behind, it threw out a long tail, and with it encircled a third part of the sky, gathered in hundreds of stars as with a net, and drew them after it; but it aimed its own head higher, towards the north, straight for the polar star.
With inexpressible apprehension all the Lithuanian folk gazed each night at this heavenly marvel, foreboding ill from it, and likewise from other signs: for too often they heard the cries of ill-omened birds, which, gathering in throngs on empty fields, sharpened their beaks as if awaiting corpses. Too often they noticed that the dogs rooted up the earth, and, as if scenting death, howled piercingly, which was an omen of famine or of war. But the forest guards beheld how through the graveyard walked the Maid of Pestilence, whose brow rises above the highest trees, and who waves in her left hand a bloody kerchief.145
From all this the Overseer drew various conclusions, as he stood by the fence after coming to report on the work; so likewise did the Bookkeeper, who was whispering with the Steward.
But the Chamberlain was seated on the bench of turf before the house. He interrupted the conversation of the guests, a sign that he was preparing to speak; in the moonlight shone his great snuffbox (all of pure gold, set with diamonds; in the middle of it was a portrait of King Stanislaw, under glass); he tapped on it with his fingers, took a pinch, and said:—
"Thaddeus, your talk about the stars is only an echo of what you have heard in school; as to marvels I prefer to take the advice of simple people. I too studied astronomy for two years at Wilno, where Pani Puzynin, a wise and a rich woman, had given the income of a
