hrong
was breaking up into two groups, and, nodding their heads in contrary
directions, one faction cried, "We forbid," and the other, "We beg you."

Old Maciek sat in their midst the one dumb man, and his head alone was
unmoved. Opposite him stood Baptist, resting his hands on his club, and,
moving his head, which was supported on the end of the club, like a
pumpkin stuck on the end of a long pole, he nodded it, now forward and now
backward, and cried incessantly, "Sprinkle, sprinkle!" Up and down the
room the mobile Razor ran constantly from Sprinkler to Maciej's bench, but
Bucket slowly walked across the room from the Dobrzynskis to the other
gentry, as if he were trying to reconcile them. One shouted continually,
"Shave," and the other, "Pour"; Maciek held his peace, but he was
evidently beginning to be angry.

For a quarter of an hour the uproar seethed, when above the bawling crowd,
out of the throng of heads, there leapt aloft a shining pillar. This was a
sword two yards long and a whole palm broad, sharp on both edges.
Evidently it was a German sword, forged of Nuremberg steel; all gazed at
the weapon in silence. Who had raised it up? They could not see, but at
once they guessed.

"That is the penknife, long live the penknife!" they shouted; "vivat the
penknife, the jewel135 of Rembajlo hamlet! Vivat Rembajlo, Notchy,
Half-Goat, My-boy!"

At once Gerwazy, for it was he, pressed through the crowd into the middle
of the room, carrying his flashing penknife; then, lowering the point
before Maciek as a sign of greeting, he said:--

"The penknife bows to the switch. Brothers, gentlemen of Dobrzyn, I will
give you no advice. Not at all; I will only tell you why I have assembled
you; but what to do and how to do it, decide for yourselves. You know the
rumour has long been current among the hamlets that great things are
preparing in the world. Father Robak has been talking of this; do not you
all know this?" ("We know it," they shouted.) "Well, so for a wise head,"
continued the orator, looking sharply at them, "two words are enough. Is
not that true?" ("It is," they said.) "Since the French Emperor is coming
from one direction," said the Warden, "and the Russian Tsar from the
other, there will be war; the Tsar and the Emperor, kings and kings, will
start to pummel one another as monarchs usually do--and shall we sit quiet?
When the great begin to choke the great, let us choke the smaller, each
his own man. When we