ARGUMENT
Return of the young master—A first meeting in the chamber, a
second at table—The Judge’s weighty lecture on courtesy—The
Chamberlain’s political remarks on fashions—Beginning of the
quarrel over Bobtail and Falcon—Lamentations of the Seneschal—The
last Apparitor—Glance at the political conditions of Lithuania and
Europe at this period.
LITHUANIA, my country, thou art like health; how much thou shouldst be
prized only he can learn who has lost thee. To-day thy beauty in all its
splendour I see and describe, for I yearn for thee.
Holy Virgin, who protectest bright Czenstochowa and shinest above the
Ostra Gate in Wilno!2 Thou who dost shelter the castle of Nowogrodek with
its faithful folk! As by miracle thou didst restore me to health in my
childhood—when, offered by my weeping mother to thy protection, I raised
my dead eyelids, and could straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine
to thank God for the life returned me—so by miracle thou wilt return us to
the bosom of our country. Meanwhile bear my grief-stricken soul to those
wooded hills, to those green meadows stretched far and wide along the blue
Niemen; to those fields painted with various grain, gilded with wheat,
silvered with rye; where grows the amber mustard, the buckwheat white as
snow, where the clover glows with a maiden’s blush, where all is girdled
as with a ribbon by a strip of green turf on which here and there rest
quiet pear-trees.
Amid such fields years ago, by the border of a brook, on a low hill, in a
grove of birches, stood a gentleman’s3 mansion, of wood, but with a stone
foundation; the white walls shone from afar, the whiter since they were
relieved against the dark green of the poplars that sheltered it against
the winds of autumn. The dwelling-house was not large, but it was
spotlessly neat, and it had a mighty barn, and near it were three stacks
of hay that could not be contained beneath the roof; one could see that
the neighbourhood was rich and fertile. And one could see from the number
of sheaves that up and down the meadows shone thick as stars—one could see
from the number of ploughs turning up early the immense tracts of black
fallow land that evidently belonged to the mansion, and were tilled well
like garden beds, that in that house dwelt plenty and order. The gate
wide-open proclaimed to passers-by that it was hospitable, and invited all
to enter as guests.
A young gentleman had just entered in a two-horse carriage, and, after
making a turn about the yard, he stopped before the porch and descended;
his horses, left to themselves, slowly moved towards the gate, nibbling
the grass. The mansion was deserted, for the porch doors were barred and
the bar fastened with a pin. The traveller did not run to make inquiries
at the farmhouse but opened the door and ran into the mansion, for he was
eager to greet it. It was long since he had seen the house, for he had
been studying in a distant city and had at last finished his course. He
ran in and gazed with eager emotion upon the ancient walls, his old
friends. He sees the same furniture, the same hangings with which he had
loved to amuse himself from babyhood, but they seemed less beautiful and
not so large as of old. And the same portraits hung upon the walls. Here
Kosciuszko,4 in his Cracow coat,5 with his eyes raised to heaven, held his
two-handed sword; such was he when on the steps of the altar he swore that
with this sword he would drive the three powers from Poland or himself
would fall upon it. Farther on sat Rejtan,6 in Polish costume, mourning
the loss of liberty; in his hands he held a knife with the point turned
against his breast, and before him lay Phaedo and The Life of Cato.
Still farther on Jasinski,7 a fair and melancholy youth, and his faithful
comrade Korsak8 stand side by side on the entrenchments of Praga, on heaps
of Muscovites, hewing down the enemies of their country—but around them
Praga is already burning.
He recognised even the tall old musical clock in its wooden case near the
chamber door, and with childish joy he pulled at the string, in order to
hear Dombrowski’s old mazurka.71
He ran about the whole house and searched for the room that had been his
own when he was a child, ten years before. He entered, drew back, and
surveyed the walls with astonished eyes: could this room be a woman’s
lodgings? Who could live here? His old uncle was unmarried, and his aunt
had dwelt for years in St. Petersburg. Could that be the housekeeper’s
chamber? A piano? On it music and books; all abandoned in careless
confusion: sweet disorder!
Not old could the hands have been that had so abandoned them! There too, a
white gown, freshly taken from the hook to put on, was spread upon the arm
of a chair. In the windows were pots of fragrant flowers: geraniums,
asters, gillyflowers, and violets. The traveller stepped to one of the
windows—a new marvel was before him. On the bank of the brook, in a spot
once overgrown with nettles, was a tiny garden intersected by paths, full
of clumps of English grass and of mint. The slender wooden fence,
fashioned into a monogram, shone with ribbons of gay daisies. Evidently
the beds had but just been sprinkled; there stood the tin watering-pot
full of water, but the fair gardener could nowhere be seen. She had only
now departed; the little gate, freshly touched, was still trembling; near
the gate could be seen on the sand the print of a small foot that had been
without shoe or stocking—on the fine dry sand, white as snow; the print
was clear but light; you guessed that it was left in quick running by the
tiny feet of some one who scarce touched the ground.
The traveller stood long in the window gazing and musing, breathing in the
fragrance of the flowers. He bent down his face to the violet plants; he
followed the paths with his curious eyes and again gazed on the tiny
footprints; he kept thinking of them and trying to guess whose they were.
