Pan Tadeusz Part 15

"Where you go," cried all the gentry, "where you go, there will we go also! Long live the h.o.r.eszkos! Vivant the Half-Goats! Vivat the Warden Rembajlo! Down with the Soplica!"

And thus the eloquent Gerwazy carried them all away, for all had their grudges against the Judge, as is usual among neighbours; now complaints of damage done by cattle, now for the cutting of wood, now squabbles over boundary lines: some were aroused by anger, others merely by envy for the wealth of the Judge-all were united by hatred. They crowded about the Warden, and raised aloft sabres and sticks.

At last Maciek, hitherto sullen and motionless, rose from his bench and with slow steps came out into the middle of the room and put his hands on his hips: looking straight before him and nodding his head, he began to speak, p.r.o.nouncing slowly every word, pausing between them and emphasising them:-

"O stupid, stupid idiots! Whoever dances, you will pay the piper. So long as the discussion was over the resurrection of Poland and had to do with the public weal, idiots, all this time you quarrelled! It was impossible, idiots, either to debate, idiots, or to get order among you, or to put a leader over you, idiots! But let any one raise his private grudges, idiots, then straightway you agree! Get out of here! for, as my name is Maciek, I wish you to millions, hundreds of hundreds of thousands of waggons of hogsheads, of drays of devils!!!"

All were hushed as if struck by lightning! But at the same moment a terrible shouting arose outside the house, "Vivat the Count!" He was riding into Maciej's yard, armed himself, and followed by ten armed jockeys. The Count was mounted on a mettled steed and dressed in black garments; over them a nut-brown cloak of Italian cut, broad and without sleeves, and fastened at the neck with a buckle, fell from his shoulders like a great shroud. He wore a round hat with a feather, and carried a sword in his hand; he wheeled about and saluted the throng with the sword.

"Vivat the Count!" they cried; "we will live and die with him!" The gentry began to gaze out of the cottage through the windows, and to press continually towards the door behind the Warden. The Warden went out, and behind him the crowd tumbled through the door; Maciek drove out the remnant, shut the door, bolted it, and, looking out through the window, said once more, "Idiots!"

But meanwhile the gentry had rallied to the Count. They went to the tavern; Gerwazy called to mind the days of old, and bade them give him three Polish girdles, by means of which he drew from the vaults of the tavern three casks, one of mead, the second of brandy, and the third of beer. He took out the spigots, and immediately three streamlets spurted forth, gurgling, one white as silver, the second red as carnelian, the third yellow: with a triple rainbow they played on high; they fell in a hundred cups and hummed in a hundred gla.s.ses. The gentry ran riot: some drank, others wished a hundred years to the Count, all shouted, "Down with the Soplica!"

Jankiel rode off on horseback, silently, without saddle; the Prussian likewise, unheard, though he still discoursed eloquently, tried to slip away; the gentry chased him, crying that he was a traitor. Mickiewicz stood apart, at some distance, without either shouting or giving counsel, but from his air they perceived that he was plotting something evil: so they drew their blades, and at the shout of "Down with him" he retreated, and defended himself; he was already wounded and leaning on the fence, when Zan and the three Czechots sprang to his aid. After this the men were separated, but in that scuffle two had been wounded in the hand, and one had got cut over the ear. The rest were mounting their horses.

The Count and Gerwazy marshalled them and distributed arms and orders. At last, all started at a gallop down the long street of the hamlet, crying, "Down with the Soplica!"

BOOK VIII.-THE FORAY

ARGUMENT

The Seneschal's astronomy-The Chamberlain's remarks on comets-Mysterious scene in the Judge's room-Thaddeus, wis.h.i.+ng to extricate himself dexterously, gets into serious trouble-A new Dido-The foray-The last protest by an Apparitor-The Count conquers Soplicowo-Storm and ma.s.sacre-Gerwazy as butler-The banquet after the foray.

BEFORE a thunderstorm there is a quiet, sullen moment, when the cloud that has gathered over men's heads stops and with threatening countenance checks the breath of the winds; it is silent, but surveys the earth with the eyes of the lightnings, marking the spots where soon it will cast bolt after bolt: such a moment of calm rested over the house at Soplicowo. You would have thought that a presentiment of unusual events had closed all lips, and had borne off the spirits of all into the land of dreams.

After supper the Judge and his guests went out into the yard to enjoy the evening, and seated themselves on benches of turf built along the house wall. The whole company, in gloomy, quiet att.i.tudes, gazed at the sky, which seemed to grow lower and narrower, and to approach the earth nearer and nearer, until both, hiding beneath a dark veil, like lovers, began a mysterious discourse, interpreting their feelings in the stifled sighs, whispers, murmurs, and half-uttered words, of which the marvellous music of the evening is composed.

