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General, that is my invention; in Heaven’s name, I do not wish to boast, but that stroke is known only in Rembajlo hamlet, and from my name it is called My-boy’s slash. Who can have taught it to you? That is my stroke, mine!” He rose and clasped the General in his arms. “Now I can die in peace!
Evidently it was a German sword, forged of Nuremberg steel; all gazed at the weapon in silence. Who had raised it up? They could not see, but at once they guessed. “That is the penknife, long live the penknife!” they shouted; “vivat the penknife, the jewel135 of Rembajlo hamlet! Vivat Rembajlo, Notchy, Half-Goat, My-boy!”
Long live the Horeszkos! Vivant the Half-Goats! Vivat the Warden Rembajlo! Down with the Soplica!”
Sometimes also, from a phrase that he incessantly repeated, they called him My-boy, sometimes Notchy, for his whole bald head was notched with scars. His real name was Rembajlo, but no one knew his coat of arms; he called himself the Warden, because years ago he had held that office in the castle.
And the Warden was like a wounded lynx, about to spring from a tree into the very face of a hunter: it puffs itself into a ball, growls, flashes fire from its bloody eyeballs, twitches its whiskers and lashes its tail. “Pan Rembajlo,” said the Monk, “I am no longer alarmed by the wrath of men, for already I am under the hand of God.
In addition, must I, the keeper of the castle, Gerwazy Rembajlo, Warden of the Horeszkos, be insulted in the house of my lords?—and will you endure it!” Thereupon Protazy called out three times.— “Silence, clear the room!
You, my lady, will bestow on some villages the Half-Goat; to others let Pan Soplica give his Star and Crescent.225 Then will even Rembajlo recognize the peasant as his equal, when he beholds him an honourable gentleman, with a coat of arms. The Diet will confirm the act.
When we were invited from our hamlet—and the Warden, My-boy Rembajlo invited us—we were told that great things were to be done, that the question did not affect the Dobrzynskis alone, but the whole district, the entire gentry; Robak mumbled the same thing, though he never finished his talk and always stammered and expressed himself obscurely.
While he was still laughing and fencing, Rembajlo had kneeled and embraced him about the knees, and was groaning out between his tears, at every turn of the sword:— “Beautiful! General, were you ever a confederate? Beautiful, splendid! That is the Pulawskis’213 thrust! Thus Dzierzanowski214 bore himself! That is Sawa’s thrust! Who can so have trained your arm except Maciej Dobrzynski! But that?
“Your Excellency the Hetman of the Crown—or General—never mind which is the correct title—I am Rembajlo, and I present myself at your summons with this my penknife, which, not by its setting nor by its inscriptions but by its temper, has won such fame that even Your Excellency knows of it.
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