By chance he raised his eyes, and there on the wall stood a young girl—her
white garment hid her slender form only to the breast, leaving bare her
shoulders and her swan’s neck. Such attire a Lithuanian maiden is wont to
wear only early in the day; in such she is never seen by men. So, though
there was no witness near, she had folded her arms on her breast, in order
to add a veil to her low garment. Her hair, not spread out in loose
ringlets but twisted in little knots and wrapped in small white
curl-papers, marvellously adorned her head, for in the sunlight it shone
like a crown on the image of a saint. Her face could not be seen, for she
had turned towards the meadow, and with her eyes was seeking some one far
off, below her. She caught sight of him, laughed, and clapped her hands;
like a white bird she flew from the wall to the turf, and flashed through
the garden, over stiles and flowers, and over a board supported on the
wall of the chamber; before the young man was aware, she had flown in
through the window, glittering, swift, and light as a moonbeam. Humming to
herself, she seized the gown and ran to the mirror; suddenly she saw the
youth, and the gown fell from her hands and her face grew pale with fright
and wonder. The face of the traveller flamed with a rosy blush, as a cloud
when it is touched with the morning glow; the modest youth half closed his
eyes and hid them with his hand; he wished to speak and ask for pardon,
but only bowed and stepped back. The maiden uttered a pitiful, indistinct
cry, like a child frightened in its sleep; the traveller looked up in
alarm, but she was there no longer; he departed in confusion and felt the
loud beating of his heart; he knew not whether this strange meeting should
cause him amusement or shame or joy.
Meanwhile in the farmhouse they had not failed to notice that some new
guest had driven up before the porch. They had already taken the horses to
the stable and already, as befits an honourable house, had given them
generously of oats and hay, for the Judge9 was never willing to adopt the
new fashion of sending a guest’s horse to a Jew’s inn. The servants had
not come out to welcome the traveller, but do not think that in the
Judge’s mansion service was careless; the servants were waiting until the
Seneschal10 should attire him, who now behind the mansion was arranging
for the supper. He took the place of the master, and in his absence was
wont himself to welcome and entertain guests, being a distant relative of
the master and a friend of the house. Seeing the guest, he stealthily made
his way to the farmhouse, for he could not come out to greet the stranger
in a homespun dressing-gown; there he put on as quickly as he might his
Sunday garment, made ready since early morning, for since morning he had
known that at supper he should sit with a multitude of guests.
The Seneschal recognised the traveller from afar, spread out his arms, and
with a cry embraced and kissed him. Then began a hurried, confused
discourse, in which they were eager to tell the events of many years in a
few brief words, mingled, as the tale went forward, with queries,
exclamations, and new greetings. When the Seneschal had asked his fill of
questions, at the very last he told the story of that day.
“It is good, my Thaddeus,”—for so they called the young man, whose first
name had been given him in honour of Kosciuszko, as a token that he was
born at the time of the war11—“it is good, my Thaddeus, that you have
returned home this day, just when we have with us so many fair young
ladies. Your uncle is thinking of soon celebrating your marriage. You have
a wide choice: at our house a numerous company has for days been gathering
for the session of the territorial court, to conclude our ancient quarrel
with the Count. The Count himself is to arrive to-morrow; the
Chamberlain12 is already here with his wife and daughters. The young men
have gone to the wood to amuse themselves shooting, and the old men and
the women are looking at the harvest near the wood, where they are
doubtless awaiting the young men. Come on, if you wish, and soon we shall
meet your dear uncle, the Chamberlain, and the honoured ladies.”
The Seneschal and Thaddeus walked along the road towards the wood and
could not say enough to each other. The sun was approaching the end of his
course in the sky and shone less strongly but more broadly than by day,
all reddened, as the healthy face of a husbandman, when, after finishing
his work in the fields, he returns to rest: already the gleaming circle
was descending on the summit of the grove, and already the misty twilight,
filling the tips and the branches of the trees, bound and, as it were,
fused the whole forest into one mass, and the grove showed black like an
immense building, and the sun red above it like a fire on the roof; then
the sun sank; it still shone through the branches, as a candle through the
chinks of window shutters; then it was extinguished. And suddenly the
scythes that were ringing far and wide among the grain, and the rakes that
were being drawn over the meadow, became quiet and still; such were the
orders of the Judge, on whose farm work closed with the day. “The Lord of
the world knows how long we should toil; when the sun, his workman,
descends from heaven, it is time for the husbandman to withdraw from the
field.” So the Judge was wont to speak, and the will of the Judge was
sacred to the honest Steward; for even the waggons on which they had
already begun to load the sheaves of grain, went unfilled to the stable;
the oxen rejoiced in the unaccustomed lightness of their load.
The whole company was just returning from the grove, gaily, but in order;
first the little children with their tutor, then the Judge with the wife
of the Chamberlain; beside them the Chamberlain, surrounded by his family;
after the older people came the young ladies, with the young men beside
them; the young ladies walked a half-step before the young men: so decorum
bids. No one there had arranged the order, no one had so placed the
gentlemen and the ladies, but each without conscious thought kept the
order: for the Judge in his household observed the ancient customs, and
never allowed that respect should be neglected for age, birth,
intelligence, or office: “By such breeding,” said he, “houses and nations
win fame, and with its fall, houses and nations go to ruin.” So the
household and the servants grew accustomed to order; and a passing guest,
whether kinsman or stranger, when he visited the Judge, as soon as he had
been there a short time, accepted the established ways of which all about
him breathed.
Short were the greetings that the Judge bestowed upon his nephew. With
dignity he offered him his hand to salute, and kissing him on the temple
he gave him a hearty welcome; though out of regard for the guests he
talked little with him, one could see from the tears that he quickly wiped
away with the sleeve of his kontusz,13 how he loved young Thaddeus.
After the master all, both men and beasts, were returning home together
from the harvest fields and from the grove, from the meadows and from the
pastures. Here a flock of bleating sheep squeezed into the lane and raised
a cloud of dust; behind them slowly stepped a herd of Tyrolese heifers
with brazen bells; there the horses neighing rushed home from the freshly
mown meadow. All ran to the well, of which the wooden sweep ceaselessly
creaked and filled the trough.
The Judge, though wearied, and though surrounded by guests, did not
neglect the weighty duties of his farm, but himself went to the well: at
evening a farmer can best see how his stable prospers, and never entrusts
that care to servants—for the Judge knew that the master’s eye fattens the
horse.
