uproar, and he himself took the book again. The sun had gone already
behind the gardens and the forest of Panama, and was going slowly beyond
the isthmus to the other ocean; but the Atlantic was full of light yet;
in the open air there was still perfect vision; therefore, he read
further:

"Now bear my longing soul to those forest slopes, to those green
meadows."

At last the dusk obliterates the letters on the white paper,--the dusk
short as a twinkle. The old man rested his head on the rock, and closed
his eyes. Then "She who defends bright Chenstohova" took his soul, and
transported it to "those fields colored by various grain." On the sky
were burning yet those long stripes, red and golden, and on those
brightnesses he was flying to beloved regions. The pine-woods were
sounding in his ears; the streams of his native place were murmuring. He
saw everything as it was; everything asked him, "Dost remember?" He
remembers! he sees broad fields; between the fields, woods and villages.
It is night now. At this hour his lantern usually illuminates the
darkness of the sea; but now he is in his native village. His old head
has dropped on his breast, and he is dreaming. Pictures are passing
before his eyes quickly, and a little disorderly. He does not see the
house in which he was born, for war had destroyed it; he does not see
his father and mother, for they died when he was a child; but still the
village is as if he had left it yesterday,--the line of cottages with
lights in the windows, the mound, the mill, the two ponds opposite each
other, and thundering all night with a chorus of frogs. Once he had been
on guard in that village all night; now that past stood before him at
once in a series of views. He is an Ulan again, and he stands there on
guard; at a distance is the public-house; he looks with swimming eyes.