The owl began it, hooting from beneath the house roof; the bats rustled with flimsy wings, and flew towards the house, where shone the panes of the windows and human faces; but nearer, the little sisters of the bats, the moths, hovered in a swarm, attracted by the white garments of the women; they were especially troublesome to Zosia, beating against her face and her bright eyes, which they mistook for two candles. In the air an immense cloud of insects gathered and whirled about, playing like the music of the spheres; Zosia's ear distinguished amid the thousand noises the accord of the flies and the false half-tone of the mosquitoes.

In the fields the evening concert had hardly begun; the musicians were just finis.h.i.+ng the tuning of their instruments: already the land rail, the first violin of the meadow, had shrieked thrice; already from afar the bitterns seconded it with a ba.s.s boom below in the marshes; already the woodc.o.c.ks were rising up with whirling flight, uttering repeated cries, as though they were beating on drums.

As a finale to the humming of the insects and the din of the birds there resounded in a double chorus two ponds, like enchanted lakes in the Caucasus mountains, silent through all the day and playing at evening. One pond, which had clear depths and a sandy sh.o.r.e, gave forth from its blue chest a gentle, solemn call; the other pond, with a muddy bottom and a turbid throat, answered it with a mournfully pa.s.sionate cry. In both ponds sang countless hordes of frogs; the two choruses were attuned into two great accords: one thundered fortissimo, the other gently warbled; one seemed to complain, the other only sighed; thus the two ponds conversed together across the fields, like two aeolian harps that play alternately.

The darkness was thickening; only in the woods and among the willows along the streamlet the eyes of wolves shone like candles, and farther off, on the narrowed borders of the horizon, here and there were the fires of shepherds' camps. Finally the moon lighted her silver torch, came forth from the wood, and illumined both sky and land. Now they both, half uncovered from the darkness, slept side by side, like a happy married pair; the heaven took into its pure arms the breast of the earth, which shone silvery in the moonlight.

Now, opposite the moon, first one star and then another began to s.h.i.+ne; now a thousand of them, and now a million twinkled. Castor and his brother Pollux glittered at their head, once called among the Slavs Lele and Polele;139 now they have been christened anew in the people's zodiac; one is called Lithuania and the other the Kingdom.140

Farther off glitter the two pans of the heavenly Scales. Upon them G.o.d on the day of creation-as old men say-weighed in turn the earth and all the planets before he set the burden of them in the abysses of the air; then he hung up in heaven the gilded scales: on these men have modelled their balances and scale pans.

To the north s.h.i.+nes the circle of the starry Sieve,141 through which G.o.d, as they say, gifted grains of corn, when he cast them down from heaven for Adam our father, who had been banished for his sins from paradise.

Somewhat higher, David's Car,142 ready for mounting, turns its long pole towards the north star. The old Lithuanians know, concerning this chariot, that the populace err in calling it David's, since it is the Angel's Car.

On it long ago rode Lucifer, when he summoned G.o.d to combat, rus.h.i.+ng at full gallop along the Milky Way towards the threshold of heaven, until Michael threw him from his car, and cast the car from the road. Now it is stretched out ruined amid the stars; the Archangel Michael will not allow it to be repaired.

And it is also well known among the old Lithuanians-but this knowledge they probably derived from the rabbins-that the huge, long Dragon of the zodiac, which winds its starry coils over the sky, and which astronomers erroneously christen a serpent, is not a serpent, but a fish, and is named Leviathan. Long ago it dwelt in the seas, but after the deluge it died for lack of water; hence on the vault of heaven, both as a curiosity and as a reminder, the angels hung up its dead remains. In the same way the priest of Mir has hung up in his church the ribs and shanks of giants that have been dug from the earth.143

Such stories of the stars, which he had conned from books or learned from tradition, did the Seneschal relate. Though in the evening the old Seneschal's sight was weak, and he could see nothing in the sky through his spectacles, yet he knew by heart the name and form of every constellation; with his finger he indicated their places and their paths.

To-day they listened little to him, and gave no heed at all to the Sieve, or to the Dragon, or even to the Scales; to-day the eyes and thoughts of all were absorbed by a new guest, recently observed in the sky. This was a _comet_ of the first magnitude and power,144 which had appeared in the west and was flying towards the north; with a b.l.o.o.d.y eye it looked askance upon the Chariot, as though it wished to seize the empty place of Lucifer; behind, it threw out a long tail, and with it encircled a third part of the sky, gathered in hundreds of stars as with a net, and drew them after it; but it aimed its own head higher, towards the north, straight for the polar star.

