Father to the peasants, brother to gentry—yet
He had no son who could avenge his fate!
He’d loyal servants though; I dipped my sword,
Called Jackknife, in the blood shed by my lord
(No doubt you’ve heard of Jackknife—it’s renowned
From councils, markets—wherever I was found.)
I swore to notch it on Soplica bone.
On forays, at meetings, fairs I tracked them down.
Two I dispatched in duels, two in a fight.
In a foray on Koralicze made one night
With Rymsza, I burned one in a wooden house.
He fried like a fish. I won’t even mention those
Whose ears I cut off. One man alone, good sir,
Never received from me a souvenir!
The whiskered fellow’s brother is still about,
Flaunting his wealth. The Horeszko castle plot
Abuts his land. He’s held in great esteem,
He holds the office of judge! And what—to him
You’d give the castle? Let his unworthy foot
Step in my lord’s spilled blood and blot it out?
No! Not while I have breath left in my chest
And strength in a single finger at the least
For Jackknife—hanging on the wall still—never
Will a Soplica have this place—not ever!”
“Oh!” cried the Count, hands raised, “I knew at once
I liked these castle walls—I’d a sixth sense!
I’d no idea, though, quite how rich they’ve been
In drama, what thrilling incidents they’ve seen!
I’ll seize the castle back—you’ll be installed
As the commander—burgrave, you’ll be called.
Your tale, Gerwazy, captured me outright.
Too bad you didn’t bring me here by night—
I’d sit wrapped in a cloak among the stones
And you’d tell stories rife with blood and groans.
Too bad you’re not a gifted raconteur!
I’ve read quite widely in such literature.
Each English or Scottish lordly castle, or
Each German Graf’s estate, has slayings galore!
There, every wealthy noble family
Has some dark tale of death or treachery
Then vengeance entrusted to an ancestor.
I’ve never heard a Polish case before.
I sense Horeszko blood in every vein!
I know what I owe to glory and to kin.
With the Soplicas I must never settle!
Even if that means sword or pistol battle,
Honor demands it!”
Solemn now, he stirred.
Gerwazy followed him without a word.
The Count stopped in the gateway, muttering.
Eyeing the walls, he mounted, finishing
His monologue distractedly enough:
“Too bad that old Soplica has no wife,
Or lovely daughter that I could adore
And then not be allowed to marry her.
The tale would have yet one more convolution:
Heart versus duty; love or retribution!”
Mumbling such things, he spurred his horse; it surged
Toward the manor as the hunt emerged.
The Count loved hunting; seeing the riders there
He instantly forgot the whole affair
And hurried past gate and yard to them. By chance
He turned, looked—and pulled up beside the fence.
There was an orchard.
Fruit trees row by row
Shade a broad field, with vegetables below
In beds. Here, cabbages with bald gray pate
Sit pondering their vegetative fate.
There, beanstalks laced with carrot greens arise
And gaze upon them with a thousand eyes.
Elsewhere, the corncob’s golden plume juts out;
The bulging bellies of squash are strewn about—
Straying upon their stems, they have moved far
Toward where lines of deep red beetroot are.
Between the beds are ridges; on each one
There stands on guard a hemp plant, commonly known
As the vegetable cypress—upright, green, and still.
These plants protect the beds: no snake will crawl
Between their leaves; their scent in turn kills pests—
Bugs, caterpillars, other harmful beasts.
Further, the whitish stalks of poppies rise.
You’d think that they’d been mobbed by butterflies
Fluttering their lustrous wings: each one of them
Glints rainbow colors like a precious gem,
So iridescent is the poppy’s eye.
Amid the flowers, like a full moon high
Among the stars, the sunflower’s broad hot face
Turns east to west, tracking the sun through space.
Next to the fence a row of mounds appears,
Flowerless, treeless—here grow cucumbers.
They’re beautiful and lush; their foliage spreads
To make a lavish carpet for the beds.
A girl was walking there in a white dress,
Up to her knees in verdant lusciousness.
Among the furrows she didn’t walk, you’d swear,
But swam in leaves, bathed in the greenness there.
She wore a hat of straw; from under it
Two ribbons fluttered pink, while from her plait
There had escaped the odd loose, light blond strand.
She’d downcast eyes, a basket in one hand,
Arm raised, as if for catching, toward the bushes;
Like a maiden bathing, chasing off the fishes
That tickle her feet, she stooped time and again
To pick some piece of fruit that she had seen
Or had felt brushing up against her foot.
