The Count, struck with so marvellous a sight, stood still. Hearing from afar the trampling of his comrades, he motioned to them with his hand to stop their horses: they halted. He gazed with outstretched neck, like a long-billed crane that stands apart from the flock, on one leg, keeping guard with watchful eyes, and [pg 49] holding a stone in the other foot, in order not to fall asleep.
The Count was awakened by a pattering on his shoulders and brow; it was the Bernardine, Father Robak, who held aloft in his hand the knotted cords of his belt.
“Will you have cucumbers?” he cried; “Here they are!” [So saying he showed him the knots on his belt, which were shaped like cucumbers.[41]] “Look out for danger, in this garden patch there is no fruit for you; nothing will come of it!”
Then he threatened him with his finger, adjusted his cowl, and departed; the Count tarried on the spot a moment more, cursing and yet laughing at this sudden hindrance. He glanced at die garden, but she was no longer in the garden; only her pink ribbon and her white gown flashed through the window. On the garden bed one could see the path by which she had flown, for the green leaves, spurned by her foot in her flight, raised themselves and trembled an instant before they became quiet, like water cut by the wings of a bird. Only on the place where she had been standing, her abandoned willow basket, empty and overturned, was still poised upon the leaves and tossing amid the green waves.
An instant later all was silent and deserted; the Count fixed his eyes on the house and strained his ears; still he mused, and still the huntsmen stood motionless behind him.—Then in the quiet deserted house arose first a murmur, then an uproar and merry cries, as in an empty hive when bees fly back into it: that was a sign that the guests had returned from hunting, and that the servants were busying themselves with breakfast.
Through all the rooms there reigned a mighty bustle; they were carrying about platters, plates of food and bottles; the men, just as they had come in, in their green suits, walked about the rooms with plates and glasses, and ate and drank; or, leaning against the window casements, they talked of guns, hounds, and hares. The Chamberlain and his family and the Judge were seated at the table; in a corner the young ladies whispered together; there was no such order as is observed at dinners and suppers. In this old-fashioned Polish household this was a new custom; at breakfasts the Judge, though loth, permitted such disorder, but he did not commend it.
There were likewise different dishes for the ladies and for the gentlemen. Here they carried around trays with an entire coffee service, immense trays, charmingly painted with flowers, and on them fragrant, smoking tin pots, and golden cups of Dresden china, and with each cup a tiny little jug of cream. In no other country is there such coffee as in Poland. In Poland, in a respectable household, a special woman is, by ancient custom, charged with the preparation of coffee. She is called the coffee-maker; she brings from the city, or gets from the river barges,[42] berries of the finest sort, and she knows secret ways of preparing the drink, which is black as coal, transparent as amber, fragrant as mocha, and thick as honey. Everybody knows how necessary for coffee is good cream: in the country this is not hard to get; for the coffee-maker, early in the day, after setting her pots on the fire, visits the dairy, and with her own hands lightly skims the fresh flower of the milk into a separate little jug for each cup, that each of them may be dressed in its separate little cap.
The older ladies had risen earlier and had already drunk their coffee; now they had had made for them a second dish, of warm beer, whitened with cream, in which swam curds cut into little bits.
The gentlemen had their choice of smoked meats; fat half-geese, hams, and slices of tongue—all choice, all cured in home fashion in the chimney with juniper smoke. Finally they brought in stewed beef with gravy[43] as the last course: such was breakfast in the Judge's house.
In adjoining rooms two separate companies had gathered. The older people, grouped about a small table, talked of new ways of farming, and of the new imperial edicts, which were growing more and more severe. The Chamberlain discussed the current rumours of war and based on them conclusions as to politics. The Seneschal's daughter, putting on blue spectacles, amused the Chamberlain's wife by telling fortunes with cards. In the other room the younger men talked over the hunt in a more calm and quiet fashion than was usually the case; for the Assessor and the Notary, both mighty orators, the foremost experts on the chase and the best huntsmen, sat opposite each other glum and angry. Both had set on their hounds well, both had felt certain of victory, when in the middle of the field there turned up a patch of unreaped spring corn belonging to a peasant. Into this the hare fled; Bobtail and Falcon were each about to seize it, when the Judge checked the horsemen at the border of the field; they had to obey, although in great wrath. The dogs returned without their prey, and no one knew for sure whether the beast had escaped or had been caught; no one could guess whether it had fallen into the clutches of [pg 52] Bobtail, or of Falcon, or of both at once. The two sides held different opinions, and the settlement of the quarrel was postponed to the future.