Absolution
by Clara Viebig · English · Gutenberg #30724 · 544,564 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Absolution
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Absolution
Author: Clara Viebig
Translator: H. Raahauge
Release date: December 20, 2009 [eBook #30724]
Most recently updated: January 5, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30724
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABSOLUTION ***
Produced by Charles Bowen
[Pg i]
ABSOLUTION
[Pg ii]
[Blank Page]
[Pg iii]
ABSOLUTION
BY CLARA VIEBIG
TRANSLATED BY
H. RAAHAUGE
LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVIII
[Pg iv]
PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS
[Pg v]
ABSOLUTION
[Pg 1]
ABSOLUTION
CHAPTER I
"The rats! Ugh, the rats!" cried beautiful Mrs. Tiralla, as she stood
in the cellar with her maid. They had gone down to fetch some of the
pickled cabbage from the tub in the corner in order to cook it, and the
maid was carrying the lamp whilst Mrs. Tiralla held the earthenware
dish. But now she let it fall with a piercing shriek, and lifted her
skirts so high that you could see her gay-coloured, striped stockings,
and her neat feet encased in shiny leather slippers.
"Where are the rats?" The maid laughed and showed all her big white
teeth. "I can't see any rats. There are none here, Pani," and she
looked at her mistress with a half stupid, half cunning leer on her
face. "Pani must have been dreaming, there's not a living thing in the
cellar except Pani and Marianna. Sh! sh! hark!" She bent her head and
listened for a moment; then she shook it and laughed again. "Rats would
patter, but there's no sound of anything."
She raised the lamp, so that the light shone all around. Gliding
shadows fell on the black walls gleaming with moisture, and showed
up the cracks in [Pg 2] the rough masonry, the places where the
bricks were crumbling away, and the dark corners in which hung big
spider-webs. It was the old cellar of an old house in which the two
women were standing, and a very neglected one to boot. It had never
been cleared. Turf and coals, all higgledy-piggledy, were stored away
near the tub containing the _Sauerkraut_; and amongst the many wine
bottles that lay scattered about on the floor there were just as many
empty ones as full ones. The shelves, which once upon a time had
reached half-way up the cellar walls, had fallen to pieces, and were
now nothing but a heap of rotting wood. All kinds of rubbish lay
amongst the potatoes, and broken hooks, broomsticks, and old pieces of
pot stuck out of the sand, into which, here and there, a bundle of
herbs had been carelessly thrust, in order to keep it through the
winter. The place had never been aired, as there was nothing but a very
small grating right at the top, which was never opened; and it smelt
foul. The lamp gave a dim light, as though stifled by the mustiness,
and the two figures--the clumsy figure of the maid and the more dainty
one of the mistress--were encircled by a vaporous, glimmering mist.
"But there _are_ rats here, do you see, do you hear? Ugh!" Mrs. Tiralla
again gave a loud shriek, her face was pale, and, opening her sparkling
eyes wide as if with terror, she seized hold of the girl's arm. "There
was one! Ugh! Horrid animal!" She shook herself and gave a jump, as if
one of the long-tailed monsters were already creeping up her warm body.
"Holy Mother!" As though infected with the exaggerated fear of her
mistress, the maid now also gave a shrill scream and let the lamp fall,
as her mistress [Pg 3] before the dish. It broke into many pieces and
went out. They stood in pitch darkness.
"You stupid girl!" screamed her mistress nervously, and raised her hand
as if to strike her.
The maid ducked down and jumped aside, as though she could see the
lifted hand in spite of the darkness; her suppressed chuckling was
heard in a distant corner of the cellar.
"If Pani is going to hit me, ha-ha! I shall stop here, ha-ha!"
"Nonsense. Hit you? I shouldn't think of such a thing," protested Mrs.
Tiralla, trying to conciliate her. "Just come here. Give me your hand."
"Oh, no, no! I am sure Pani will hit me."
"Give me your hand, I say--at once. I'm not going to do anything to
you, stupid. Marianna, where are you?"
Beautiful Mrs. Tiralla now seemed to be seized with real terror--a
terror that was much more genuine than before. Her voice trembled with
anxiety, her bosom heaved and sank rapidly; one moment she felt quite
cold and the next her head burnt. Ugh! how dark it was. Just like a
grave! She felt icy cold right down her back. Ah, how dreadful to be
here in the dark, quite alone with _those_ thoughts.
"Marianna!" She cried so loudly that it echoed from the vaulted roof.
"Marianna, where are you?"
No answer.
"Marianna, I'll give you my silk apron which you like so much.
Marianna, but where are you?"
"Why, I'm here. I only went a couple of steps away from you. Here,
Pani, here." The girl's warm hand seized hold of her mistress's cold,
moist fingers, "So that Pani doesn't knock against anything," she
whispered in an ingratiating voice.
[Pg 4]
Thus hand-in-hand the two women groped their way in the dark, until
they came to the cellar steps.
"Praise be to the Holy Mother and all the saints!" lisped Mrs. Tiralla
as she felt the first step of the slippery stone stairs under her feet.
Fifteen steep steps more, and then, thank God, they would be at the
top. Then it would be light again. And the dark thoughts would remain
below in the darkness. She did not shudder now, when she was almost at
the top; on the contrary, she could hardly help laughing, for she had
at last succeeded in thoroughly frightening Marianna, who now firmly
believed in rats. So she made up her mind that she would not scold the
girl on account of the lamp. The thing was now to go on talking and
complaining a great, great deal about the rats, so that everybody would
soon say: "There are so many rats at Starydwór, in Anton Tiralla's
house, that they dance on his benches and tables, that they devour his
wheat on the barn floor whilst it's being thrashed, that they've
nibbled at the mistress's beautiful dress in her wardrobe--her blue
silk one, trimmed with lace." That would be splendid, splendid!
Mrs. Tiralla squeezed the girl's hand with a deep sigh of relief. "You
see now that there are rats, although you would never believe it
before; oh, ever so many."
"When Pani says there are rats, then there are rats," said the girl in
a submissive tone of voice.
Mrs. Tiralla did not notice the smile that made the big mouth under the
snub nose still bigger, nor the cunning, lurking gleam that flashed in
the small, deep-set eyes.
"Ha-ha!" laughed the maid to herself, "did the Pani really think she
was so stupid? Rats _had_ to be [Pg 5] here. The Pani wished rats to be
here; the Pani tried to make-believe that rats were here. Well, let
people who were more stupid than she was believe it, for she, Marianna
['S]roka, was much too clever, nobody could humbug her. The mistress
must have some reason for saying it, for there were no rats."
She pretended, however, to agree with her mistress, and when they saw
daylight again she shuddered and said: "Pani is quite pale with fright.
_Psia krew_, those horrible animals! They'll soon be eating the hair
off our heads."
Mrs. Tiralla nodded. Then she said, "You can come to my room
afterwards, and I'll give you the apron I've promised you."
"And the lace," said the maid, "the lace which the Pani showed me the
other day, I'll put it on my apron."
"My lace on your apron!" Mrs. Tiralla's pale face grew red with anger.
"Are you mad?"
"Oh, only a little bit of it--there's only a little bit left. What can
Pani do with such a little bit? It's not worth keeping." And then the
girl gave a loud, bold laugh, and added, "Then I'll say that Pani has
given me it, as the rats would otherwise have devoured it. There are so
many rats, the rats devour everything here."
A thought flashed through Mrs. Tiralla's mind, "How impertinent she
was! What did she suspect? What did she know?"
The two women stared at each other for a few seconds as though they
wished to read each other's thoughts. But then they both smiled.
"The Pani can rely upon me," the servant's smile seemed to say. "I'll
pretend to be stupid: I'll hear nothing, see nothing, know nothing,
just as it suits the Pani."
[Pg 6]
And the mistress's smile said: "That girl is so stupid, there's no need
to fear her. She doesn't notice anything, she believes what is said to
her. And even if she should notice something, she can be bought at a
pinch with an apron, a bit of ribbon, a morsel of lace, or half a
gulden."
"Now we've broken the dish, and there's no _Sauerkraut_ for dinner,
Marianna," said Mrs. Tiralla.
"Never mind, Pani," and the black-haired girl laughed until her narrow,
sparkling eyes quite disappeared behind her prominent cheek-bones.
"I'll go down in the cellar by myself with another dish and fetch up
some 'kapusta'; Pani needn't fear the rats. And if he," with a short
nod in the direction of the nearest door, "should say, 'Why are the
dish and the lamp broken?' I'll answer, 'Oh, an accursed rat jumped
over our hands and bit the Pani's hand and my nose. There are so many
rats in the cellar that you can't go down any more with safety."
"That's right," said Mrs. Tiralla, and smiled contentedly. "There's so
much vermin in this old house that it's quite dreadful. And we've
cockroaches as well in the kitchen--"
"The walls are covered with them every evening," the girl chimed in
eagerly. "The __gospodarz__ had better come to my kitchen some evening,
when the light's out, and see it for himself, and then _he'll_ say,
'Ugh!' They fly at your head, and into your face, and against your
nose, eyes, and ears. They crawl about everywhere--ugh!" She threw her
apron over her head and gave a loud shriek.
"_Psia krew_, what a noise! Confound you, woman, can't you hold your
tongue for five seconds, not for those few moments when I want to
sleep?"
The door of the room was flung open and the master [Pg 7] began
scolding the maid in an angry voice. But when he caught sight of his
wife behind the girl his tone became gentler, even anxious. "What is
it, what is it?" For Mrs. Tiralla had also screamed, as if in sudden
terror. "Why do you both scream so? My heart! why do you both scream
so? What _has_ happened? Why, you're quite pale. Tell me, my Sophia,
what's happened to you?"
You could see that this big man, with his strong limbs and ruddy-brown
face, was very anxious about his wife, and, after hitching up his
trousers (for he knew that she disliked him to take off his braces and
make himself comfortable. "Fie, what a boor you are!" she would then
say to him), he quickly approached her. "What on earth has happened to
you? Tell me."
The woman's black eyes stared at him out of her pale face. "Holy
Mother, the rats again!" she stammered, and stretched out her hands as
though she wanted to seize hold of something.
Then Mr. Tiralla burst out laughing. "Rats? But, my dear little woman,
there are always rats where there are pigs; and why shouldn't there
be some here on the farm? If it's nothing but that." He laughed
good-naturedly. "I thought you must have seen the little Plucka,[A] or
the 'Babok,' the black man, in the cellar. Why didn't you say, 'All
good spirits praise God!' and then the rats would also have ran away?"
[Footnote A: Plucka: a ghost with feet like a hen.]
"Don't blaspheme," she said in an icy tone. "God punish you for so
doing." And when he playfully tried to embrace her, and pushed his
enormous, hairy hand under her chin, she shrank back, and, holding her
apron up to her eyes, she burst into tears. She sobbed bitterly.
[Pg 8]
It was in vain that the man tried to pull the apron away; she held it
firmly pressed against her face. Her slender fingers, which for a
farmer's wife were singularly soft, had an enormous power of
resistance.
He felt quite dismayed. "My heart, my dove, Sophia, what is the matter
with you?" He tried in vain to catch a glimpse of her face. "Confound
you, woman, why are you grinning?" he suddenly roared, turning to the
maid who was still standing in the same place with a broad smile on her
face. "Drat you! it's you who have vexed the mistress."
"No, no, Panje, not I. It was the rats, I swear it. If only the
_gospodarz_ would go down into the cellar he would see for himself how
they run on the floor and jump up the walls. And in my kitchen he can
see the cockroaches--hundreds of thousands, hundred thousand millions
of them! Some day they'll fall into Pan Tiralla's food, and then the
master will see them for himself."
"Just you try to do it!" Tiralla raised his heavy hand as if to strike
the maid, but she evaded him as adroitly as she before had evaded her
mistress. It was so ludicrous to see her duck down behind her mistress
and make use of her as a bulwark, that the uncouth man roared with
laughter. "You needn't fear, you idiot," he said good-naturedly. "I'm
not going to hit you. I know very well that you're a little devil, but
I don't for a moment think you'll put any dirt into my plate."
"Oh, no," she assured him ingenuously, "I won't do that," and she came
out from behind her mistress.
He pinched her firm cheek with his hairy hand. It hurt, and his rough
fingers first left a white, then a burning red mark; but she put up
with it in silence. No, the _gospodarz_ wasn't angry. He was really
much [Pg 9] better than his wife. All at once Marianna thought that her
master was to be pitied. She drew a little nearer to him and threw him
a glance full of promise from under her half-closed lids. If the old
man wanted she was quite willing.
But Tiralla had only eyes for his wife. He continued to beg for a look
from her. There was something ridiculous in the way this strong,
already grey-haired man worried about this delicate, dainty little
woman. "Sophia, my darling, what is the matter? Look at me, my dove,
pray don't cry."
He succeeded at length in taking the apron away from her face. But when
he tried to kiss her cheek her eyes sparkled, and she spat at him like
an angry cat. "Oh, you've hurt me! Pooh, how you smell of manure and
tobacco, and of gin, too. You stink, you boor!" And she spat on the
ground.
"My darling," he said quite sadly, "what things you do say. I have only
drunk one small--really, only one quite small glass--of gin to-day. I
swear it by the Holy Mother."
"Don't pollute the Holy Mother by calling on her," she cried in a
cutting voice. "Rather blaspheme her, that she sends you the sooner to
hell, where you belong. I shall not shed a single tear for you, I swear
that."
"What--what have I done to you?" the man stammered, quite terrified.
"I've never done anything to you. I've bought you dresses, as many as
you liked; I've taken you to balls as often as you liked; I've let you
dance with whom you liked; I've never said 'no' when you've said 'yes';
and now you speak so horridly to me. You're ill, my dear; I'll send for
the doctor."
"Yes, ill!" she cried, sobbing bitterly. "You've made me ill--you, you,
you!" She rushed at him [Pg 10] as though she wanted to scratch his
face with her nails. "I don't like you! I detest you! I--I hate you!"
she shrieked in a piercing voice. Her eyes sparkled; she clenched her
hands and struck her breast, and then she thrust all her fingers into
her beautifully smooth hair and tore it out. Her dainty figure trembled
and swayed, and she turned so pale that he thought she was going to
faint.
The servant opened her eyes in amazement. What was the matter with her?
Oh, how stupid she was, how stupid! Why shout it at the master if he
hadn't noticed anything? Ay, now she had told him plainly enough--"I
hate you!" And he, poor man (may God console him!), what did he do? Was
it a laughing or a crying matter? Marianna ['S]roka did not know if she
should think "Oh, you arrant fool!" or if she should wish, "If only he
were _my_ husband, or, at least, my lover." For the _gospodarz_ was
good, thoroughly good; he wouldn't stint, her--her and her two little
ones. That woman was really too nasty. She didn't deserve such a good
husband.
Hitherto her mistress had always had her sympathy, but in a sudden
revulsion of feeling she now felt much more drawn towards her master.
It was a shame how that woman treated him. She must really have
bewitched him, that he put up with such things. It would be better if
he took off his big, leather slipper, with the wooden heel, and hit her
over the head with it and stunned her, rather than that he should beg
and implore in that way. Oh, yes, of course there was no doubt about
it, the master was enchanted; the big, stout man had been bewitched by
that little woman, that lean goat. She was a "mora," who could change
herself into a cat, or into one of those creatures that fly down the
chimney on a broomstick. [Pg 11] The priest ought to know it; he would
soon put a spoke into her wheel. But there was a better plan than that.
She, Marianna, would take the matter into her own hands, then she alone
would earn the gratitude of Pan Tiralla. She would take the tip of her
shift and rub the bewitched man's forehead with it three times, and
then the spell would leave him. And who knows what then might happen?
Perhaps he might turn the woman out of the house then, as she was so
horrid to him, and always slept in another room, and banged the door in
his face. Wasn't he as strong as an ox? Wasn't he rather a fine-looking
man? Even if his hair were bristly and already grey, and his eyes
rather watery, he was still a man for all that. And he had money--oh,
such a lot. The servant's heart beat more rapidly when she thought of
it. All the shops in Gradewitz could be bought up with it, and those in
Gnesen as well, and--who knows?--perhaps even those in Posen. What a
pity it was that this woman, this witch, would some day get all that
money. The maid cast a sidelong look at her mistress, which made her
pretty but coarse face positively ugly.
Mrs. Sophia Tiralla stood weeping. Her shoulders drooped so dejectedly,
and her head was bent so low, that you would have thought all the cares
of the world were weighing her down. Her husband had given up his
useless attempts to approach her, he stood as if rooted to the spot,
and his pale blue, sleepy eyes wandered from the woman to the maid, and
then from the maid to the woman in perplexed surprise.
"If only I knew what was the matter, darling," he said at last in a
dispirited voice. "Good heavens! what flea has bitten you?"
The servant burst into a loud guffaw. How very comical it sounded. She
couldn't compose herself [Pg 12] again, it really was too funny. A
flea.--ha-ha, a flea! She thrust her fist into her mouth and bit it, so
as to suppress her laughter.
Her mistress cast her an angry look. "How dare you? Go to your work.
_Dalej_, _dalej._"
The maid grew frightened. Ugh, how furious her mistress looked! Her
glance was as cold as steel. "Let that wicked look fall on the dog!"
she murmured, protecting her face with her arm. And then the thought
came to her, "Oh, dear, now she won't give me that apron!" All the
same, it was better to keep on good terms with the mistress, she was
the one who ruled the house. So she whispered in a tone of excuse:
"I'm sorry, Pani, but it was so funny when _gospadarz_--big, fat
_gospodarz_--compared himself to a tiny little flea. I couldn't help
it, I had to laugh." And she gave a waggish laugh, in which Mrs.
Tiralla this time joined. There was something merciless in the laughter
of the two women.
But Mr. Tiralla did not notice the mercilessness of it in his delight
at seeing his wife in a better humour. He took her by the hand as if
nothing had happened, and drew her into the room.
