A greyhound strangled at my feet my pet
Bolognan spaniel. Ah! she was a charming,
Dear little dog! I had her as a present,
A token of remembrance, from Prince Sukin;
Intelligent and lively as a squirrel.
I have her portrait—only I will not
Go for it to the bureau. Seeing her
Thus strangled, from excessive agitation
I had faintness, spasms, palpitations; and
Perhaps it had gone worse still with my health,
When happily upon a visit came
Kirylo Gawrylicz Kozodusin,
Master of Hunts at court. He asked the cause
Of my ill-humour, and he presently
Commanded the official to be dragged
There by the ears; he stood there, trembling, pale,
And almost lifeless. ‘How then didst thou dare,’
Exclaimed Kirylo, with a voice of thunder,
‘To hunt down in the spring a doe with young,
Under the Emperor’s very nose?’ In vain
The stupefied czynownik swore that he
Had not begun the hunting season yet;
That, with the Master of the Hunt’s permission,
The beast run down had seemed to him a dog,
And not a doe. ‘What!’ cried Kirylo; ‘villain!
Dost thou pretend to better understand
Hunting and species than I, Kozodusin,
Imperial Jägermeister? Let the Chief
Inspector of Police decide between us.’
They call the Chief Inspector, and command
To institute inquiry. ‘I bear witness,’
Says Kozodusin, ‘that it was a doe;
And he pretends ’twas a domestic dog.
Decide between us, who best understands
Hunting and game.’ The Inspector of Police
Well knew his duty; he considered well
The insolence of the czynownik, and
Conducting him aside he counselled him,
As a brother, to confess his fault, and so
Condone his crime. The Master of the Hunt,
Somewhat appeased, made promise he would be
An intercessor with the Czar, and get
Some little mitigation of the sentence.
It ended thus—the dogs went to the rope,
And the czynownik had four weeks in prison.
This trifle entertained us all the evening.
Next day an anecdote was made of this;
The Master of the Hunt had gone to law
About my dog. I even know for certain
The Emperor himself has laughed at this.”
A laugh arose in both the rooms. The Judge
Was playing with the Bernardine at cards,
And at that moment, with the spades as trumps,
He was about to lead. The priest scarce breathed;
The Judge had caught the story’s first beginning,
And listened so absorbed, that he sat still,
With head uplifted, and the card upraised,
Ready for playing; still he moveless sat,
And only caused the friar anxiety;
Till, the tale ended, he laid Pamfil down,
And answered, laughing: “Let who will extol
Civilisation of the Germans, order
Of Muscovites; let people in great Poland
Learn from the Swabians to make laws for foxes,
And call in soldiers to arrest a mastiff,
Who enters strangers’ thickets. Praised be Heaven,
In Litva we have ancient customs. We
Have game enough, both for ourselves and neighbours,
And never shall for this make inquisition;
And we have corn enough. Our dogs will not
Reduce us soon to famine, or devour
Green vegetables, or take life away.
O’er peasants’ acres I forbid all hunting.”
The Bailiff from the left-hand chamber spoke:
“No wonder, gracious sir, that for such game
You dearly pay. The peasants are right glad
Whene’er it happens that a greyhound springs
Among their vegetables; let him but
Disturb ten ears of rye, you give a sheaf
In compensation, nor even then are quits;
The peasant often gets besides a florin.
Believe me, sir, the peasantry will grow
Most insolent”—But never heard the Judge
The rest of Master Bailiff’s reasonings,
For ’twixt the two discourses there began
A thousand murmurs, anecdotes, and tales,
And lastly, quarrels. Quite forgotten, Thaddeus
And Telimena thought but of each other;
The lady much delighted that her wit
So Thaddeus entertained; the youth returned
Her speech with compliments. With ever greater
Freedom spoke Telimena, and in tones
More low, and Thaddeus made believe that he
Could hear her not amid that crowd of talk.
So he drew nearer, whispering, so much
The nearer to her, that upon his face
He felt her brow’s sweet warmth. Restraining breath,
He caught her sighings with his lips, his glance
Seized eagerly the bright rays of her eyes;
When suddenly between their lips there flew
At first a fly, and then the Wojski’s fly-scare.
In Litva is abundance great of flies:
Among them an especial species, called
“Noble,” like all the rest in shape and hue,
But having broader thorax and abdomen,
And larger than the common sort. In flying
They make a great noise, and their humming is
Not to be borne. So strong, besides, are they,
They break through spiders’ webs, or if they should
Be caught in one, three whole days long they buzz,
And singly can they grapple with a spider.
All this the Wojski well had searched into,
And also said the lesser sort of flies
Were from these “noble” flies engendered; they
Were that among the flies that queen-bees are
Among a swarm of bees; that slaying them
Would cause the perishing of other vermin.
True, neither housekeeper, nor parish priest,
Believed in these discoveries of the Wojski,
And of the generation of the flies
Held differently; but never did the Wojski
Leave off his ancient custom. Scarcely saw he
A fly, when straightway he pursued it. Now
This very instant, past his ear a “noble”
Buzzed: twice the Wojski struck. Ashamed to miss,
He struck a third time, and nigh broke the window
Until the fly, by this great noise distraught,
Seeing two people standing on the threshold
Obstructing its return, did throw itself
Between their faces in despair; the Wojski’s
Right hand flew after it. So strong the stroke,
That the two heads sprang backwards, as the two
Halves of a tree by lightning severed; both
Rebounded with such force against the lintels,
That they retained upon them livid marks.
But fortunately no one marked this scene,
Because the conversation, which as yet,
Though loud and high, had yet been orderly,
Now ended in an outburst strong of noise.
Like hunters, who along the forest chase
A fox, while here and there is heard the crash
Of trees, the noise of shots, the bark of hounds:
But all at once, and unexpectedly,
A pricker starts a wild-boar; he gives sign;
A shout arises in the crowd of men
And dogs, as all the forest trees had voice.
So is it with discourse. It slowly moves,
Until it comes on some grand object, like
A boar-hunt. The wild-boar of this discourse
Was that fierce quarrel of the Regent with
The Assessor, touching their renownèd greyhounds:
It lasted but a short time, but they did
Much in one moment.