The Seneschal and Protazy the Apparitor14 were standing in the hall,
lanterns in hand, and were arguing with some warmth, for in the
Seneschal’s absence the Apparitor had secretly ordered the supper tables
to be carried out from the mansion and to be set up hastily in the old
castle of which the remains could be seen near the wood. Why this
transfer? The Seneschal made wry faces and begged the Judge’s pardon; the
Judge was amazed, but the thing had been done; it was already late and
difficult to correct it; he preferred to make excuses to his guests and to
lead them to the ruins. On the way the Apparitor kept explaining to the
Judge why he had altered his master’s arrangements: on the farm no room
was spacious enough for so many guests—and guests of such high station; in
the castle the great hall was still well preserved, the vaulted roof was
whole—to be sure one wall was cracked and the windows were without panes,
but in summer that would do no harm; the nearness of the cellars was
convenient for the servants. So speaking, he winked at the Judge; it was
evident from his mien that he had other, more important reasons, but
concealed them.
The castle stood two thousand paces from the mansion, of stately
architecture, and of imposing bulk, the ancestral home of the ancient
house of the Horeszkos. The owner had perished at the time of the
disorders in the country;15 the domain had been entirely ruined by the
sequestrations of the government, by the carelessness of the guardians,
and by the verdicts of the courts; part had fallen to distant relatives on
the female side, the rest had been divided among the creditors. No one
wished to take the castle, for a simple gentleman could hardly afford the
cost of maintaining it; but the Count, a rich young noble and a distant
relative of the Horeszkos, when he became of age and returned home from
his travels to live near by, took a fancy to the walls, explaining that
they were of Gothic architecture, though the Judge from documents tried to
convince him that the architect was from Wilno and not a Goth. At all
events the Count wished to have the castle, and suddenly the same desire
seized the Judge, no one could tell why. They began a suit in the district
court, then in the court of appeal, before the Senate, again in the
district court and before the governor’s council; finally after great
expense of money, and numerous decrees, the case returned again to the
court of domains.
The Apparitor said rightly that in the hall of the castle there was room
both for the gentlemen of the bar and for the invited guests. This hall
was as large as a refectory, and it had a vaulted roof supported on
pillars, and a stone flooring; the walls were unadorned, but clean. Upon
them were fastened the horns of stags and roes, with inscriptions telling
where and when these trophies had been obtained; there too were engraved
the armorial bearings of the hunters, with the name of each written out in
full; on the ceiling gleamed the Half-Goat, the arms of the Horeszkos.
The guests entered in order and stood about the table. The Chamberlain
took his place at the head; this honour befitted him from his age and his
office; advancing to it he bowed to the ladies, the old men, and the young
men. By him took his station a Bernardine monk, a collector of alms for
his order, and next the Bernardine was the Judge. The Bernardine
pronounced a short grace in Latin, brandy was passed to the gentlemen;
then all sat down, and silently and with relish they ate the cold
Lithuanian salad of beet leaves.16
Thaddeus, though a young man, by virtue of being a guest, had a seat at
the head of the table, with the ladies, beside His Honour the Chamberlain;
between him and his uncle there remained one empty place, which seemed to
be awaiting some one. The uncle often glanced at this place and then at
the door, as though he were assured of some one’s coming and desired it;
and Thaddeus followed his uncle’s glance to the door, and with him fixed
his eyes on the empty seat. Marvellous to relate, the places round about
were occupied by maidens on whom a prince might have gazed without shame,
all of them high born, and every one young and pretty; but Thaddeus kept
looking at that spot where no one was sitting. That place was a riddle;
young people love riddles. Distraught, to his fair neighbour the
Chamberlain’s daughter he said only a few scattering words; he did not
change her plate or fill her glass, and he did not entertain the young
ladies with polite discourse such as would have shown his city breeding.
That one empty place allured him and dazzled him; it was no longer empty,
for he had filled it with his thoughts. Over that place ran a thousand
guesses, as after a rain, little toads hop hither and thither over a
lonely meadow; among them one form was queen, like a water lily on a fair
day raising its white brow above the surface of a lake.
The third course was being served. The Chamberlain, pouring a drop of wine
into Panna Rosa’s glass and passing a plate of cucumbers to his younger
daughter, said: “I must wait on you myself, my dear daughters, though I am
old and clumsy.” Thereat several young men started up from the table and
served the young ladies. The Judge, throwing a sidelong glance at Thaddeus
and adjusting somewhat the sleeves of his kontusz, poured out some
Hungarian wine and spoke thus:—
“To-day, as the new fashion bids us, we send our young men to the capital
to study, and I do not deny that our sons and grandsons have more book
learning than their elders; but each day I perceive how our young men
suffer because there are no schools that teach how to conduct oneself in
polite society. Of old, the young gentry went to the courts of the lords;
I myself was for ten years a member of the household of the Wojewoda,26
the father of His Honour the Chamberlain.” (As he said this he pressed the
Chamberlain’s knees.) “By his counsels he fitted me for the public
service, and did not dismiss me from his care until he had made a man of
me. In my home his memory will ever be dear; each day do I pray God for
his soul. If at his court I profited less than others, and since my return
have been ploughing the fields at home, while others, more worthy of the
regard of the Wojewoda, have since attained the highest offices in the
land, at least this much I profited, that in my home no one will ever
reproach me for failing to show respect or courtesy to all—and boldly do I
say it, courtesy is not an easy science, nor one of slight account. Not
easy, for it is not confined to moving one’s legs gracefully in bowing or
to greeting with a smile each man one meets; for such fashionable courtesy
seems to me that of a merchant, not that of old Poland, nor that of a true
gentleman. Courtesy should be extended to all, but for each it is
different; for not without courtesy is the love of children for their
parents, or the regard paid by a husband to his wife in society, or that
of a master for his servants, and yet each sort of courtesy has its
distinctive mark. One must study long in order without mistake to pay to
each his due respect. And our elders did study: in noble mansions the
discourse furnished the listener a living history of his land, and the
talk among the gentry formed the household annals of the county. Thereby a
brother gentleman was made to feel that all knew of him and did not esteem
him lightly; so a gentleman kept a watch upon his own habits. But to-day
you must ask no man who he is or of what parents, with whom he has lived
or what he has done. Every man enters where he will, so long as he be not
a government spy or a beggar. As Vespasian did not smell of money,17 and
cared not to know whence it came, from what hands or lands, so now they
care not to know a man’s family or habits. It suffices that he be of full
weight and that the stamp be seen upon him; thus men value friends as Jews
value money.”
