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 pa.s.s 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 n.o.ble 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 a.s.sessor 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 ma.s.sive belt, on which glittered ta.s.sels 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 h.o.r.eszko 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 amus.e.m.e.nts 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 G.o.d 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 sh.o.r.es 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 b.l.o.o.d.y standards torn from the descendants of the Caesars; 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 sh.o.r.e 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 Ma.s.s, when with uplifted arms he turned from the altar to the people, in order to p.r.o.nounce, "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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.s.s 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 mult.i.tude 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.
BOOK II.-THE CASTLE
ARGUMENT
Hunting the hare with hounds-A guest in the castle-The last of the retainers tells the story of the last of the h.o.r.eszkos-A glance into the garden-The girl among the cuc.u.mbers-Breakfast-Pani Telimena"s St. Petersburg story-New outbreak of the quarrel over Bobtail and Falcon-The intervention of Robak-The Seneschal"s speech-The wager-Off for mushrooms.
Who among us does not remember the years when, as a young lad, with his gun on his shoulder, he went whistling into the fields, where no rampart, no fence blocked his path; where, when you overstepped a boundary strip, you did not recognise it as belonging to another! For in Lithuania a hunter is like a ship upon the sea; wherever he will, and by whatever path he will, he roams far and wide! Like a prophet he gazes on the sky, where in the clouds there are many signs that the hunter"s eye can see; or like an enchanter he talks with the earth, which, though deaf to city-dwellers, whispers into his ear with a mult.i.tude of voices.
There a land rail calls from the meadow-it is vain to seek it, for it flees away through the gra.s.s like a pike in the Niemen; there above your head sounds the bell of early spring, the lark, hidden as deeply in the sky; there an eagle rustles with its broad wings through the airy heights, spreading terror among sparrows as a comet among stars; or a hawk, hanging beneath the clear blue vault, flutters its wings like a b.u.t.terfly impaled on a pin, until, catching sight in the meadow of a bird or a hare, it swoops upon it from on high like a falling star.
When will the Lord G.o.d permit us to return from our wanderings, and again to dwell upon our ancestral fields, and to serve in the cavalry that makes war on rabbits, or in the infantry that bears arms against birds; to know no other weapons than the scythe and the sickle, and no other gazettes than the household accounts!
Over Soplicowo arose the sun, and it already fell on the thatched roofs, and through the c.h.i.n.ks stole into the stable; and over the fresh, dark-green, fragrant hay of which the young men had made them a bed there streamed twinkling, golden bands from the openings of the black thatch, like ribbons from a braid of hair; and the sun teased the faces of the sleepers with its morning beams, like a village girl awakening her sweetheart with an ear of wheat. Already the sparrows had begun to hop and twitter beneath the thatch, already the gander had cackled thrice, and after it, as an echo, the ducks and turkeys resounded in chorus, and one could hear the bellowing of the kine on their way to the fields.
The young men had arisen; Thaddeus still lay dozing, for he had gone to sleep last of all. From the supper of the day before he had come back so disquieted that at c.o.c.kcrow he had not yet closed his eyes, and on his couch he tossed about so violently that he sank into the hay as into water; at last he fell sound asleep. Finally a cool breeze blew in his eyes, when the creaking doors of the stable were opened with a crash; and the Bernardine, Father Robak, came in with his belt of knotted cord, calling out, "Surge, puer!" and plying jocosely over his shoulders his knotted belt.
Already in the yard could be heard the cries of the hunters; horses were being led forth, waggons were coming up; hardly could the yard contain such a throng. The horns sounded, they opened the kennels. The pack of hounds rushing out whined joyfully; seeing the chargers of the huntsmen and the leashes of their keepers, the dogs as if mad scampered about the enclosure, then ran and put their necks in the collars. All this foreboded a very fine hunt; at last the Chamberlain gave the order to proceed.
The hunters started slowly, one after another, but beyond the gate they spread out in a long line; in the middle of it rode side by side the a.s.sessor and the Notary, and though they occasionally cast a malicious glance at each other, they conversed in friendly fashion, like men of honour, who were on their way to settle a mortal quarrel; no one from their words could have remarked their mutual hatred: the Notary led Bobtail, the a.s.sessor Falcon. The ladies in carriages brought up the rear; the young men, galloping alongside near the wheels, talked with the ladies.
