“Negotiations?” cried the Judge with unusual warmth, “I’m done with negotiations; I’ve finished with them, broken them off.”
“What’s this?” interrupted Robak, “where’s your sense, where’s your head? What nonsense are you telling me? What new row has come up?”
“It is not my fault,” said the Judge; “the trial will make the matter plain. That pompous, stupid Count was the cause of the squabble, and that rascal Gerwazy; but this is the business of the court. It is too bad that you were not in the castle at the supper, Father; you would have borne witness how fearfully the Count insulted me.”
“My dear sir,” cried Robak, “why did you insist on going to those ruins? You know that I cannot stand the castle; henceforth I will never set foot there again. Another brawl! The judgment of God be on us! How did it happen? Tell me! This matter must be hushed up. I am sick already of seeing so many acts of folly; I have more important business than to reconcile litigious squabblers; but I will reconcile you once again.”
“Reconcile? What do you mean! Go to the devil with your reconciliation!” interrupted the Judge, stamping his foot. “Look at this monk! Because I receive him courteously, he wants to lead me by the nose. Pray understand that the Soplicas are not wont to be reconciled; when they summon a man to court they must win their case. Sometimes a suit has continued in their name until they won it in the sixth generation. I committed folly enough by your advice when I convoked for the third time the Chamberlain’s court. From this day on there shall be no compromise, none, none, none!” (As he shouted these words he walked up and down and stamped both feet.) “Besides that, he must beg my pardon for his discourteous act of yesterday, or fight a duel!”
“But, Judge, what will happen if Jacek learns of this? He will certainly die of despair! Have not the Soplicas done evil enough in this castle? Brother, I do not wish to mention that terrible event, but you too know that the Targowica confederates took a part of the estate from the owner of the castle and gave it to the Soplicas. Jacek, repenting his sin, had to vow, when absolved, to restore those lands. So he took Zosia, the poor heiress of the Horeszkos, under his care, and he paid a great price for her bringing up. He wished to win her for his own son Thaddeus, and thus unite in brotherly affection two hostile houses, and yield without shame to the heiress what had been plundered from her.”
“But what have I to do with all this?” cried the Judge. “I have never been acquainted with Jacek — have not even seen him; I had scarcely heard of his riotous life, since I was then studying rhetoric in a Jesuit school, and later served as page with the Wojewoda. They gave me the estate and I took it; he told me to receive Zosia, and I received her and cared for her, and am planning for her future. I am weary enough of all this old wives’ tale! And then why did this Count intrude upon me here? With what right to the castle? You know, my friend, he’s only some sixteenth cousin to the Horeszkos, the tenth water on the kisiel. And he must insult me? and I invite him to a reconciliation!”
“Brother,” said the Monk, “there are weighty reasons for this. You remember that Jacek wanted to send his son to the army, but later let him remain in Lithuania: what reason was there for that? Why, at home he will be more useful to his country. You have surely heard the news of which every one is talking, and of which I have often brought tidings: now is the time to tell it all, now is the time! An important matter, my brother! Now the war is upon us! A war for Poland, brother! We shall be Poles once more! War is inevitable. When I hurried here on a secret mission, the vanguard of the army was already on the Niemen. Napoleon is already gathering an immense army, such as man has never seen and history does not remember; by the side of the French the whole Polish army is advancing, our Joseph, our Dombrowski, our white eagles! They are already on the march, at the first sign from Napoleon they will cross the Niemen; and, brother, our Fatherland will be restored!”
The Judge, as he listened, slowly folded his spectacles, and gazed fixedly at the Monk, but said nothing; he sighed deeply, and tears stood in his eyes — finally he clasped Robak about the neck with all his might, exclaiming: —
“My Robak, is this really true? My Robak,” he repeated, “is this really true? How many times they have deceived us! Do you remember, they said that Napoleon was already on the road? And we were waiting! They said, he is already in the Kingdom, he has already beaten the Prussians, and is coming in among us! And what did he do? He made peace at Tilsit. Is it really true? Are you not deceiving yourself?”
“It is the truth,” cried Robak, “as God is in Heaven!”
