CHAPTER III.
Thaddeus von Wiliszenski was, with some exceptions, a Polish Walter von der Vogelweide. He, too, gained less by his learning than by his genius; he, too, wandered from castle to castle, exhorting the nobles to justice--rejoicing when he received a new coat or negotiated a loan, for I doubt if any one ever borrowed so much.
Like Walter, he was a political poet, though not a one-sided one, like the German singer. He read stirring war-songs against Austria to the nobles, and then, by order of the magistracy, composed odes for the emperor's birthday. For the burghers he wrote lampoons against the nobles; for the nobles, skits against the bourgeoisie.
He, too, belonged to the later nobility, for though a "von" was under his poems and a coat-of-arms on his writing-paper, it was difficult to trace his genealogy. Some, indeed, said he was the son of a shoemaker, and had failed in the gymnasium; others, that he had been a barber's apprentice.
It was equally difficult to ascertain his birthplace. Several provinces strove about declining the honor. He was in the habit of saying he was the son of that neighborhood in which he happened to be collecting subscriptions, just at the time, for his poems. If the book had ever appeared, a large edition would have been required, for one could scarcely count the numbers from whom he had collected its price of three gulden. But, like the Minnesänger, he contented himself with leaving it oral.
Uninvited, and suddenly as if dropped from the skies, he would appear at the farm-houses. Sometimes he was kicked out after three, sometimes after eight days' sojourn, for he never departed of his own volition. But as one cannot live by poetry alone, he also acted as mediator when bribery or some equally dirty business was on hand, which accounted for his friendship with Von Wroblewski.
It was, then, in honor of this son of the muse that Lady Anna had made this little party. There sat Wiliszenski, his long, tangled, sandy curls in greater confusion than usual, while he declaimed poems in honor of the great ones of the land. It had been long since he had reckoned a count among his hearers, and he concluded that Agenor having come, notwithstanding he had at first declined the invitation, it was because of his interest in the poet. How gratifying, then, the close attention which this wealthy man accorded him!
He was reading an historical ballad--"The Bloody Day;" the hero was a Poniatowski, but the poet read it Baranowski, since it scanned equally well. His breast was overflowing with a strong current of poetical inspiration. "May the devil fetch me, if that is not worth fifty gulden to me!"
When he had finished, all were silent. He was unable to see the faces of his auditors, for Lady Anna had so placed the lamp-shade that the light fell only on the manuscript. But deep silence was the highest of all praise.
"Wonderful!" ejaculated the lady of the house. The jingle of the verses had swept her ear without conveying a meaning. She had been watching the count as he sat there motionless and awkward as a boy. A sigh heaved her ample bosom. "What a magnificent fellow! And all this for that Jewish girl!"