And still, though his life could be measured by hours, he had lived too long, for not only had he outlived faith in himself and his fortunate star, faith in his own hopes and plans, but his fall was so deep that when he looked at the bottom of that precipice to which he was rolling, he would not believe himself. Everything had deceived him: events, calculations, allies. He, for whom it was not enough to be the mightiest lord in Poland, a prince of the Roman Empire, grand hetman, and voevoda of Vilna; he, for whom all Lithuania was less than what he desired and was lusting after, was confined in one narrow, small castle in which either Death or Captivity was waiting for him. And he watched the door every day to see which of these two terrible goddesses would enter first to take his soul or