And she allowed him to draw her in. If he, even now, didn't notice that
she hated him, in spite of all she had done, didn't even notice it when
she told him it to his face, then he should feel it. It was his own
fault. A cruel smile played for a moment round her short upper lip, but
then the tears again started to her eyes.
As she was sitting there with him--he had tried to draw her on his
knee, but she had adroitly evaded him, and had squeezed herself in
between the table and the wall, so that he could not reach her so
easily--certain thoughts were chasing each other with frightful [Pg 13]
rapidity through her brain. She had often thought them out before, but
they always made her tremble anew. A deep silence reigned in the room.
But Mr. Tiralla did not desire any further entertainment. It was enough
for him if she were there, if he had the feeling that he only required
to stretch out his arm in order to grasp her with his strong hand, to
draw her to him, to caress her, even if she did not want it. After all,
he was the stronger. He had thrown himself full length on the bench
near the stove, but he could scarcely find room there for his huge
limbs, which stuck out on all sides. He sighed. He had already tramped
across his fields that morning, and had seen that the winter corn was
getting on all right, had heard the busy flails keeping time in the
barn, had looked for a long time at the cows chewing the cud in the
shed, and had stroked his two splendid horses. That had, indeed, been a
day's work. Now he had a perfect right to rest a little. Besides, there
was snow in the air, a big, thick, grey silence outside; so it was much
more comfortable to lie in the warm room until the _barschtsch_, and
the cabbage and the sausages were brought in. And after dinner it would
be nice to lie down again, until it was time to go to the village inn.
There he would meet the gentry, sometimes even the priest. His
Reverence didn't disdain to drink a glass with them now and then, and
talk over the news, although he didn't care for it to be mentioned
later on that he had been there. Quite a sociable man, that priest, and
not so strict as Sophia by a long way. Mr. Tiralla felt quite friendly
towards him. _He_ wouldn't cast his wickedness in his teeth. Ah, Sophia
really did exaggerate. Didn't he go to Mass every Sunday, and every
festival, too? Nobody could really expect him to go to matins as well;
[Pg 14] hadn't he to get out of his bed much too early both summer and
winter as it was? And weren't his particular saints hanging in his
room; and wasn't he always ready to give what the Church demanded?
There was no reason for him to be a hypocrite into the bargain; and
when a man has got a pretty wife he wants to see something of her as
well. So it would be difficult for her to blacken him in the priest's
eyes, as he very well knew what a healthy man required.
Mr. Tiralla stretched his mighty limbs and opened his arms wide. Then
he said, "Just come here, darling."
"What do you want?"
The man's spirit of enterprise vanished as he heard her icy tone. "Why
don't you speak more kindly to me?" he said despondently. "You know I
don't want anything from you. I--I only wanted to ask you if you would
like a new dress for St. Stephen's Day? Or what would you say to a pair
of ear-rings? Or would you, perhaps, like a new fur cloak when we drive
to Posen to engage servants?"
"I don't want anything," she answered in the same cold voice.
"Just think it over, something will be sure to occur to you," he said
encouragingly. "Only let me know what you want. Nothing will be too
expensive for me if it's for you. Come, little woman, do come here." He
again opened his arms.
But she did not move.
"Don't you want a new dress? I saw some beautiful materials in Gnesen.
Rosenthal has a wonderful display in his window--oh my, such finery!
Cherry-coloured cloth and black braid to trim it with. The prefect's
wife wears such a dress on Sundays. Wouldn't you like to have the same,
darling?"
[Pg 15]
Her eyes began to sparkle. New dresses! A dress like such a fine lady!
She took a fancy to it; but only for a few moments, then the light in
her eyes again died out. What was the good of that dress at the side of
such a man? She shook her head energetically as she answered: "I won't
have one."
He saw he would never attain his object in that way. Although Mr.
Tiralla hated getting up he soon saw that he would have to squeeze
himself down beside her behind the table or drag her out by main force.
And then if she cried out, that lovely little dove, "Go away! Leave me,
you beast!" then he would have to close her mouth with a kiss, by main
force.
Mr. Tiralla cursed as he put one of his big feet down on the ground. It
vexed him to have his peace disturbed in this way; but he could not
resist her, she was too charming. He groaned as he rose from his seat.
She noted his approach with terror. Oh, now he would clasp those big
white arms round her, which were all covered with downy hairs, those
arms into which her mother had delivered her whilst she was still young
and harmless, and had only thought of the dear saints, and had felt no
desire for any man. Now she was no longer young and harmless, and--a
sudden thought flashed through her brain--oh, perhaps she could
persuade him to buy poison then! Poison for the rats! She had often
broached the subject before, but he had never wanted to do it. He did
not believe in the rats, and even if they were to jump over his nose he
would not bring any poison into the house. The thought was repugnant to
him. When she wanted poison for the vermin on the farm she had never
been able to get it, except by producing a paper signed by Mr. Tiralla
himself.
[Pg 16]
She shuddered. She shook as though with terror. "Oh, those rats!" Then
she got up hesitatingly. She sat down again, as if undecided--she fell
back almost heavily into her chair; but then she gave herself a jerk.
She rose quickly, went up to her husband, and sat down on his knee.
The sudden change in her almost disconcerted him. But then he felt very
happy. She had not been so nice to him for ever so long. She stroked
his head, and he leant his forehead against her soft bosom, and felt it
heave.
"How fast your heart beats."
"No wonder," she answered shortly. And then she kissed his bristly hair
and fondled him. "My old man, my darling, you'll really buy me a new
dress? Really?"
He nodded eagerly, he was too comfortable to speak.
"I should like," she continued, pressing his head still more firmly
against her bosom, "I should like to wear such a cherry-coloured dress,
trimmed with black braid, as the prefect's wife has. If she saw me in
it in Gradewitz, or if your acquaintances in the town saw me, wouldn't
they say, 'How well red suits Mrs. Tiralla. What a pretty wife Anton
Tiralla has'!"
He smirked.
"But what good would it be to me?" she continued, and her voice sank
and became quite feeble. "The rats would devour it."
"Drat the rats! Leave them alone!" He jumped up angrily, in spite of
his great love for her; she had bothered him too often and too much
with her rats. "To the devil with you and your everlasting rats!" Once
for all poison should never come into his house; rather a thousand rats
than one grain of poison. [Pg 17] Where there's poison the Evil One has
a hand in the game.
But she again forced his head down on her bosom. He _must_ remain
there. It was as if he were being bewitched by her hands as they played
about on his head.
He stammered like a child. "Leave the rats alone. Give me a
kiss--there, there." He pointed to the back of his ears, to this place,
that place, and she pinched her eyes together and pressed her mouth to
his hair.
She drew a deep and trembling breath, as if she were struggling for
air. She opened wide her firmly closed eyes and stared at one
particular point--always at one point. It must be! Then she said with a
voice that sounded like a caress, while her face, which he could not
see, was distorted with aversion:
"Would you like to sleep, darling? There, lean on my arm. Let Marianna
do the work alone, I'll stop with you. Oh, my darling, I'm so
frightened."
She clung to him more closely, so closely that her warm body seemed to
wind itself round him. "The rats, ugh!" She gave a trembling sigh.
"Those horrid rats! We'll put poison, won't we, darling? Poison for
rats; but soon, or I shall die of fright."
[Pg 18]
CHAPTER II
Mr. Trialla's farm lay some distance from the village, near the big
pines and deep morass of Przykop. Starydwór was a large farm, and there
were many in Starawie['s] who envied Mrs. Tiralla. She had been as
poor as a church mouse before her marriage--her mother was the widow
of a village schoolmaster--and had not even possessed six sets of
under-linen and a cart full of kitchen utensils, and now she had so
much money! But however much her enemies might wish her ill, nobody had
ever been able to say of her that she had been unfaithful to her old
husband.
The farmer was already getting on in years when he married her, and was
a widower into the bargain with a big son. "That couldn't have been an
easy matter either for the little thing," said those who were friendly
towards Mrs. Tiralla. But she had behaved very well; anyhow, Mr.
Tiralla had grown stout, and used to tell those who had warned him
against proposing to the girl of seventeen, "that his Sophia was the
sweetest woman in creation, and that he was living in clover." And he
still said so, even now, after they had been married almost fifteen
years. She had bewitched him. Her big eyes, that gleamed like dark
velvet in her white face, played the fool with him. He could not be
angry with her, although she often tried him sorely. And, all things
considered, wasn't it rather nice of her that she was so coy and
reserved? The owner of [Pg 19] Starydwór had, in the course of his
life, come across enough women who had thrown themselves at his head.
He could not even credit Hanusia, his first wife, with a similar
modesty.
And his Sophia was pretty. It flattered the elderly man's vanity
immensely that nobody ever spoke of her as "Mrs. Tiralla," plain and
simple, but always as "the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla." When he drove with
her through Gradewitz--he on the box, she on the seat behind, in her
veil and feather boa--everybody stared. And even in Gnesen the officers
dining at the hotel used to rush to the window and crane their necks in
order to see the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla drive past. Then Mr. Tiralla
would crack his whip and look very elated. Let them envy him his wife.
_They_ did not know--nobody knew--that he many an evening had received
such a vigorous blow on the chest from her, when he had attempted to
approach her, as nobody would ever have given such a delicate-looking
woman credit for. On such occasions he would console himself with the
thought that his Sophia never had cared for love-making. But she was a
dear little woman, all the same, a beautiful woman, his own sweet wife,
from whose hand the food tasted twice as good and agreed with him twice
as well. And she was still as beautiful as on the first day; perhaps
even more so now that she was over thirty, for she used to be much too
thin and small, and did not weigh even seven stone. He could have
carried her on his hand.
He would have loved to deck her out in gay colours, like a show-horse,
but she had the tastes of a lady. That was because she had had a good
education. She spoke German very fluently, and could also write it
without a single mistake. She knew quite long pieces of poetry by
heart. She could speak of Berlin, although [Pg 20] she had never been
there, and that made a wonderful impression upon her husband. Gnesen
and Posen and Breslau were also big towns, but Berlin--_Berlin_! He
felt very ignorant compared with her, although in his youth he had gone
to the Agricultural College at Samter, and had understood pretty well
how to make something out of the five hundred acres he had inherited
from his father. The children--the son of his first wife and little
Rosa--would never be obliged to earn their living among strangers. And,
what was of more importance still, his beloved Sophia's future would be
secured if he died before her, for he had made a will in her favour, as
he had promised her mother he would.
Mrs. Kluge had been able to close her eyes in peace, fully satisfied
with having brought about this splendid match for her pretty daughter,
for it was her wisdom and circumspection which had paved the way for
it. Mrs. Kluge was of a better family than most of her neighbours. She
had originally come from Breslau, but after her marriage with the
schoolmaster from Posen she had had to wander about with him from one
miserable Polish village to another, and had always been very poor.
However, she had never allowed her little Sophia to play in the street
with the other children, and the child had always had shoes and
stockings to wear--rather suffer hunger in secret than go without them.
When Sophia grew older, and the time drew near for her to receive the
Holy Sacrament for the first time, she became the priest's avowed
favourite. Mrs. Kluge was a pious woman, perhaps the most pious woman
in Gradewitz, and whilst making dresses for the farmers' wives in order
to support herself and her child her lips used to move the whole time
in [Pg 21] silent prayer. It was owing to her dressmaking that she had
become acquainted with farmer Tiralla's wife--maybe also owing to her
piety. For did it not seem as if it were Providence itself that had
brought Mr. Tiralla as well as his wife to her room when she was making
Mrs. Tiralla's last dress? He had driven his wife over--she was in
delicate health at the time--and, as it was bitterly cold, he had come
in as well, and had left the horse standing outside. He could hardly
get through the low door, and had quite filled her small room. Little
Sophia was handing her mother the pins whilst the dress was being tried
on, and had received a shilling and a look from Mr. Tiralla which had
made her blush and lower her dark eyes without knowing the reason why.
Sophia Kluge was modest; no young fellow in the neighbourhood could
boast of being in her good graces. She did not even know why the lads
and lasses used to steal out into the fields in the evenings, and why
their tender songs should rise so plaintively to the starry skies.
Sophia, with the black eyes and white face, which no sun, no country
air had ever tanned, for she had always remained at home with her
mother, was a pious child, so pious that the priest, still a young man
with saint-like face, took a great deal of notice of her. He would send
for this girl of eleven to come to him in his study, which the old
housekeeper only got leave to enter three times a year. There he would
speak to her of the joys of the angels and of the Heavenly Bridegroom,
and enrapture himself and her with descriptions of heaven and of the
streams of love which had flowed through the hearts of all the saints.
Mrs. Kluge was proud of the preference shown to her daughter; but the
salvation of her soul did not make her lose sight of her earthly lot.
She had [Pg 22] suffered many privations in her life, and had had to
give up very much, and she wished her daughter to have some enjoyment
even on this earth. It seemed to her like a sign from the saints that
Mrs. Tiralla was prematurely delivered of a child and died before she
had worn her new dress. Then Mr. Tiralla began to look out for another
wife, and when he came in person to pay the outstanding account for the
dress, the clever woman noticed the complacent smile which he cast at
the young beauty. She was well aware of her daughter's beauty, and knew
how to value it. When Mr. Tiralla said to her, "Your daughter is
devilish good-looking," she had answered, "Ah, but she's still so
young." And when he came once more and said, "_Psia krew_, how sad it
is to live alone on such a dreary farm," the wise woman replied,
"You'll have to marry again. There are plenty of widows and elderly
spinsters who would be pleased to marry you." That had angered him. He
neither wanted widows nor elderly spinsters, he coveted the youngest of
them all.
Sophia had run to the priest and had wept and lamented when her mother
had said to her, "Be happy, Mr. Tiralla wants to marry you." No, she
wouldn't have him, she didn't want to marry at all.
Even now, after the lapse of fifteen years, Mrs. Tiralla's heart
swelled with bitterness when she lay awake at night and thought of the
way she had been treated. Her mother had begged and implored her with
tears in her eyes. "We shall then be out of all our misery." And when
the girl continued to shake her head she had boxed her ears--the right
and the left indiscriminately--and had told her in a peremptory voice,
"You _shall_ marry Mr. Tiralla."
And her friend, the priest? Ah! Mrs. Tiralla once [Pg 23] more pictured
herself in that quiet room in which, with hot cheeks and enraptured
gaze, she had so often listened, on her knees, to the legends of the
saints. Once more she held the hem of the cassock between her fingers
and watered it with her tears. She had wept, had resisted: "No, I will
not marry him, I cannot!" Had not the priest always told her--nay,
positively adjured her--to remain a virgin, to remain unmarried, and in
this way secure for herself a place in heaven? She had kissed his
hands, "Help me, advise me!" Then, she did not know herself how it had
happened, then she had suddenly jumped up from her knees, confused and
trembling, and had rushed to the door and had hidden her face in a
tumult of undreamt-of feelings, which had almost stunned her with
their sudden attack. All at once she was no longer a girl, she was a
woman, who, trembling, ardent, feverish with desire, had become
self-conscious. How blissful it was to be a--_his_ chosen one. To sit
all one's life in that quiet room with the saints. In the girl's
confused dreams the figure of her Heavenly Friend seemed to mingle with
that of her earthly one. Oh, how exquisite he was, how beautiful! His
hands were like ivory, his cheeks like velvet. And his kiss----
Instead of him Mr. Tiralla had come----
Mrs. Tiralla had placed a footstool in her bedroom under her picture of
the Saviour carrying His flaming heart in His hand. The priest of her
youth had left Starawie['s] long ago--he had asked to be removed from
the neighbourhood--but she still prayed a great deal.
It was the morning after Mr. Tiralla had drunk a glass too much in his
joy at her unusual display of tenderness, and as she got out of bed her
first glance fell on the picture opposite. She crossed herself, and [Pg
24] then, gliding on her bare feet to the footstool, she knelt down and
prayed for a long time.
Mr. Tiralla had promised her faithfully, as he yesterday lay in her
arms, that he would fill up the paper to-day and would drive over to
Gnesen and fetch the poison for the rats himself. How was it that she
felt so quiet about it? She could not understand it herself. Even if
her heart did beat a little faster, it was not from fear, but only
from expectation of something good, joyful, long hoped for. Fifteen
years--ah, fifteen long years.
She continued to murmur words of prayer, whilst her thoughts were with
her husband on his way to the chemist's in Gnesen. But suddenly she
pressed her lips tightly together. Her mouth looked very inflexible.
She forgot that she was praying--her heart was filled with fierce
curses and accusations. Her mother, who had sold her--sold her like one
sells a young calf (why not call a spade a spade?)--was dead.
Mrs. Kluge had not long been able to enjoy the thought that the little
house which she had formerly rented at last was hers, and that she had
no longer to make dresses at any price for the farmers' wives, who were
everlastingly grumbling. She had not long been able to enjoy the
thought, and that served her right!
The woman's eyes gleamed as though with satisfaction. Her mother had
had to leave everything behind which she had stipulated for as payment
for her daughter. Now she had long ago turned to dust. But the other
culprit, the buyer? Oh, Mr. Tiralla had grown stout, _he_ did not look
as though he also would soon be lying under ground.
"Holy saints! Holy Mother!" She raised her hands in prayer. She did not
exactly know how she was to put her prayer into words, it would sound
too [Pg 25] awful if she were to say, "Let him die; he _must_ die!" It
was as though she were going to expose herself in her nakedness to the
Holy Virgin and all the saints. No, that would not do.
She let her hands fall in her perplexity. What now? But then it
suddenly occurred to her, why need she tell everything to the saints?
Why trouble them? Surely it would be enough if she secured their help.
So she prayed: "Holy Mary, pure Virgin, oh, bring about by means of thy
divine power and that of all the saints that he really goes to Gnesen,
that he at last fetches the poison--the poison for the rats. I entreat
thee, I implore thee!"
She wrung her hands and wept bitterly; she hit her breast with such
force that she hurt herself. What she had suffered from her husband,
and would suffer again and again. He would not leave her in peace, and
she hated him, she loathed his eager, outstretched hands. If only she
could have gone into a convent, how happy she would have been there.
