For regiment after regiment galloped up,
And fell down from their saddles. Often as
A regiment lay low, the Emperor
Took snuff. Till at the last did Alexander,
His brother Constantine, the German Emperor
Francis, take to their heels. The Emperor then,
Seeing the fight was over, looked on them,
And laughed, and shook his finger. Now if any,
Of you, sirs, who are present, ever should
Be in the Emperor’s army, recollect this.”
“Ah!” cried Skoluba, “when shall all this be?
As often now as in the almanac
A saint’s day stands, on every holy-day
They still do prophesy the Frenchmen to us.
A man may look, may look, till wink his eyes!
But as the Russian held us still he holds,
Ere the sun rises eyes are wet with dew.”
“Sir,” said the Bernardine, “like an old woman
’Tis to lament, and it is like a Jew
To wait with folded hands, till some one ride
Up to the tavern knocking at the door.
’Twill be no hard work for Napoleon
To beat the Muscovites; already he
Has three times thrashed the Swabians’ skin, has driven
The English back beyond the sea;132133 he surely
Will finish off the Muscovites; but what
Will follow thence? are you aware, good sir?
Why, the Litvanian nobles will to horse,
And draw their sabres, at that very time
When none are left to fight with; and Napoleon,
Having defeated all his foes alone,
Will say, ‘I’ll do without you, who are you?’
Thus it is not enough to expect a guest,
Nor to invite him either; one must gather
The household, and the tables must be laid.
But ere the festival the house must be
Cleansed of its sweepings. I repeat it, children,
Sweep, sweep the house clean.” Thereon followed silence;
Then voices in the crowd, “How cleanse our house?
We will do all things; we for all are ready.
But let the good priest deign to explain himself.”
The priest gazed from the window, breaking off
The conversation; something he perceived,
That his attention did engage. From forth
The window looked he; then he rising said,
“To-day I have not time; we’ll talk of this
More fully later on. To-morrow I
Shall be on business in the district town,
And I shall come to you upon my way.”
“And for night quarters come to Niehrymow,”
The bailiff said; “right glad the Standard-bearer134
Will be; indeed, the Litwin proverb says,
‘Happy as is a friar in Niehrymow.’
“To us,” Zubkowski said, “come, if it please you;
For there are linen sheets, a tub of butter,
A cow, or sheep; remember, priest, these words;
‘A happy man, he chanced on luck, as came
The friar to Zubkow.’ ”—“And to us,” exclaimed
Skoluba; “unto us, Terajewicz.
No Bernardine departed ever hungry
From Pucewicz.” Thus all the noblemen
With prayers and promises led forth the priest,
But he already was beyond the door.
He had beforehand through the window seen
Thaddeus, who flew along the roadway, in
Fast gallop, with no hat, with head bent down,
With pale and gloomy visage; ceaselessly
He spurred the horse, and flogged it. Much this sight
Troubled the Bernardine; so hastened he
After the young man forth with rapid steps,
Towards the great forest, which, as far as eye
Could follow, blackened all the horizon’s verge.
Who the abysmal regions has explored
Of the Litvanian forests, to the very
Centre, the inner kernel of the woodlands?
The fisher coasting round the shore, scarce visits
The deep seas; so the sportsman hovers round
The bed of the Litvanian forests; yet
He knows them scarcely on the outer side,
Their form, their countenance; but unto him
The inner secrets of their heart are strange.
Rumour alone or fable knows what passes
Therein; for shouldst thou ev’n the pine-woods pass,
And outer forests, thou wouldst come upon
A rampart in the abyss, of trunks, stumps, roots,
By quaking turf defended, thousand streams,
And net of high-grown plants, and lofty ant-hills,
With nests of wasps, of hornets, coils of snakes.
And even if, by courage passing man’s,
Thou shouldst surmount these barriers, it were but
To encounter graver perils further on.
At each step lie in wait, like pits for wolves,
Lakelets, whose borders are with grass o’ergrown,
More deep than human searching may discern.
Great is the likelihood that fiends sit there.
The water of these ponds is sticky, spotted
With blood-like rust, and from within a smoke
Arises ever, vomiting foul smells,
Whereby the trees are stripped of leaves and bark,
Bald, dwarfish, worm-devoured, diseased, their boughs
Drooping with tetter of a loathsome moss,135
And humpy trunks, with ugly toadstools bearded,
They sit around the water, like a troop
Of witches, warming them around the cauldron,
Wherein they seethe a corpse. Behind these lakes,
Not merely by a step, but by the eye
Vain to be reached, for everything is now
Veiled in a cloud of mist that evermore
Arises from the quaking marshy lands;—
But latterly beyond this mist, as fame
Does commonly report, a region lies
Most fair and fertile, the chief kingdom this
Of beasts and capital of plants. Therein
The seeds of every tree and herb are stored,
From whence their races spread o’er all the earth.
Therein, as in the ark of Noah, all kinds
Of animals preserve one pair at least
For propagation. In the very centre,
’Tis said, the ancient urus, bison, bear,
Do hold their courts as emperors of the waste.
Around them, on the trees, the agile lynx,
The ravenous glutton—watchful ministers,
Do rest them. Further yet, like feudal vassals,
The wild-boars dwell, the wolves, and large-horned elks.
Above their heads are falcons and wild eagles,
Living like courtly parasites at tables
Of lords. These patriarchal pairs of beasts,
Hidden in the forest’s heart, and to the world
Invisible, send forth as colonists
Their children to the forest’s verge; themselves
Meanwhile dwell quiet in the capital.
They never die by sharp-edged arms, or gun;
But being old they fall by natural cause.
They have their cemet’ry, where, nearing death,
The birds lay down their plumes, the quadrupeds
Their hairs; the bear, when, all his teeth decayed,
He can no longer chew his food; the stag
Decrepit, when he scarce may stir his limbs;
The venerable hare, when that the blood
Is stagnant in his veins; the hoary raven,
The falcon, when grown blind; the eagle, when
His ancient beak so crooks into an arch,136
That, closed for aye, it nourishes his throat
No more; they pass unto their cemetery;
And even the lesser beasts, when hurt or sick,
Hasten to die here in their native place.
Hence in those places
