"Hear me, Yatsek, there is a woman in this quarrel."
"There is, and there is not," said he, "for really, she is the question, but she is innocent."
"Ah, ha! innocent! they are all innocent. But dost thou know what Ecclesiastes says of women?"
"Neither do I remember all, but what I have forgotten I will read in the house to thee. '_Inveni amariorem morte mulierem, quae laqueus_ (says he) _venatorum est et sagena cor ejus_.' (I have found woman more bitter than death. Her heart is a trap and a snare). And farther on he adds something, but at the end he says: '_Qui placet Deo, effugiet illam, qui autem peccator est, capietur ab illa_.' (Whoso is pleasing to God will escape her, but whoso is a sinner will be caught by her.) I have warned thee not one time but ten not to loiter in that mansion and now the blow strikes thee."
"Eh, it is easier for you to warn than for me not to visit," answered Yatsek, with a sigh.
"Nothing good will meet thee in that house."
And they went on in silence, but the priest with a face of anxiety, for with his whole soul he loved Yatsek. When his father had died of the pestilence, the young man was left in the world without any near relative, without property, having only a very few serfs in Vyrambki. The old priest cared for him tenderly. He could not give the youth property, for he with the soul of an angel distributed to the needy all that his poor parish gave him; still, he helped Yatsek in secret, and besides, he watched over him, taught him, not only what was in books, but the whole art of knighthood. For in his day that priest had been a famed warrior, a comrade and friend of the glorious Pan Michael. He had been with Charnyetski, he had gone through the whole Swedish conflict, and only when all had been finished did he put on the robe of a cleric, because of a ghastly misfortune. He loved Yatsek, in whom he valued, not simply the son of a famed knightly family, but a serious, lofty soul, just such as his own was. So he was grieved over the man's immense poverty, and that ill-fated love which had seized him. Because of this love, the young man, instead of seeking bread and fame in the great world of action, was wasting himself and leading a half peasant life in that dark little corner. Hence he felt a determined dislike for the house of Pan Gideon, taking it ill of Pan Gideon himself that he was so cruel to his people. As to Father Voynovski, those "worms of the earth"[2] were as dear as the apple of his eye to him, but besides them he loved also everything living, as well those pets which he scolded, as birds, fish, and even the frogs which croak and sing in the sun-warmed waters during summer.