The Count, enchanted by this marvelous sight,
Stood quietly. Hearing hoofbeats to the side,
He signaled his men to pause there; they complied.
He stood, neck stretching like a long-billed crane
That waits and watches, far from its flock, alone,
Perching on one leg vigilantly, and gripping
A rock in the other foot to keep from sleeping.
The Count felt something graze his back, and stirred:
Robak the friar was there, his knotted cord
Raised in one hand. “After a cucumber?”
He cried; “I’ll give you cucumber, young sir!
Off with you now! None of this garden’s fruit
Is meant for you—don’t even dream of it.”
He wagged a finger, rearranged his hood,
Then walked off. For a while the Count still stood,
Laughing, yet cursing at this obstacle.
His eye went back to the garden, but the girl
Was gone—though deep among the leaves and grass
He glimpsed pink ribbons and a pale white dress.
Her path among the beds was clearly traced,
Since all the foliage where her feet had passed
Had risen and swayed before resettling,
Like water ruffled by a small bird’s wing.
Where she had stood, a wicker basket hung there;
Upturned among the plants and grass it swung there,
Emptied of fruit—all there remained to see
Among the billowing waves of greenery.
A moment later, all was silent here.
The Count stared at the house and bent an ear,
Still pensive; still his men waited behind.
Then, from the quiet mansion came the sound
As in an empty beehive when the bees
Come back: the hunting party was returning
And breakfast preparations were beginning.
In every room there was a to-ing and fro-ing;
Silverware, dishes, bottles coming and going.
Still in their hunting green, the men strolled round
From room to room with plates and drinks, or leaned
Against a door frame, talking for dear life
Of hares, hounds, guns. The Chamberlain, his wife,
And the Judge were at table; in a corner seat
Young ladies whispered. It wasn’t the etiquette
Of lunch or dinner; in this old Polish home
Customs like these were new. At breakfast time
The Judge allowed such disarray, albeit
Reluctantly—he didn’t like to see it.
The ladies and gentlemen had various dishes.
Huge trays patterned with lovely floral washes
Bore coffee services—each kitted out
With a steaming, aromatic metal pot
And gilded cups of Meissen porcelain,
A tiny bowl of cream beside each one.
Such coffee can’t be found in other nations.
In decent Polish homes with old traditions
A special maid makes coffee—she is known
As the coffee mistress. She buys fine beans, in town
Or from the barges; and she has acquired
The secret ways by which the drink’s prepared.
It has coal’s blackness, amber’s bright transparency,
The density of honey, mokka’s fragrancy.
What cream is to good coffee, everyone knows.
Out here it abounds; the coffee mistress goes
To the dairy once the pots are on the heat
And skims the milk herself, collecting it
Adroitly, in small bowls, so that each cup
Should have a bowl with its own skin on top.
The older ladies, who had long been up,
Had drunk their coffee; now a special soup
Had been prepared for them to eat: beer, heated
And whitened with cream, in which chopped curd cheese floated.
The men had cold cuts served up by the score:
Smoked goose meat, tongue sliced finely, hams galore,
All splendid, all homemade—smoked by the fire
With smoke that came from burning juniper.
A beef roulade brought matters to a close.
Such, then, was breakfast in the Judge’s house.
In separate rooms, two different groups took shape.
The older folk round a small tabletop
Spoke of new farming methods being used,
And the worsening ukases being imposed.
The Chamberlain weighed the talk of war there’d been
And what, politically, it all might mean.
Donning dark glasses, the Warden’s daughter told
Kabbalah fortunes to the Chamberlain’s child.
In the other room, the men discussed the hunt
In calmer, quieter tones than they were wont:
The two big talkers, Assessor and Notary—
Fine marksmen both, each an authority
On hunting—sat there mad, without a word.
They’d loosed their hounds correctly; each was assured
Of winning. But out there in the field there’d been
A strip of peasant crop left still unmown.
The hare ran in, both hounds in close pursuit.
The Judge, though, stopped the men from following it.
They had to obey him, furious as they were.
The dogs came out, and no one knew for sure
Whether the hare had bolted, or been caught
By Falcon, Bobtail, both together, or what.
Different beliefs were argued by each side,
But the dispute remained unclarified.
The aged Warden passed from group to group.
His gaze ranged over both, but did not stop.
Taking no part in either conversation,
He clearly had his own preoccupation.
He carried a leather swatter; he stood by
Musing, and every so often killed a fly.
Tadeusz and Telimena stood together
In a nearby doorway, talking with each other—
Whispering, in fact, as others sat close by.
