صفحة 713 من 788

Corporal Buzzard Dobrzynski alone neither listened to the band,

nor danced, nor made him merry; with his hands behind him he

stood glum and sullen and called to mind his old-time wooing of

Zosia; how he had loved to bring her flowers, to plait little

baskets, to gather birds' nests, to make little earrings.

Ungrateful girl! Though he had wasted upon her so many lovely

gifts, though she had fled from him, though his father had

forbidden him, yet how many times he had sat on the wall just to

see her through the window, and had stolen into the hemp in order

to watch how she tended her little flower garden, picked

cucumbers, or fed the roosters! Ungrateful girl! He drooped his

head; finally he whistled a mazurka; then he jammed his casque

down over his ears and went to the camp, where the sentinels were

standing by the cannon: there, to distract his mind, he began a

game of cribbage with the private soldiers, and sweetened his

sorrow with the cup.