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Again his eyes closed fast and his ears rang—he sees a throng of mounted gentry; their sabres glitter: “The foray, the foray against Korelicze, and Rymsza at the head!” And he beholds himself, how he flies on a grey horse, with his dreadful sword uplifted above his head; his taratatka,101 opened wide, rustles in the breeze; his red plumed hat has fallen backward from his left ear; he flies on, and upon the road overthrows both horsemen and foot-travellers, and finally he burns the Soplica in his barn.
So he read and mused: Oginski and Wizgird, the Dominicans and Rymsza, Rymsza and Wysogierd, Radziwill and Wereszczaka, Giedrojc and Rodultowski, Obuchowicz and the Jewish commune, Juraha and Piotrowski, Maleski and Mickiewicz, and finally Count Horeszko and Soplica; and, as he read, he called forth from these names the memory of mighty cases, and all the events of the trial; and before his eyes stand the court, plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses; and he beholds himself, how in a white smock and dark blue kontusz he stands before the tribunal, with one hand on his sabre and the other on the table, summoning the two parties. “Silence!” he calls.
I pursued them at diets, forays, and fairs; two I hewed down in a brawl, two others in a duel; one I burnt in a wooden building, when with Rymsza we sacked Korelicze—he was baked like a mudfish; but those whose ears I have cut off I cannot count. One only is left who has not yet received a reminder from me!
Hence finally that famous lawsuit of the Rymszas and the Dominicans long pendebat on the calendar, until finally Father Dymsza, the syndic of the convent, won the case: whence the ’proverb, the Lord God is greater than Lord Rymsza. And I may add, mead is better than the penknife.” So saying, he drank off a tankard to the health of the Warden.
“Bah!” interrupted Rymsza; “why, in my youth I saw Kosciuszko, the chief of our nation: he was a great man, but he wore a Cracow peasant’s coat, that is to say, a czamara.” “Much he wore a czamara!” retorted Wilbik. “They used to call it a taratatka.”82 “But the taratatka has fringe,” shouted Mickiewicz, “and the other is entirely plain.”
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