undress. The
Apparitor undid his belt, a belt from Sluck,29 a massive belt, on which
glittered tassels thick as helmet-plumes; on one side it was gold brocade
with purple flowers, on the reverse black silk with silver cross-stripes.
Such a belt may be worn equally well on either side, golden for a holiday,
and black for mourning. The Apparitor alone knew how to undo and fold up
this belt; he took this trouble upon himself and ended with the following
speech:--

"Where was the harm that I moved the tables to the old castle? No one has
lost thereby, and you, sir, will perhaps gain, for the suit now before the
court concerns the ownership of that castle. From this day we have
acquired a right to the castle, and notwithstanding all the fury of the
opposite side I will prove that we have taken the castle into our
possession. For whoever invites guests to supper in a castle proves that
he holds possession there--or takes it; we will even summon the opposite
side as witnesses: I remember such happenings in my time."

The Judge was already asleep. So the Apparitor quietly went out into the
hall, seated himself by a candle, and took from his pocket a little book
that always served him as a Prayer Book,30 and from which he never was
parted, either at home or on a journey. It was the Court Calendar;31 there
in order were written down cases which years ago the Apparitor had
proclaimed with his own voice, before the authorities, or of which he had
managed to learn later. To common men the Calendar seems a mere list of
names, but to the Apparitor it was a succession of magnificent pictures.
So he read and mused: Oginski and Wizgird, the Dominicans and Rymsza,
Rymsza and Wysogierd, Radziwill and Wereszczaka, Giedrojc and Rodultowski,
Obuchowicz and the Jewish commune, Juraha and Piotrowski, Maleski and
Mickiewicz, and finally Count Horeszko and Soplica; and, as he read, he
called forth from these names the memory of mighty cases, and all the
events of the trial; and before his eyes stand the court, plaintiff,
defendant, and witnesses; and he beholds himself, how in a white smock and
dark blue kontusz he stands before the tribunal, with one hand on his
sabre and the other on the table, summoning the two parties. "Silence!" he
calls. Thus dreaming and finishing his evening prayer, gradually the last
court apparitor in Lithuania fell asleep.

Such were the amusements and disputes of those days in the quiet
Lithuanian village, while th