So many people had come in that the place was chock-full. They pressed against the grating till it shook, and after a time began to talk, the murmur of voices soon filling the whole room.
Under the windows outside, Jews were vociferating; within, women clamorously expounded their wrongs, and still more clamorously wept over them; but what those wrongs were, no one could make out. Everybody was cheek by jowl, like a field of red poppies or of rye, waving to and fro in the wind, and rustling and whispering; all clustered together.
It was then that Eva caught sight of Boryna, upright against the grating, and heaped insults upon him, till she cut him to the quick and he answered hotly:
“Silence, you bitch, or I’ll give you such a drubbing that your own mother won’t know you!”
Eva, in a fury, clawed at him, and tried to reach him through the press; but her kerchief fell off, and her child fell a-screaming. What might have happened, none can say: for just then Yacek started up, opened an inner door, and shouted:
“Hold your peace, yokels! The court is entering.”
It was indeed: the stalwart squire of Raciborowice, followed by two assistant magistrates, and the secretary. The latter, sitting down at a side-table, set some papers in order, and eyed the magistrates, as they put their gold chains round their necks, and took their places at a great table, covered with crimson cloth.
At once there fell such a silence that the men chattering outside the windows could be plainly heard; and the session began.
The first complaint was brought by a constable against a petty trader, on account of some nuisance in his yard.—Condemned in default.
Then the case of a boy flogged for having put horses to graze in clover.—A compromise: five roubles for the mother; a new jacket and trousers for the boy.
A complaint of encroachment in ploughing.—No evidence: set aside.
A case of theft of timber in a forest, the judge’s property: complainant, the administrator; defendants, the peasants of Rokiciny.—Fined, with alternative of a fortnight’s imprisonment. They gave notice of appeal, and made such a noise about the injustice of the sentence, they having the common right to cut firewood in the forest, that the head magistrate made a sign to Yacek, who thundered:
“Silence! silence in the court! This is not a tavern!”
And thus case after case, like furrow following furrow, was dispatched, evenly and quietly enough in general, with a few lamentations and sobs, or even curses at times; but these were promptly suppressed by Yacek.
Some of the people had withdrawn; but so many more came instead, that they all stood like cornstalks in a sheaf. No one could move, and it grew stiflingly hot, until the magistrate ordered the windows to be opened.
And now came the case of Bartek Koziol, of Lipka, accused of stealing a sow from Martianna Paches, daughter of Anthony. Witnesses, the aforesaid Martianna, her son Simon, Barbara Pyesek, etc.
“Are the witnesses present?” asked one of the assistant magistrates.
“We are here,” came the reply in chorus.
Boryna had hitherto stood patiently apart, close to the grating; but he now approached Paches to greet her; for she was no other than Dominik’s widow, Yagna’s mother.
“Let the defendant come up to the grating.”
A low-statured peasant pushed forwards.
“Are you Bartek Koziol?”
The peasant, seemingly bewildered, scratched his thick hair, of roundhead cut; a silly grin twitched his dry clean-shaven face, and his small red-fringed eyes kept leaping like squirrels from one judge to the other.
As he answered nothing, the judge repeated the question.
“Aye, aye, that he is; he is Bartek Koziol, an’t please the most honourable court!” cried an unwieldy woman, forcing her way inside the grating.
“What do you want?”
“An’t please you, I am the wife of this poor thing, Bartek Koziol”; and extending her hands, palms downwards to the floor, she bowed till her frilled cap touched the magistrates’ table.
“Are you a witness?”
“A witness, did you say? No, but please. …”
“Usher, outside the grating with her.”
“Get out, woman; this is not your place.”
He seized her by the shoulders and forced her back.
“An’t please this most honourable court,” she cried, “my husband is hard of hearing!”
“Out, before I treat you roughly!” Yacek roared, pushing her against the grating till she groaned with pain.
“Go peaceably; we shall speak loud enough for your Koziol to hear.”
The examination began.
“What is your name?”
“My name? Surely you know it, since you have called me. Is it my nickname you want?”
“Dolt! give your name,” said the inexorable magistrate.
“Bartek Koziol, most honourable court,” his wife replied for him.
“How old?”
“How am I to remember? Mother, what age am I?”
“Fifty-two next spring, I think.”
“A farmer?”
“Oh, yes: three acres of sandy land and one head of cattle; a fine farmer I am!”
“Ever sentenced?”
“Sentenced?”
“Were you ever put in prison?”
“Is it convicted you mean?—Mother, was I ever in prison?”
“Yes, Bartek, you were—through those rotten manor folks, on account of a dead lamb.”
“Ah, so I was.—I found a dead lamb in a pasture-meadow. Well, was it to be eaten by the dogs? So I took it; and they lodged a complaint against me, and swore I had stolen the beast, and the court passed sentence. They put me in prison, and there I had to lie.—But it was unjust—unjust!” he said in a low voice, and casting a side-glance at his wife.
“You are accused of stealing a sow, the property of Martianna Paches: of taking it out of the field, driving it to your hut, and killing and eating it. What defence have you?”
“I never ate it. If I did, may God forsake me at my dying hour! I eat it?—Well, I declare!”
“What defence have you?”
“Oh … defence?—Had I aught to say, Mother?—Ah, I remember now.—Yes: not guilty. I did not eat the sow, and this same Martianna Dominik’s widow is even as a barking dog!”
“Oh,