All that filled her once more with horror. She had been so terrified on
her wedding night, when her husband, intoxicated with joy and wine, had
embraced her; so terrified when she felt she was about to become a
mother against her will; so terrified when the nurse had laid the
little live girl on her bosom. She had pulled herself together and
endured it when she felt the little seeking mouth at her breast,
although it was as if a stream of icy-cold water were running down her.
But then, when her husband had appeared, had placed himself near the
bed in which she lay so feeble, so weak, so at his mercy, and had said
with such a satisfied smirk, "_Psia krew_, we've done that well!" then
she could not restrain herself any longer. She had uttered a cry, a
feeble, plaintive, yet piercing cry, and had [Pg 26] reared herself up
with her last strength, so that the little creature on her breast
had begun to whimper and whine like a young puppy. The nurse had
hastened to the bedside, quite terrified, and had made the sign of the
cross--"All good spirits!" No doubt she thought that the "Krasnoludki,"
the wicked dwarfs, wanted to steal the new-born child. She had quickly
thrown her rosary round the infant's neck, and had sprinkled the bed
with holy water. But the young mother had burst into tears--into
hopeless, never-ending tears. Then Mrs. Tiralla had been very ill, so
ill that her anxious husband had not only sent for the doctor from
Gradewitz, but also for the best physician in Gnesen. Both doctors had
assured him, however, that there was no danger, that his young wife was
only very weak and nervous.
Mr. Tiralla could not understand why.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mrs. Tiralla now got up from her prayers. It was high time to urge her
husband to start for Gnesen. Perhaps he was still lying in bed. She
dressed in angry haste. She did not arrange her thick hair with her
usual care--her hands were trembling, she was in a hurry. No sound of
wheels reached her attentive ear, the man could not be taking the
carriage out of the coach-house. Her husband must still be sleeping.
Hastily throwing on her skirt, and without waiting to fasten her
blouse, she ran across the stone passage to the room into which she had
been drawn as a trembling bride, and in which her little girl had been
born. There he was, still lying in the big bed, snoring.
"Get up!" She seized him by the shoulder and shook him.
His hair stood up like bristles around his forehead. [Pg 27] "How
horrible he looked!" she thought. And what did the room smell of?
Drink. That disgusting smell came from him.
No feeling of compassion softened her eyes. She stood bolt upright at
the side of the bed and scanned him from top to toe with sparkling
eyes. He would soon lie there again.
A triumphant cry rose to her lips, but she suppressed it. Silence,
silence. What would that inquisitive maid think if she rejoiced in this
way? She seized hold of her husband once more with renewed strength,
and shook him so vigorously that he started up.
Mr. Tiralla stared around with eyes that were still quite dim. Who was
there? Why didn't they leave him in peace? He wanted to sleep longer.
"Get up!" she shouted to him. "You've to go out. It is time, high
time!"
"Who must go out? Not I," he stammered drowsily, and fell back on his
pillow.
He was so heavy that she could not lift him; her shaking and her cry
of "Get up!" were of no avail. Then, in her anger, she poured some
icy-cold water on his face. That helped.
He opened his eyes, suddenly quite wide awake. "Ah, my dove, are you
coming to me?" he said tenderly, and stretched out his arms.
She hit him across his fingers. "Leave that nonsense!" she said coldly.
But then her voice grew softer. "You've promised to drive to Gnesen,
remember. It's time!"
"To Gnesen--Gnesen? I'm not going there. What have I to do there?" He
had no idea of what he had said. What he had promised the day before in
his transport of joy was now quite forgotten.
She saw with despair that she would have to start [Pg 28] afresh. She
sat down on his bed, and, clenching her teeth, threw her arms round him
and began to coax him. "You promised me--to go--to the chemist's--about
the rats--you remember--the rats."
"What do I care for rats?" he exclaimed, laughing boisterously. "As
long as the rats don't jump on my bed they don't disturb me." And he
gave her a resounding kiss.
She submitted to it with closed eyes; she was deadly pale. Suddenly she
twisted herself out of his arms, and, looking at him fixedly with her
black eyes, she said slowly and very softly, but every syllable was
distinct: "If you don't go to Gnesen now, I'll jump into the Przykop.
I'll drown myself in that big pool under the firs. I can't stand this
any longer. If _you_ don't go, then _I_ will."
The man grew disconcerted. Why did she emphasize the words so
strangely? What did she mean by it? Such nonsense! But then he made up
his mind to go. He scolded and cursed as he got out of bed. "_Psia
krew_, what nonsense it was to get poison for the sake of those few
rats; they could easily be killed with a cudgel." He proposed to her
that he should spend a whole night in the cellar hunting for them.
But she persisted in her demand. "You've promised me to do it! You've
sworn it! I'll never believe you again if you perjure yourself in this
way. I'll never allow you even to touch my fingers again if you keep
your promises so badly."
"Well, well, all right then, I'll go," he said at last. Why did she
make such a fuss of it? He put on his boots in a very bad humour.
She assisted him to dress; she held his coat for him in her eagerness
to help him.
But as he was putting his arms into the sleeves of [Pg 29] his coat he
drew them out again. "I won't go, all the same. What's the good? We'll
set traps--yes, we will. Call Jendrek, he can go and buy them--two,
three, as many as you want. He can fetch them at once from Gradewitz.
Call him!"
She did not move; she was so startled that she trembled. Was he to
escape her even at the last moment?
He stamped his foot. Wasn't she going? Was _he_ to call the man? He
walked angrily to the door.
Then she barred his passage; she fell on his breast half unconscious
and quite exhausted. "I--I'll--if you'll do this to please
me--I'll--I--will also do something to please you."
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mr. Tiralla drove to Gnesen. Mrs. Tiralla herself had helped to harness
the horse, and had stroked it tenderly whilst she did so. Jendrek had
felt hot and cold and covetous as he listened to the soft words the
beautiful woman had lavished on the dumb beast.
"Run, my pretty horse, run," she whispered softly to the animal, then
she leant against the stable wall. She was hardly able as yet to stand
upright; her knees still trembled under her; her heart still fluttered
like that of a bird whose cage door had been opened and then closed
again, just as it was going to fly out. She did not recover until her
husband came out of the house booted and spurred. And whilst the man
held the horse's head until his master had mounted the box, she went
close up to the carriage, and, holding out her hand to her husband,
said "Good-bye." There was something sympathetic in the tone of her
voice, and as she looked at him her eyes, which were often so cold,
seemed to promise him something.
[Pg 30]
He cracked his long whip and urged the horse on. "_Huj_, _het!_" If
only he were home again! But if she had the thing so much at heart he
could easily please her by driving to Gnesen. She was such a sweet
little woman, was his Sophia.
Mrs. Tiralla stood looking after her husband for a long while. For
the first time in fifteen years she felt something like affection for
him--affection and gratitude. Then she drew a long breath and went back
into the house.
It was very quiet, as quiet as if Mr. Tiralla had never filled it with
his loud voice and broad figure. The maidservant was in the field
fetching potatoes, the men were in the barn, Rosa was at school. She
was quite alone.
"Ah!" The woman raised her arms with a deep sigh and ran through the
room as if she were flying. How happy she felt--ah, how happy! She had
not felt so happy for years. She walked round the big room and examined
it. She would place a sofa there, where the big bed stood. It was the
biggest and best room in the house; she would make a drawing-room of
it. Or perhaps Mikolai would like to have it when he came home after
serving his three years in the army? She would not make a point of
having the room, she was quite satisfied with her own bedroom.
She sat down near the window and gazed dreamily into space. She could
generally see the village, with its sunken cottages and thatched roofs
all covered with moss, and the new brick walls of the fine-looking inn
through the open yard door as in a frame, but to-day there was nothing
to be seen. Everything was hidden by the driving snow-flakes. Oh, what
a storm, what a lot of snow! If that continued Mr. Tiralla would be
delayed on the way, he would not be able to come back [Pg 31] so soon.
Hark! was not that the sound of a bell--the bell on the horse that she
herself had harnessed? She jumped up, startled. Surely he would not
turn back on account of the storm without effecting his purpose?
She pressed both hands against her throbbing heart and listened. Then
she smiled reassuringly. Ah, that was no bell outside, that was
here--here, in both ears! Now it began to ring violently. All at once
her face was suffused with a burning blush, and she had to hold her
head with both hands in order to support it. Oh, how frightened she
felt. What had she done? What was she going to do?
She looked round the room with terror in her eyes; the silence, the
emptiness now alarmed her. What was she to say when his son came back
from the army? What was she to tell him about his father? Would he
believe her? Wouldn't he point at her with his fingers and say, "She's
done it"? Oh, what was the meaning of this great fear? Where did these
thoughts come from all at once? She had never had them before.
Jumping up from her seat near the window she ran into the kitchen; the
emptiness of the house tortured and tormented her to such a degree that
she could not bear to be any longer in her husband's room. But the
kitchen was also empty, the servant had not yet returned. Mrs. Tiralla
cowered down near the fireplace, shivering with cold. How far could he
be now? Could he be in Gnesen? Oh, no, the horse did not trot so
quickly; still, it might be possible. Hadn't she given it sugar, and
stroked and patted its head? It would be sure to trot well. And if he
had already got to Gnesen, if he had already been to the chemist's, if
he had even got the poison, the poison for the rats! [Pg 32] Ah! She
could not help it, she had to scream aloud with fear. What had she
done?
"Alas, alas!" She buried her head in her hands and moaned. But she had
done nothing so far, not committed any crime. Why was she so terrified?
But she was going to do it!
She rose from her prostrate position, and, with a confident gesture,
stroked back the hair from her forehead. She was going to do it, for
she had prayed for it. There was no going back, the saints had heard
it. Had not the priest always told her in years gone by, when she was
still a child, that what she asked for would be granted? Her prayer was
now before the highest throne. There was nothing to be done, it was to
be. If the saints had not wished it to be so her husband would not have
gone to Gnesen, in spite of all her urging, in spite of all her
caresses.
This assurance calmed her. She began to bustle about in the kitchen and
look into all the corners to see if the maid had not again put
something aside for one of her followers. She was such a flighty
person. Indeed, if she had not looked upon it as the duty of a
Christian not to thrust the girl back into the misery from which Mr.
Tiralla had rescued her, she ought to be turned out of the house--the
sooner the better. She had still not had enough, even with those two
brats. It was really a disgrace to have such a person in the house.
All the same, Mrs. Tiralla was glad, and gave a sigh of relief when
Marianna came into the kitchen with her basket full of potatoes. She
was happy at the thought of no longer being alone in the empty house,
and quite forgot to scold the maid when the midday bell rang and there
were no potatoes boiling on the fire.
[Pg 33]
The servant had seen Mr. Tiralla drive off--he had gone to Gnesen,
Jendrek had told her--why should she hurry then? She could easily
manage the Pani. If she agreed to everything she said the Pani would be
quiet and not scold. But why on earth was the Pani always talking about
rats? The master was to fetch poison, she had made a point of it, for
when had she ever been so tender to him before? Hadn't she, Marianna,
overheard her yesterday at the door? Ay, how she had flattered him! She
had purred like a cat when it curls itself up on your lap. Poison for
rats! Alas!
When the maid had seen her master drive off that morning she felt as if
she must call out to him, "Stop! Don't go!" But she had held her
tongue; what business was it of hers? If he were such a fool, well, it
would be his own fault. Then her flirtation with Jendrek had made her
entirely forget her master, until it all occurred to her again when she
saw her mistress in the kitchen.
"The master has gone out," said Mrs. Tiralla, and although Marianna did
not question her, she added hastily--"gone to Gnesen." Then she said
with a blush, which the lie brought to her cheeks, "He wants to look at
some winter materials for a suit at Rosenthal's."
The maid still said nothing, only nodded and began quickly to peel the
potatoes that were in the basket.
"He'll probably go to the chemist's as well to fetch some poison for
the rats."
She could not help it, the words were forced out against her will. She
had to say it. The maid's silence brought them out. Why was she so
quiet? What was she thinking of? Mrs. Tiralla was seized with a fit of
trembling.
[Pg 34]
The maid raised her head. "Then Pani must be very pleased." Then she
sighed and lowered her head again. "Poor master!"
"Why, what do you mean? 'Poor master!' Why do you say that?" Mrs.
Tiralla trembled more and more.
"Well, isn't it 'poor master' to have to drive out in such awful
weather? Who knows when poor master will be back again?" Marianna
smiled.
Was it a malicious or a harmless smile? Mrs. Tiralla racked her brains
to find out. Oh, she was quite harmless.
Still, she could not rid herself of the fear which had taken possession
of her. She would have to take care how she behaved to the maid. Even
if her flightiness were ever so objectionable to her, she would have to
keep on good terms with her. So whilst the maid stood stirring
something on the fire, in deep silence, Mrs. Tiralla went into her
bedroom and brought out a gay-coloured Scotch shawl, which she had been
fond of throwing over her own shoulders. "There," she said, putting it
on the girl, who was still standing in the same place near the fire,
"it's cold, and I see you've nothing to warm you."
"_Padam da nog!_" Marianna turned round as quick as lightning, and,
stooping down, kissed her mistress's knee. "Oh, what a fine shawl,
_what_ a fine shawl! May the saints reward Pani for it. May they bless
her to the end of her days." Then, kissing the shawl, she danced round
the kitchen with it. "How it suits me! Oh, and it's so nice and so
warm! Oh, and so gay!" She laid her finger on the gay colours and was
as happy as a child.
"Oh, no, she had nothing to fear from her!" All at once Mrs. Tiralla
recovered her spirits. She was [Pg 35] still young enough to understand
the poor girl's delight at her gay shawl, and she laughed to see her
joy.
'Mid laughing and joking the two women prepared the dinner.
When Rosa came home from school late, and very tired and worn out with
wading through the snow, her mother, who was in a good humour, gave the
hungry child a treat--a golden coloured omelette with raspberry jam.
Then the two women made a strong cup of coffee for themselves and put
one aside for Mr. Tiralla as well, and warmed his bed with hot bricks.
He was to have a warm bed after his long drive. [Pg 36]
CHAPTER III
Röschen--she had been christened Rosa, but he always called her
Röschen--was her father's favourite child, and his exact image, as Mrs.
Tiralla used to say in a peculiar tone of voice. Yes, the girl had the
same blue eyes as her father, although they were not so pale and watery
as his, and the same coloured hair, for his must also have had a
reddish tinge before it became grey. And that was why Mrs. Tiralla so
often turned away when the child had wanted to get on her lap and, with
clumsy little fingers, stroke her cheek.
However, Mrs. Tiralla was in a more affectionate mood to-night. The
little girl looked up in astonishment when she felt a soft hand on her
head; but then she clung to her mother, and her dull eyes gleamed with
joy and gratitude.
Mr. Tiralla had come back from Gnesen, and it seemed to the woman as if
a star were now standing over the house, showing her distinctly the way
she was to go. She felt happier than she had been for a long time.
Her husband had handed her the packet from the chemist's as if it had
been a box of sweets he sometimes brought her from town. It was nicely
done up in striped tissue paper with a piece of red string round it.
But, on taking off the string, she had caught sight of a grinning
death's head and cross-bones on the lid, [Pg 37] and had read the word
"Poison." She had screamed and let the box fall on the table.
"There, you see, now you're afraid of it as well," said Mr. Tiralla.
How little he knew her. She and fear?
"How am I to prepare it? How am I to prepare it?" she cried in an eager
voice.
He showed her how. He felt very important, for the chemist had warned
him to be exceedingly careful. He would not have given such a thing to
anybody else but the well-known Mr. Tiralla, the man had said, not even
if they had brought a paper from the doctor. She was to strew some of
the white powder, which looked as harmless as sifted sugar, on a small
piece of raw meat; and put it in the corners. There would be no rats
left in the cellar then. Or she could strew some of the wheat which was
in the paper bag, and which you could hardly distinguish from ordinary
wheat, as it only looked a little redder.
"But I implore you to be careful, my dove. Swear that you'll be very
careful, Sophia." Mr. Tiralla was seized with a sudden fear, and wiped
the perspiration from his forehead. He felt burning, although the cold
snow still clung to his fur collar and cap. He took oft his top-coat
and stretched his limbs as though he felt oppressed, whilst she stood
motionless at the table and stared at the packet with gleaming eyes.
"Which is the most efficacious?" she asked in a dreamy voice, "the
powder or the wheat?"
"They're both equally efficacious," he assured her uneasily. "The
wheat is bad enough, but you've only to swallow a little of that white
stuff--oh, you needn't even swallow it, hardly touch it with the tip of
your tongue, and you're done for. It's a deadly poison--strychnine." He
shuddered. "Oh, how could [Pg 38] I bring such a thing home with me? I
am possessed by the devil. Give me it!" He snatched the packet out of
her hands and ran to the stove, in which big logs of wood were
crackling and spluttering.
"Are you mad?" She saw what he was going to do--he intended burning it.
She was at his side in one bound, and, tearing the packet out of his
hand, she hid it in her pocket.
"Give me it, give me it!" he cried.
She laughed at him and pressed her hand tightly against her pocket.
Then he began to wail and lament. Alas, alas, what had he done? How
could he ever have been so foolish as to bring such a thing into the
house? He would never have another peaceful hour, he would always be
thinking that an accident might happen.
"But why," she asked in a calm voice, looking at him fixedly with her
black eyes, "should an accident happen?"
"Alas, alas!" he moaned, and buried his head in his hands.
She had to comfort him. Her words calmed him; he was like a child. Then
he asked her to stroke him; she did that also. At last he wanted to be
helped to bed; he must have been drinking, although he denied it. The
maid had to come as well; and whilst she took off his riding-boots he
put his heavy head on his wife's shoulder, and she had to hold him in
her arms.
When they had got him to bed they both looked very hot and flushed, for
he had been pinching them in fun and had pretended to be quite
helpless.
