Pan Tadeusz Part 13

"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 manuvring 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,111 so that the Apparitor had to run full speed for the hemp; how later Wolodkowicz,112 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 ma.s.s 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,"113 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 a.s.semblies 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 Dobrzyn114 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,115 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 t.i.tle in the neighbouring hamlets. Imitating the Dobrzynskis, the rest of the gentry of the vicinity likewise a.s.sumed nicknames, or by-names.116 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 c.o.c.k-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,117 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 s.p.a.cious 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 gra.s.s, 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 ta.s.sels 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 gra.s.s 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 b.u.mble-bee in its earthy burrow.

On the doors of the establishment all the latches, nails, and hooks were either cut off or bore the marks of sabres; evidently here they had tested the temper of those swords of the time of the Sigismunds, with which one might boldly cut off the heads of nails or cleave hooks in two without making a notch in the blade. Over the doors could be seen coats of arms of the Dobrzynskis, but shelves of cheeses veiled the bearings, and swallows had walled them in thickly with their nests.

The interior of the house itself and of the stable and carriage-house you would find as full of accoutrements as an old armoury. Under the roof hung four immense helmets, the ornaments of martial brows; to-day the birds of Venus, the doves, cooing, fed their young in them. In the stable a great cuira.s.s extended over the manger and a corselet of ring mail served as a chute through which the boy threw down clover to the colts. In the kitchen the G.o.dless cook had spoiled the temper of several swords by sticking them into the oven instead of spits; with a Turkish horsetail, captured at Vienna, she dusted her handmill. In a word, housewifely Ceres had banished Mars and ruled along with Pomona, Flora, and Vertumnus over Dobrzynski's house, stable, and barn. But to-day the G.o.ddesses must yield anew; Mars returns.

At daybreak there had appeared in Dobrzyn a mounted messenger; he galloped from cottage to cottage and awoke them as if to work for the manor: the gentry arose and filled with a crowd the streets of the hamlet; cries were heard in the tavern, candles seen in the priest's house. All were running about, each asked the other what this meant; the old men took counsel together, the young men saddled their horses while the women held them; the boys scuffled about, in a hurry to run and fight, but did not know with whom or about what! w.i.l.l.y-nilly, they had to stay behind. In the priest's dwelling there was in progress a long, tumultuous, frightfully confused debate; at last, not being able to agree, they finally decided to lay the whole matter before Father Maciej.

Seventy-two years of age was Maciej, a hale old man, of low stature, a former Confederate of Bar.118 Both his friends and his enemies remembered his curved damascened sabre, with which he was wont to chop spears and bayonets like fodder, and to which in jest he had given the modest name of _switch_. From a Confederate he became a partisan of the King, and supported Tyzenhaus,119 the Under-Treasurer of Lithuania; but when the King joined the men of Targowica, Maciej once more deserted the royal side. And hence, since he had pa.s.sed through so many parties, he had long been called c.o.c.k-on-the-Steeple, because like a c.o.c.k he turned his standard with the wind. You would in vain search for the cause of such frequent changes; perhaps Maciej was too fond of war, and, when conquered on one side, sought battle anew on the other; perhaps the shrewd politician judged well the spirit of the times, and turned whither he thought the good of his country called him.120 Who knows! This much is sure, that never was he seduced either by desire for personal fame, or by base greed, and that never had he supported the Muscovite party; for at the very sight of a Muscovite he frothed and grimaced. In order not to meet a Muscovite, after the part.i.tion of the country, he sat at home like a bear that sucks its paw in the woods.

His last experience in war was when he went with Oginski121 to Wilno, where they both served under Jasinski, and there with his switch he performed prodigies of valour. Everybody knew how he had jumped down alone from the ramparts of Praga to defend Pan Pociej,122 who had been deserted on the field of battle and had received twenty-three wounds. In Lithuania they long thought that both had been killed; but both returned, each as full of holes as a sieve. Pan Pociej, an honourable man, immediately after the war had wished to reward generously his defender Dobrzynski; he had offered him for life a farm of five houses, and a.s.signed him yearly a thousand ducats in gold. But Dobrzynski wrote back: "Let Pociej remain in debt to Maciej, and not Maciej to Pociej." So he refused the farm and would not take the money; returning home alone, he lived by the work of his own hands, making hives for bees and medicine for cattle, sending to market partridges which he caught in snares, and hunting wild beasts.

In Dobrzyn there were numbers of sagacious old men-men versed in Latin, who from their youth up had practised at the bar; there were numbers of richer men: but of all the family the poor and simple Maciek was the most highly honoured, not only as a swordsman made famous by his _switch_, but as a man of wise and sure judgment, who knew the history of the country and the traditions of the family, and was equally well versed in law and farming. He knew likewise the secrets of hunting and of medicine; they even ascribed to him (though this the priest denied) a knowledge of higher, superhuman things. This much is sure, that he knew with precision the changes of the weather, and could guess them oftener than the farmer's almanac. It is no marvel then that, whether it was a question of beginning the sowing, or of sending out the river barges, or of reaping the grain; whether it was a matter of going to law, or of concluding a compromise, nothing was done in Dobrzyn without the advice of Maciek. Such influence the old man did not in the least seek for; on the contrary, he wished to be rid of it, scolded his clients, and usually pushed them out of the door of his house without opening his lips; he rarely gave advice, and never to common men; only in extremely important disputes or agreements, when asked, would he utter an opinion-and then in few words. It was thought that he would undertake to-day's affair and put himself in person at the head of the expedition; for in his youth he had loved a combat beyond measure, and he was an enemy of the Muscovite race.

