ing her eyes; then they began to laugh,
and finally to talk about a certain unexpected meeting in the garden,
about a certain stepping over the burdocks and the vegetable beds.
Thaddeus, eagerly pricking up his ears, devoured the bitter words and
digested them in his soul. He had a frightful meal. As a serpent in a
garden drinks with its double tongue from poisonous herbs, then rolls into
a ball and lies down upon the path, threatening the foot that may
carelessly step upon it, so Thaddeus, filled with the poison of jealousy,
seemed indifferent, but yet was bursting with malice.

In the merriest assembly, if a few are out of sorts, at once their gloom
spreads to the rest. The sportsmen had long ceased to speak, and now the
other side of the table became silent, infected with the spleen of
Thaddeus.

Even the Chamberlain was unusually gloomy and had no wish to chat,
observing that his daughters, handsome and well-dowered young ladies as
they were, in the flower of youth, by universal opinion the best matches
in the district, were silent and neglected by the young men, who were also
silent. This also caused concern to the hospitable Judge; and the
Seneschal, noticing that all were thus silent, called the meal not a
Polish but a wolves' supper.

Hreczecha had an ear very sensitive to silence; he himself was a great
talker, and he was inordinately fond of chatterers. It was no wonder! He
had passed all his life with the gentry at banquets, hunts, assemblies,
and district consultations; he was accustomed to having something always
drumming in his ears, even when he himself was silent, or was stealing
with a flapper after a fly, or sat musing with closed eyes; by day he
sought conversation, by night they had to repeat to him the rosary
prayers, or tell him stories. Hence also he was a staunch enemy of the
tobacco pipe, which he thought invented by the Germans in order to
denationalise us. He used to say, "To make Poland dumb is to Germanise
Poland."92 The old man, who had prattled all through his life, now wished
to repose amid prattle; silence awoke him from sleep: thus millers, lulled
by the clatter of the wheels, as soon as the axles stop, awake crying in
fright: "The Lord be with us!"93

The Seneschal by a bow made a sign to the Chamberlain, and, with his hand
raised to his lips, motioned to the Judge, asking for the floor. The
gentlemen both returned that mute bow, meaning, "Pray speak." The
Seneschal opened his addr