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"Meanwhile the neighbourhood was already whispering; gossips

would say to me: 'Ah, Pan Soplica, your suit is vain; the

threshold of a dignitary is too high for the feet of Jacek the

Cup-Bearer's son.' I laughed, pretending that I mocked at

magnates and their daughters, and that I cared nothing for

aristocrats; that if I often visited them, I did it out of mere

friendship, and that I would never marry outside my own station

in life. And yet these jests pricked my soul to the quick: I was

young and daring, and the world was open to me in a land where,

as you know, one born a simple gentleman may be chosen king just

as freely as the most powerful lord. Once Tenczynski asked in

marriage a daughter of a royal house, and the King gave her to

him without shame.173 Are not the Soplicas of equal merit with

the Tenczynskis, through their blood, through their ancient

crest, and through their faithful service to the Commonwealth!

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