The aged man was walking about in his solitary yard, humming a song, "When the early dawn ariseth,"123 and was happy because the weather was clearing; the mist was not rising up as it usually does when clouds are gathering, but kept falling: the wind spread forth its palms and stroked the mist, smoothed it, and spread it on the meadow; meanwhile the sun from on high with a thousand beams pierced the web, silvered it, gilded it, made it rosy. As when a pair of workmen at Sluck are making a Polish girdle; a girl at the base of the loom smooths and presses the web with her hands, while the weaver throws her from above threads of silver, gold and purple, forming colours and flowers: thus to-day the wind spread all the earth with mist and the sun embroidered it.

Maciej was warming himself in the sun after finishing his prayers, and was already setting about his household work. He brought out gra.s.s and leaves; he sat down in front of his house and whistled: at this whistle a mult.i.tude of rabbits bobbed up from beneath the ground. Like narcissuses suddenly blooming above the gra.s.s, their long ears shine white; beneath them their bright eyes glitter like b.l.o.o.d.y rubies thickly sown in the velvet of the greensward. Now the rabbits sit up, and each listens and gazes around; finally the whole white, furry herd run to the old man, allured by leaves of cabbage; they jump to his feet, on his knees, on his shoulders: himself white as a rabbit, he loves to gather them around him and stroke their warm fur with his hand; but with his other hand he throws millet on the gra.s.s for the sparrows, and the noisy rabble drop from the roofs.

While the aged man was amusing himself with the sight of this gathering, suddenly the rabbits vanished into the earth, and the flocks of sparrows fled to the roof before new guests, who were coming into the yard with quick steps. These were the envoys whom the a.s.sembly of gentry at the priest's house had sent to consult Maciek. Greeting the old man from afar with low bows, they said: "Praised be Jesus Christ."-"For ever and ever, amen,"124 answered the old man; and, when he had learned of the importance of the emba.s.sy, he asked them into his cottage. They entered and sat down upon a bench. The first of the envoys took his stand in the centre and began to render an account of his mission.

Meanwhile more and more of the gentry were arriving; almost all the Dobrzynskis, and no few of the neighbours from the hamlets near by, armed and unarmed, in carts and in carriages, on foot and on horseback. They halted their vehicles, tied their nags to the birches, and, curious as to the outcome of the deliberations, they formed a circle about the house: they soon filled the room and thronged the vestibule; others listened with their heads crowded into the windows.

BOOK VII.-THE CONSULTATION

ARGUMENT

Salutary counsels of Bartek, called the Prussian-Martial argument of Maciek the Sprinkler-Political argument of Pan Buchmann-Jankiel advises harmony, which is cut off abruptly by the penknife-Speech of Gerwazy, which makes apparent the great potency of parliamentary eloquence-Protest of old Maciek-The sudden arrival of reinforcements interrupts the consultation-Down with the Soplica!

IT came the turn of the deputy Bartek to state his case. He was a man who often travelled with rafts to Konigsberg; he was called the Prussian by the members of his family, in jest, for he hated the Prussians horribly, although he loved to talk of them. He was a man well advanced in years, who on his distant travels had learned much of the world; a diligent reader of gazettes, well versed in politics, he could cast no little light on the subject under discussion. Thus he concluded his speech:-

"This is not, Pan Maciej, my brother, and revered father of us all-this is not aid to be despised. I should rely on the French in time of war as on four aces; they are a warlike people, and since the times of Thaddeus Kosciuszko the world has not had such a military genius as the great Emperor Bonaparte. I remember when the French crossed the Warta; I was on a trip abroad at the time, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and six; I was just then doing some trading with Dantzic, and, since I have many kinsmen in the district of Posen, I had gone to visit them. So it happened that Pan Joseph Grabowski125 and I-he is now colonel of a regiment, but at that time he was living in the country near Obiezierz-were out hunting small game together.

"In Great Poland126 there was then peace, as there is now in Lithuania; suddenly the tidings spread abroad of a fearful battle; a messenger from Pan Todwen rushed up to us. Grabowski read the letter and cried: 'Jena!