With inexpressible apprehension all the Lithuanian folk gazed each night at this heavenly marvel, foreboding ill from it, and likewise from other signs: for too often they heard the cries of ill-omened birds, which, gathering in throngs on empty fields, sharpened their beaks as if awaiting corpses. Too often they noticed that the dogs rooted up the earth, and, as if scenting death, howled piercingly, which was an omen of famine or of war. But the forest guards beheld how through the graveyard walked the Maid of Pestilence, whose brow rises above the highest trees, and who waves in her left hand a b.l.o.o.d.y kerchief.145

From all this the Overseer drew various conclusions, as he stood by the fence after coming to report on the work; so likewise did the Bookkeeper, who was whispering with the Steward.

But the Chamberlain was seated on the bench of turf before the house. He interrupted the conversation of the guests, a sign that he was preparing to speak; in the moonlight shone his great snuffbox (all of pure gold, set with diamonds; in the middle of it was a portrait of King Stanislaw, under gla.s.s); he tapped on it with his fingers, took a pinch, and said:-

"Thaddeus, your talk about the stars is only an echo of what you have heard in school; as to marvels I prefer to take the advice of simple people. I too studied astronomy for two years at Wilno, where Pani Puzynin, a wise and a rich woman, had given the income of a village of two hundred peasants for the purchase of various gla.s.ses and telescopes.

Father Poczobut,146 a famous man, was in charge of the observatory, and at that time rector of the whole university; however he finally abandoned his professor's chair and his telescope and returned to his monastery, to his quiet cell, and there he died as a good Christian should. I am also acquainted with Sniadecki,147 who is a very wise man, though a layman. Now the astronomers regard planets and comets just as plain citizens do a coach; they know whether it is drawing up before the king's palace, or whether it is starting abroad from the city gates; but who was riding in it, and why, of what he talked with the king, and whether the king dismissed the amba.s.sador with peace or war-of all that they do not even inquire. I remember in my time when Branicki started in his coach to Ja.s.sy,148 and after that dishonourable coach streamed a train of Targowica confederates, as the tail follows that comet. The plain people, though they did not meddle in public deliberations, guessed at once that that train was an omen of treason. The report is that the folk has given the name of broom to this comet, and says that it will sweep away a million men." And in reply the Seneschal said with a bow:-

"That is true, Your Excellency the Chamberlain. I remember myself what was once told me when I was a little child; I remember, though I was not ten years old at the time, how I saw at our house the late Sapieha, lieutenant of a regiment of cuira.s.siers, who later was Court Marshal of the Kingdom, and finally died as Grand Chancellor of Lithuania, at the age of one hundred and ten years; when Jan III. Sobieski was king, he had served in the Vienna campaign under the command of the hetman Jablonowski. So this Chancellor related that just at the moment when King Jan III. was mounting his horse, when the papal nuncio had blest him for the journey, and the Austrian amba.s.sador was kissing his foot as he handed him the stirrup (the amba.s.sador was named Count Wilczek), the King cried: 'See what is going on in Heaven!' They beheld that over their heads was advancing a comet by the same path that the armies of Mahomet had taken, from the east to the west.

Later Father Bartochowski, who composed a panegyric for the triumph at Cracow, under the t.i.tle _Orientis Fulmen_,149 discoursed much about that comet; I have also read of it in a work called _Janina_,150 in which the entire expedition of the late King Jan is described, and where there is engraved the great standard of Mahomet, and just such a comet as we see to-day."

"Amen," said the Judge in reply, "I accept your augury that a Jan III. may appear along with the star! To-day there is a great hero in the west; perhaps the comet will bring him to us: which may G.o.d grant!"

Sorrowfully drooping his head, the Seneschal replied:-

"A comet sometimes forebodes wars, and sometimes mere brawls! It is not good that it has appeared here over Soplicowo; perhaps it threatens us with some household misfortune. Yesterday we had wrangling and disputes enough, both at the time of the hunt and during the banquet. In the morning the Notary quarrelled with the a.s.sessor, and Thaddeus challenged the Count in the evening. The disagreement seems to have arisen from the bear's hide, and if my friend the Judge had not hindered me, I should have reconciled the two adversaries right at the table. For I should have liked to tell a curious incident, similar to what occurred at our hunt yesterday, which happened to the foremost sportsmen of my time, the deputy Rejtan and the Prince de Na.s.sau. The occurrence was as follows:-

"Prince Czartoryski,151 the general of Podole, was travelling from Volhynia to his Polish estates, or, if I remember correctly, to the Diet at Warsaw. On his way he visited the gentry, partly for amus.e.m.e.nt, and partly to win popularity; so he called upon Pan Thaddeus Rejtan,152 to-day of holy memory, who was later our deputy from Nowogrodek, and in whose house I grew up from childhood. So Rejtan, on the occasion of the Prince's coming, had invited guests, and the gentry had gathered in large numbers.

