第633页 / 共788页

To this the Warden replied: "There are strange things in the

world; who can fathom them all! I too will tell you, sir,

something which, though not so marvellous as that omen, is

nevertheless hard to understand. You know that in old days I

should have been glad to drown the Soplica family in a spoonful

of water; and yet of this young fellow Thaddeus I was always

immensely fond, from his childhood up. I took nonce that whenever

he got into a fight with the other lads he always beat them; so,

every time that he came to the castle, I kept stirring him up to

difficult feats. He succeeded in everything, whether he set out

to dislodge the doves from the tower, or to pluck the mistletoe

from the oak, or to tear down a crow's nest from the highest

pine: he was equal to anything. I thought to myself-that boy was

born under a happy star; too bad that he is a Soplica! Who would

have guessed that in him I was to greet the owner of the castle,

the husband of Panna Sophia, Her Grace my Lady!"