While speaking thus, the Judge surveyed his guests in order; for though he
always spoke fluently and with discretion, he knew that the youth of
to-day are impatient, that they are bored by long speeches, even by the
most eloquent. But all were listening in deep silence; the Judge with his
eye seemed to take counsel of the Chamberlain; the Chamberlain did not
interrupt the speech by praise, but with a frequent nodding of his head he
assented to it. The Judge ceased speaking, the other with a nod begged him
to continue. So the Judge filled the Chamberlain’s beaker and his own cup,
and spoke further:—
“Courtesy is no slight thing: when a man learns to respect as is fitting
the age, birth, virtues, and ways of others, at the same time he comes to
recognise also his own dignity; as in weighing with scales, in order to
learn our own weight, we must put some one in the opposite pan. And worthy
of your especial attention is the courtesy that young men owe to the fair
sex, above all when the distinction of family, and the generosity of
fortune heighten inborn charms and talents. Through courtesy is the path
to the affections, and by it houses are joined in splendid union—thus
thought our elders. And therefore——”
Here the Judge with a sudden turn of his head nodded at Thaddeus and
bestowed on him a stern glance; it was evident that he had now reached the
climax of his speech.
Thereupon the Chamberlain tapped his golden snuffbox and said:—
“My dear Judge, in former times it was still worse. At present I know not
whether the fashion changes even us old men, or whether the young men are
better than before, but I see less cause of scandal. Ah, I remember the
times when on our fatherland there first descended the fashion of
imitating the French; when suddenly brisk young gentlemen from foreign
lands swarmed in upon us in a horde worse than the Nogai Tatars, abusing
here, in our country, God, the faith of our fathers, our law and customs,
and even our ancient garments. Pitiable was it to behold the yellow-faced
puppies, talking through their noses—and often without noses—stuffed with
brochures and newspapers of various sorts, and proclaiming new faiths,
laws, and toilets. That rabble had a mighty power over minds, for when the
Lord God sends punishment on a nation he first deprives its citizens of
reason. And so the wiser heads dared not resist the fops, and the whole
nation feared them as some pestilence, for within itself it already felt
the germs of disease. They cried out against the dandies but took pattern
by them; they changed faith, speech, laws, and costumes. That was a
masquerade, the licence of the Carnival season, after which was soon to
follow the Lent of slavery.
“I remember,—though then I was but a little child,—when the Cup-Bearer’s
son came to visit my father in the district of Oszmiana, in a French
carriage; he was the first man in Lithuania who wore French clothes.
Everybody ran after him as after a buzzard;18 they envied the house before
the threshold of which the Cup-Bearer’s son halted his two-wheeled chaise,
which passed by the French name of cabriolet. Within it sat two dogs
instead of footmen, and on the box a German, lean as a board; his long
legs, thin as hop-poles, were clad in stockings, and shoes with silver
buckles; the tail of his wig was tied up in a sack. The old men burst out
laughing at that equipage, but the country boors crossed themselves,
saying that a Venetian devil was travelling abroad in a German carriage.
To describe the son of the Cup-Bearer himself would be a long story;
suffice it to say that he seemed to us an ape or a parrot in a great
peruke, which he liked to compare to the Golden Fleece, and we to
elf-locks.19 At that time even if any one felt that the Polish costume was
more comely than this aping of a foreign fashion, he kept silent, for the
young men would have cried out that he was hindering culture, that he was
checking progress, that he was a traitor. Such at that time was the power
of prejudice!
“The Cup-Bearer’s son announced that he was going to reform us and
introduce order and civilisation; he proclaimed to us that some eloquent
Frenchmen had made a discovery, that all men are equal—though this was
written long ago in Holy Writ and every parish priest prates of it from
the pulpit. The doctrine was ancient, the question was of its application.
But at that time such general blindness prevailed that they did not
believe the oldest things in the world if they did not read of them in a
French newspaper. The Cup-Bearer’s son, despite equality, had taken the
title of marquis. It is well known that titles come from Paris, and at
that time the title of marquis was in fashion there; however, when in the
course of years the fashion changed, this same marquis took the title of
democrat; finally, with the changing fashion, under Napoleon, the democrat
arrived from Paris as a baron; if he had lived longer, perhaps he would
have shifted again, and instead of a baron would have called himself once
more a democrat. For Paris boasts of frequent changes of fashion, and
whatever a Frenchman invents is dear to a Pole.
“Thank God, that now if our young men go abroad, it is no longer for
clothes, nor to seek new laws in wretched printing shops, nor to study
eloquence in the cafes of Paris. For now Napoleon, a clever man and a
swift, gives us no time to prate or to search for new fashions. Now there
is the thunder of arms, and the hearts of us old men exult that the renown
of the Poles is spreading so widely throughout the world; glory is ours
already, and so we shall soon again have our Republic. From laurels always
springs the tree of liberty. Only it is sad that for us the years drag on
so long in idleness, and they are always so far away. It is so long to
wait!, and even news is so scarce. Father Robak,”20 he said in a lower
voice to the Bernardine, “I have heard that you have received tidings from
beyond the Niemen; perhaps you know something of our army?”
“Not a thing,” answered Robak with indifference; it was evident that he
had not enjoyed listening to the talk. “Politics bore me; if I have a
letter from Warsaw, it is on business of our Order. That is the affair of
us Bernardines; why should we talk of that at supper? Here there are
laymen, whom such things do not concern.”
