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“And be good enough to visit us,” said Zubkowski. “You will get a half-piece of linen, a firkin of butter, a sheep or a cow. Remember these words, sir: ‘A man is lucky if he strikes it as rich as a monk in Zubkow.’ ” “And on us,” said Skoluba; “and on us,” added Terajewicz; “no Bernardine ever departed hungry from Pucewicze.”
And now if any of you gentlemen who are present here ever serves in the army of the Emperor, let him remember this.” “Ah! my dear Monk!” cried Skoluba, “when will that be? Why, on every holiday set down in the calendar they prophesy to us that the French are coming, A man looks and looks until his eyes are weary, but the Muscovite keeps on holding us by the neck as he always has.
“But, my brothers,” said Razor, “you will not exclude Bartek; all that you may soap I will shave.” “I too prefer to move on with you,” added Bucket, “since I cannot make them agree on the choice of a marshal. What care I for votes and balls for voting? “We will join you,” shouted Skoluba, “indeed we will!” “Where you go,” cried all the gentry, “where you go, there will we go also!
“To the health of you all, my noble gentlemen!” Robak interrupted him. “As for the tobacco—hm—it comes from farther off than my friend Skoluba thinks; it comes from Jasna Gora, the Bright Mountain; the Paulist Brethren prepare such tobacco in the city of Czenstochowa,76 where stands the image, famed for so many miracles, of Our Lady the Virgin, Queen of the Crown of Poland: she is likewise still called Duchess of Lithuania!
Buchmann shouted: “I will never approve an agreement; that’s my system.” Somebody else yelled “Veto,”134 and others seconded him from the corners. Finally the gruff voice of Skoluba was heard, a gentleman from another hamlet. “What is this, my friends of the Dobrzynski family? What does all this mean? How about us, shall we be deprived of our rights?
Each took a pinch, and the gentlemen sneezed like mortars. “Reverendissime,” said Skoluba with a sneeze, “that is fine tobacco, it goes way up to your topknot. Never since I have worn a nose”—here he stroked his long nose—“have I met its like”—here he sneezed a second time. “It is real Bernardine, doubtless made in Kowno, a city famous throughout the world for tobacco and mead. I was there in——”
Then two Terajewiczes and four Stypulkowskis and three Mickiewiczes shouted, “Vivat equality,” taking the side of Skoluba. Meanwhile Buchmann was crying, “Agreement will be our ruin!” Sprinkler yelled: “We can get along alone without you; long live our marshal, the Maciek of Macieks!
“You stupid son of Ham!”78 cried Skoluba, “it is easier for you; you peasants are as used to skinning as eels; but for us men of birth, us gentlemen accustomed to golden liberty! Ah, brothers! Why, in old times a gentleman on his garden patch——” “Yes, yes,” they all cried, “was a wojewoda’s match.”79 “To-day they even deny our gentle birth; they bid us hunt up papers and prove it by documents.”
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