Jena!127 The Prussians are smitten hip and thigh; victory!' Dismounting from my horse, I immediately fell on my knees to thank the Lord G.o.d. We rode back to the city as if on business, as if we knew nothing of the matter; there we saw that all the landraths, hofraths, commissioners and all similar rubbish were bowing low to us; they all trembled and turned pale, like those c.o.c.kroaches we call Prussians, when one pours boiling water on them. Laughing and rubbing our hands we asked humbly for news, and inquired what they had heard from Jena. Thereupon terror seized them, they were astonished that we already knew of that disaster. The Germans cried, 'Ach Herri Gott! O Weh!' and, hanging their heads, they ran into their houses, and then pell-mell out of their houses again. O that was a scramble! All the roads in Great Poland were full of fugitives; the Germans crawled along them like ants, dragging their carts, or rather waggons and drays, as the people call them there; men and women, with pipes and coffee-pots, were dragging boxes and feather beds; they scuttled off as best they could. But we quietly took counsel together: 'To horse!

Let us hara.s.s the retreat of the Germans; now we will give it to the landraths in the neck, cut chops from the hofraths, and catch the herr officers by the cues.' And now General Dombrowski entered the district of Posen and brought the orders of the Emperor to stir up an insurrection! In one week our people so whipped and banished the Prussians that you couldn't have found a German to make medicine of!128 What if we could turn the trick just as briskly and smartly now, and here in Lithuania give the Muscovites just such another sweating? Hey? What think you, Maciej? If Moscow picks a bone with Bonaparte, then he will make a war that will be no joke: he is the foremost hero in the world, and has armies unnumbered!

Hey, what think you, Maciej, our Father Bunny?"

He concluded. All awaited the verdict of Maciej. Maciej did not move his head or raise his eyes, but only struck himself several times on the side, as though he were feeling for his sabre. (Since the part.i.tion of the country he had worn no sabre; however, from old habit, at the mention of a Muscovite he always clapped his hand to his left side; he was evidently groping for his switch; and hence everybody called him Hand-on-Hip.) Now he raised his head, and they listened in deep silence. Maciej disappointed the general expectation; he only frowned and again dropped his head on his breast. Finally he spoke out, p.r.o.nouncing every word slowly and with emphasis, and nodding his head in time with them:-

"Silence! Whence comes all this news? How far off are the French? Who is their leader? Have they already begun war with Moscow? Where and on what pretext? Which way are they going to move? and with what numbers are they comings? Have they a large force of infantry and cavalry? Whoever knows, let him tell!"

The crowd was silent, each man gazing at his neighbour.

"I should be glad," said the Prussian, "to wait for the Bernardine Robak, for all the tidings come from him. Meanwhile we should send trusty spies across the border and quietly arm all the country round; but meanwhile we should conduct the whole matter with caution, in order not to betray our intentions to the Muscovites."

"Hah! Wait, prate, debate?" interrupted another Maciej, christened Sprinkler,129 from a great club that he called his _sprinkling-brush_; he had it with him to-day. He stood behind it, rested both hands on the k.n.o.b, and leaned his chin on his hands, crying: "Delay, wait, debate! Hem, hum, haw, and then run away! I have never been in Prussia; Konigsberg sense is good for Prussia, but I have my plain gentleman's sense. This much I know: whoever wants to fight, let him seize his sprinkling-brush; whoever prefers to die, let him call the priest-that's all! I want to live and fight! Of what use is the Bernardine? Are we schoolboys? What do I care for that Robak? Now we will all be Robaks, that is, worms, and proceed to gnaw at the Muscovites! Hem, haw! spies! to explore! Do you know what that means? Why, that you are impotent old beggars! Hey, brothers! It is a setter's work to follow a trail, a Bernardine's to gather alms, but my work is-to sprinkle, sprinkle, sprinkle, and that's all!"

Here he patted his club; after him the whole crowd of gentry yelled, "Sprinkle, sprinkle!"

The side of Sprinkler was supported by Bartek, called Razor from his thin sabre; and likewise by Maciej, known as Bucket, from a blunderbuss that he carried, with a muzzle so broad that from it as from a pail a thousand bullets poured in a stream. Both cried, "Long live Sprinkler and his brush." The Prussian tried to speak, but he was drowned by uproar and laughter. "Away, away with the Prussian cowards," they shouted; "let cowards go and hide in Bernardine cowls!"

Then once more old Maciej slowly raised his head, and the tumult began somewhat to subside.

"Do not scoff at Robak," he said; "I know him; he is a clever priest. That little worm130 has gnawed a larger nut than you; I have seen him but once, but as soon as I set eyes on him I noticed what sort of bird he was; the Monk turned away his eyes, fearing that I might summon him to confession.

But that is not my affair-of that there would be much to say! He will not come here; it would be vain to summon the Bernardine. If all this news came from him, then who knows what was his object, for he is the devil of a priest! If you know nothing more than this news, then why did you come here, and what do you want?"

"War!" they cried. "What war?" he asked. "War with the Muscovites!" they shouted, "to fight! Down with the Muscovites!"

The Prussian kept shouting and raising his voice higher and higher, until he finally obtained a hearing, which he owed partly to his polite bows, and partly to his shrill and piercing tones.

"I too want to fight," he shouted, pounding his breast with his fist; "though I don't carry a sprinkling-brush, yet with a pole from a river barge I once gave a good christening to four Prussians who tried to drown me in the Pregel when I was drunk."

"Good for you, Bartek," said Sprinkler, "good for you; sprinkle, sprinkle!"