Then he sent for Röschen, whom he had not seen the whole day, for she
was already on her way to school when he was still snoring in bed, and
when he drove to Gnesen she had not yet returned. And now [Pg 39] he
longed for some one to fondle him. And the little girl knew very well
what her father wanted; so she climbed up on his bed and laid her thin
little arms round his neck and pressed her cool cheek to his. Then
he talked to her in whispers and called her by an the pet names he
could think of. She was his little red-haired girlie, his star, his
song-bird, the apple of his eye, his sun, his balm of Gilead, his
guardian angel, the key which was to open the door of heaven for him.
And the child smiled and stroked him with her soft hands. She loved him
so. He gave her everything her mother would not give her.
Still, she loved her mother in secret. Didn't everybody call her "the
beautiful Mrs. Tiralla"? Didn't the schoolmaster, who was always so
harsh, often send a message to her mother, and even pardon her faults
and favour her just because she was the daughter of the beautiful Mrs.
Tiralla? Rosa knew that she was not pretty; at least, she did not
consider herself so when she plaited her curly, reddish hair before the
looking-glass. Her mother's hair was as black as ebony and as smooth as
silk, and her yellowish complexion and the tinge of red in her cheeks
seemed twice as beautiful as her own freckles.
The growing child longed to be beautiful, although she did not exactly
know why; and it disheartened and depressed her that she did not grow
better-looking, in spite of all her fervent prayers. She used to kneel
down at her bedside every evening in the little room she shared with
Marianna and raise her hands in earnest supplication. She did not even
know herself what all the things were which she prayed for.
Marianna was also a devout Christian, and, when they both lay in their
beds, she would tell the listening child all about signs and wonders,
about spells and [Pg 40] miraculous cures, and about the strange things
that happened in the neighbourhood.
Hadn't farmer Kiebel heard the sound of a horn behind him in the wood
not far from the new Jewish cemetery when he was driving back from
Wronke to Obersitzko after the last fair! "Toot, toot, toot!" He had
got down and had drawn lots of crosses in the snow with his whip in
front of the trembling horses and all around the cart; and then the
black huntsman had rushed past him with horns blowing, dogs barking,
and making a fearful noise. His cloak had flapped so much that it had
almost blown Pan Kiebel down from his cart; but the crosses in the snow
had protected the pious man, and the black huntsman had had to ride on.
And there was a mountain at Ossówiec, where the witches had met last
June, and where they would soon meet again in December, in order to
deliberate where they should go in the shape of dust and wind. But if
you painted "C.M.B.," the initials of the three Kings of the East, on
all the doors and walls, no witch would be able to get in and throw
something into your plate. Or you need only say to yourself, "God bless
it," before you began to eat or drink, and then no witchcraft could
harm your food, for the saints would hold their hands stretched out
over the plate.
Those who regularly prayed to the Holy Mother or to the saints had no
need to fear the devil, who, four weeks ago, had come to miller Kierski
at midnight--the man who lived at Latalice, north of Gradewitz, and was
always swearing and drinking--and had almost wrung his neck off. He had
been left on the dunghill behind his barn, where he lay quite stiff and
blue in the face; and if St. Peter's cock had not flown on to the roof
of the mill and crowed three times, [Pg 41] so that the devil thought
it was the miller's cock crowing in the early morning, the miller would
have been found as dead as a door-nail, with his face turned round to
his back; and his soul would already have been in hell.
Marianna firmly believed that ghosts were screaming in the pines
outside, and that witches were dancing in the wind that howled round
the farm; but above all she believed that the devil was running about
on the Przykop like a will-o'-the-wisp, and was longing to get into the
house, in order to fetch a soul to hell.
But even if she had not so firmly believed it, it would have amused her
to whisper all kinds of strange stories to the trembling child, who had
long ago crept into her bed and was clinging to her. Her stories became
more and more marvellous, more and more weird. The night time, the
moaning of the wind, the plaintive cry of the screech-owls perched in
the old pines in the morass; above all, the darkness of the room, the
deep silence, the loneliness, gave wings to the maid's fancy.
Everything became instinct with life: a creature sighed in every tree,
a voice spoke from every stone, something gasped for air under every
clod of earth, something lurked in every pool. The branches that tapped
against the window-panes were the fingers of the dead, the stars that
shot across the heavens were wandering souls, and the clouds and winds
were full of prophecies.
Once when she was a child, Marianna told Rosa, she had run in amongst
some corn in order to pluck some ears and make herself a wreath of the
red poppies. And there she had been seized by the "Zagak," a big man
with a cudgel in his hand and a hat full of holes on his head, and with
shoes through which all his toes were peeping. If a cart with creaking
wheels had not [Pg 42] happened to drive past at that moment, in which
a farmer was sitting, singing a hymn, the "Zagak" would not have let
her go. But she got off that time with a fright and a torn skirt. She
still shook when she thought of the "Zagak"--ugh! How fortunate it was
that he could not get at her here in her warm bed. The woman shuddered
voluptuously, and she and the child clung still more closely to each
other.
Then Röschen's little fingers clutched hold of Marianna's coarse ones,
and both began to pray with all their might. What else could they do in
the solitude and darkness of the night, surrounded by evil spirits that
crept out of every corner, even out of the human breast? Prayer alone
saved. And they prayed and prayed.
Big drops of perspiration and tears rolled down Röschen's delicate
little face and her limbs trembled.
Oh, if only the Holy Virgin would come and take her under her blue
mantle. She was so terrified and in such pain. Her head ached; her back
and her chest as well; her throat was so swollen that she could hardly
swallow; her eyes burned as if with fever.
"Holy Mother!" The child could hardly look over the feather-bed, as she
tried to pierce the darkness with her terrified eyes, so high had it
been drawn up. "All good spirits praise God! Dear Holy Mother, hail,
Mary!" Oh, there she was, there she stood in the darkness and nodded to
her.
The darkness was no longer dark, the tapping of the fingers against the
window-panes and the soughing of the wind round the house had all at
once lost their terror. Oh, how sweet the Holy Mother looked, how mild,
and so beautiful. She took the terrified child under her protection and
smiled at her, until her burning [Pg 43] eyes dosed, until a glorious
dream came to her in her slumbers and filled her soul with a sweet
terror.
Was it any wonder, then, that Rosa Tiralla should cease petting her
father when he suddenly began to moan and cry out, "Oh, what have I
done? Oh, how terrified I am! I shall never have a quiet hour again.
The devil has a hand in such a game!" and should say to him in a very
earnest voice, "Why are you so terrified? Call on the Holy Mother; she
wears a blue mantle, and she will wrap you in it. I'm often terrified,
but then my fear disappears. Shall I call on her?"
"Yes, oh, yes." At any other time Mr. Tiralla would have burst out
laughing, but to-day he nodded eagerly. And then he whispered in the
child's ear, but so softly that his Sophia, who stood listening near
the table as if ready to pounce on them, could not hear a single word.
"I'm so terrified, I don't know why. Pray, pray."
Rosa slid down from the bed, and, kneeling on the skin rug, pressed her
folded hands against her pale lips. She prayed fervently. They were the
same old prayers which had been repeated mechanically so many times
before; but they gained solemnity in the child's mouth. Her thin voice
sounded deeper and more sonorous; the lamp-light shone on her reddish
hair, that curled around her temples until it looked like a halo.
Mrs. Tiralla raised her head and glanced at her daughter; glanced at
her and started, forgetting for a time the thoughts which had raged
within her with such force that she had grown weak and incapable of
making any resistance. Ah, yes, there was Rosa and there was Rosa's
father. But Rosa was not the exact image of her father, all the same;
she had also inherited [Pg 44] something from her. Mrs. Tiralla
suddenly felt twenty years younger as if by magic. She pictured herself
in the priest's quiet study and heard once more the wonderful stories
with which he had captivated her so irresistibly. She had always
listened to him in silence, but she had grown hot and red. She still
felt how the blood used to rush to her head as though she had been
drinking wine.
Oh, yes, the girl must go to a convent, there was no doubt about that.
They would cut off her curly hair, that gleamed in the lamplight, when
she took the veil; the linen band would cover her brow and her cheek.
Only her small nose and her blue eyes would be seen. Oh, how sweet Rosa
would look in a nun's dress. She would blossom like a rose in the
Saviour's garden. Mrs. Tiralla was seized with a sudden love for her
daughter, and she went up to her and laid her hand on her head.
Rosa was very happy. Her mother had even kissed her when she had said
good night, and she felt as if a flame of light had flashed through
her. She did not care to hear any of Marianna's stories to-night,
although she generally begged for some. "I only want to pray," she
said. And she prayed that her mother might always smile at her. She
admired her so, her slender figure, her beautiful hair, and her velvety
eyes. Nobody was as beautiful as her mother, only the Holy Virgin.
Rosa's eyes closed whilst she was still praying, and in her slumber she
suddenly saw the Holy Mother standing by her bedside. She had exactly
the same face as her own mother and wore the same dress, a dark blue
skirt and a bright red, striped blouse. And the Holy Mother bent over
her, so that she felt her warm breath on her cheek; she was probably
listening [Pg 45] if she were asleep. Then the Holy Mother left her and
listened at the bed where Marianna had been snoring for a long time;
and then she went softly out of the room. Oh, how beautiful she was.
The little girl fell soundly asleep with a prayer on her lips.
But Marianna was not asleep, even though she had pretended to be. What
was her mistress doing, wandering about the house like that during the
hours of the night? The country girl's hearing was as sharp as that of
any denizen of the woods, and she could hear her going softly up and
down the stairs and wandering restlessly through the rooms. Why wasn't
the Pani asleep? And why had she come to their room? She must be up to
something.
As soon as the child was fast asleep Marianna sat up in bed and placed
her hand behind her ear. Now her mistress was in the kitchen. _Psia
krew!_ what was she rattling the coffee-mill for? Or was it the tin in
which the sugar was kept?
"All good spirits!" The girl made the sign of the cross. Was the woman
in league with the devil? The master had brought poison from Gnesen,
poison for the rats. The servant's observant eyes had noticed the box
on the table, the white box from the chemist's, with the black death's
head on it. If now that woman downstairs were to put some of it in
master's coffee or among the sifted sugar, of which he loved to pour
half a basinful into his cup? Holy Mother!
The maid crouched down in her bed and drew the feather bed over her
ears. She would neither see nor hear anything. What business was it of
hers? The master was a kind man, but the mistress was really very kind
too, and it was a difficult matter for such a poor servant-girl, who
had already got two children [Pg 46] on her hands, to side with either
party. It would be much better to have nothing to do with the whole
affair.
But in spite of putting both fingers in her ears, for the thick feather
bed was not enough, she still heard her mistress wandering restlessly
backwards and forwards. And that went on till dawn, and prevented her
falling asleep. She generally snored the whole night through, but
to-day she heard the cock crowing on the dunghill and the dull lowing
of the cows before she closed her eyes.
She overslept herself. When she at last awoke from her uneasy slumbers
she found Rosa standing before the little bit of looking-glass plaiting
her hair, and from the yard came the clatter of wooden shoes and the
rattle of the chain in the well as Jendrek drew up the bucket.
"Holy Mary!" cried Marianna, as she jumped out of bed. "Why didn't you
wake me, you wretch?" she said to the child furiously.
"I was just--just going to do it," answered Rosa in a tone of excuse.
As she stood there in her short petticoats and bare shoulders she
looked very small and thin. "I was just going to shake you."
But you could see that Rosa had never thought of waking the servant,
her thoughts were otherwise occupied. She was still dreaming with her
eyes open. Oh, if only she could have told some one what she had
dreamt--it had been so beautiful. The Holy Mother had let her hold the
Child Jesus in her arms, and she had felt the soft, warm little body on
her breast. How it had clung to her. Rosa smiled blissfully to herself
as she looked in the tarnished bit of looking-glass, all stained with
soap-suds.
Marianna ran down into the kitchen without washing [Pg 47] herself or
doing her hair. Oh, dear, there stood her mistress at the fireplace,
her hair beautifully done and as neat as ever. Had she even made the
coffee?
"The coffee is ready; you're so late," said Mrs. Tiralla. But she did
not scold the servant for sleeping too long, she merely handed her the
tray with the enormous coffee-cup on. "There, carry it in to him. I've
already put sugar in it."
Marianna stared at her mistress in amazement. Her drowsiness suddenly
disappeared; what she had thought of during the night suddenly occurred
to her again. She stammered something and remained as if rooted to the
spot, until her mistress said to her, laughing, "Take it to him. Why do
you stand there like an idiot?"
No, it would be quite impossible for anybody to laugh like that who had
put poison in the coffee. Marianna drew a breath of relief. But as she
carried the tray across the stone passage she made the sign of the
cross over it--"God bless it!"--as a kind of security. Now nothing
could harm it. And as she smelt the warm, strong coffee, she could not
help drinking some of it. She had had nothing to eat as yet, something
warm would do her good. How strong the coffee was. It tasted quite
bitter in spite of the sugar--pooh! But it was very good, all the same.
She took another big gulp.
"_Psia krew_, you rascally woman! I suppose you're drinking some of my
coffee, as I'm not getting it," shouted Mr. Tiralla from his bedroom. A
boot, thrown by an expert hand, flew through the half-open door right
against Marianna's apron. She gave a loud scream and let the tray fall;
the sweetened coffee ran over her feet and along the stone passage.
"_Psia krew!_" A second boot came flying. The [Pg 48] door was thrown
wide open, and there was Mr. Tiralla sitting on the edge of his bed
angling with his bare feet for his slippers, which had disappeared
under the bed.
The maid stood on the threshold, soaked.
Mr. Tiralla burst into a loud laugh. "What a blockhead you are, to be
sure!" he shouted, slapping his thighs. "Good heavens, was there ever
such an idiotic person! Don't stare at me so stupidly. Come, come, you
needn't begin to cry directly. Go and fetch some more coffee."
"The Pani will hit me," the girl sobbed. "I'm so frightened, so
terribly frightened."
"Sophia," shouted Mr. Tiralla, who had had a very good night, "Sophia,
this stupid girl has spilt the coffee; now don't hit her."
Mrs. Tiralla was already on the spot. She grew deadly pale and then
burning red as she saw the sweetened coffee running along the ground
like a brown stream.
The servant ducked down; now the mistress would be sure to hit her. But
she did nothing of the sort. She did not even raise her hand in menace,
she simply said, "It wasn't to be. Make him some more coffee." Then she
fetched a cloth and wiped it up with her own hands, collected the
broken bits of china, and said nothing more.
Marianna felt quite confused. She had never broken anything without
being punished for it by her different mistresses. And to-day she
hadn't even got a box on the ears nor been threatened with one. She
went about like a dog on the scent; there was something wrong here. The
place was haunted. She kept her eye on the mistress, but she was
sitting in the room near the window reading. The master had gone into
[Pg 49] the fields to try to shoot a hare; and Rosa was at school. Oh,
if only she had had a soul to speak to.
The maid felt oppressed, as though a very important secret were
weighing her down. Besides, she really did feel as if she had a heavy
weight on her chest. What could it be? She had to draw her breath the
whole time, and she could not swallow; she felt as if she were choking.
Oh, how terrified she was! And then she had such an awful thirst, her
mouth was quite parched. She staggered to the bucket; she wanted to
drink, but she could not. Holy Mother, why could she not swallow? All
of a sudden she was seized with a fit of trembling, which grew so
severe that she had to sit down on the floor just where she stood. Oh,
how ill she felt. Her eyes grew dim, and she was bathed in
perspiration. Now she could not breathe at all. She tried to scream, to
cry for help; she could not do that either. She endeavoured to get up,
but she was perfectly stiff; her head felt as if it were in splints.
Her hands were clenched as though she were in a fit. Oh, God, have
mercy! Was she going to die? How her limbs ached.
The maid lay there in a state of collapse, until she gradually
recovered so far as to be able to rise, moaning and groaning, and
stagger out of the kitchen into the yard. There she was very sick.
Jendrek came up to her and laughed as he saw her standing there. Ha-ha,
had she been to a dance, unknown to everybody? But the harvest-homes
were over, and Twelfth Day had not yet come round. "What had she been
eating or drinking to make herself so ill?" he inquired in a scoffing
tone.
She did not answer. All she could do was to raise her head a very
little and give him a strange look.
He grew terrified when he saw how enormous the [Pg 50] pupils of her
eyes had become. Ugh! she did look awful. Instead of telling her how
pleased he was to think that she for once in a way could sympathize
with his feelings on a Monday morning, he grasped her by the arm and
asked, "Is anything the matter? Tell me."
She groaned and gave a feeble nod. When he had asked her what she had
been eating, the thought had pierced her stupefied brain that she must
have been bewitched, that she must have eaten or dr----
"Poison, poison!" she suddenly shrieked, and throwing herself on the
ground she rolled about and screamed, so that the man shrunk back in
fright.
Mrs. Tiralla must also have heard the girl's shrieks, for she came out
of the house at once. She ran up to the maid, but as the latter
continued to scream "Poison, poison!" in a loud voice, and roll about
as if she were mad, with her hands pressed against her body, the woman
grew so deadly pale that Jendrek thought she would also fall down.
"Silence, silence!" she cried hastily, holding her hand before
Marianna's mouth. But as the latter pushed her hand away and went on
screaming, she looked round like a terrified animal at bay.
Jendrek felt quite anxious when he saw his mistress's eyes. "Shall I go
to Gradewitz and fetch the doctor?" he asked timidly.
"No," cried the woman angrily. And then, rousing herself, she seized
hold of his smock and cried, "Are you mad? She's only drunk, only
drunk, nothing else."
"I'm not drunk!" screamed Marianna. Then she added in a furious voice,
"That fool, that Jendrek, says I'm drunk; but let him sweep before his
own door first. I've not drunk anything, not a drop, and [Pg 51] that
I'll swear." All at once Marianna recovered her voice. "That fool! It's
poison that I've got in my body. I've been poisoned; I'm going to
die--oh, oh!"
The man opened his eyes in amazement.
