Now he could imagine himself transported back to the fine old feudal
times before the March revolution. The peasants were again obliged to
raise their hats humbly to him, his hand dispensed justice and mercy,
the ancestral rod was brandished at his sign, and the whipping bench, a
pleasing symbol of his power, always stood ready below the windows of
his castle. When he drove through the country on official business or
pleasure, his carriage was drawn by four horses with a harness hung
with bells; if a peasant's cart was in the way and did not hasten at
the sound of the familiar little bells to move out, the heiduck in
coloured livery, with a sword at his side, sitting by the driver,
shouted an order and an oath to the laggard, and the coachman, while
dashing by, dealt the disrespectful loiterer a well-aimed blow. He
might even fare still worse if the humor happened to seize the grandee
in the spring carriage.
It would no longer do to get the village Jew and have him flogged for
pastime on long afternoons; but there were still gipsies who were
summoned to the castle to make sport for the noble lord.
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