Pan Tadeusz
Page 21
Meanwhile, the throng surrounds the Count, and spills
Toward the inn. Just as in former days
The Steward has them use their belts to raise
Barrels up from the cellar—one, two, three,
With mead, vodka, and beer respectively.
He took the corks out; three bright torrents sprayed,
One white as silver, one carnelian red,
One gold—a triple rainbow arching up
Then splashing a hundred times in glass and cup.
Ebullience reigns; some drink, some toast the Count;
But “Strike Soplica now!” is what they want.
Jankiel left bareback, quietly; the Prussian,
Unlistened to despite his fine oration,
Went too—but, yelling “traitor!,” they gave chase.
Mickiewicz watched, not offering advice
Or shouting; but you could tell his thoughts were bad,
So at him with swords! Retreating some, he stood,
Hurt now; trapped by some fence posts, he fought back
Till Zan and three Czeczots drove off the attack.
The gentry were calmed; but in the ruckus there
Two fellows’ hands were cut, and someone’s ear.
The others mounted.
Count and Steward then
Gave orders, issued arms, marshaled the men.
At last they galloped off, all in a row,
Hollering loudly: “Strike the Soplicas now!”
Book VIII: The Foray
The Warden’s astronomy – The Chamberlain’s remarks on comets –
A mysterious scene in the Judge’s room –
Tadeusz, trying to disentangle himself, ends up in more trouble –
A latter-day Dido – The foray –
A last protestation from the Bailiff –
The Count takes Soplicowo –
Onslaught and massacre – Gerwazy the cellarman –
A feast to celebrate the foray
Before a storm there’s a moment still and sad
When the dark cloud that’s drifted overhead
Stops, glares, holds back the breathing of the wind
And, silent, with eyes of lightning looks around
To mark the spot where it will strike in time.
This calm was felt in the Soplica home.
An inkling of strange events hushed folks, it seemed,
And raised their souls to places where they dreamed.
The Judge and all those staying at the manor
Had gone to get some air after their dinner.
They sat on the grass-lined benches round the wall,
Somber and silent, gazing one and all
As the sky seemed to drop and to condense
As it approached the land, till all at once
The two of them, screened by a dark partition
Like lovers, began a secret conversation,
Telling their hearts with smothered sighs, in muttered
Whispers and murmurs, words only half-uttered
That make the eveningtime’s strange symphony.
First comes the tawny owl, moaning its cry
From the attic; bats’ frail wings whoosh by the house,
Drawn by a shining pane or human face;
While nearer, moths—sisters to bats—are writhing,
Attracted by the white of women’s clothing.
Zosia is plagued—her pale face gleams so bright
The moths mistake her eyes for candlelight.
A ring of insects forms, orbiting round
Like the armonica’s celestial sound.
Amid a thousand tones, Zosia can hear
Flies humming, the mosquito’s tuneless air.
Out in the meadow, the concert’s just begun.
The players tune up: the corncrake, first violin
Of the field, shrieks three times; the bitterns’ basses
Sound out in answer from the marshy places.
The snipe burst into flight; their voices thrum
Time and again, like the beating of a drum.
As a finale to the din of bird
And fly, two ponds in twin chorale were heard,
Like those enchanted lakes in the Caucasus
That, quiet by day, in the evening sing to us.
One had a shore and bottom of pale sand;
Its solemn deep-blue breast discreetly moaned.
The other, mud-bound, with a turbid throat
Responded in a plaintive, fervent shout.
Both ponds were lined with frogs in countless hordes:
Two choirs in unison sang two great chords,
One muted, one fortissimo; one faint
And sighing, one a boisterous complaint.
The two conversed like this, one then the other,
Like two Aeolian harps sounding together.
Dark thickened, though like candle flames wolves’ eyes
Shone by the creek and in among the trees.
Further, where the horizon closed in tight,
Fires glowed, built by the herdsmen of the night.
At last the moon lit up its silvery brand,
Emerged from the wood, and brightened sky and land.
These two, now half exposed, slept side by side
Like a contented husband and his bride;
Sky’s pristine arms were wrapped around the breast
Of earth, that soft and silvery moonlight graced.
Facing the moon one star, now two, were glimmering;
Now came a thousand, now a million shimmering.
The brothers Castor and Pollux first of all,
Called by the ancient Slavs Lel and Polel.
Now, in the local zodiac they were known
As Lithuania and The Polish Crown.
Nearby shone Libra’s balance; on the day
That God began creation (old folk say)
He weighed each planet and each earth, before
Placing its load in the vastness of the air,
Then hung up his golden scales when he was done.