Father Robak walked with slow steps about the yard, finishing his morning prayers, but he glanced at Thaddeus, frowned, smiled, and finally motioned to him with his finger. When Thaddeus rode up, Robak with his finger on his nose made him a threatening sign; but despite the requests and entreaties of Thaddeus that he would explain to him clearly what he meant, the Bernardine did not deign to answer or even to look at him again; he merely pulled his cowl over his face and finished his prayer: so Thaddeus rode off and joined the guests.
Just at that instant the hunters were holding their leashes and all were standing motionless in their places; each gave a sign to the other to be silent, and all had turned their eyes to a stone near which the Judge had halted: he had caught sight of the game, and was waving his arms in order to make his orders known. All understood him and stopped, and slowly across the field trotted the a.s.sessor and the Notary; Thaddeus, being nearer, arrived before them, paused beside the Judge, and gazed at the spot to which he was pointing. It was long since he, had been in the field; on the grey expanse it was hard to distinguish the grey rabbit, especially amid the stones. The Judge pointed him out; the poor hare was crouched cowering beneath a stone, p.r.i.c.king up its ears; with a crimson eye it met the gaze of the hunters; as if bewitched, and conscious of its destiny, for very terror it could not turn its eye away from theirs, but beneath the rock crouched dead as a rock. Meanwhile the dust in the field came nearer and nearer, Bobtail was running in his leash and after him the fleet Falcon; then the a.s.sessor and the Notary shouted at once behind them, "At him," and vanished with the dogs in clouds of dust.
While they were thus pursuing the hare, the Count made his appearance near the castle wood. All the neighbours knew that this gentleman could never present himself at the appointed time; to-day also he had overslept, and was therefore in a scolding humour with his servants. Seeing the hunters in the field, he galloped towards them, with the skirts of his long white coat, of English cut, trailing in the wind. Behind him were mounted servants, wearing little black shiny caps like mushrooms, short jackets, striped boots, and white pantaloons; the servants whom the Count thus costumed, in his mansion were called _jockeys_.
The galloping train was rushing towards the meadows, when the Count caught sight of the castle and checked his horse. It was the first time that he had seen the castle so early, and he could not believe that these were the same walls, so wonderful a freshness and beauty had the early morning imparted to the outlines of the building. The Count marvelled at so new a sight. The tower seemed to him twice as high, for it rose up above the early mist; the tin roof was gilded by the sun, and beneath it shone in the sashes fragments of the broken panes, breaking the eastern beams into many-coloured rainbows; the lower stories were wrapped in a mantle of mist that hid from the eye the cracks and huge nicks. The cries of the distant hunters, borne on the winds, echoed several times against the castle walls; you would have sworn that the cry came from the castle, that under the curtain of fog the walls had been restored and were again inhabited.
The Count liked new and unwonted sights, and called them romantic; he used to say that he had a romantic head, but truth to say he was an out-and-out crank. Sometimes when chasing a fox or a hare he would suddenly stop and gaze mournfully at the sky, like a cat when it sees a sparrow on a tall pine; often he wandered through the wood without dog or gun, like a run-away recruit; often he sat by a brook motionless, inclining his head over a stream, like a heron that wants to consume all the fish with its eye. Such were the queer habits of the Count; everybody said that there was some screw loose in him. Yet they respected him, for he was a gentleman of ancient lineage, rich, kind to his peasants, and affable and friendly with his neighbours, even with the Jews.
The Count"s horse, which he had turned off the road, trotted straight across the field to the threshold of the castle. The Count, left solitary, sighed, looked at the walls, took out paper and pencil, and began to draw.
Thereupon, looking to one side, he saw a dozen steps away a man who seemed likewise a lover of the picturesque; with his head thrown back and his hands in his pockets he seemed to be counting the stones with his eyes.
The Count recognised him at once, but he had to call several times before Gerwazy heard his voice. He was a man of gentle birth, a servitor of the ancient lords of the castle, the last that remained of the h.o.r.eszkos"
retainers; a tall grey-haired old man with a hale and rugged countenance, ploughed by wrinkles, gloomy and stem. Of old he had been famous among the gentry for his jollity; but since the battle in which the owner of the castle had perished, Gerwazy had changed, and now for many years he had not gone to any fair or merry-making; since then no one had heard his witty jests or seen a smile upon his face. He always wore the ancient livery of the h.o.r.eszkos, a long yellow coat with skirts, trimmed with lace that now was yellow, but once had doubtless been gilt; around its edge was embroidered in silk their coat of arms, the Half-Goat, and thence all the neighbours had given the t.i.tle of Half-Goat to the old gentleman.
