The Chamberlain rubbed his forehead and lowered his eyebrows. The sportsmen began to murmur, and each made some remark; one how he had discovered the beast, another how he had wounded it; this one had called on the dogs, and that turned back the beast into the forest once more. The Assessor and the Notary disputed, one exalting the merits of his Sanguszko gun, the other those of his Sagalas musket from Balabanowka.
“Neighbour Judge,” pronounced the Chamberlain [pg 141] at last, “the servant of God has rightfully won the first reward; but it is not easy to decide who is the next to him, for all seem to me to have equal merits, all to be equal in skill, adroitness, and courage. Fortune, however, has this day distinguished two by the danger in which they were; two were nearest to the bear's claws, Thaddeus and the Count; to them the skin belongs. Thaddeus will yield, I am sure, as the younger, and as the kinsman of our host; hence Your Honour the Count will receive the spolia opima.[94] Let this trophy adorn your hunting chamber, let it be a reminder of to-day's sport, a symbol of fortune in the chase, a spur to future glory.”
He concluded gaily, thinking that he had soothed the Count, and did not know how grievously he had stabbed his heart. For at the mention of his hunting chamber the Count involuntarily raised his eyes; and those horns of stags, those branching antlers like a forest of laurels, sown by the hands of the fathers to form crowns for the sons, those pillars adorned with rows of portraits, that coat of arms shining in the vaulting, the old Half-Goat, spoke to him from all sides with voices of the past. He awoke from his musings, and remembered where he was and whose guest; he, the heir of the Horeszkos, was a guest within his own threshold, was feasting with the Soplicas, his immemorial foes! And moreover the jealousy that he felt for Thaddeus incensed the Count all the more powerfully against the Soplicas. So he said with a bitter laugh:—
“My little house is too small; in it there is no worthy place for so magnificent a gift: let the bear rather abide amid these horned trophies until the Judge deign to yield it to me together with the castle.”
The Chamberlain, guessing whither things were tending, tapped his golden snuffbox, and asked for the floor.
“You deserve praise, my neighbour Count,” he said, “for caring for your interests even at dinner time, not living thoughtlessly from day to day as do fashionable young fellows of your years. I wish and hope to end the trial in my Chamberlain's court by a reconciliation; hitherto the only difficulty has been over the improvements. I have formed a project of exchange, to make up for the improvements with land, in the following fashion.”
Here he began to develop in due order, as he always did, a plan for the exchange that was to take place. He was already in the middle of the subject, when an unexpected movement started at the end of the table; some were pointing at something that they had noticed, and others were looking in the same direction, until finally all heads, like ears of grain bent down by a wind behind them, were turned away from the Chamberlain, to the corner.
From the corner, where hung the portrait of the late Pantler, the last of the Horeszko family, from a little door concealed between the pillars, had quietly come forth a form like a phantom. It was Gerwazy; they recognised him by his stature, by his face, and by the little silvery Half-Goats on his yellow coat. He walked straight as a post, silent and grim, without taking off his hat, without even inclining his head; in his hand he held a glittering key, like a dagger; he opened a case and began to turn something in it.
In two corners of the hall, against pillars, stood two musical clocks in locked cases; the queer old fellows, [pg 143] long at odds with the sun, often indicated noon at sunset. Gerwazy had not undertaken to repair the machines, but he would not give up winding them; he turned the key in the clocks every evening, and the time for winding had just come. While the Chamberlain was occupying the attention of the parties interested in the case, he drew up the weight; the rusty wheels gnashed their broken teeth; the Chamberlain shuddered and interrupted his dissertation. “Brother,” he said, “postpone a bit your faithful toil;” and he went on with his plan of an exchange; but the Warden, to spite him, pulled still more strongly the other weight, and suddenly the bullfinch perched on the top of the clock began to flap its wings and pour forth one of its melodies. The bird, which had been artistically made, but was, unfortunately, out of order, began to moan and whistle, ever worse and worse. The guests burst out laughing; the Chamberlain had to break off again. “My dear Warden,” he cried, “or rather screech owl,[95] if you value your beak, quit that hooting.”
But Gerwazy was not at all frightened by the threat; with dignity he put his right hand on the clock and rested the left on his hip; with both hands thus supported he cried:—