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Updated: April 30, 2025
Then I perceived that he had received the bullet full in the breast; my lord, tottering, pointed towards the gate. I recognised that villain Soplica, I recognised him! by his stature and by his mustaches I By his shot the Pantler had perished; I saw it! The villain still held his gun raised aloft; smoke still came from the barrel! I sighted at him; the brigand stood as if petrified!
And so, Pan Soplica, I am moving to your abode; I shall live with my lady, on her bounty, and shall rock to sleep a third generation of Horeszkos; I will train my lady’s child to use the penknife, if it is a son—and she will have a son, for wars are coming on, and in time of war sons are always born.”
Before the gate the Count stopped, mumbling to himself; gazing at the castle he quickly mounted his horse, and thus in distraction he concluded his monologue:— “I regret that this old Soplica has no wife, or fair daughter whose charms I might adore! If I loved her and could not obtain her hand a new complication would arise in the tale; here the heart, there duty! here vengeance, there love!”
At this insult, mortal for a gentleman’s ears, the like of which no Soplica had ever heard, Thaddeus trembled, and his face grew pale as that of a corpse. Stamping his foot and biting his lips, he muttered, “Idiotic woman!”
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!”
Napoleon, seeing our lances, asks, ‘What army is that?’ We shout, ‘The insurgents, Most August Emperor; the volunteers of Lithuania!’ He asks, ‘Who is their commander?’—‘Judge Soplica!’ Ah, who then would dare to breathe a word of Targowica?
Nor was this hero wholly a product of the writer’s invention. There has recently been discovered a petition by Mikolaj Mickiewicz, the father of the poet, praying the authorities to grant him protection from one Jan Soplica, “a man of criminal sort,” who had slain the uncle of the petitioner and was now threatening to kill the whole Mickiewicz family and burn their house.
He asked Thaddeus what weapon he preferred; after discussion, they agreed on swords. Thaddeus had no weapon; while they were looking for swords, the Count rushed out armed and interrupted the negotiations. “Pan Soplica,” he shouted. “begging your pardon, you challenged the Major!
I thought to myself—that boy was born under a happy star; too bad that he is a Soplica! Who would have guessed that in him I was to greet the owner of the castle, the husband of Panna Sophia, Her Grace my Lady!” Here they broke off their conversation, but, deep in thought, they continued to drink; one could only hear now and then these brief words, “Yes, yes, Gerwazy”; “Yes, Protazy.”
But as a surgeon first lays a gentle hand on the body of a sick man before he makes a cut with the knife, so Robak softened the expression of his sharp eyes, which he allowed to hover for a long time over the eyes of Gerwazy; finally, as if he wished to strike a blind blow, he covered his eyes with his hand and said with a powerful voice:— “I am Jacek Soplica.”
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