castle right under our nose. Up—Zahrada! Up Zajczek! I feel an itch that tells me we’ll get good food and drink there.”
They were all three hungry. It is not necessary to make any remark about their being thirsty. They jumped up, picked up the fiddles, and set out for the castle.
It was a large and splendid castle. Across the façade were thirteen lighted windows, and they glowed mightily through the night. And within—what life—what revelry! Twenty cooks were running hither and thither in the great kitchen. Some were turning huge spits and seasoning sauces; another was cooking fritters; the third peeling potatoes. One was grinding poppies in a mortar, another drawing foaming beer whose fragrance all but made the fiddlers dumb. The scent of the mown aftermath upon which they fell asleep was sweet in the fields, but this fragrance of a foaming brew was quite different.
And within the great drawing rooms! Men and women of nobility, in festal attire were sitting in front of the roasted meats and red gleaming wines. They heard the drinking glasses ring at touch, laughter and repartee echoed from the resplendent