So speaking, he looked askance at a Muscovite guest who was sitting among
the banqueters; this was Captain Rykov, an old soldier who was quartered
in a village hard by, and whom the Judge for courtesy’s sake had invited
to the supper. Rykov ate with a relish, and had been mixing little in the
conversation, but at the mention of Warsaw he raised his head and said,
with a Russian accent, and with a few slips of expression:—
“Chamberlain! Ah, sir, you are always curious about Bonaparte, and are
always eager to hear from Warsaw. Ah, Fatherland! I am no spy, but I
understand Polish.—Fatherland! I feel it all, I understand! You are Poles,
I am Russian; just now we are not fighting—there is an armistice, so we
are eating and drinking together. Often at the outposts our fellows will
be chatting with the French and drinking brandy; when they cry ‘Hurrah,’
then comes the cannonading. There’s a Russian proverb: ‘I love the man I
fight with; clasp your sweetheart to your heart, but beat her like a fur
cloak.’ I say we shall have war. An adjutant of the staff came to Major
Plut21 the day before yesterday: ‘Get ready for the march!’ We shall move
either against the Turks or the French. O, that Bonaparte is a rare bird!
Now that Suvorov is gone maybe he will give us a drubbing. In our regiment
we used to say, when we were marching against the French, that Bonaparte
was a wizard22—well, so was Suvorov a wizard too, so there were tricks
against tricks. Once in battle, where did he disappear? To look for
Bonaparte! But he changed himself into a fox, so Suvorov became a hound;
so Bonaparte changed again into a cat; they started to claw each other,
but Suvorov became a pony. Now notice what happened with Bonaparte
finally——”
Here Rykov broke off and began to eat. At that moment the servant came in
with the fourth course, and suddenly the side doors were opened.
A new guest, young and fair, came in; her sudden appearance, her beauty
and her carriage, her toilet, all attracted the eye. Everybody greeted
her; evidently all except Thaddeus were acquainted with her. Her figure
was fine and elegant, her bosom charming; her gown was of pink silk, low
cut, and with short sleeves, the collar of lace. In her hands she twirled
a fan for mere pastime, for it was not hot; the gilded fan as it waved
spread around it a dense shower of sparks. Her head was like a milliner’s
model; the hair was frizzled and curled and intertwined with pink ribbons;
amid them a diamond, half hidden from sight, shone like a star in the tail
of a comet. In a word it was a holiday toilet; several whispered that it
was too elaborate for the country and for every day. Though her skirt was
short, the eye could not see her feet, for she ran very swiftly, or rather
she glided, like the puppets that on the Festival of the Three Kings boys
hidden in booths slide to and fro. She ran in and, greeting all with a
slight bow, was about to seat herself in the place reserved for her. That
was difficult, for there were no chairs for the guests, who were sitting
in four rows on four benches; either a whole row must move or she must
climb over the bench. Skilfully she managed to squeeze in between two
benches, and then between the table and the line of those seated at it she
rolled on like a billiard ball. In her course she brushed past our young
man, and, catching a flounce on some one’s knee, slipped a little, and in
her distraction supported herself on the shoulder of Thaddeus. Politely
begging his pardon, she took her seat between him and his uncle, but she
ate nothing; she only fanned herself, or twirled the handle of her fan, or
adjusted her lace collar, or with a light touch of her hand smoothed her
ringlets and the knots of bright ribbon among them.
This interruption of the conversation had lasted some four minutes.
Meanwhile there had begun at the end of the table first gentle murmurs and
then conversation in a subdued voice; the men were discussing their day’s
hunting. Between the Assessor23 and the Notary24 there had arisen a
stubborn and more and more noisy dispute over a bobtailed hound, in the
ownership of which the Notary took pride, maintaining that this dog had
caught the hare; while the Assessor was demonstrating, despite the
arguments of the Notary, that that honour belonged to his own hound
Falcon. They asked the opinion of the others; so all in turn took sides
either for Bobtail or for Falcon, some as experts, others as eyewitnesses.
At the opposite end of the table the Judge was saying in a low voice to
his new neighbour: “I beg your pardon, we had to sit down, it was
impossible to put off supper till later; the guests were hungry, for they
had had a long walk over the fields; and I thought that to-day you would
not join us at table.” After these words he talked quietly with the
Chamberlain over a full winecup about political affairs.
Since both ends of the table were thus occupied, Thaddeus gazed intently
at the unknown lady. He remembered that when he had first glanced at the
place he had at once guessed for whom it was destined. He blushed, and his
heart beat faster than its wont. So he now beheld, the solution of the
mystery upon which he had pondered. So it had been ordained that by his
side should sit that beauty whom he had seen in the twilight; to be sure
she now seemed of taller stature, for she was in full dress, and costume
may make one seem larger or smaller. But the hair of the first had seemed
short and of a bright golden colour, while this lady had long, curling,
raven tresses. The colour must have come from the sun’s rays, which at
evenfall shed a glow over everything. At that time he had not noticed the
girl’s face—she had vanished too quickly. But thought is wont to guess a
lovely face; he had imagined that surely she must have black eyes, a fair
complexion, and lips as red as twin cherries; in his neighbour he found
such a face, such eyes, and such lips. In age perhaps there was the
greatest difference; the little gardener had seemed to him a young girl,
this lady was already of ripe years. But youth never asks beauty for its
baptismal certificate; to a young man every woman is young, to a lad every
beauty seems of his own age, and to an innocent boy every sweetheart seems
a maiden.