There were theatrical entertainments (the Prince was devoted to the theatre); Kaszyc, who lives in Jatra, gave fireworks; Pan Tyzenhaus153 sent dancers; and Oginski154 and Pan Soltan, who lives in Zdzienciol, furnished musicians. In a word, at home they offered entertainments gorgeous beyond expectation, and in the forest they arranged a mighty hunt. It is well known to you gentlemen that almost all the Czartoryskis within the memory of man, though they spring from the blood of the Jagiellos, are nevertheless not over keen on hunting, though certainly not from laziness, but from their foreign tastes; and the Prince General looked oftener into books than into kennels, and oftener into ladies'

alcoves than into the forests.

"In the Prince's suite was a German, Prince de Na.s.sau,155 of whom they related that, when a guest in the Libyan country, he had once gone hunting with the Moorish kings, and there with a spear had overcome a tiger in hand to hand combat, of which feat that Prince de Na.s.sau boasted greatly.

In our country, at that time, they were hunting wild boars; Rejtan had killed with his musket an immense sow, at great risk to himself, for he shot from close by. Each of us admired and praised the sureness of the aim; only the German, de Na.s.sau, listened with indifference to such compliments, and, walking off, muttered in his beard that a sure aim proved only a bold eye, but that cold steel proved a bold hand; and once more he began to talk big about his Libya and his spear, his Moorish kings and his tiger. This began to be annoying to Pan Rejtan, who, being a quick-tempered man, smote his sword and said: 'My Lord Prince, whoever looks boldly, fights boldly; wild boars are equal to tigers, and sabres to spears.' Then the German and he began somewhat too lively a discussion.

Luckily the Prince General interrupted their dispute, and reconciled them, speaking in French; what he said to them I know not, but that reconciliation was only ashes over live coals: for Rejtan took the matter to heart, bided his time, and promised to play the German a good trick.

This trick he almost atoned for with his own life, but he played it the next day, as I will tell you immediately."

Here the Seneschal paused, and, raising his right hand, asked the Chamberlain for his snuffbox; he took several pinches, but did not vouchsafe to finish his tale, as though he wished to sharpen the curiosity of his hearers. At last he was beginning-when that tale, so curious and so diligently hearkened to, was again interrupted! For some one had unexpectedly sent a man to the Judge, with the message that he was waiting on business that brooked no delay. The Judge, wis.h.i.+ng them good night, bade farewell to the company: immediately they scattered in various directions; some went into the house to sleep, others into the barn, to rest on the hay; the Judge went to give audience to the traveller.

The others were already asleep. Thaddeus wandered about the hallway, pacing like a watchman near his uncle's door, for he had to seek his counsel about important affairs, on that very day, before he went to sleep. He did not dare to knock, for the Judge had locked the door and was talking secretly with somebody; Thaddeus awaited the end of the interview and p.r.i.c.ked up his ears.

From within he heard a sobbing; without touching the latch he cautiously looked through the keyhole. He saw a marvellous thing! The Judge and Robak were kneeling on the floor in each other's embrace, and were weeping hot tears; Robak was kissing the Judge's hands, while the Judge, weeping, embraced Robak around the neck; finally, after a pause of a quarter of an hour in their talk, Robak softly spoke these words:-156

"Brother, G.o.d knows that till now I have never betrayed the secrets that, in repentance for my sins, I vowed at my confession to keep inviolate; that, entirely devoted to G.o.d and to my country, not serving pride, nor seeking earthly glory, I have lived till now and wished to die a Bernardine monk, concealing my name not only from the crowd, but from you and from my own son! However, the provincial has given me permission to make the disclosure _in articulo mortis_. Who knows whether I shall return alive! Who knows what will happen in Dobrzyn! Brother, affairs are frightfully, frightfully confused! The French are still far away, we must wait till the winter is over, but the gentry may not restrain themselves.

Perhaps I have been too active in stirring up the insurrection! They may have understood me ill! The Warden has spoiled all! That crazy Count, I hear, has rushed away to Dobrzyn; I could not head him off, for an important reason: old Maciek has recognised me, and if he betrays me I must needs bow my neck beneath the penknife. Nothing will restrain the Warden! My life matters little, but by that disclosure I should destroy the foundations of the plot.

"And yet! I must be there to-day, and see what is going on, though I peris.h.!.+ Without me the gentry will run wild! Farewell, my dearest brother!

Farewell, I must hasten. If I perish, you alone will sigh for my soul; in case of war, the whole secret is known to you-finish what I have begun, and remember that you are a Soplica."

Here the Monk wiped away his tears, b.u.t.toned his gown, drew on his cowl, and quietly opened the shutters of the rear window; evidently he jumped through the window into the garden. The Judge, left alone, sat down in a chair and began to weep.

Thaddeus waited a moment, before he jingled at the latch; when the door was opened he went in quietly and bowed low.