“Blessed be the lips that bring these tidings!” said the Judge, raising his hands on high. “You shall not regret your mission, Robak; your monastery shall not regret it; two hundred choice sheep I give to your monastery. Monk, yesterday you expressed a desire for my chestnut and praised my bay; to-day the two shall at once be harnessed to the waggon in which you gather alms. To-day ask me for what you wish, for whatever pleases you, and I will not refuse! But as to all that business with the Count, let me alone; he has wronged me, I have already summoned him to court — is it fitting that I should propose an accommodation?”
The astonished Monk wrung his hands. Fixing his eyes upon the Judge and shrugging his shoulders, he said: —
“So, when Napoleon is bringing liberty to Lithuania, when all the world trembles, then you are thinking of your lawsuit? And after all that I have told you will you sit calmly, folding your hands, when one must act?”
“Act? How?” asked the Judge.
“Have you not yet read it in my eyes?” replied Robak. “Does your heart still tell you nothing? Ah, brother, if you have one drop of the Soplicas’ blood in your veins, just consider: the French are striking from in front — what if we stir up a rising of the people from the rear? What do you think? Let our Warhorse neigh, let the Bear roar in Zmudz! Ah, if only a thousand men, if but five hundred should press from behind upon the Muscovites, and spread abroad the rising like fire; if we, seizing cannon and standards from the Muscovites, should go as conquerors to greet the deliverers of our kinsmen? We advance! Napoleon, seeing our lances, asks, ‘What army is that?’ We shout, ‘The insurgents, Most August Emperor; the volunteers of Lithuania!’ He asks, ‘Who is their commander?’— ‘Judge Soplica!’ Ah, who then would dare to breathe a word of Targowica? Brother, while Ponary stands, while the Niemen flows, so long will the name of the Soplicas be famous in Lithuania; to their grandsons and great-grandsons the capital of the Jagiellos will point, saying, ‘There is a Soplica, one of those Soplicas who first started the revolt.’ ”
“People’s talk is of small account,” answered the Judge. “I have never greatly cared for the praises of the world. God is my witness that I am innocent of my brother’s sins; in politics I have never meddled much, but have performed the duties of my office and ploughed my patch of ground. But I am a gentleman by birth, and should be glad to wipe out the blot on my escutcheon; I am a Pole, and should be glad to do some service for my country — even to lay down my life. With the sabre I was never over skilled, and yet some men have received slashes even from me. The world knows that at the time of the last Polish district assemblies I challenged and wounded the two brothers Buzwik, who —— But enough of this. What is your idea, sir? Should we take the field at once? To gather musketeers is easy; I have plenty of powder, and at the parish house the priest has some small cannon; I remember that Jankiel has told me that he has some points for lances, which I may take in case of need. He smuggled these lance-points in cases of goods, from Königsberg; we will take them, and make shafts at once. There will be no lack of sabres; the gentry will mount their steeds, my nephew and I at the head, and —— ? Somehow we’ll manage it!”
“O Polish blood!” exclaimed the Bernardine with emotion, leaping towards the Judge with open arms; “true child of the Soplicas! God ordains you to wipe out the sins of your vagabond brother. I have always respected you, but from this instant I love you, as though we were own br
others. Let us prepare everything, but it is not yet time to take the field; I myself will indicate the place and will inform you of the time. I know that the Tsar has sent messengers to Napoleon to ask for peace; the war is not yet proclaimed. But Prince Joseph has heard from Pan Bignon, a Frenchman, a member of the Imperial Council, that all these negotiations will come to nothing, that there will be war. The Prince sent me as a scout with instructions that the Lithuanians should be ready to announce to Napoleon when he came that they wish to unite anew with their sister, the Kingdom, and desire that Poland be restored. Meanwhile, brother, you must be reconciled with the Count; he is a crank, a trifle fantastic in his notions, but he is a good, honest young Pole; we need such; cranks are very necessary in revolutions, as I know from experience; even stupid fellows will be of service, so long as they are honest and under the authority of clever men. The Count is a magnate, and has great influence among the gentry; the whole district will rise if he joins the revolt; knowing his estate, every gentleman will say, ‘It must be a sure thing, since the magnates are in it; I will join directly.’ ”
“Let him make the first move,” said the Judge, “let him come here, let him beg my pardon. At any rate I am older than he, and hold an office! As for the lawsuit, we will refer it to arbitration.”