Thaddeus, though he was now almost twenty years of age, and from childhood
had dwelt in Wilno, a large city, had been under the charge of a priest,
who looked after him and brought him up in the rules of strict
old-fashioned virtue. Therefore Thaddeus brought home to his native heath
a pure soul, a lively imagination, and an innocent heart, but at the same
time no small desire to sow his wild oats. He had some time ago resolved
that he would permit himself to enjoy in the country his long forbidden
liberty; he knew that he was handsome, he felt himself young and vigorous;
and as an inheritance from his parents he had received health and good
spirits. His name was Soplica; all the Soplicas, as is well known, are
large, strong, powerful men, apt at the soldier’s trade, but less diligent
over their books.
Thaddeus had not degenerated from his forebears; he rode well on horseback
and walked well; he was not dull, but he had made little progress in his
studies, though his uncle had spared nothing on his education. He liked
better to shoot, or to practise with a sabre; he knew that they had
intended to fit him for the army, that his father in his will had
expressed this desire; while sitting in school he yearned constantly for
the sound of the drum. But his uncle had suddenly changed his first
intentions, and had sent him word to come home and to marry and take over
the farming; he had promised to give him at first a little village, and
later the whole estate.
All these virtues and good qualities of Thaddeus had attracted the gaze of
his neighbour, an observant woman. She had measured his tall and shapely
form, his strong shoulders, his broad chest, and she looked into his face,
on which a blush rose as often as the young man met her eyes. For he had
already entirely recovered from his first timidity, and looked on her with
a bold glance, in which fire blazed; even so did she gaze on him, and
their four pupils glowed opposite one another as do candles at the Advent
mass.
She started a conversation with him in French. Thaddeus had returned from
town, from school: so she asked his opinions about new books and authors,
and from his answers derived new questions; she went so far as to speak of
painting, of music, of dancing—even of sculpture! She proved herself
equally familiar with the pencil, with tunes, and with books, until
Thaddeus was petrified by so much learning, and feared that he might
become the butt of ridicule, and stammered like a little lad before his
teacher. Luckily the teacher was beautiful and lenient; his neighbour
guessed the cause of his perturbation, and shifted the talk to less deep
and difficult subjects, to the cares and troubles of existence in the
country, and how one must amuse oneself, and how divide the time in order
to make village life gay and pleasant. Thaddeus answered more boldly, and
things went better; in a half-hour they were already fast friends, they
even started jests and small quarrels. Finally she placed before him three
little balls of bread, three persons to select from; he chose the nearest.
The two daughters of the Chamberlain frowned at this; his neighbour
laughed, but she did not tell him whom that happy ball was meant to
signify.
At the other end of the table they were amusing themselves quite
differently, for there the adherents of Falcon, suddenly gathering
strength, descended pitilessly on the party of Bobtail. Mighty was the
strife; they had not yet eaten the last courses; standing up and drinking,
the two factions wrangled. But most terribly was the Notary ruffled—just
like a blackcock; when he had once begun, he poured forth his speech
without a pause, and adorned it most effectively by his gestures. (The
Notary, Pan Bolesta, had once been a lawyer; they called him the preacher,
because he was over fond of gestures.) Now he had placed his hands on his
sides, extending his elbows backward, and from under his armpits he was
thrusting forward his fingers and long nails, thereby representing two
leashes of hounds. He was just concluding his speech:—
“Hurrah! The Assessor and I let them go at once, at the very same time, as
if the two triggers on a double-barrelled gun had been pressed by one
finger. Hurrah! They started, and the hare like an arrow shot into the
field; the dogs after him——” (Here as he spoke he ran his hands over the
table and with his fingers marvellously imitated the movement of the dogs)
“the dogs after him, and they headed him off a bit from the wood. Falcon
rushed forward, a fleet dog, but with a poor head; he got the start of
Bobtail by so much, a finger’s breadth; I knew that he would miss. The
hare was no common rogue; he made as if straight for the field, and after
him the pack of hounds. The rogue of a hare I Once he knew that the dogs
were in a bunch, pst! he went to the right, with a somersault, and after
him the stupid hounds; but again, zip! to the left, in just two jumps. The
dogs after him, zip! to the left, and my Bobtail, whack!”
Shouting thus the Notary leaned over the table and ran his fingers clear
to the other side, and screamed “whack” just over the ear of Thaddeus.
Thaddeus and his neighbour, suddenly startled right in the middle of a
conversation by this outburst, involuntarily withdrew their heads from
each other, like treetops tied together, when the storm parts them; their
hands, which had been lying close together under the table, quickly drew
apart, and their two faces were clothed with a single blush.
“It is true, my dear Notary,” said Thaddeus, in order not to betray his
embarrassment, “it is true, without doubt; Bobtail is a finely built
hound—if he is equally good at seizing the game.”
“Good at seizing!” cried the Notary, “my favourite dog; the idea of his
not being good at seizing!”
So Thaddeus once more expressed his pleasure that so handsome a dog had no
fault; regretted that he had seen him only as he was returning from the
wood, and that he had not had time to appreciate all his good points.
At this the Assessor trembled, dropped his wine-glass from his hand, and
levelled at Thaddeus the glance of a basilisk. The Assessor was less noisy
and less given to gestures than the Notary, thinner and shorter; but he
was terrible at masquerade, ball, or village diet, for they said of him
that he had a sting in his tongue. He could make up such witty jests that
you might have had them printed in the almanac; they were all so malicious
and pointed. He had formerly been a man of property, but he had entirely
squandered his inheritance from his father, and his brother’s estate as
well, through cutting a figure in high society; now he had entered the
service of the government, in order to be of some importance in the
district. He was very fond of hunting, both for the sport of it and
because the peal of the horn and the sight of the circle of beaters
recalled to him the days of his youth, when he had kept many hunters and
many famous hounds. Of his whole kennel but two dogs remained, and now
they wanted to belittle the glory of one of these! So he approached, and,
slowly stroking his side whiskers, said with a laugh—but it was a laugh
full of poison:—
“A hound without a tail is like a gentleman without an office. A tail is
likewise a great help to a hound in running. And do you, sir, regard the
lack of one as a proof of excellence? However, we may refer the matter to
the judgment of your aunt. Though Pani Telimena has been living in the
capital, and has only recently been visiting our neighbourhood, yet she
knows more about hunting than do young sportsmen: for knowledge comes of
itself with years.”