Tadeusz learned a thing or two that day:
That his Aunt Telimena was well-off;
And that their kinship was not close enough
For church objections—it wasn’t even clear
If they were linked by blood, though to be sure
His uncle called her “sister,” a term used once
By shared relations, despite the difference
In age; that, settled in the capital,
She’d helped the Judge in ways innumerable;
He esteemed her, then, and—maybe from vanity—
He called himself her brother in company,
While out of friendship Telimena consented.
Tadeusz was eased to hear what she recounted.
The two shared many other things as well—
All in the shortest time it takes to tell.
But in the right-hand room the Notary, baiting
The Assessor, blithely said: “It bears repeating:
Our hunt could never have worked. It’s far too soon—
Much of the mowing hasn’t yet been done,
And many peasant fields still have their crop.
That’s why the Count, though asked, did not show up.
As an acknowledged expert on the chase
He’s often said there’s a right time and place.
He lived abroad from childhood, and he says
That it’s a symptom of barbaric ways
To hunt like this, without consideration
For any statute, law, or regulation,
Respecting no one’s boundary markers, going
Across an owner’s land without his knowing;
In spring or summer crossing field and wood,
Killing a fox that’s molting, feeling bad
When the hounds run into winter crop and there
Pursue, or rather torment, a pregnant hare,
Harming the game. The Count’s complaint is thus
That the Russians are more civilized than us.
The Tsar’s laws govern hunting; the police
Keep watch, and there are fines if you transgress.”
Telimena turned toward the hunters, fanned
Her shoulders, cambric handkerchief in hand,
And said: “The Count is quite correct, I swear.
I know Russia well. People round here
Never believe me that in many ways
The government’s watchful strictness merits praise.
I’ve been in Petersburg extensively!
All those sweet images in my memory!
Have any of you been in that fine town?
I’ll show you—in my desk drawer I’ve a plan.
“For summer, Petersburg society
Has dachas—village mansions (‘dacha,’ you see,
Means ‘village’). For a while I lived in one
On the Neva—close, but not too close, to town—
Built on a man-made hill. I did adore
That home! I’ve kept a house plan in my drawer.
Alas, a petty bureaucrat on a case
Rented a house adjacent to my place.
The man kept dogs. It’s ghastly when one’s grounds
Adjoin a petty bureaucrat’s with his hounds!
Wh
enever I’d take my book outside to thrill
At the bright moonlight and the evening chill,
A dog would appear, wagging its tail, its head
Cocked, ears pricked up, as if the thing was mad.
I’d feel afraid; my heart was warning me
Things would end badly. So it turned out to be.
One dawn a hound came bounding through the trees
As I walked out, and killed my sweet Maltese!
That darling dog! She’d been a gift, you know,
From Prince Bitchevsky—a memento. Oh,
Quick as a squirrel she was—and smart as well!
Her picture’s in my drawer, though I don’t feel
Like fetching it. The shock was so atrocious
I’d palpitations, spasms—it made me nauseous.
“Things could have worsened, but I’d a visitor:
The Master of the Hunt who served the Tsar,
Kiril Gavrylich Kozodushin. He
Asked me the reason for my malady.
He had the official dragged in by one ear.
The fellow stood there pale, half dead from fear.
“How dare you,” Kiril roared, “hunt pregnant does
During the spring—beneath the Tsar’s own nose!”
In vain did the official, scared beyond reason,
Swear that he hadn’t hunted once all season;
That, begging your honor’s leave, it seems as though
The victim was a dog and not a doe.
“What’s that?” cried Kiril. “You’ve the gall to claim
That you know more of hunting and of game
Than I myself—chief huntsman of the Tsar?
We’ll ask the police chief for a ruling, sir.”
So the police chief comes to investigate.
Says Kozodushin, “I do solemnly state
It was a doe, not a lapdog—he’s inventing.
Think—which of us is better versed in hunting?”
The police chief, knowing his duty, voiced a sense
Of wonder at the man’s impertinence.
He took him aside and urged him to confess,
Thus making his transgression somewhat less.
Kozodushin promised, now he was appeased,
To ask the Tsar to have the sentence eased.
So in the end the hounds were hanged; the man
—The bureaucrat—did four weeks in the can.
This trifle kept us amused all evening long.
The story spread of how my lapdog’s wrong
Came to involve the Master of the Hunt.
The Tsar himself was charmed by the account.”
Both rooms were laughing. The Judge sat with the friar
At mariasz. The Judge’s hand, raised in the air,
Was poised to place a trump; the monk breathed hard,
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