When Mrs. Tiralla noticed that he was listening intently to what
Marianna was saying she grew as red as she before had been pale. Then,
with a short, forced laugh, she said, "Nonsense. Poison? Where should
you have got it from? You're raving, my girl. Come," she added, helping
the girl to rise, "lean on my arm. You're already better, aren't you?
I'll put you to bed. I'll make you a strong cup of tea. I'll give you a
hot-water bottle. And then, when you're better, we'll see if one of my
petticoats will fit you; you must be dressed more warmly." She felt the
girl's thin skirt. "Why, she has nothing on. She must have caught cold.
I'll take care of her. You are better now, aren't you? Holy Mother!
Marianna, speak! You're better, aren't you?"
Marianna shook her head. She pretended to feel very wretched once more,
and, rolling her eyes, she began to groan and lean so heavily against
her mistress that they both stumbled.
Jendrek had to come to the rescue. They took the girl between them and
dragged her into the house and up the stairs to bed.
When the man saw how kind his mistress was to Marianna, he stared at
her in surprise. "What a good woman she must be," he thought to
himself.
Whilst Mrs. Tiralla was rubbing the servant's icy-cold feet and hands
she continued to repeat the same question, "You're better, aren't you?"
It touched Jendrek to see how anxious the good woman was. He thought
that he would like to be ill as well; and he made up his mind that he
would [Pg 52] groan like that next Monday and scream, "Poison, poison!"
and lie on the ground and roll about. It must be very nice to have your
cheek and forehead stroked by the mistress's soft hands, as she was
stroking Marianna's, and to see how she worried about you. And then she
had run into the kitchen and brought her a cup full of good, warm tea,
and had held it to her lips and said, "Drink, dear, drink."
But Marianna did not want to drink. She almost knocked the cup out of
her mistress's hand. And when the latter tried to persuade her in her
soft voice, "Do drink, it'll do you good," she answered pertly, "I'll
take precious good care I don't. I shall not drink it," and turned her
face to the wall.
Why on earth wouldn't she drink that good cup of tea? The man would
very much have liked to know that.
But Mrs. Tiralla did not ask why. The cup rattled in her hand, and as
she stepped back from the bed she trembled so that she had to sit down
on the nearest chair. She closed her eyes for a moment. But when she
opened them again and saw the man's questioning looks, she gave him a
sweet, almost timid smile, and said, "I'm not very strong. Such things
affect me so. Oh, what a fright it gave me."
As they were going down the steep, dark stairs, she felt for his arm.
"Lead me, Jendrek, I can't walk alone. Oh, poor Marianna!"
[Pg 53]
CHAPTER IV
The winter was long in Starydwór, and the winter was the season of the
year which Mrs. Tiralla liked least, for her husband would spend almost
the whole day at home. He grew more and more lazy; he would not even go
out shooting. "Why should I shoot hares?" he would say. "I can buy them
very cheaply; any 'komornik' will kill one for me. I would much rather
stop at home with Sophia."
Beautiful Mrs. Tiralla had grown thin during the course of the winter,
"as slender as a fairy," said Mr. Schmielke, the tax-collector. The
gentry used to meet at the inn every evening and discuss the most
important events of the day; and as nothing much happened in
Starawie['s], Gradewitz, and neighbourhood, they would speak of Mrs.
Tiralla. This they did rather often, for the men considered her the
most interesting topic of conversation in Starawie['s], Gradewitz, and
the neighbourhood.
"By Jove, how beautiful that woman is!" some one would exclaim; and
then another would add, "What a pity that that old fool has got her."
"There's nothing to be done," sighed the tax-collector, who had served
in the guards at Potsdam, and had always been accustomed to carry
everything before him on account of his smartness. "Absolutely nothing
to be done, gentlemen. I've already had a try; but, to tell you the
truth, she has sent me to [Pg 54] the right about. Ah, the fair
Sophia!" He stroked his moustache and tilted his chair as far back as
he could, in order to look into the tap-room and wink at the clumsy
little country-girl who was helping the landlord behind the bar.
Mr. Böhnke, the schoolmaster, was very much put out. There was this
Prussian, who had fallen from the clouds into their loyal Polish
district, and at once imagined that he could win the most beautiful
woman for himself. But such a rose was not meant for a fellow like
him--a fellow with no education worth speaking of, for he had been
nothing but a noncommissioned officer. "Pray don't speak so loudly.
Don't shout out the names like that!" he exclaimed, jumping up from his
seat and closing the door into the tap-room.
It vexed him to think that his pale face had grown scarlet. This
Schmielke was certainly held in high esteem by everybody, and of course
it would not be wise to quarrel with a representative of the Prussian
Government. Still, it was very impertinent of him even to think of Mrs.
Tiralla, of that educated woman, the daughter of a schoolmaster,
extremely impertinent. Really, you couldn't help laughing at it. And he
gave an angry laugh.
"You seem to be enjoying yourselves here," said a voice at that moment;
and, looking round in surprise, the men caught sight of a head covered
with a mass of white hair, that stood up like bristles round an angular
forehead, and a pair of lovely brown eyes. It was the priest who had
opened the door softly and had stuck his head in. "Let me see, who are
you all? Mr. Böhnke, _dobri wieczor_." He nodded somewhat
condescendingly to the schoolmaster who had jumped up from his chair,
and then gave a very friendly nod [Pg 55] to Mr. Schmielke, the
tax-collector, who was leaning back in his tilted chair with two
fingers thrust into the front of his uniform.
"How do?" said the tax-collector.
Ziëntek, who was a good Catholic, felt very much annoyed at his
heretical friend Schmielke's off-hand behaviour. Ziëntek was a clerk at
the post office in Gradewitz; but he enjoyed himself better in
Starawie['s], where he was not so well known, and often cycled over
late in the evening. He had jumped up from his chair like the
schoolmaster, although perhaps not quite so quickly, and had shaken
hands with Father Szypulski, the priest.
Father Szypulski now stepped up to the table, for he saw that they were
all good acquaintances, with whom he felt quite at home. He had been so
lonely in his small study, where there was hardly room for so big and
broad a man as he. He couldn't always be reading, and it was impossible
to go to the neighbouring farmers for a game of cards, as the roads
were at present in a frightful condition. He couldn't even get to his
colleague in Gradewitz, which was only a few miles distant by the
highroad. Besides, what would have been the good of it? They couldn't
have gone to the hotel in the market-place, as there were always too
many people about. Oh, there really were too many Germans amongst the
settlers. And who would notice him going to the inn on such a snowy
night if he took up his cassock? A few stupid peasants at the most, who
would bend their heads so low when they greeted him as though their
priest were a saint at least. And in the inn he would find human
beings.
The priest no doubt felt that it was not quite the thing for him to sit
in the inn, and that his superiors would have taken umbrage at it. But
had he ever [Pg 56] taken more than he could stand? So far nobody had
ever seen him the worse for drink. He reviewed one colleague after
another in his mind; where was there one who had not behaved like other
men? And why had they sent him to such a remote post? so rural, so
primitive. His scruples were gradually being lulled to sleep in the
snowy winter days, that were not even brightened by a faint gleam of
light--he hardly ever caught a glimpse of a paper, besides papers were
pernicious reading--in that monotonous silence, that was not even
enlivened by the whistle of an engine, for the railway was on the other
side of Gradewitz.
"What are you talking about, gentlemen?" inquired the priest in an
interested voice; and he was soon in the midst of the conversation
about Mrs. Tiralla. He was her father confessor. "A good little woman,
an exceedingly nice little woman," he said in a laudatory tone.
"I had a fearful to-do with Tiralla the other day, your reverence,"
said Kranz of the _gendarmerie_, who was sitting at the end of the
table stroking his fierce-looking, greyish moustache. "I felt quite
sorry for the woman. I had to speak. I didn't think it could be
possible, but I was told of it, and I found out for myself that it was
true--Tiralla lets the day-labourers kill hares for him. It makes no
difference to him whether they're on other people's property or not. I
taxed him with it, and he didn't even deny it, he simply laughed. But
his wife turned as red as fire, she felt so ashamed of him. 'It's a
disgrace!' she cried, and looked at me with eyes full of tears. And
then she gave him a real, good scolding. 'Haven't I told you again and
again that if you want to eat hares, you're to shoot them yourself? If
you don't [Pg 57] do so I'll throw them out of the kitchen next time
you bring them, I swear I will.'"
"Bravo!" they all shouted. "Splendid!" There was only one more thing
she ought to have done and that was soundly to box his ears, the
scoundrel. They were so furious with him that they seemed entirely to
forget that they lived in a country where hares are no man's property,
so to speak, and are often killed by passers-by as they gambol about
fearlessly in the immense, lonely fields that extend for miles.
The younger men's eyes sparkled as they listened. The tax-collector,
the clerk from the post office, and the schoolmaster were none of them
thirty. The forester, who was sitting next to the clerk from the post
office, and Jokisch, the inspector of the settlement near the lake,
could also be reckoned amongst her admirers, although they were married
men; and the gendarme was still a good-looking fellow, in spite of his
greyish moustache and an almost grown-up daughter.
"I knew all about those hares," said Bilkowski, the forester, laughing.
"You knew it?" The gendarme opened his eyes wide.
"Oh, I say, don't look like that. If I were to publish everything that
happens here," and the forester shrugged his shoulders, "I should never
get any further."
"But a man ought to--it's his duty--I'm obliged," and the gendarme, who
had only been transferred to this post the spring before, pulled out an
enormous note-book from his pocket with a determined look, and took out
the pencil. "I always write everything down. Things were bad enough in
Upper Silesia, but they seem to be worse here."
[Pg 58]
"Oh, you'll get used to them," said the forester reassuringly. "It's
really very nice here. I shouldn't like to live anywhere else now. It
was also rather difficult for me at first, and especially for my wife.
She made enough fuss about it. But now I never hear anything more,
and"--he paused for a moment, then added with a smile that was half
embarrassed, half sly--"I only see what I want to see. What else is
there for me to do? Am I to act in opposition to the nobility, who
would continue to do exactly what they liked all the same, or am I to
let the peasants kill me when they commit outrages in the royal woods?
Of course I always go to the Przykop when I hear a shot; but if they
don't shoot, if they only make use of their cudgels, what then?"
He was right. They all agreed that it was no easy matter to be a
forester. Still the gendarme did not exactly approve of Mr. Bilkowski
speaking so frankly. "But, my dear fellow," and Bilkowski patted him on
the shoulder, "we're all in the same boat. Why shouldn't I speak
frankly amongst friends?"
The priest cast a glance at the open door leading into the tap-room.
Then he whispered to the schoolmaster, "Close it."
Böhnke hastened to comply with the hint.
"Do you think that the Tirallas would come to our Gardewitz ball?"
asked the clerk from the post office, blushing like a young girl. "I'm
getting it up, and if the Tirallas were coming I would arrange a
cotillon with flowers. If we were to order them at a big shop in Posen
we could get real ferns and wired flowers at sixpence a bouquet. Why,
it would even be worth while writing to Berlin for them. If you want to
give such a ball you must be prepared to spend something on it."
"When do you intend having it?" This was a [Pg 59] matter that
interested everybody, and the little man felt very important.
"On Shrove Tuesday, as usual. After that there's always such a long
spell where there's nothing whatever to do. It'll be splendid, I can
tell you, splendid! I hope Sophia Tiralla will come."
"Why shouldn't she, I should like to know?" Schmielke resolved at all
events to secure her for the cotillon in good time, as that meant he
would take her into supper as well.
They all had the same intention, and all had made up their minds to
call on the Tirallas at the earliest opportunity. It was quite a
different kind of thing to clasp a woman like that in your arms instead
of Miss Stumpf, the baker's daughter, who was both clumsy and stout; or
the stupid, snub-nosed Miss Musiëlak, the stationmaster's daughter; or
even Miss Stanislawa, who was rather pretty, but whose father, Count
Jagodziúski, was the town clerk, and was always borrowing money from
them all. Could even little Jadwiga Hähnel, with the freckles, the rich
mill-owner's only unmarried daughter, or the fair Marianna Rózycki, the
butcher's daughter, who, after the first glass of beer, always fell
violently in love with her partner, could they be compared with Sophia
Tiralla? All the young ladies of Gradewitz, Starawie['s], and
neighbourhood were in turn reviewed, but the prize was unanimously
bestowed on the fair Sophia.
"A pretty little woman, to be sure," said the priest.
"Have you noticed that as well, sir?" asked Schmielke pertly, with a
sly wink.
The schoolmaster started angrily, another impertinence from that man.
Even Ziëntek gave an embarrassed little cough; really, how could Fritz
say such a thing?
[Pg 60]
But the priest did not appear to have taken it amiss, and laughed when
he saw Schmielke wink. Why shouldn't he see it as well as the others?
Did he think he was blind? He was fortunately still in possession of
his eyesight, and there could surely be nothing wrong in his admiring a
pretty creature.
The schoolmaster listened in amazement to this free and easy
confession. How could his reverence say such things aloud? And in
Schmielke's presence too, that heretic. It would of course be at once
repeated and turned to account.
The others, however, were very much amused by the confession, and
shouted and laughed loudly. Jokisch, the inspector, who had hitherto
hardly opened his mouth--he had been too busy drinking--now raised his
glass. "Long live our priest. We've the best in the whole kingdom. Let
him live and let live."
They all clinked with the priest, and Jokisch was even so impertinent
as to slap him on the shoulder as he said, "What a pity, sir, that you
can't go to the ball."
"Do you think I couldn't dance, eh?" said the priest, eyeing his long
boots, which resembled those of an officer in a cavalry regiment. "You
needn't fear that I should be out of place there. What a pity"--he gave
a little sigh--"but it would never do."
"Why not, I should like to know?" asked Schmielke, and laughed. "The
youth does not know the reason why."
"Those are some fine ideas you've got," the schoolmaster blurted out.
He had worked himself into such a passion that he could not restrain
himself any longer. "You Germans seem to have some nice ideas of us.
But, of course, you're a heretic." It sounded very [Pg 61] venomous.
"It's quite possible that your clergy do such things."
"Now, now," said the priest, giving the schoolmaster a sign to be
quiet. He felt annoyed that the differences of religion and nationality
should have been brought up. How stupid of this Böhnke to make such a
to-do. They had to live together and get on with each other. The first
in the land were striving to do the same. Hiding his momentary
embarrassment under a jovial laugh, the priest broke the silence that
now reigned in the room by saying in a loud voice:
"I would advise you to take a glass of bitters, Böhnke, or some
Glauber-salt. That would do you good."
A roar of laughter greeted this witticism.
The schoolmaster turned pale and bit his lips, for he dared not say
anything; but he looked down on them all with supreme contempt. How far
superior he was to them in education--even superior to the priest, who
was only a peasant's son, whilst his father had been a schoolmaster. He
was to have studied philology and have been master of a higher-grade
school. But even with the less advanced education he had received at
the seminary, he still felt himself far superior to all of them. And
this he thought he could say without putting too high a value on his
own capabilities.
Böhnke always kept aloof from everybody; he had no friends, he was
harsh to the children, and was often bad-tempered. Rosa Tiralla was the
only child to whom he spoke kindly; but she was quite different to the
other children, much better bred. You could see that she had a nice
mother, who was of good family. The schoolmaster took an interest in
this woman. But it was not only her beauty that attracted him, he [Pg
62] also felt that they were kindred spirits on account of her
parentage. He was filled with jealousy and anger when he heard those
ill-bred fellows calling her "Sophia Tiralla," plain and simple Why
couldn't they say "Mrs. Tiralla"? That would have been the proper thing
for them to do. The schoolmaster continued to bite his lips and stare
in front of him, pale and morose.
But a spark had fallen into the straw, and the former peaceful
conversation was at an end. Jokisch and Schmielke suddenly commenced
quarrelling. Jokisch, who had already drunk too much, began to speak
disparagingly about Mrs. Tiralla. She was one of those whom you
couldn't trust out of your sight. He felt quite sorry for Tiralla, who
wasn't a bad fellow, but imposed upon, imposed upon. "My wife says--"
"Tut, tut, your wife's jealous," said Schmielke teasingly, and laughed.
"Naturally it can't be agreeable for her to have the fair Sophia as her
nearest neighbour."
"What do you mean?" roared the man. "I suppose you mean to infer that
I've been carrying on with her. I've not had anything to do with her; I
wouldn't touch her with a pair of tongs." He grew more and more
furious.
"H'm, your wife has taught you well, I see," remarked the tax-collector
superciliously.
"Taught me--taught me? I've finished my training long ago," roared the
inspector. "I needn't learn any more. I was inspector for five years at
Count Bninski's, in Opalenitza; I needn't learn any more for your
rotten Prussian crown land, especially in _that_ neighbourhood"--he
spat on the floor--"in _that_----"
A blow closed his mouth. The schoolmaster had [Pg 63] jumped up from
his seat; all his vaunted culture had disappeared. "Hold your tongue!"
he shouted, facing the tipsy inspector like a turkey-cock that has been
infuriated by a piece of red cloth. He was a delicate-looking fellow, a
mere stripling compared with the broad-shouldered inspector, but there
was a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
Jokisch had, indeed, gone too far. "_Psia krew!_" cried the priest,
without knowing what he said, whilst the others shouted in the wildest
confusion, "Prove it, prove it!" He was to prove that he had the right
to say such things about Sophia Tiralla. They were all simply burning
with curiosity. What did he know of her, what, what? That anybody knew
such things about her only added to her charm and piquancy in their
eyes.
"Well, fire away," said Schmielke in a jovial voice.
The priest also smiled. He had often before listened to two men
quarrelling, for he knew very well that they would in the end always
bow to his judgment, although the matter was no concern of his.
"I don't know anything," said Jokisch, all at once quite sober. Oh,
what a fool he had been, suddenly flashed through his mind. If he now
said something about her, wouldn't they all believe that he had burnt
his fingers? So far nobody knew that he had tried to kiss her in the
dark stone passage at Starydwór a short time ago, and that she had
given him a sound box on the ears for it. He therefore entrenched
himself behind his wife. "My wife says she's a very bad housekeeper. My
wife says she's very unkind to her husband. She sleeps alone in her own
room."