Thaddeus, upon whom this thunderstorm had unexpectedly descended, arose in
confusion, and for some moments said nothing, but looked upon his rival
more and more terribly and sternly; at that moment by great good luck the
Chamberlain sneezed twice. “Vivat!” cried everybody; he bowed to the
company, and slowly tapped his snuffbox with his fingers. The snuffbox was
of gold, set with diamonds, and in the middle of it was a portrait of King
Stanislaw.25 The king himself had given it to the father of the
Chamberlain; after his father the Chamberlain bore it worthily; whenever
he tapped upon it, it was a sign that he wished to have the floor for a
speech. All became silent, no one dared open his lips. He spoke:—
“Honoured gentlemen, my beloved brothers, the woods and meadows alone are
the hunter’s forum, therefore such matters I will not pass upon within
doors, but I will dissolve our sitting until to-morrow, and will not
permit further argument from either faction to-day. Apparitor, call the
case for to-morrow in the field! To-morrow the Count too will be here with
all his hunting train, and you, my neighbour Judge, will ride out with us,
and Pani Telimena, and the young ladies and gentlemen; in a word we will
form a great official hunting party, and the Seneschal, too, will not deny
us his companionship.”
So saying he offered his snuffbox to the old man.
The Seneschal had been sitting at the corner among the hunters; he had
been listening with closed eyes, but had said not a word, although the
young men had often inquired his opinion, for no one understood hunting
better than he. He kept silent, weighed in his fingers the pinch of snuff
that he had taken from the box, and meditated long before he finally used
it; he sneezed until the whole room echoed, and shaking his head, he said
with a bitter smile:—
“O how this saddens and amazes me in my old age! What would the hunters of
old times say of this, if they should see that amid so many gentlemen, in
so large a gathering, disputes over a hound’s tail had to be debated? What
would old Rejtan say of this were he to come to life again? He would go
back to Lachowicze and lay himself in his grave. What would the old
wojewoda Niesiolowski26 say, a man who still has the finest kennel in the
world, and maintains in lordly wise two hundred hunters, and who has a
hundred waggon-loads of nets in his castle of Woroncza, and yet for so
many years has been abiding like a monk within his house? No one can
persuade him to accept an invitation to hunt; he refused even
Bialopiotrowicz27 himself! For what would he capture at your hunts? It
would be fine glory, if such a gentleman, in accordance with the present
fashion, should ride out against rabbits! In my time, sir, in hunter’s
language, the boar, the bear, the elk, the wolf were known as noble
beasts, but beasts without tusks, horns, or claws were left for hired
servants or farm labourers. No gentleman would ever consent to take in
hand a musket that had been put to shame by having small shot sprinkled in
it! To be sure they kept hounds, for when they were returning from a hunt
it might happen that some wretched hare would start up from beneath a
steed; then they let loose the pack at it for sport, and the little lads
chased it on ponies before the eyes of their parents, who hardly deigned
to look on such a chase, much less to quarrel over it! So I beg that Your
Honour the Chamberlain will deign to recall your commands, and will
forgive me that I cannot ride to such a hunting party, and never will set
foot in one! My name is Hreczecha, and since the days of King Lech28 no
Hreczecha has ever ridden out after hares.”
Here the laughter of the young men drowned the speech of the Seneschal.
They rose from the table; the Chamberlain moved first; this honour
befitted him from his age and his office; as he advanced he bowed to the
ladies, the old men, and the young men. After him went the Collector of
Alms, and the Judge alongside the Bernardine; at the threshold the Judge
offered his arm to the Chamberlain’s wife, Thaddeus to Telimena, the
Assessor to the Carver’s daughter, and finally the Notary to Panna
Hreczecha, the daughter of the Seneschal.
Thaddeus went to the stable with several of the guests, and felt
disturbed, glum, and morose; he thought over all the events of the day,
the meeting and the supper by the side of his fair neighbour—and in
particular the word “aunt” buzzed continually in his ear like an
importunate fly. He would have liked to learn more about Pani Telimena
from the Apparitor, but he could not catch him; nor did he see the
Seneschal, for immediately after supper all had followed the guests out,
as befits serving men, and had gone to prepare the rooms for rest. The
older people and the ladies slept in the mansion; the young men Thaddeus,
as the host’s representative, had been directed to take to the stable,
where they were to sleep on the hay.
Within a half-hour it was as quiet on the whole estate as in a cloister
after the bell for prayer; the silence was interrupted only by the voice
of the night watchman. All were asleep. The Judge alone did not close his
eyes; as the head of the estate, he was thinking over a walking party, and
the coming entertainment within the house. He gave orders to the stewards,
the overseers, and the grain-wardens; to the scribes, the housekeeper, the
huntsmen, and the grooms; and he had to look through all the day’s
accounts; finally he told the Apparitor that he wished to undress. The
Apparitor undid his belt, a belt from Sluck,29 a massive belt, on which
glittered tassels thick as helmet-plumes; on one side it was gold brocade
with purple flowers, on the reverse black silk with silver cross-stripes.
Such a belt may be worn equally well on either side, golden for a holiday,
and black for mourning. The Apparitor alone knew how to undo and fold up
this belt; he took this trouble upon himself and ended with the following
speech:—
“Where was the harm that I moved the tables to the old castle? No one has
lost thereby, and you, sir, will perhaps gain, for the suit now before the
court concerns the ownership of that castle. From this day we have
acquired a right to the castle, and notwithstanding all the fury of the
opposite side I will prove that we have taken the castle into our
possession. For whoever invites guests to supper in a castle proves that
he holds possession there—or takes it; we will even summon the opposite
side as witnesses: I remember such happenings in my time.”
