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Hardly had Gerwazy spoken these last words, when Protazy approached with dignified steps; he bowed, and took from the bosom of his kontusz a huge panegyric, two and a half sheets long.226 It had been composed in rime by a young subaltern, who once had been a famous writer of odes in the capital; he had later donned a uniform, but, retaining even in the army his devotion to letters, he still continued to make verses.
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.”
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!
The obstinate Protazy, not heeding the definite orders of the Judge, had again stormed the castle in the absence of the people of higher station, and, as he said, had foreclosed the mortgage on it. The guests entered in order and stood about the table.
I have a grudge of longer standing against the Captain; he has broken into my castle”—“Please say our castle,” interrupted Protazy—“at the head of a band of robbers,” the Count concluded. “He—I recognised Rykov—tied up my jockeys; I will punish him as I punished the brigands beneath the crag that the Sicilians call Birbante-Rocca.”
“And it is strange,” said Protazy, “that in regard to this Zosia, for whose hand our Thaddeus is now suing, a year ago there was an omen, as it were a sign from Heaven.” “Panna Sophia she should be called,” interrupted the Warden, “for she is now grown up, and is no longer a little girl; besides that, she comes of the blood of dignitaries; she is the granddaughter of the Pantler.”
“Yes, yes, my dear Protazy,” said Gerwazy the Warden. “Yes, yes, my dear Gerwazy,” said Protazy the Apparitor. “Yes, yes indeed,” they repeated in unison over and over again, nodding their heads in time to the words; finally the Apparitor spoke:— “That our lawsuit has a strange conclusion I do not deny; however, there are precedents.
Spring omens—The entrance of the armies—Religious services—Official rehabilitation of the late Jacek Soplica—From the talk between Gerwazy and Protazy a speedy ending of the lawsuit may be inferred—A love affair between an uhlan and a girl—The quarrel over Bobtail and Falcon is at last settled—Thereupon the guests gather for the banquet—The presentation of the betrothed couples to the generals.
I, Protazy Baltazar Brzechalski, known under two titles, once General of the Tribunal, commonly called Apparitor, hereby make my apparitor’s report and formal declaration—claiming as witnesses all free-born persons here present and summoning the Assessor to investigate the case in behalf of His Honour Judge Soplica—as to an incursion, that is to say, an infringement of the frontier, a violent entry of the castle, over which hitherto the Judge has had legal authority, an evident proof of which is the fact that he is eating in the castle.”
He alone knew how to keep an ascendancy over the terrible Warden of the Horeszkos and the quarrelsome Apparitor; in Jankiel’s presence both Gerwazy terrible of hand and Protazy terrible of tongue stifled their ancient wrongs. Gerwazy was not there; he had gone to join the beaters, not wishing that the Count, young and inexperienced, should undertake alone so important and difficult an expedition.
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