every word, pausing between them and emphasising
them:--

"O stupid, stupid idiots! Whoever dances, you will pay the piper. So long
as the discussion was over the resurrection of Poland and had to do with
the public weal, idiots, all this time you quarrelled! It was impossible,
idiots, either to debate, idiots, or to get order among you, or to put a
leader over you, idiots! But let any one raise his private grudges,
idiots, then straightway you agree! Get out of here! for, as my name is
Maciek, I wish you to millions, hundreds of hundreds of thousands of
waggons of hogsheads, of drays of devils!!!"

All were hushed as if struck by lightning! But at the same moment a
terrible shouting arose outside the house, "Vivat the Count!" He was
riding into Maciej's yard, armed himself, and followed by ten armed
jockeys. The Count was mounted on a mettled steed and dressed in black
garments; over them a nut-brown cloak of Italian cut, broad and without
sleeves, and fastened at the neck with a buckle, fell from his shoulders
like a great shroud. He wore a round hat with a feather, and carried a
sword in his hand; he wheeled about and saluted the throng with the sword.

"Vivat the Count!" they cried; "we will live and die with him!" The gentry
began to gaze out of the cottage through the windows, and to press
continually towards the door behind the Warden. The Warden went out, and
behind him the crowd tumbled through the door; Maciek drove out the
remnant, shut the door, bolted it, and, looking out through the window,
said once more, "Idiots!"

But meanwhile the gentry had rallied to the Count. They went to the
tavern; Gerwazy called to mind the days of old, and bade them give him
three Polish girdles, by means of which he drew from the vaults of the
tavern three casks, one of mead, the second of brandy, and the third of
beer. He took out the spigots, and immediately three streamlets spurted
forth, gurgling, one white as silver, the second red as carnelian, the
third yellow: with a triple rainbow they played on high; they fell in a
hundred cups and hummed in a hundred glasses. The gentry ran riot: some
drank, others wished a hundred years to the Count, all shouted, "Down with
the Soplica!"

Jankiel rode off on horseback, silently, without saddle; the Prussian
likewise, unheard, though he still discoursed eloquently, tried to slip
away; the gentry chased him, crying that he was a traitor. Mickiewicz
stood apart, at some distance