The sight which met us on entering was so unexpected that we stood thunderstruck.
By the inner wall of the room stood a fair-sized table, covered, as it should be, with a white cloth. The hay spread on the table[13] underneath the cloth was peeping through the holes. The table was lighted with two candles in very battered candlesticks. At one end stood a large dish heaped with temptingly smoking and savoury "oładis,"[14] at the other end a dish of pępki, prepared with vinegar and pepper. Round the dish lay bread, and a bottle of wine stood near it, surrounded by small drinking vessels of various kinds. But in the very centre of the table, on the only plate—once white, now yellow and chipped—lay the fragments of the wafer which had been sent to me from home.
No one had expected either the tablecloth, the hay, or the wafer; the impression produced by so many unexpected accessories was therefore very great.
Highly pleased with the effect, Porankiewicz now went to the table and carefully took up the plate with the wafer. Straightening himself until his back almost cracked, he cleared his throat, opened his mouth, and when everyone was on tiptoe of expectation, awaiting a speech, he said in a trembling voice:
"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, the wafer comes straight from Warsaw!"
Chrysostom himself could not have spoken more powerfully.
We had been impatient to sit down to table beforehand, for the inviting smell of the oładis had begun to gain ascendancy over the solemnity of the moment. But these few words threw a dead silence round the room, and somehow we all involuntarily drew ourselves up into a row, and our five heads turned to the plate alone.
Porankiewicz straightened himself once more.
"H'm-h'm! Gentlemen, this is such a sacred——"