Humans then copied them to make their own.
To the north, the Sifter’s starry ring shone high—
Through it, it’s thought, God sieved the grains of rye
He threw for Father Adam, whose trespasses
Had brought his banishment from Paradise.
Up higher is David’s Wagon, hitched and ready;
Its shaft shows where the North Star’s shining steady.
Old Lithuanians say this vehicle, famed
As David’s by the masses, is misnamed,
For it’s an angel’s carriage. In it rode
Lucifer on his way to wrestle God.
He’d galloped to heaven’s gate; Archangel Michael
Unseated him and made his axle buckle.
The carriage lies there, smashed, among the stars;
Michael won’t let them carry out repairs.
The ancient Lithuanians knew as well
(Learning it from the rabbis, I’ve heard tell)
That the zodiacal Dragon, winding thick
And long across the firmament, termed “Snake”
By the astronomers, is wrongly styled.
It’s fish, not snake; Leviathan it’s called.
It once lived in the seas; after the Flood,
However, the lack of water left it dead.
As a curio to be remembered by
The angels hung its body in the sky,
The way the priest bedecked the church at Mir
With ribs and bones of giants unearthed near there.
Such stories of the stars, heard once or culled
From different books he’d read, the Warden told.
His eyes w
ere weak, by night he couldn’t see
Despite his glasses; but from memory
He knew the constellations, pointing out
Each star’s location and its destined route.
Few listened; none seemed interested today
To know where Sifter, Scales, or Dragon lay.
Today what captured every mind and eye
Was a new guest seen lately in the sky:
A comet of great size and brilliance.
Moving from west to north, it looked askance
At the wagon, bloody-eyed, as if it were
Wanting the empty place of Lucifer.
It trailed its lengthy tail behind it, wrapping
A third part of the sky with it, and trapping,
As in a net, a thousand stars or more
Then hauling them north, toward the polar star.
All Lithuania, filled with dread untold,
Nightly would watch this spectacle unfold—
An evil sign, with other auguries:
Birds of ill omen gave portentous cries
And gathered in empty fields, bills sharpened, massed
As though expecting corpses for a feast.
Dogs, rooting obstinately in the earth,
Howled and howled shrilly, as if smelling death—
Betokening war or famine; foresters
Saw the Plague Maiden in the graveyard firs,
Head higher yet than where the treetops stand,
A bloodied scarf aflap in her left hand.
The chargehand, reporting in, discussed these things
With foreman and bookkeeper in whisperings
Across the fence, with musings various.
The Chamberlain, on his bench outside the house,
Broke in on the guests: he plainly wished to speak.
The moonlight struck his snuffbox (it was thick,
Of solid gold, with diamonds round the lid
And an image of King Stanisław inside).
He tapped it, took a pinch, and then said clearly:
“Mr. Tadeusz, your talk of stars is merely
What you recall from school. I’d rather hear
From simple folk when wondrous things appear.
For two whole years I studied astronomy
In Vilna, where Mrs. Puzynina—she
Was smart and rich—used money earned from crops
To purchase lenses and large telescopes.
Father Poczobut, famed astronomer
And dean of the Academy, was there—
Though later he gave up science and retired
Back to his quiet cell, where he expired
Most decorously. Śniadecki I knew too,
A layman—one of boundless learning though.
“Astronomers follow star and comet tracks
The way a carriage is watched by city folks:
They see it entering the royal town
Or leaving the city gates for parts unknown.
But who is in it? Why? And with the king
Did they talk peace, or else warmongering?
That they don’t ask.
I can recall the day
Branicki’s carriage took the Jassy way,
Dragging behind the wretched vehicle
Streams of confederates, like a comet’s tail—
The common folk, though not involved, could see
At once: that tail portended treachery.
This comet they call ‘the Broom’; with it, they say,
A million people will be swept away.”
The Warden bowed. “It’s true, dear Chamberlain.
I’m thinking of the things I heard back when,
In childhood. I’ve retained what I was told.
Although I was no more than ten years old
I met the late Sapieha, who’d come by—
Lieutenant in the armored cavalry,
Later a Marshal Royal, then at last
Grand Lithuanian Chancelor when he passed
At the age of a hundred ten. Under King John
He’d fought at Vienna, beneath the gonfalon
Of Hetman Jabłonowski. Sapieha, then,
Said that after the King had mounted, when
The Papal nuncio was giving his blessing
And an Austrian envoy at the stirrup kissing
The royal foot (Count Wilczek he was named):
‘What’s happening in the sky?’ the King exclaimed.
