place. The country from the Pripet to the borders of the
Wilderness was on fire. The insurrection extended in the
provinces of Rus, Podolia, Volynia, Bratslav, Kieff, and
Chernigoff. The power of the hetman increased each day.
Never had the Commonwealth opposed to its most terrible
enemy half the forces which he then commanded. The
German emperor had not equal numbers in readiness. The
storm surpassed every expectation. The hetman himself
did not recognize at first his own power, and did not under-
stand how he had risen so high. He shielded himself yet
with justice, legality, and loyalty to the Commonwealth,
for he did not know then that he might trample upon these
expressions as empty phrases; but as his forces grew there
rose in him that immeasurable, unconscious egotism the
equal of which is not presented by history. The under-
standing of good and evil, of virtue and vice, of violence
and justice, were confounded in the soul of Hmelnitski
with the understanding of injuries done him, or with his
personal profit. That man was honorable who was with
him; that man was a criminal who was against him. He
was ready to complain of the sun, and to count it as a
personal injustice if sunshine were not given at his de-
mand. Men, events, nay, the whole world, he measured
with his own ego. But in spite of all the cunning, all the
hypocrisy of the hetman, there was a kind of deformed
good faith in this theory of his. All Hmelnitski's crimes
flowed from this theory, but his good deeds as well; for if
he knew no bounds in his cruelty and tyranny to an enemy,
he knew how to be thankful for every even involuntary
service which was rendered him.

Only when he was drunk did he forget even good
deeds, and bellowing with fury, with foam on his lips,
issue bloody orders, for which he grieved afterward. And
in proportion as his success grew, was he oftener drunk,
for unquiet took increasing possession of him. It would
seem that triumph carried him to heights which he did
not wish to occupy. His power amazed other men, but it
amazed himself too. The gigantic hand of rebellion seized
and bore him on with the swiftness of lightning and inex-
orably. But whither? How was all this to end? Com-
mencing sedition in the name of his own wrongs, that
Cossack diplomat might calculate that after his first suc-
cesses, or even after defeats, he could begin negotiations;
that forgiveness would be offered him, satisfaction and