The Bernardine slammed the door.
“Well, a happy journey to you!” said the Judge.
The Monk mounted a vehicle standing by the threshold, lashed the horses with the whip, tickled their sides with the reins, and the carriage flew off and vanished in billows of fog; only now and then the grey cowl of the Monk rose above the mist like a vulture above the clouds.
The Apparitor had long ago arrived at the Count’s house. As an experienced fox, when the scent of bacon allures it, runs towards it but bears in mind the secret tricks of hunters; it runs, stops, sits up frequently, raises its brush, and with it as with a fan waves the breeze to its nostrils, and asks the breeze whether the hunters have not poisoned the food: so Protazy left the road and circled over the meadow around the house; he twirled his stick in his hand and pretended that he had somewhere seen some stray cattle; thus skilfully manœuvring he arrived close to the garden; he bent down and ran so that you would have said that he was trailing a land rail; then he suddenly jumped over the fence and plunged into the hemp.
In that thick, green, fragrant growth around the house there is a sure refuge for beasts and men. Often a hare, caught among the cabbages, leaps to find surer hiding in the hemp than in the shrubbery, for among the close-set stalks no greyhound can catch it, nor foxhound smell it out because of the strong odour. In the hemp a serving man, fleeing from the whip or the fist, sits quietly until his master has spent his wrath. And often even runaway peasant recruits, while the government is tracking them in the woods, are sitting in the hemp. And hence at the time of battles, forays, and confiscations, each side uses immense exertions to occupy a position in the hemp, which commonly extends forward to the walls of the mansion, and backward until it joins the hop fields, and thus covers their attack and retreat from the enemy.
Protazy, though a bold fellow, felt some terror, for the very smell of the leaves called to his mind various of his former adventures as apparitor — one after another — of which the hemp had been a witness: how once a gentleman of Telsze, Dzindolet, whom he had summoned to court, had put a pistol against his breast, and bidden him crawl under the table and from there bark out a recantation of that summons with a dog’s voice, so that the Apparitor had to run full speed for the hemp; how later Wolodkowicz, a haughty and insolent grandee, who used to break up district diets and violate courts of justice, receiving his official summons, had torn it into bits, and stationing footmen with clubs at the doors, had with his own hand held a bare sword over the Apparitor’s head, crying: “Either I will cut you down or you will eat your paper.” The Apparitor, like a cautious man, had pretended to begin to eat it, until, stealing up to the window, he had plunged into the hemp garden.
To be sure, at this time it was no longer the custom in Lithuania to defend oneself from a summons with the sabre or the whip, and an apparitor only got cursed now and then for his pains; but Protazy could not know of that change of customs, for it was long since he had carried any summons. Though he was always ready, though he himself had begged the Judge to let him, up till now the Judge, from a due regard for his advanced age, had refused his requests; to-day he had accepted his offer because of pressing need.
The Apparitor gazed and listened — all was quiet — slowly he thrust forward his hand through the hemp, and, separating the dense mass of stalks, swam through the greenery as a fisherman dives beneath the water. He raised his head — all was quiet — he stole up to the windows — all was quiet — through the windows he surveyed the interior of the mansion — all was empty. He stepped up on the porch, not without terror, and undid the latch — all was empty as in an enchanted house; he took out his summons, and read aloud the notification. But suddenly he heard a clatter, and felt a trembling of the heart, and wanted to run away; when from the door there came towards him a person — luckily well known to him! Robak! Both were surprised.
Evidently the Count had departed somewhere with all his train, and in a great hurry, for he had left the doors open. It was evident that he had been arming himself; on the floor lay double-barrelled muskets and carbines, besides ramrods and gunhammers and locksmith’s tools with which they had been repairing the arms. There were also gunpowder and paper; they had been making cartridges. Had the Count gone hunting with all his train? But why should he take hand arms? Here lay a rusty, hiltless sabre, there a sword with no belt; they must have been selecting weapons from this rubbish, and have ransacked even the old armouries. Robak surveyed with care the guns and swords, and then went out to the farmhouse to explore, looking for servants of whom he might inquire about the Count. In the deserted farmhouse he at length found two peasant women, from whom he learned that the master and his whole household had departed in a body, armed, along the road to Dobrzyn.