The Judge was already asleep. So the Apparitor quietly went out into the
hall, seated himself by a candle, and took from his pocket a little book
that always served him as a Prayer Book,30 and from which he never was
parted, either at home or on a journey. It was the Court Calendar;31 there
in order were written down cases which years ago the Apparitor had
proclaimed with his own voice, before the authorities, or of which he had
managed to learn later. To common men the Calendar seems a mere list of
names, but to the Apparitor it was a succession of magnificent pictures.
So he read and mused: Oginski and Wizgird, the Dominicans and Rymsza,
Rymsza and Wysogierd, Radziwill and Wereszczaka, Giedrojc and Rodultowski,
Obuchowicz and the Jewish commune, Juraha and Piotrowski, Maleski and
Mickiewicz, and finally Count Horeszko and Soplica; and, as he read, he
called forth from these names the memory of mighty cases, and all the
events of the trial; and before his eyes stand the court, plaintiff,
defendant, and witnesses; and he beholds himself, how in a white smock and
dark blue kontusz he stands before the tribunal, with one hand on his
sabre and the other on the table, summoning the two parties. “Silence!” he
calls. Thus dreaming and finishing his evening prayer, gradually the last
court apparitor in Lithuania fell asleep.
Such were the amusements and disputes of those days in the quiet
Lithuanian village, while the rest of the world was swimming in tears and
blood, and while that man, the god of war, surrounded by a cloud of
regiments, armed with a thousand cannon, harnessing to his chariot golden
eagles beside those of silver,32 was flying from the deserts of Libya to
the lofty Alps, casting thunderbolt on thunderbolt, at the Pyramids, at
Tabor, Marengo, Ulm, and Austerlitz. Victory and Conquest ran before and
after him. The glory of so many exploits, heavy with the names of heroes,
went roaring from the Nile to the North, until at the shores of the Niemen
it was beaten back as from crags by the Muscovite lines that defended
Lithuania as with walls of iron against tidings terrible for Russia as the
plague.
And yet now and then, like a stone from the sky, news came even to
Lithuania; now and then an old man, lacking a hand or a foot, who was
begging his bread, would stand and cast cautious eyes around, when he had
received alms. If he saw no Russian soldiers in the yard, or Jewish caps,
or red collars, then he would confess who he was: he was a member of the
Polish legions, and was bringing back his old bones to that fatherland
which he could no longer defend. Then how all the family—how even the
servants embraced him, choking with tears! He would seat himself at the
board and tell of history more strange than fable; he would relate how
General Dombrowski33 was making efforts to penetrate from the Italian land
into Poland, how he was gathering his countrymen on the plains of
Lombardy; how Kniaziewicz34 was issuing commands from the Roman Capitol,
and how, as a victor, he had cast in the eyes of the French an hundred
bloody standards torn from the descendants of the Cæsars; how
Jablonowski35 had reached the land where the pepper grows and where sugar
is produced, and where in eternal spring bloom fragrant woods: with the
legion of the Danube there the Polish general smites the negroes, but
sighs for his native soil.
The words of the old man would spread secretly through the village; the
lad who heard them would vanish suddenly from home, would steal
mysteriously through the forests and swamps, pursued by the Muscovites,
would leap to hiding in the Niemen, and beneath its flood swim to the
shore of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, where he would hear sweet words of
greeting, “Welcome, comrade!” But before he departed, he would climb a
stony hill and call to the Muscovites across the Niemen: “Until we meet
again!” Thus there had stolen away Gorecki, Pac, and Obuchowicz;
Piotrowski, Obolewski, Rozycki, Janowicz, the Mirzejewskis, Brochocki and
the brothers Bernatowicz, Kupsc, Gedymin, and others whom I will not
enumerate; they had abandoned their kinsmen and their beloved land, and
their estates, which were seized for the Tsar’s treasury.
Sometimes there came to Lithuania a collector of alms from a foreign
convent, and after he became more closely acquainted with the lords of an
estate, he would show them a gazette, which he cut out from his scapulary.
In it would be set forth the number of soldiers and the names of all the
leaders in every legion; with an account of the victory of each or of his
doom. After many years, a family would have news for the first time of the
life, the glory, or the death of a son; the house would put on mourning,
but dared not tell for whom they mourned. The neighbours merely guessed
the news, and only the quiet grief of the gentry, or their quiet joy, was
the gazette of the peasants.
Robak was probably just such a mysterious collector of alms; he often
conversed apart with the Judge, and always after these talks tidings of
some sort spread abroad in the neighbourhood. The bearing of the
Bernardine betrayed the fact that this monk had not always worn a cowl,
and had not grown old within cloister walls. Over his right ear, somewhat
above his temple, he had a scar as broad as one’s palm, where the skin had
been sheared off; and on his chin was the recent trace of a lance or
bullet; these wounds he had surely not received while reading the missal.
But not merely his grim glance and his scars, even his movements and his
voice had something soldierlike about them.
At the Mass, when with uplifted arms he turned from the altar to the
people, in order to pronounce, “The Lord be with you,” he often turned as
skilfully—with a single movement—as if he were executing a
right-about-face at the command of his captain; and he pronounced the
words of the liturgy to the people in the same tone as an officer standing
before a squadron: the boys who served him at the mass remarked this.
Robak was also better versed in political affairs than in the lives of the
saints; and when he was riding about gathering alms he often tarried in
the district town. He had a multitude of interests: now he received
letters, which he never opened in the presence of strangers; now he sent
off messengers, but whither and for what he did not say; often he stole
out by night to the squires’ mansions, and continually whispered with the
gentry; he trudged through all the neighbouring villages, and in the
taverns talked not a little with the village boors, and always of what was
going on in foreign lands. Now he came to arouse the Judge, who had
already been an hour asleep; surely he had some tidings.