"Alone? I say, really?" They were all delighted to hear it, and their
eyes again began to sparkle. And no wonder, he was such a horrid old
fellow.
[Pg 64]
"My wife says she would like to poison him, judging from the way she
looks at him." That was his highest trump card, but even that did not
seem to excite any indignation, for every one present was busily
occupied in devising a plan by which he could curry favour with the
fair Sophia.
But the priest smiled. "You're biassed, Mr. Jokisch, biassed. There's
nothing wrong with Mrs. Tiralla."
"She's a good woman, a really good woman," agreed the gendarme. "I came
past the farm the other day on my way from the Przykop, and found the
servant lounging at the gate--Marianna ['S]roka, from Althof, you know,
a buxom lass, but awfully cheeky. 'Panje,' said she in a low voice, and
crept close up to me, 'Panje, there's murder in that house.' She
pointed to the Tirallas' house and made such eyes, she looked quite
mad. She wouldn't let me go. Then I got curious, and felt I must go
into the house. The woman came out of the room at once. 'Where's Mr.
Tiralla?' I asked, and at the same moment I heard a voice saying, 'Who
is it, Sophia darling? Come in, come in, it's very comfortable here.'
He was in high spirits, and we were all very happy together, although
Marianna kept rolling her eyes about and winking at me quite openly as
if to say, 'Take care!' What a horrid person she is, a real serpent.
And Mrs. Tiralla is just like her husband, and continues to warm such a
creature at her bosom. She's a good mistress, you can take my word for
that. 'Please,' she said, and 'Thank you,' when Marianna brought
something up from the cellar. But that's just like that kind of person.
She's as comfortable with them as she can possibly be anywhere, and
still she abuses them. I said to Mrs. Tiralla, 'How do you like your
[Pg 65] servant?'--I wanted to introduce the subject, but she answered,
'Oh, she's very good, very good,' and praised her highly."
"A very nice feature," remarked the priest.
Everybody was filled with indignation against Jokisch. How dared he say
a single word against Mrs. Tiralla, even when he was drunk? The
schoolmaster had been quite right this time. Jokisch was to keep a
civil tongue in his head. He was a henpecked husband, a tattler. All
the bachelors jeered at the inspector. Little Ziëntek poured the dregs
from his tumbler over his head, and when he resisted, and snorted and
swore loudly as he hit about him, they drew the chair from under him,
so that he sat down on the floor on which everybody had been spitting.
On any other occasion the gendarme would have separated the men, but
now he looked on with the utmost calm. It served the man quite right.
The priest had at first watched the proceedings very doubtfully, and
had kept an eye on the door to see if anybody were spying upon them.
But when the others took their tumblers, and, following Ziëntek's
example, poured the dregs over the man's head, he almost split his
sides with laughing.
He saw, however, that it was about time for him to be going, so he got
up from his seat and disappeared as quietly as he had come; and the men
were laughing, quarrelling, and shouting so loudly that they hardly
noticed his departure.
The schoolmaster felt like a hero, as he tramped home through the snow.
He was her knight; he had just paid that vulgar, disgusting fellow out.
Jokisch had received the first and last kick from him as they all
together had conveyed the heavy man to the door. "Throw him out, that
slanderer!" This [Pg 66] time they had all made common cause, all
except the gendarme, who had retired at the very last moment. He always
did so when there was any quarrelling going on in the private room at
the inn, otherwise he would have been obliged to write down the names
of these disturbers of the peace.
The stars shone down on the schoolmaster as he walked home all alone;
the cold wintry sky looked like a huge glass bell that had been put
over the flat country. The stars gave light; he could easily discern
the empty village street, which was as wide as the widest street in a
big town--so wide that it made the low cottages on either side look
twice as low as they really were. Böhnke stumbled along as though he
were intoxicated. But that was not the case, for he never drank too
much, whatever the others might do. He was tormented with an ambitious
longing to win this woman. Mrs. Tiralla was always very kind to him; he
thought he had noticed that she also looked upon him as a kindred
spirit. To-morrow he would see little Rosa--that dreamy child who would
sit with a vacant stare on her face and not know what the others had
been talking about--and he would tell her to remember him very kindly
to her mother, and to ask her if she wanted anything to read during
these long winter days. She could take her choice among his books. He
would gladly lend her them all, in spite of the many hardships he had
had to undergo in order to procure them. She had certainly borrowed a
volume from him almost three years ago; she had had it almost the whole
time he had been in the neighbourhood, and he would probably never see
it again. But he did not mind that. To-morrow he would again place his
library at her disposal. The best thing would be to write her a note
and give it to [Pg 67] the child. He wrote a most beautiful hand, it
looked like print. How the other people in this neighbourhood did
scrawl!
The Gradewitz ball would cost him a lot of money, and he had hardly
any. But what did that matter? He would go there, even if he had to
borrow from the Jew. Happily there was always one thing he could do; if
Isidor Prochownik dunned him, his daughter Rebecca should lose her
place in the class--she should go down to the very bottom; but if the
old man left him in peace Rebecca should have a very high place. He
laughed to himself at the splendid idea. But then he turned scarlet,
although there was nobody watching him, only the starry heavens above
him, and around him the deserted, sleeping village. He was overcome
with shame, for he felt that it was not right of him to move Rebecca up
and down just to please himself. But then he stifled all qualms. What
did it matter to that girl, who was so dirty, so stupid, so utterly
neglected, even if she did go down to the bottom? It was of no
importance to her. And he--he must go to the ball.
Böhnke dreamt that night of the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla. She wore a silk
dress, and had given him a decoration in the cotillon. He stretched out
an eager hand, and she pinned the gold paper-star on his breast. And
then she clung to him, the silk dress gave way, and her white bosom
opened like a book. "Read it," she said, smiling, "we two understand
each other."
It was a confused dream, for then followed all kinds of nonsense which
the young man could no longer remember when he awoke.
He went to school next morning feeling like a schoolboy who carries his
first poem to his beloved one in his [Pg 68] pocket, and is longing
impatiently to give it to her. Although he had gone to bed very late
the evening before, he had got up early and had twice written a note to
Mrs. Tiralla. He had not been satisfied with it the first time, and
had therefore written it again. Rosa was now to take it to her. But
when he went into the schoolroom his eyes sought in vain for the pale,
absent-looking face under the mass of curly hair. All the brown,
snub-nosed, sly-looking faces were there, but Rosa Tiralla was wanting.
This was a great disappointment. He was more harsh and impatient than
ever that day; he required his questions to be answered at once,
without any hesitation, otherwise he took the first book he could lay
hands on and hurled it over the forms. He could scarcely contain
himself, he felt so irritable. Why the deuce had that red-haired girl
just stopped away that day?
As Rosa was again absent the next day and the day after that, and as
none of the children could tell him the reason why, he came to a
decision--he would go to Starydwór. She must be ill. Would it not be
the proper thing for him to make personal inquiries about his pupil?
The crows were cawing over his head as he endeavoured to find the path
over the snow-clad fields. He could hardly see it, for there was only a
very faint trace left of the cart that had taken the milk from
Starydwór to Gradewitz early that morning. He shuddered as he wandered
through the enormous white fields. It was true they were no more
melancholy-looking at this time of the year than when full of turnips
and ripe corn; but their uniform whiteness seemed to give them a larger
and more desolate appearance. Even the hares, as they nibbled away at
the few stalks that were left, and the birds of prey, [Pg 69] as they
lazily flapped their wings in the direction of the Przykop, did not
enliven their desolation; for the sluggish inertness of their
movements, which enabled passers-by to approach them quite closely,
proved only too clearly how very rarely they were disturbed.
Was it because he was not warmly enough dressed that he trembled so?
Böhnke put his hands to his face--ugh! how cold it was. His top-coat
was certainly very thin, it was only meant for summer wear; but he
really couldn't have put on that thick, rough coat he wore every day
for school. He was wearing his best black coat and kid gloves; his
fingers were quite numb. He would have liked to run, in order to get
warm, but big lumps of snow clung to his boots like lumps of lead. When
he came in sight of the trees in the low-lying Przykop, it was as
though something were holding him back, and as though the wind were
pushing him back so as to prevent him from going any further. And he
was longing with all his heart to get to Starydwór as soon as possible.
To the left lay the settlement--the distillery chimney reared its head
in the air like a big white asparagus--and there Jokisch lived. But he
would not live there much longer. When the land had been parcelled out
and the settlers had come, he would go. Thank God! Böhnke was filled
with a vague jealousy; they were neighbours, he and she, and he
considered every neighbour dangerous. Jokisch was certainly a
fine-looking man, and Böhnke felt firmly convinced that he also found
Mrs. Tiralla very fascinating, in spite of all he had said to the
contrary, for who would not? Perhaps that was the very reason why he
had been so angry with her.
Then the schoolmaster began to run. Who would [Pg 70] hinder him in
getting to Starydwór as quickly as possible? There it lay.
The old farm, which had been in the hands of the Tirallas for over a
hundred years, had rather an imposing look in the distance. Not much
was to be seen of the farmhouse itself--it was very low, as though sunk
in the ground--but the barns and stables, all roofed with new, red
tiles, formed a wall round the square courtyard in front of it, and the
whole together constituted a very fine property. But what good was it
to her if she didn't love her husband?
The young man cast one more look at his clothes, and then, after
flipping the snow off his trousers, walked through the open gateway,
over which was a figure of the Holy Virgin sitting on a throne, which
was protected by a grating. A couple of dogs rushed at his legs and
barked; but he was not a coward, although he was no giant, and a kick
soon frightened the curs away. A man stood in the stable door watching
the schoolmaster as he walked up to the farmhouse.
What did the Starawie['s] schoolmaster want? Ha, ha, was he also coming
to kiss the mistress's hand? Somebody had already been there yesterday,
and the day before yesterday as well. How they all ran after her. But
they had no luck, thought Jendrek with a broad grin on his face. The
Pani bestowed the kindest look on him, and she gave him bacon every day
in the kitchen, and an extra glass of gin as well. God bless the good
woman!
Böhnke stepped into the stone passage, but nobody came. He gave a loud
cough; he had never been there before, and did not know where to knock.
He scraped his feet, and as there was still no sign of anybody he
called out in a polite voice, "May I come in? Hallo! is nobody at
home?"
[Pg 71]
Then he heard Mr. Tiralla's voice coming from the room on the right,
"Come in, come in, it's very comfortable here."
The schoolmaster knocked at the door.
"Confound you! Come in, I say."
Böhnke went in, but he at once drew back. Oh, he didn't wish to
disturb. But still he stood as though rooted to the spot, and stared
and stared. There was Mr. Tiralla lying all his length on the bench by
the stove with his head resting on his wife's lap.
Mrs. Tiralla blushed crimson as their eyes met. Then she lowered hers,
and jumped up so hastily that the heavy man on her lap was in danger of
falling on the floor.
"_Psia krew!_" cried the man, and then he laughed. Surely she didn't
feel shy, weren't they husband and wife?
She answered nothing, but she glanced at her husband with such an
expression of disdain, and then looked so hopelessly out of the window,
that Böhnke at once knew that she was unhappy, and that her husband did
not understand her. And he felt his heart beat.
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Böhnke," she said in a friendly voice, and held out
her hand. It felt like velvet as it lay in his, but it was as cold as
ice. He ventured to press it slightly; but she did not return the
pressure, she only gave him a sad look out of her splendid eyes and
smiled a little. Oh, that poor woman! How he would have liked to give
that abominable fellow a blow as he lay on the bench.
Mr. Tiralla was in a very good humour. He shouted to Marianna to fetch
beer and gin, and then told his wife to bring out some food. Böhnke
will be hungry--such a schoolmaster is always hungry--bring what [Pg
72] you can find: ham, eggs, cake, sausages, cheese, and what else
you've got in the larder. "We've got plenty." Then, without rising from
the bench, he seized hold of the schoolmaster with the words, "Take a
seat, pray," and forced him down on the nearest chair in spite of his
resistance. "We're pleased to give you it. _Psia krew_, only no
excuses."
Böhnke had stammered something about not wishing to give trouble, about
not being hungry, about going away immediately. But the farmer had
given a boisterous laugh as usual, and had said that the schoolmaster
had better tell that to the marines, for he didn't believe it. He
had probably been brought up in the same way as his wife, eh? She
had always worn shoes and stockings as a child, and had been as
dainty-looking as a doll; but her little bread-basket had been as empty
as a barn before harvest. She had been as thin as a church mouse in
those days.
The schoolmaster saw Mrs. Tiralla give her husband a second look, but
there was more than disdain in her look this time--something else
gleamed in the depths of those dark eyes. Then she turned away and went
out of the room without saying a word.
"Heigh, Sophia, be quick!" shouted the man after her.
And then he began singing her praises to the schoolmaster. Mr. Tiralla
loved to have visitors; he was so delighted to have an opportunity of
talking about his wife and his happiness to somebody. He bragged about
everything, and dilated loquaciously upon matters that a husband does
not generally mention to other men. His Sophia had a wonderful figure,
a wonderful figure! As slender as a birch! And she was so dainty, slim
in the waist and still rounded, broad across the hips, soft and warm
like a partridge [Pg 73] or like one of those little pigs made of
marzipan, which Wolkowitz, in Posen, used to put in his window at
Christmas time. And her bosom! Would you believe that----Lowering his
voice but very little he was about to confide some more intimate
particulars to the young man. But the latter tore himself away from the
hand that was pressing him down on the chair. He had been fidgeting
about on his seat for some time, but now he felt he could stand it no
longer. A burning blush suffused his face--was it from shame or desire?
Oh, that woman, that poor woman, at the mercy of such a man! He was
filled with an inexpressible repugnance for this stout, coarse old man,
who literally undressed his wife in the presence of others. Could
anybody blame her if she disliked him as much as Mrs. Jokisch had said?
The farmer had not noticed that the schoolmaster was struggling with
his feelings. It had not even struck him that he was silent. He had
found him a modest young man who did not talk much, and that was a good
thing, because then he was listening. Mr. Tiralla was very pleased with
his visitor.
Marianna appeared with three bottles of beer under each arm and a small
tray with glasses in her hand. She looked hale and hearty, and there
was no trace left of that fearful indisposition which had attacked her
at the commencement of the winter. She scanned the visitor with
sparkling, roguish eyes. Would he in time become the Pani's lover? It
wouldn't surprise her if she got hold of one now. But this man--she
made a grimace of disapproval--this man wasn't half good-looking
enough. And he didn't seem very enterprising either, for he had never
even glanced at her, although she had more than once touched him with
her sleeve and had reached right over him in [Pg 74] order to place the
glasses and the six bottles on the table.
"That's enough for the present," said Mr. Tiralla. "But listen, girl,"
he added, pinching her in the thigh so that she screamed aloud, "go
down to the cellar and fetch us another bottle of Tokay. And where's
the gin? You must have a glass to begin with, little Böhnke, or you'll
catch cold. Hallo, you little devil, why are you still there?" he
roared at the maid, who stood smiling and showing all her teeth. "Can't
you understand me? Do you think I'm speaking German? Isn't it Polish
I'm speaking? She's very stupid," he said apologetically, as the girl
left the room with a bold laugh, "but she's faithful--and she's
pretty."
He said this with a smile which horrified the schoolmaster anew. Had it
come to that? The man was not even faithful to her? Poor, poor thing!
He had never felt so sorry for anybody in his life, and he was not
soft-hearted as a rule. He longed for her return. She probably felt
ashamed of what had happened, otherwise she would have returned long
ago.
Mr. Tiralla was also growing impatient. The gin didn't taste half so
good if his Sophia hadn't taken the first sip of it, and he didn't care
for the beer at all. He shouted again for the maid, and when she came
with the bottle of Tokay and a large tray of eatables he said to her
angrily, "Put it down. Where's your mistress? _Psia krew_, what's
become of her?"
Marianna shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know why the Pani doesn't
come. _Gospodarz_ must know best himself."
"Confound you! Call her. She is to come."
The maid disappeared. A few minutes later she stuck her head in at the
door and said with a sad look, "Pani can't come, the Paninka is worse
again; oh, [Pg 75] she's very ill." Then she withdrew as quickly as
possible.
The glass which Mr. Tiralla hurled after her only hit the door, and
then broke into a thousand pieces.
The schoolmaster could not stand it any longer. What was the good of
staying there? Of course, she wouldn't show herself any more. Such bad
luck! Why on earth should that stupid, red-haired child just get worse
now? Or was it only an excuse? Oh, of course, it was an excuse. She
would be sitting upstairs in a corner, bowed down with shame and
weeping, weeping so much that her beautiful figure--broad across the
hips, a waist as slender as a birch, slim and still rounded--shook with
it. Although the young fellow tried his utmost not to think of it, he
could not help it; he saw her the whole time just as the old man had
described her to him. He changed colour; one moment he felt hot, the
next cold. Mr. Tiralla went on filling his glass with beer, gin, and
Tokay, the one after the other, and he drank more than he was
accustomed to in his absent-mindedness. He was thinking of nothing but
her. He could not believe that he was to leave the house without seeing
her once more. So he sat and sat, until the sky grew darker and darker
and the early afternoon turned into pitch-dark night. At last he rose
from his chair with despair in his heart. He had attained nothing of
all he had meant to attain; he hadn't offered her any books, he hadn't
secured her for a dance at the Gradewitz ball, he hadn't even inquired
about the child, which had been his nominal reason for coming to
Starydwór. He felt furious with Mr. Tiralla; he was to blame for
everything. Then he bade him good night.