They look: crossing the heavens they see a comet
Traveling like the forces of Mahomet
From east to west. Later a panegyric
Called Orientis Fulmen, by a cleric—
One Bartochowski—on John’s victory
Mentioned that very comet frequently,
As did the book Janina, chronicling
The whole campaign commanded by the king,
Describing the printed banner of Mahomet
As well as the sky-sign like our present comet.”
“Your reading I accept,” the Judge declared;
“Amen! I hope the star brings John the Third.
Today there’s a great hero in the west.
Please God the comet bring him here at last.”
The Warden, head hung gloomily, demurred:
“A comet can mean war, or disaccord.
It’s bad it’s over Soplicowo—some
Household misfortune may await our home.
Yesterday we’d sufficient confrontation
Out hunting, and in mealtime conversation:
Assessor and Notary quarreling at the hunt,
Then later, Tadeusz challenging the Count.
They’d fought about the bear’s skin, seemingly.
Judge, if you hadn’t interrupted me
I would have calmed them then and there—you’d see.
I wanted to recount a curious case
That echoed yesterday’s eventful chase,
Involving the greatest hunters of my day—
Prince Nassau and Deputy Rejtan.
“Anyway,
Prince Czartoryski, Podolia’s governor,
Was crossing Volhynia, heading homeward—or
As I recall, was bound for the Warsaw Sejm.
For pleasure, or to burnish his good name,
En route he called on various people; one
Was the late Tadeusz Rejtan, who later on
Served as our Nowogródek deputy,
And in whose home I lived from infancy.
To mark the prince’s visit, numerous
Gentry were asked to come to Rejtan’s house.
There was a play (the prince loved plays, you know);
Kaszyc of Jatra gave a firework show;
Tyzenhauz sent some dancers; Ogiński, and
Sołtan of Zdzięcioł, each brought in a band.
The house was filled with revels, in a word,
While in the forests splendid hunts occurred.
“Now, everybody knows that almost all
The Czartoryskis that one can recall,
Though they’ve Jagiełło blood, are disinclined
To hunt—it’s not because they’re lazy, mind,
But from their foreign tastes. This one was found
With books rather than hounds; he hung around
In ladies’ chambers, not in the open air.
“Among the retinue of the Governor
Was the German Prince de Nassau, who, they said,
In Libya had left a tiger dead
Armed only with a lance, while hunting once
With Negro kings—a story that the Prince
Often retold. It was the season now
For boar hunts. Rejtan shot a massive sow—
To his great peril, given how c
lose he’d gone.
Everyone praised his aim. Nassau alone
Listened indifferently to the acclaim
And stood there muttering: if you asked him,
A well-aimed shot needs only a bold eye;
Cold steel needs a bold hand; and by and by
He trotted out his Libyan tale once more—
Lance, tiger, Negro kings—just as before.
Rejtan, a vigorous man, became morose.
He rapped his sword. ‘Prince!’ he asserted; ‘Those
Who boldly watch, fight boldly also. Boars
Are as good as tigers, sabres are no worse
Than lances.’ He and Nassau almost sparred.
Luckily the governor calmed them with a word
In French. I missed the phrase that he employed,
But the accord was hollow. Deep inside,
Rejtan was hurt; he swore he would repay
The German when the right moment came his way.
That moment almost left the man unwell;
It came the following day, as I shall tell.”
Raising his hand, the Warden here broke off
To ask the Chamberlain for a pinch of snuff.
He took some, but did not resume at once,
As if to build the feeling of suspense.
At last he started—but a man burst in
And stopped his gripping story once again!
It was the Judge’s servant, who declared
That someone with urgent business sought a word.
The Judge then bid goodnight to one and all.
The others soon dispersed, some down the hall,
Some heading to the barn, to take their rest.
The Judge went off to greet his nighttime guest.
All were asleep. Tadeusz trod the floor
Sentinel-like, outside his uncle’s door.
Head filled with weighty matters, he had to talk—
Now, before going to bed. He dared not knock:
The door was locked. The Judge was whispering
With someone. Tadeusz waited, listening.
Inside, someone was sobbing; cautiously
He peered through the keyhole, quiet as could be.
What a strange sight! The Judge and Robak, kneeling
In an embrace upon the ground, and wailing.
The monk kissed the Judge’s hands; the latter kept
Embracing Robak, as he wept and wept.
They stayed like this for fifteen minutes, then,
Speaking in a low voice, the monk began:
“Brother: God knows I’ve breathed no word till now.
I rued my sins, and so I made a vow:
I pledged my life to God and Homeland, spurning
Desire for earthly fame, and prideful yearning.
I’ve lived—and hoped to die—a Bernardine,