so not without a certain charm for him was the picture of a great throng of nobles besieging Belchantska--the flame of conflagration above him, and a red executioner standing, axe in hand, somewhere off in the mist of a distant city.