Sometimes also, from a phrase that he incessantly repeated, they called him My-boy, sometimes Notchy, for his whole bald head was notched with scars. His real name was Rembajlo, but no one knew his coat of arms; he called himself the Warden, because years ago he had held that office in the castle. And he still wore a great bunch of keys at his girdle, on a band with a silver ta.s.sel, though he had nothing to open with them, for the gates of the castle stood gaping wide. However he had found two folding doors, which he had repaired and set up at his own expense, and he amused himself daily with unlocking these doors. In one of the empty rooms he had chosen a habitation for himself; though he might have lived at the Count"s mansion on alms, he refused, for he pined away everywhere else, and felt out of sorts unless he was breathing the air of the castle.
As soon as he caught sight of the Count, he s.n.a.t.c.hed the cap from his head, and honoured with a bow the kinsman of his lords, inclining a great bald pate that shone from afar and was slashed with many a sabre, like a chopping-block. He stroked it with his hand, came up, and, once more bending low, said mournfully:-
"My boy, young master-pardon me, that I speak thus to Your Excellency the Count; such is merely my custom, and it betokens no lack of respect. All the h.o.r.eszkos used to say "My boy"; the last Pantler, my lord, was fond of the phrase. Is it true, my boy, that you grudge a penny for a lawsuit, and are yielding this castle to the Soplicas? I would not believe it, yet so they say all through the district."
Here he gazed at the castle and sighed incessantly.
"What is there strange in that?" said the Count. "The cost is great and the bother greater yet; I want to finish up, but the stupid old gentleman is obstinate; he foresaw that he could tire me out. Indeed I cannot hold out longer, and to-day I shall lay down arms and accept such conditions of agreement as the court may offer me."
"Of agreement?" cried Gerwazy, "of agreement with the Soplicas? with the Soplicas, my boy?" (So speaking he contorted his lips as though he were amazed at his own words.) "Agreement with the Soplicas! My boy, young master, you are jesting, aren"t you? The castle, the abode of the h.o.r.eszkos, pa.s.s into the hands of the Soplicas! Only deign to dismount from the steed; let us go into the castle; just look it over a bit! You do not know yourself what you are doing; do not refuse; dismount!" And he held the stirrup for him to dismount.
They entered the castle; Gerwazy stopped at the threshold of the hall:-
"Here," he said, "the ancient lords, surrounded by their retinue, used often to sit in their chairs, after they had dined. The lord settled the disputes of the peasants, or good humouredly told various curious stories to his guests, or found amus.e.m.e.nt in their tales and jests. But in the courtyard the young men fought with staves or broke in the master"s Turkish ponies."
They entered the hall.-"In this immense paved hall," said Gerwazy, "you cannot find as many stones as tuns of wine have been broached here in the good old times. The gentry, when invited to a diet, a district a.s.sembly, a family holiday, or a hunting party, would pull the casks from the wine cellar on their girdles. During the banquet an orchestra was stationed in that gallery and played the organ36 and various other instruments; and when they proposed a health the trumpets thundered in chorus; the vivats followed in orderly succession, the first to the health of His Majesty the King, then to the Primate,37 then to Her Majesty the Queen, then to the Gentry and the whole Republic. But finally, after the fifth gla.s.s had been drunk, they always proposed, "Let us love one another!" a toast unceasing, which, proclaimed while daylight still lingered, thundered on till dawn, when horses and waggons stood ready to carry each guest to his lodging."
They pa.s.sed through several rooms; Gerwazy in silence now fixed his gaze on the wall and now on the vaulted ceiling, recalling now a sad and now a pleasant memory; sometimes, as though he would say, "All is over," he bowed his head in sorrow; sometimes he waved his hand-evidently even recollection was a torture to him and he wished to drive it off. Finally they paused, in a large room on the upper story, once set with mirrors; to-day the mirrors had been removed and the frames stood empty; the sashes lacked their panes; directly opposite the door was a balcony. Going out on it, the old man bowed his head in thought, and buried his face in his hands; when he uncovered it it wore an expression of great sadness and despair. The Count, though he did not know what all this meant, when he looked at the face of the old man felt a certain emotion, and pressed his hand. The silence lasted for a moment; then the old man broke it, shaking his uplifted right hand:-
"There can be no agreement, my boy, between the Soplica and the blood of the h.o.r.eszkos; in you flows the blood of the h.o.r.eszkos; you are a kinsman of the Pantler by your mother the Mistress of the Hunt, whose mother was the child of the second daughter of the Castellan,38 who was, as is well known, the maternal uncle of my lord. Now listen to a story of your own family, which took place in this very room and no other.