The hamlet of Dobrzyn has a wide reputation in Lithuania for the bravery of its gentlemen and the beauty of its gentlewomen. It was once powerful and populous, for when King Jan III. Sobieski had summoned the general militia by the “twigs,” the ensign of the wojewodeship had led to him from Dobrzyn alone six hundred armed gentry. The family had now grown small and poor; formerly at the courts of the magnates or in their troops, at forays, and at the district assemblies the Dobrzynskis used to find an easy living. Now they were forced to work for themselves, like mere serfs, except that they did not wear peasants’ russet doublets, but long white coats with black stripes, and on Sunday kontuszes. Also the dress of even the poorest of their women was different from the jackets of the peasants; they usually wore drilling or percale, herded their cattle in shoes not of bark but of leather, and reaped and even spun with gloves on.
The Dobrzynskis were distinguished among their Lithuanian brethren by their language and likewise by their stature and their appearance. They were of pure Polish blood, and all had black hair, high foreheads, black eyes, and aquiline noses. From the land of Dobrzyn they derived their ancient family, and, though they had been settled in Lithuania for four hundred years, they preserved their Masovian speech and customs. Whenever any one of them gave his son a name at baptism, he always used to choose as a patron a saint of the Kingdom, either Bartholomew or Matthias [Matyasz]. Thus the son of Maciej was always called Bardomiej, and again the son of Bartlomiej was called Maciej; the women were all christened Kachna or Maryna. In order to distinguish themselves amid such confusion, they took various nicknames, from some merit or defect, both men and women. Sometimes they would give a man several surnames, as a mark of the contempt or of the regard of his compatriots; sometimes the same gentleman was known by one name in Dobrzyn, and by a different title in the neighbouring hamlets. Imitating the Dobrzynskis, the rest of the gentry of the vicinity likewise assumed nicknames, or by-names. Now almost every family
employs them, but only a few know that they originated in Dobrzyn, and were necessary there, while in the rest of the country they became a custom through mere stupid imitation.
So Matyasz Dobrzynski, who was at the head of the whole family, had been called Cock-on-the-Steeple. Later, after the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four, he changed his nickname and was christened Hand-on-Hip; the Dobrzynskis themselves also called him Bunny our King, but the Lithuanians styled him the Maciek of Macieks.
As he over the Dobrzynskis, so his house ruled over the village, standing between the tavern and the church. To all appearances it was rarely visited and mere trash lived in it, for at the entrance stood posts without gates, and the garden was neither fenced nor planted; in the vegetable beds birches had grown up. Yet this old farmhouse seemed the capitol of the village, for it was handsomer and more spacious than the other cottages, and on the right side, where the living-room was placed, it was of brick. Near by were a storehouse, granary, barn, cow shed, and stable, all close together, as is usually the case among the gentry. The whole was uncommonly old and decayed; the house roofs shone as if made of green tin, because of the moss and grass, which grew as luxuriantly as on a prairie. The thatches of the barns were like hanging gardens of various plants, the nettle and the crimson crocus, the yellow mullen and the bright-coloured tassels of mercury. In them too were nests of various birds; in the lofts were dove-cotes, nests of swallows in the windows; white rabbits hopped about at the threshold and burrowed in the untrodden turf. In a word the place was like a birdcage or a warren.
But of old it had been fortified! Everywhere there were plenty of traces that it had undergone great and frequent attacks. Near the gateway there still lay in the grass a relic of the Swedish invasion, an iron cannon ball, as large as a child’s head; once the open gate had rested on that ball as on a stone. In the yard, among the weeds and the wormwood, rose the old stumps of some dozen crosses, on unconsecrated ground, a sign that here lay buried men who had perished by a sudden and unexpected death. When one eyed from close by the storehouse, granary, and cottage, he saw that the walls were peppered from ground to summit as with a swarm of black insects; in the centre of each spot sat a bullet, like a bumble-bee in its earthy burrow.
Adam Mickiewicz Collected Poetical Works Page 58