Mr. Tiralla did not accompany him to the door--little Böhnke would be
able to find it alone--so he [Pg 76] groped his way through the dark
passage to the front door, reeling a little as he walked. Suddenly a
warm hand grasped his, some one chuckled near him in the dark, and the
servant's deep voice said half compassionately, half mockingly, "Did
you find it slow with Pan Tiralla? I'm sorry. Pani is upstairs with
little Rosa. If Pan Böhnke wants to say good night to her----" she
pushed him in the direction of the stairs and disappeared in the dark,
chuckling.
Like a gnome, he thought--oh, no, like an angel. He was seized with a
superstitious terror. Everything seemed so strange; the old house, the
chuckling maid, the loud-voiced man, the beautiful woman. He began
cursing all the drink he had had and cursing Mr. Tiralla. Oh, if only
he had been as sober and as clear-headed as he generally was.
The old staircase creaked under his feet. What would she say? Wouldn't
she consider him intruding if he came up to her? But weren't those
groans that he heard above the creaking of the stairs? That poor,
beautiful woman! He must go to her. Where was she?
Now he was at the top. Hark, wasn't that the child's voice?
"Mother," he heard Rosa say, "sweet mother, I really did see her, you
can believe me. She was as beautiful, as beautiful as you. She had hair
like yours, when you undo your plaits. And she gave me the Child Jesus
to hold. I love it, I love it!" She repeated that several times with
great fervour.
What nonsense was the child talking? Of whom was she speaking? The
schoolmaster drew nearer to the door. Ah--he gave a start--ah, now she,
Mrs. Tiralla, was speaking. But he couldn't very well understand what
she was saying, she spoke so softly. [Pg 77] And now and then she
seemed to be sobbing. He knocked at the door and walked in. Rosa was
lying in bed and her mother was sitting on the bed near her. They both
stared at him in astonishment, but when he said with a voice that
hesitated at first, but then grew firmer, that he felt he couldn't
leave without hearing how she was, the child looked pleased.
"I'm very well," she answered, with a shy smile. "Very well, thank you,
Panje Böhnke."
"She's feverish," said her mother. "She fainted the day before
yesterday; Marianna came rushing down to tell us. We shall have to send
for the doctor if she doesn't get better."
"No, no," cried the child, sitting up in bed and looking as though she
were going to cry. "I'm not ill, mother darling, I'm not ill." She
threw her arms round her mother and pressed her head against her
breast.
The schoolmaster stepped up to the bed and laid his hand on the child's
head. No, _she_ wasn't feverish, but he began to feel so as soon as he
came near that beautiful woman. He busied himself with Rosa; what was
the matter with her, wouldn't she soon come back to him?
Rosa nodded, and then raising her head from her mother's breast, she
pushed her tangled hair away from her face, which looked dazzlingly
white in spite of the freckles. Even Böhnke, in his agitation, noticed
how bright her dull eyes had become.
"She dreams so much," said her mother sadly. "She frightens us by
screaming aloud in her sleep. And she talks in her sleep as well;
Marianna is really terrified. Oh, those awful dreams!" She sighed.
But the schoolmaster did not inquire any further into the matter.
Little Rosa's dreams did not interest [Pg 78] him in the slightest, all
he wanted to do was to give Mrs. Tiralla a proof of his devotion.
"Would the Pani like to borrow some of my books?" he inquired. "I shall
be very pleased to bring some." And then wishing to give her a hint of
how he understood and pitied her, he took heart and added, "If people
live such a lonely life as the Pani does, and are so un----" he wanted
to say "unhappy," or "so little understood," but he faltered, and his
veiled eyes looked longingly at her. He did not know how it was, but he
always lost his self-possession when he was near her.
She must have understood him in spite of his faltering, for she sighed
and said, "Ah, yes, Mr. Tiralla doesn't care much for reading. He eats,
drinks, sleeps, and----" she also faltered and blushed. And then she
gave him a long look out of her black eyes, so that his heart stood
still. "I shall be very grateful to you if you'll lend me some books,"
she continued in a soft voice. "Mr. Tiralla doesn't like to spend money
on them. Oh, I'm so fond of reading beautiful tales, sentimental ones."
The man was in the seventh heaven. So she wanted books? That meant that
he would often have a chance of coming to see her. For he would take
good care not to give Rosa the books; he would bring them himself, and
never more than one at a time. "I'll bring you some," he said,
overjoyed.
"Oh, not so loud, not so loud," begged Rosa, and her face was burning.
She had fallen back on the pillow, her eyes were wide open, but she
spoke as though in her sleep. "I hear her, sh, mother, sh!"
What did she hear? The two looked at each other, whilst the howling
wind outside seemed to creep along the walls of the house like clinging
fingers. [Pg 79] Böhnke shook his head; the child was really very
peculiar.
But Mrs. Tiralla gave a slight shudder, and, bending over her
daughter's bed, she said in a strangely soft voice, "Go on listening,
Rosa dear, go on listening." Then she grasped the schoolmaster's hand
and drew him out of the room. "Come. She is already asleep."
They stood outside in the dark. A murmuring sound was heard from the
bedroom, a few joyful exclamations and then Rosa's voice rose clear and
triumphant. Böhnke was full of amazement; what was the meaning of it
all?
Mrs. Tiralla, who was still holding his hand, now whispered to him,
"I've no friend. I stand quite alone. I often wish I were dead."
The young man pressed his burning, eager lips to her sleeve. He felt
almost stifled with emotion and stammered something hardly
intelligible. He was her friend, her faithful, devoted friend. He had
already once been her knight, but if she commanded, he would also be
her dog. For ever and ever.
If the schoolmaster had hoped for a proof of her favour he was
disappointed. She only pressed his hand, and oh, how icy-cold hers was,
and how firm. Her dainty hand could press as firmly as any man's. "I
rely upon you, Panje Böhnke," she whispered, and then, raising her
voice, she added calmly and distinctly, "Don't fall. Here's the
staircase, here."
Mr. Tiralla's powerful voice was heard downstairs. "Where are you,
Sophia? Let the devil take hold of you by the tip of your shift. Why
don't you come to me, my little dove, my darling?"
"Good night," she whispered hastily, once more pressing the
schoolmaster's hand.
[Pg 80]
He stood alone in the silent courtyard; there was no light in the
stables and sheds, the cattle made no sound. He felt oppressed. Did he
dread the walk through the lonely fields? Oh, no, on the contrary he
was able to breathe once more when he reached the open fields, and the
howling wind threw a whole load of snow into his face and over his
clothes. "Ah," he drew a long, trembling breath. But all at once he
felt terrified. There came a long-drawn, shrill whistle from the
Przykop, a quite peculiar whistle. No bird screamed like that, and no
human being either. A shudder ran down his back; he was seized with a
superstitious fear, which he could not shake off again in spite of his
common sense and his education. That was the witch that whistled in the
pitch-dark Przykop.
And he made the sign of the cross as the peasants do when they hear the
witch whistling, and spat on the snow that gleamed in spite of the
darkness. When that's done, the witch has lost her power and you need
not follow her.
[Pg 81]
CHAPTER V
Rosa Tiralla had seen visions; but whether they were good or bad
visions nobody knew. Marianna ['S]roka cried loudly when she brought
the news to the village, and her lover, Jendrek, confirmed it with a
nod. The Paninka had seen something, the Paninka was bewitched.
Mr. Tiralla was deeply grieved about his Röschen, as deeply grieved as
he could possibly be about anything. He had already been looking out
for a husband for his little daughter--she would be fourteen next
autumn, and a wife cannot be too young-and now she seemed only fit for
bed. The strong man had never suffered from nerves--didn't even know
what they were--but all sorts of things happened nowadays to alarm him.
Rosa was so irritable that she cried if anybody spoke crossly to her.
The doctor advised them not to treat her harshly, for she cried so
bitterly that she became quite hysterical. And after the attack was
over she was so feeble that she could not move a limb, and looked
exactly like somebody who was going to die; so that her father in his
terror used to say, "yes," and "my angel," "everything you like, my
angel."--nothing but "my angel."
And Röschen imagined that she was always surrounded by angels. She
thought her father, Marianna, and Jendrek were angels, but especially
she thought her mother one. Pan Böhnke was also an angel. He [Pg 82]
often came to see her, and then he and her dear mother would sit by her
bedside and talk to each other, and their voices would sound so soft
and low that her eyes would close, and she would fall into a sweet
sleep.
Mrs. Tiralla had never imagined that she could feel so much love for
her daughter. She was really fond of her now. Marianna would on no
account sleep any longer in the same room as Rosa; she said that it was
impossible to close an eye the whole night through, and if she worked
so hard during the day she really must rest at night. The truth was
that when Marianna stole out of bed in order to go to her lover, the
child would sit up in bed and call out, "Where are you going,
Marianna?" and there was such a strange note of reproach and admonition
in her voice, that the girl shuddered and did not venture to go to
Jendrek. How had the child found it out?
So Mrs. Tiralla had her bed brought up to her daughter's room. Her
husband cursed and raged, for hitherto he had at least had his wife
next to him on the same floor. But she insisted upon having her own
way. She said that Röschen wanted care, and mustn't sleep alone. And he
saw that she was right.
At night, when the house was so quiet that the ticking of the big clock
sounded like peals of thunder and her husband's snores like a saw-mill
hard at work, Mrs. Tiralla would sit by her child's bed. She would hold
her hand--a small, narrow, delicate-looking hand with blue veins--and
they would whisper together about the joys of Paradise. Whilst all
around was joyless--the dark night, the lonely farm buried in deep
snow, the solitude in which a soul so often gets lost--those two would
whisper together about the joys of Paradise--about nothing else.
The heavenly world in which Mrs. Tiralla had also [Pg 83] lived as a
child had once more drawn near to her by means of Rosa. She could very
well understand what occupied the child's thoughts to the exclusion of
everything else. And that was right, for she was to be a saint. Was she
not almost one now? There was a rapt expression in Rosa's eyes, when
she used to tell her mother about what she had seen, about the Holy
Mother and the Child Jesus, and about her beautiful, beautiful guardian
angel who always sat at her bedside when she was asleep. A short time
before, she had suddenly awaked in the night, but had been too tired
to open her eyes properly, and she had found the angel bending over
her--such a beautiful angel in a long white garment.
Mrs. Tiralla knew all about it. It had been she, and the white garment
was her nightdress, which was long and fine, like those worn by smart
ladies. But she let the child remain in her belief. Why undeceive her?
And after that she used to creep every night to Rosa's bed and disturb
her sleep by laying her hand on her head and bending over her as if she
were her guardian angel, to the child's and her own great delight. She
loved doing it. She even practised her part, so that she grew more and
more proficient in it every night.
In the daytime, Mrs. Tiralla would rummage in her drawers and show Rosa
the things she had possessed as a child, precious relics which she
devoutly kissed. These were consecrated beads, a consecrated palm
branch, a little white china angel, a vessel for holy water and many
gaudy pictures of saints, which her priest had once given her. Then she
would relate something about each of these treasures as they lay on the
child's bed. She would speak in a low, monotonous whisper, as though
praying and with a dreamy smile on her face, and would gradually work
herself [Pg 84] up into such a state of eagerness and excitement that
her radiant eyes would become veiled, and, bursting into tears, she
would sink down on the child's bed. Then mother and daughter would weep
in each other's arms.
Rosa's tears were tears of ecstatic rapture and longing, of a great
longing for something she could not name--the dear Virgin, the dear
little Child Jesus, the dear guardian angel and all the dear saints.
She knew them all; she knew the history of every martyr that now wore a
halo. Her mother had read about them aloud to her again and again from
the book of holy legends that she had brought out of the gaily painted
chest in which she, as a girl, had kept her belongings.
How splendid it must be to live like those holy women. If you were like
St. Julia or St. Helena, or even St. Agnes, you would get leave to
nurse the Child Jesus in Paradise, and rock it and sing it to sleep
with hallelujah.
When Rosa was all alone she would try to sing the heavenly lullaby; she
would try to take the highest notes with her small, weak voice, and
make them sound soft and harmonious instead of shrill and piping.
Then the servants in the yard used to say, "St. Panusia is singing,"
and they would listen devoutly to the long-drawn song, sounding like a
chant, that came from Rosa's bedroom.
But Rosa never felt quite satisfied with her lullaby, and often burst
into tears. It must be because she didn't pray fervently enough,
because she was far from being good and pure enough. So she wrote down
all her sins on a piece of paper in her stiff, uneven handwriting, that
she might not forget any of them--there was a long row of them--and she
made up her mind to [Pg 85] confess them all and get forgiveness for
them as soon as the snow was so far melted that she could go to the
priest.
She did not attend school at present, not being strong enough to walk
all the way from Starydwór to Starawie['s].
Mr. and Mrs. Tiralla were preparing to go to the Gradewitz ball in
spite of the snow and the bad roads. They hoped they would be able to
get through all right. Mr. Tiralla could never have brought himself to
let an opportunity pass of gloating over the many eager eyes that would
watch his wife in the mazes of the dance, whilst he sat comfortably in
the corner of the ballroom with his glass and his cards.
Mrs. Tiralla was a very good dancer, and her heart beat as she unpacked
the ball-dress her husband had ordered for her from a fashionable
dressmaker in Posen. She could very well have worn her blue silk again
if the rats had not been nibbling it! However, this filmy white gauze,
with its long flowing sash and a small bouquet of artificial roses for
the bodice and another for the hair, was certainly much prettier; there
was an underskirt of silk, too, which rustled and swished every time
she moved.
Mrs. Tiralla was dressing in the large sitting-room on the ground
floor. The bedroom upstairs was too cold, so Marianna had brought the
looking-glass down and had fixed it up on a table by means of some
pieces of wood, and placed two lighted candles in front of it. Mrs.
Tiralla was doing her own hair. The Gradewitz dressmaker would have
been asked to do it, as she was also the hairdresser of the
neighbourhood, but she had taken offence when she heard that Mrs.
Tiralla had got her ball-dress from Posen.
[Pg 86]
Mrs. Tiralla did not crimp her hair as a rule, but to-day she got a
waving-iron, and she and Marianna did it together. The maid was by no
means clumsy, although she had such big hands, and she helped her
mistress to pile up her wavy hair at the top of her head. But when at
last it was ready, Mrs. Tiralla thought it so hideous, that she burst
into tears and tore it down with an angry "_Psia krew!_" which made
Rosa shrink. The child was crouching in a dark corner of the room with
her hands clasped round her knees, gazing with admiration at the
beautiful vision in the white embroidered petticoat.
Ugh! how difficult it was to please the mistress this evening; now she
wanted this, now that. If Marianna had not consoled herself with the
thought that she would soon be mistress of the house for a whole night,
she would have cried instead of laughing pleasantly as she was doing
now. "Pani must do her hair in her usual way," she said. "That suits
Pani best of all."
"She is right," sighed Mrs. Tiralla, as she began once more to comb out
her tangled hair, and she tore at it so savagely that at last her
silky, black tresses clung to her white temples in big, smooth waves.
Then she twisted the plaits in a huge coil at the nape of her neck;
that was the way she had worn her hair in her girlhood, and that suited
her best.
"By Jove, you look like a little girl, my love," smirked her husband
from his seat, on the bench near the stove, where he was lying as usual
in spite of his clean shirt, black coat, and hair covered with pomade.
"Many people will envy me to-night."
She did not answer; she felt annoyed with him. Wasn't it disgraceful of
him to lie there in his new, clean clothes, just as though he had his
greasy, everyday coat on?
[Pg 87]
"How beautiful, oh, how beautiful," whispered Rosa, who had crept out
of her corner and was kneeling before her mother with both hands raised
as though worshipping her. Mrs. Tiralla had now put her ball-dress on,
and the snowy-white gauze fell round her like a fleecy cloud. She
thought herself that she looked beautiful, just like a young girl. Ah!
A slight but burning pain made her tremble. How sad to think that all
this beauty was to wither away at her husband's side--always at her
husband's side. All at once she was seized with a violent fit of fury,
one of those sudden attacks which deprived her for a time of her
senses. "Get up," she said to Rosa coldly, as the child gently stroked
her dress. "Get up. Why do you do that? You're soiling my dress."
Rosa began to cry.
"Why do you frighten her so?" exclaimed Mr. Tiralla reproachfully; he
could not bear to hear his daughter cry. "Come here, my Röschen, my
little lady-bird; leave your mother, she's in a bad humour to-day. Come
to me, Röschen, my sweetheart, come; take hold of my coat, you won't
soil that."
"Yes, go, go!" and the woman dragged her dress so violently away from
the clinging hands that a flounce came undone. Then she grew still more
furious, for now the dress would have to be sewn. She scolded Rosa in a
loud voice, and the child gazed at her with a strange look in her
dilated eyes. Could angels scold as well? Alas, she must have done
something very bad, must have been a very good-for-nothing girl if the
angel scolded her. She crept back into her corner sobbing in a subdued
fashion.
"That's right, be angry, it suits you," said Mr. Tiralla, laughing.
Neither of the parents took any more notice of the [Pg 88] child. The
father rose from the bench when he heard the crack of Jendrek's whip,
as the carriage drove up to the front door. It was late. If they wanted
to be there in time they would have to start at once, as it would take
quite two hours to drive to Gradewitz to-night with the roads in such a
condition.
"_Dalej_, my dear," he said, holding his wife's fur cloak for her, in a
sudden fit of politeness.
Marianna drew her master's thickest woollen socks over her mistress's
dainty shoes. "Oh, what beautiful little shoes," she exclaimed
ingratiatingly. "Pani mustn't walk in the snow with her beautiful
feet."
As the woman bent forward in order to help the maid, her husband threw
a look at her low-necked dress and smirked. Then he pressed a
resounding kiss on her smooth, cool neck.
The maid screamed with laughter, and continued to do so long after the
carriage had jolted out of the gate. She and Jendrek had accompanied
them so far, each carrying a lantern for fear they should fall into any
of the dangerous holes in the unpaved yard made by the pigs and
poultry, and now covered with loose snow.
