Eva Jezierzańska, Zwierzchowska’s daughter-in-law’s mother, handles the youth recruits when she is with Jacob and not in Warsaw—she looks after their lodging, the girls, their jobs, their recreation. She conducts correspondence, arranging accommodation and the arrival dates of the brothers coming to Offenbach, as if this were a heavily frequented inn. When she goes back to Warsaw, her duties are taken over by Jacob Zalewski, the younger Dembowski’s son-in-law. The Czerniawskis, meanwhile, are in charge of finances. Their son, Antoni, is the Lord’s secretary, along with Yeruhim Dembowski, whom the Lord wishes to be always at his side these days. They have a chancellery next to the Lord’s room, bigger than the one in Brünn. Some of the young people copy out letters when the time comes to send them around to the true believers. Dembowska, Yeruhim’s wife, in a tiny little room at the very top of the palace that is constantly being stormed by pigeons with their noisy claws, handles the vending of golden drops. There is another small room that is like a post office, filled with little wooden boxes and piles of tow to arrange inside. The expensive goods are set along the shelves—hundreds of little bottles already filled up with golden drops; the labels are written by her daughter. The kitchen is run by one of the Matuszewskis, the one who married Micha? Wo?owski’s son. She is a self-confident, domineering woman, and in attitude and temperament she is suited to the kitchen’s design, as there are not any pots here, though there are cauldrons and huge pans, and the roasting tins they bought are big enough they could fit even the fattest goose. For the worst jobs they hire girls from town, but every girl who visits is expected to help out in the kitchen.
Franciszek Szymanowski, who in Brünn handled the guard and the drills and had absolute power, has to share it here with Prince Lubomirski. He has done so willingly and even with a certain panache, presenting him with the baton that had been ordered back in Brünn, solemnly, on a pillow. He is already feeling exhausted by the ever-growing “legion.” He has reserved for himself only the function of leading the procession every Sunday, when they all ride to church on the road along the river. That’s when people come out of their houses to look at them. Szymanowski heads up the whole cavalcade—he sits up very straight and proud on his horse. He wears a half smile on his lips, looking neither ruminative nor ironic. His eyes pass over the people they go by as they would a lawn, boring and monotonous. Prince Lubomirski, meanwhile, always goes in the carriage with Jacob and Eva. This parade arrives so punctually that the inhabitants of Offenbach could set their watches by it, as far as he’s concerned—time for morning coffee! Here is that Polish count going to Bürgel, the one Catholic church in the area, surrounded by his entourage like some sort of faun.
This mass is celebrated only for them, and the so-called Polacken pack the little church. They pray in silence and sing in Polish. Jacob continues his habit of lying in the form of the cross before the altar, which has created quite the sensation among the Catholics of Bürgel; they are unfamiliar with such ostentatious eastern piety. The parish priest praises them and tells others to follow their example. Since they have been here, the church has never wanted for candles or incense. And recently Eva funded new episcopal robes and a beautiful gold monstrance studded with the most expensive stones. The parish priest all but fainted when he saw it, and now every night he worries about whether keeping such a valuable thing won’t tempt every sort of thief.
The knife set with turquoise
Prince Jerzy Marcin Lubomirski was already completely broke when he turned up in Offenbach. Of his great fortune, one of the largest in all of Poland, nothing remains. In recent years he dedicated all of his energy to working for the king, who appreciated his excellent knowledge of all the local actresses as well as everything happening behind the scenes—he organized the royal theater in Warsaw. Unfortunately, he cannot shake his reputation as a traitor and a rabble-rouser. First, back when he was still commander of the fortress in Kamieniec, he sullied his royal honor by marrying a woman without her or his parents’ permission. The marriage turned out to be short-lived and unhappy. After obtaining a divorce, he married again, but that marriage, too, was not long for this world. He’s also had dalliances with men. To one of his male lovers he gifted a town and several villages, proving himself to be miserable marriage material. He always considered himself a soldier first and foremost. His tactical talents were evidently also noticed by Frederick, the Prussian emperor, who made him a general during the Silesian Wars. Due to almost inexplicable boredom connected with the Prussian way of waging war, the prince deserted from the Prussian army and founded his own division, with which he attacked his former comrades in arms. He was in fact fighting on two fronts, battling the Polish army at the same time, and he indulged with great gusto in rape and plunder as well. The territory between the fronts, the delectable anarchy, the suspension of all laws, human and divine, villages burned after the army passed through, battlefields covered in corpses to be looted, the slaughter of paupers found poking around out there, the nauseating smell of the blood mixed with the sour smell of digested alcohol—all that was the kingdom of Jerzy Marcin Lubomirski. In the end he was captured by the Poles and sentenced to death for treason and banditry. His family interceded on his behalf, and he escaped death in exchange for a long prison sentence. When the Bar Confederation was formed, however, suddenly people were reminded of his leadership talents, and he was given an opportunity for reform. He supplied provisions to Pu?aski’s troops in the Jasna Góra fortress and spent time there himself.
Lubomirski still remembers well the evening in Cz?stochowa when the wife of this Jacob Frank died. He watched the neophytes making their funeral procession, getting permission from the commander of the fortress to go outside the walls to bury the body in some cave. He had never in his life seen people more grief-stricken. Poor, downtrodden, gray, some of them dressed like Turks, some of them like Cossacks, and their women in cheap, garish dresses that didn’t suit a funeral at all. He felt sorry for them then. Who would have thought that he would find himself among them now?
For the duration of the chaotic siege, he knew that although it was forbidden to have any contact with the prisoners, the soldiers would go to Frank like to some kind of holy father, and Frank would put his hands on their heads. Among the soldiers there was a belief that his touch could make you impervious to blows and bullets. And he also remembers that girl, Frank’s daughter, so young and flighty, whom the father never let out of the tower, no doubt fearing for her virtue, and how she would sometimes slip in from the town to the monastery with a hood over her beautiful head.
The prince’s mood darkened there in stifling Cz?stochowa. He wasn’t really able to pray; the votive offerings hanging on the walls made him uncomfortable as he rattled off his devotions. For what if he were to meet with such misfortune? If he lost a leg, or was disfigured in some explosion? But of one thing he was sure: People like him enjoyed special privileges with the Holy Mother, she had proven that to be the case a great many times. She was like his family, like a kind aunt who would help him out of any type of scrape.