The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 1Sienkiewicz, Henryk
History
The Deluge: An Historical Novel of Poland, Sweden, and Russia. Vol. 1
Sienkiewicz, Henryk
Historical fiction; Poland -- History -- John II Casimir, 1648-1668 -- Fiction
The nobles, however, were assembling in greater and greater numbers;
and still earlier the dignitaries of Great Poland and other provinces
began to meet, bringing bodies of attendant troops and servants. Soon
after the arrival of Pan Grudzinski at Pila came Pan Kryshtof
Opalinski, the powerful voevoda of Poznan. Three hundred haiduks in red
and yellow uniforms and armed with muskets went before the carriage of
the voevoda; a crowd of attendant nobles surrounded his worthy person;
following them in order of battle came a division of horsemen with
uniforms similar to those of the haiduks; the voevoda himself was in a
carriage attended by a jester, Staha Ostrojka, whose duty it was to
cheer his gloomy master on the road.
The entrance of such a great dignitary gave courage and consolation to
all; for those who looked on the almost kingly majesty of the voevoda,
on that lordly face in which under the lofty vaulting of the forehead
there gleamed eyes wise and severe, and on the senatorial dignity of
his whole posture, could hardly believe that any evil fate could come
to such power.
To those accustomed to give honor to office and to person it seemed
that even the Swedes themselves would not dare to raise a sacrilegious
hand against such a magnate. Even those whose hearts were beating in
their breasts with alarm felt safer at once under his wing. He was
greeted therefore joyfully and warmly; shouts thundered along the
street through which the retinue pushed slowly toward the house of the
mayor, and all heads inclined before the voevoda, who was as visible as
on the palm of the hand through the windows of the gilded carriage. To
these bows Ostrojka answered, as well as the voevoda, with the same
importance and gravity as if they had been given exclusively to him.
Barely had the dust settled after the passage of Opalinski when
couriers rushed in with the announcement that his cousin was coming,
the voevoda of Podlyasye, Pyotr Opalinski, with his brother-in-law
Yakob Rozdrajevski, the voevoda of Inovratslav. These brought each a
hundred and fifty armed men, besides nobles and servants. Then not a
day passed without the arrival of dignitaries such as Sendzivoi
Charnkovski, the brother-in-law of Krishtof Opalinski, and himself
castellan of Kalisk; Maksymilian Myaskovski, the castellan of Kryvinsk;
and Pavel Gembitski, the lord of Myendzyrechka. The town was so filled
with people that houses failed for the lodging even of nobles. The
neighboring meadows were many-colored with the tents of the general
militia. One might say that all the various colored birds had flown to
Pila from the entire Commonwealth. Red, green, blue, azure, white were
gleaming on the various coats and garments; for leaving aside the
general militia, in which each noble wore a dress different from his
neighbor, leaving aside the servants of the magnates, even the infantry
of each district were dressed in their own colors.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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