The child remained alone in the big, stifling room, into the dark
corners of which the light from the two flickering candles on the table
could not penetrate.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mrs. Tiralla sat with closed eyes behind her husband, whose broad back
kept off the wind. They could not have taken any other carriage, as it
would have been upset on the bad roads. It was difficult enough even
for this open conveyance, with its big, clumsy wheels, to get along,
for sometimes the wheels would be high up, sometimes low down, it all
depended on whether there was more or less ice in the ruts.
[Pg 89]
How awful it was to live in such a flat country. Mrs. Tiralla sighed,
as she sat wrapped up in her fur cloak and many shawls. The
schoolmaster was right, this was no place for her. Life in these
surroundings made one feel quite strange. She had, indeed, been born
for something else. Had not her priest said to her even in the old
days when she was still so young, "Thou art chosen amongst many"?
And what had been her lot? The woman flashed a furious look through
her half-closed lids at the man sitting in front. Now he was taking her
once more to be exhibited, just like a breeder who wishes to win a
prize for the animal he has kept in such good condition.
Mrs. Tiralla was filled with a wild fury; she would have liked to hurl
her husband out of the carriage. If only he were lying in the snow; if
only the wheels would go over him; if only she could seize the reins
and whip up the horses, "_Huj_, _het!_" Free, free! But--then her head
drooped and a sudden sadness came over her--she had not the courage to
do it. She had put the rat poison in the lumber-room in the old gaily
painted chest from her girlhood, where nobody would look for it. She
had told her husband that the rats had eaten it all, and he had
believed her. He had not been surprised that they had not found any
dead rats, for it is a well-known fact that animals hide in any hole
they can find when they have been poisoned. There they die. If only she
had not been so terrified when Marianna shrieked "Poison, poison!" How
awful it would be if that big man were to roll his eyes and foam at the
mouth and shriek, "Poison, poison!"
"Holy Mother!" she said to herself as she folded her hands under her
fur cloak, "look down on me. Thou gracious one, lend me thy assistance
in what [Pg 90] I'm about to do." To do it alone was too great an
undertaking; would she ever, ever find courage to do it again? It had
not seemed so difficult the first time. But the saints had not willed
it; the maid, that idiot! had upset the coffee, and her husband had not
got a single drop of it. What a pity, thought Mrs. Tiralla regretfully.
How could she have felt so happy that morning when she saw her husband
sitting at the breakfast-table safe and sound? He grew more and more
repugnant to her every day. How long--how long would she have to bear
it? Had Heaven no understanding? So many husbands died and left wives
to weep and mourn for them, and he--he--she wouldn't shed a single tear
for him, she was sure of that. She would laugh, laugh! Ha, and to-night
she would dance, dance! She felt as though she must deaden all feeling.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Tirallas were anxiously awaited. The ball had no attraction as long
as Mrs. Tiralla was not there.
As their carriage rumbled up to the market-place little Ziëntek, in
evening dress and a tall hat on his fair hair, rushed to the hotel door
to receive them. Thank goodness, there they were! He, as master of the
ceremonies, had suffered agonies at their nonarrival. What should they
have done with all those bouquets for the cotillon? Half of them would
have been enough.
A good many of the guests had congregated on the dirty, straw-covered
pavement, in order to watch, by the feeble light from the lantern that
swung backwards and forwards in the wind, the fair Sophia get down.
Many eager hands were stretched out to [Pg 91] assist her, but she did
not seem to notice them. She gave a neat jump, and next moment stood on
the stone steps, over which a piece of old carpet had been laid,
shaking out her skirts. She did not wait until her husband had got
down, but, walking straight into the cloak-room, took off her things,
gave a peep into the dingy glass, and was dancing the mazurka with Mr.
Schmielke when Mr. Tiralla entered the ballroom.
He at once looked out for a seat for himself. Let her dance, he liked
her to do so. He was not afraid of her virtue, for she was as cold as
ice; you had to be thankful when she did not scratch your eyes out. She
had been trying him very sorely lately. Since Röschen's illness she
would have nothing to do with him.
Then he played a game with Count Jagodziúski, the cards for which (a
pack soiled by much usage and many dirty fingers) the Count at once
produced from the back-pocket of his coat. What did it matter to Mr.
Tiralla if he lost three or four pounds? It amused him when the Count
won them, for that was the only harvest the poor devil had nowadays.
The Count was not accustomed to have such an indulgent opponent;
everybody else used to keep a strict eye on him except Mr. Tiralla. In
his heart the gallant old Count pitied the latter's beautiful wife.
Poor thing, to have such a fool of a husband.
Mrs. Tiralla was like a flame, in spite of her white dress and her
cheeks that never got red--hot, but never red--for she set fire to the
whole ballroom.
Crimson and white flags, that swayed incessantly backwards and forwards
in the draught created by the dancers as they whirled past, had been
fixed to the bare wooden partitions, through which the wind whistled
straight from the plain. The withered garlands, [Pg 92] that had been
there since the Sokol's[A] last entertainment, rustled softly as they
hung from one flagstaff to the other. The boards on the floor were only
loosely laid down, and moved up and down under the hopping and gliding
of many feet. If a foot happened to stamp a little more than usual, or
a couple to fall down with a crash, then clouds of dust would whirl up
and obscure the light from the swinging paraffin lamp, round which
twelve candles, fixed in a metal disc, were flickering. A stove roared
in the corner. The wall behind it had been scorched by the heat, and in
front a large iron-plated screen had been placed, in order to protect
the women's dresses from the sparks that flew out of the open door.
[Footnote A: A Polish gymnastic society.]
The piano stood on a platform, which was now and then used as a stage;
and there was a pianist from Gnesen, not at all a bad player, who was
supported by a violin and a double-bass. The musicians played with a
good deal of rhythm, a fiery rhythm that carried the dancers away.
People danced well in Gradewitz. Schmielke's dancing was nothing
special here, although it had been considered exceedingly good at home.
The girls were as light as soap-bubbles; even stout Miss Trampel, the
baker's daughter, and the stupid, snub-nosed Miss Musiëlak, the
stationmaster's daughter, danced like feathers; still, they were not in
very much request.
Little Jadwiga, the rich mill-owner's daughter, who was wearing a
brand-new pale blue cashmere frock, cut square in front, which left her
neck bare as far as the freckles went, did not meet with as much
success as could be expected from her dress, which the Gradewitz
dressmaker had declared to be her masterpiece. And even Mariechen
Rózycki, whose very red arms [Pg 93] and hands stuck out of a pink silk
blouse, had to look on, while one man after another marched over to
Mrs. Tiralla. It was a bitter blow.
The girls put their heads together in the intervals between the dances.
All of them, whether fair or dark, brown or red, had had their hair
done exactly in the same way. The Gradewitz hairdresser had waved their
front hair and made it into an enormous roll over the forehead, with
the help of some padding. And then she had made three puffs of the back
hair, which she had placed at the top of the head. The only difference
between them all was the greater or lesser quantity of hair they had,
and the colour of the little bow placed coquettishly on the left side.
How awful these young girls looked. The one in bright pink, the other
in bright blue, the third in almost orange, the fourth in the colour of
arsenic. And then the women! Mrs. Rózycki, the butcher's wife, shone in
a stiff silk--dark reddish brown, trimmed with yellow lace--not at all
bad in itself, but how common her fat face looked over her tight silk
bodice that seemed ready to burst. And then the others! Mrs. Jokisch,
in black, trimmed with mauve and a white lace collar, looked exactly
like her own grandmother. How a man's soul seems to show itself in his
garments. Mr. Böhnke, the schoolmaster, stood in a corner of the
ballroom criticizing the company. He had never laid so much weight on
appearances before--his mother was a very unassuming woman, and his
sisters, oh, dear!--but he had been spoiled since he had made Mrs.
Tiralla's acquaintance. She was always beautiful, and especially so
this evening. He almost devoured her with his eyes. How splendid she
looked in that dainty white dress. She was harmony personified in this
confused mass of gaudy [Pg 94] colours. The only coloured thing about
her was her smooth, silky dark hair, with the rosebuds in it, and the
little bouquet at her bosom.
She was the only one who was wearing a low-necked dress. Such a thing
had never been the fashion in Gradewitz, where it was only customary to
expose the throat and shoulder-blades. It was really extremely indecent
to be so uncovered; but none of the women would have dared say that
aloud, and the young girls even less. Next time, however, that there
was a ball in Gradewitz, all the dresses should be made like Mrs.
Tiralla's. The men seemed to approve of it. Even the most innocent
children noticed how their fathers' eyes glittered as they looked down
at Mrs. Tiralla's shoulders.
Sophia Tiralla did not seem to notice all these looks. She gave herself
up to the pleasures of the dance like a child--like a little innocent
child. All her misery had been wiped away for this short hour. What did
it matter to her that all these men stared at her in the same way as
her husband always did? Her blood did not course more quickly on that
account. Let them! She laughed at them, laughed! If they had known that
she had almost killed a human being! Almost poisoned her! She was
seized with a nervous inclination to laugh.
When Mr. Schmielke whispered to her, as he pressed her to his heart in
the gliding waltz, "My beautiful one, the sweetest rose in Poland"--he
thought that very fine, really poetical--"I'm dying of love for you,"
she laughed in his face.
"You're dancing very badly, Mr. Schmielke," she said, and next moment
flew past him in little Ziëntek's arms.
"_Psia krew!_" Mr. Schmielke had already accustomed [Pg 95] himself to
the Polish way of swearing. That hop o' my thumb, that little milksop
of a post office clerk, had better try to come near him, he would soon
take him in hand. He called himself master of the ceremonies, and his
duty was obviously to provide for the entertainment of the guests. Why,
he was thinking of nobody but himself--the perjurer, the liar! the vain
little Pole!
Mr. Ziëntek danced much better than the Prussian tax-collector, but
even he found no favour in Mrs. Tiralla's eyes. She finished the dance
with him; but just as he, with laboured breath and beating pulse, was
about to commence an intimate, low-toned conversation with her, she
nodded an absent-minded "Thanks," without listening to what he was
saying, and was immediately carried off by Mr. Rózycki, the butcher.
Rózycki was a capital dancer, in spite of his stoutness. He had dragged
on a pair of white kid gloves, and was enjoying himself so much that
the perspiration was streaming down his face and falling in big drops
on to his partner's shoulder. But that was quite immaterial to Mrs.
Tiralla at the present moment, and she did not mind either if it were
butcher or baker or post office clerk with whom she was dancing, as
long as she could dance. But not with Mr. Tiralla, she would not have
liked to dance with him. As their eyes met, and he raised his glass and
gave her a pleasant nod, she frowned gloomily and took no notice of
him. She looked very worn at that moment; all her youthfulness seemed
to have disappeared.
But that was only for a moment, and her face became quite smooth again
as she whirled round the room with her skilful partner, against whose
body she was constantly knocking. He remained in the middle [Pg 96] of
the room with her, just under the chandelier, so that everybody could
see him and her. He felt as though he were the king of the ball. He
would soon stop his wife's tongue if she should venture later on to
reproach him for having danced so long with Sophia Tiralla. He had now
danced three times round the room with her without stopping, he didn't
seem to be able to tire her out. However, when he felt that he could
not dance any longer, he drew a deep breath, gave an exultant cheer,
and lifted his charming partner right up into the air.
Deafening cheers resounded through the ballroom. The men were like mad.
They pushed and buffeted and pressed round the snow-white little lamb
under the chandelier like rams that had been let loose.
Mrs. Tiralla did not utter a sound as her strong partner raised her
from the ground. Her lips were scarlet, her little nostrils trembled,
her eyes laughed.
A feeling of deep dejection came over her later on when she was sitting
at the table with Mr. Schmielke, with Ziëntek on the other side, and
her husband opposite to her. She did not want to eat anything; when she
saw how Mr. Tiralla was devouring his food she lost her appetite. All
at once she felt she had had enough of it all; the dance nauseated her
as well as the food. For to-morrow she would again be alone with her
husband at Starydwór. The more court the men paid her that evening the
more she abhorred him. There was nobody here who could have charmed
her. This Mr. Schmielke at her side, bah! True, all the girls ran after
him, and he was constantly whispering some amorous nonsense in her ear
and secretly pressing his knee against her dress, and seeking her foot.
But she could have lived a hundred years on a desert island with him,
and he would never have been dangerous to [Pg 97] her. And Ziëntek,
that little fair-haired fellow, what did she care for such a stupid
boy? Her lip curled with a disdainful smile. What did she care for all
the others, those husbands who cooed round her like pigeons? On the
whole, what did she care for all the men in the world? She felt herself
infinitely superior to them all; her hand remained cool in spite of the
most ardent pressure; no hot blood ever flew to her head. And still she
would rather have given herself to any one of them than to her husband.
It angered her that he should show so little jealousy. Was he so sure
of her? What would he say if she chose somebody else?
Her eyes began to rove about--big, restless eyes, that wandered all
over the table.
Mr. Schmielke intercepted such a glance, and took it as an
encouragement. What, was he to conquer this little woman after all? He
boldly pushed his chair still nearer to hers, for he knew that audacity
had more effect upon women than anything else. He had drunk a
considerable amount during the course of the evening, and he went on
drinking during supper: a glass of Tokay with the salad, beer with the
roast pork and duck, and now he ordered a bottle of Moselle with the
vanilla ice.
Others followed his example. Count Jagodziúski would not be satisfied
with anything less than champagne, for Mr. Tiralla's silver was burning
a hole in his pocket.
They all grew very animated. The gentlemen in their black clothes
showed they had fists, and now and then one of them banged on the
table.
The tightly-laced Mrs. Rózycki gave a loud shriek--the man next to her
had tickled her. Her daughter Mariechen dung languishingly to her
neighbour, the [Pg 98] forester's young pupil, with whom she was
already very much in love. They had all been rather stiff and shy when
they entered the ballroom a few hours before, but now they showed that
they could eat, drink, and be merry. Enormous quantities of food
disappeared; Mr. Tiralla alone had eaten a whole duck. The women
especially liked the ice, for they were so very, very hot, and all that
beer and sweet wine had made them still hotter. The men cast ardent
glances at their neighbours; it was immaterial to them now if it
happened to be Sophia Tiralla or anybody else, for they were all nice.
And the glances were returned. The young girls were no longer so shy.
They threw themselves back in their chairs and laughed as they listened
with glistening eyes and red ears to the young men's compliments. The
married people told each other tales; Mr. Tiralla especially excelled
in that. Mrs. Jokisch, the inspector's wife, who sat next to him, gave
him a tap on his mouth; but you couldn't be angry with him, all the
same, she said, however horrid he was. Thereupon he pressed a
resounding kiss on her cheek. And then he kissed the baker's wife, who
was sitting next to him on the other side--otherwise she would have
been offended--and neither of them made any resistance. They evidently
didn't find him so repugnant, thought Mrs. Tiralla, much surprised.
The schoolmaster sat stiff and silent amongst them all. Their mirth
disgusted him. What a party! And he had thought he should meet people
like himself there. Raising a pair of reproachful eyes, he caught a
glance from Mrs. Tiralla. She looked at him for a second, and her face,
that a moment before had been so bright, became more and more serious.
[Pg 99] Then she raised her glass a little, gave him a slight nod, and
emptied it in one draught.
He felt so happy whilst she looked at him, so elated; but only for a
few moments. For Mr. Tiralla, who had noticed his Sophia's nod, now
also wanted to show some politeness to little Böhnke, who walked out so
regularly to see them all, and brought his Sophia books and the latest
news, and sat for hours with the child. It was really very kind of him.
So Mr. Tiralla also raised his glass and bawled at the top of his
voice, so that everybody could hear it, "Your health, little Böhnke.
Have you nothing to drink? Come here, sonny, you can get something from
me. _Dalej_, _dalej_, why aren't you coming?"
All eyes were fixed on the schoolmaster, who said "Thanks" in a curt
voice and without looking at the farmer, but did not move.
Then all the others raised their glasses as well. "Your good health,
Mr. Böhnke."
Had none of them noticed how rude that was of Mr. Tiralla? Böhnke's
blood boiled. He, the schoolmaster, whose mission it was to train the
young--he, the only one there who could lay claim to any education,
he was to stand that? "_Dalej_, _dalej!_" the peasant had shouted at
him, as if he were his stableboy or his farm horse. Was he to put up
with that? Was he really obliged to put up with it? No, no, no! The
slim-looking schoolmaster was on the point of jumping up from his seat,
but he got no further. He had again caught a glance from Mrs. Tiralla,
and he had understood what those black eyes were saying to him. His
fury subsided as he remained quietly in his place, but deep down in his
heart there was born a hatred for Mr. Tiralla.
The dancing recommenced after supper, but the [Pg 100] feet did not
trip as lightly as before, and they did not always agree; for when the
man's foot went to the left, his partner's wanted to go to the right.
The dancers also fell down more frequently. The boards shook, and the
clouds of dust became thicker and thicker. The ballroom was gloomy and
oppressive.
Mrs. Tiralla's dress no longer flew about as it had done during the
first part of the evening. She was standing in the cloak-room with
Mariechen Rózycki, who was sobbing bitterly, whilst old Piasecka, the
attendant, whose business it was also to carry "In Memoriam" cards
round, was busily rubbing her. "Oh, my pink blouse!" wailed the girl,
"my beautiful blouse!"
The forester's pupil, the idiot, had poured a whole glass of beer down
the front of it, when she was tenderly leaning against him just before
they left the table. She was beside herself with grief.
"You can send it to Spindler in Berlin," said Mrs. Tiralla consolingly.
"There is also a very good dry cleaner in Posen. Why, child!" she
exclaimed, putting her finger under the girl's chin and raising her
face, that was quite swollen with crying, "surely you aren't crying for
the sake of a blouse?"
All at once it seemed so infinitely futile to cry on account of a
spoilt blouse. Mrs. Tiralla had quite forgotten that she also had shed
tears on account of her hair just before she had left home. She felt so
much more unhappy now, really so miserable. She would have liked to
stop up her ears so as not to hear that twanging music. The dancing
disgusted her. She had never gone to a dance as a child. What would her
priest have said if he had seen her that evening? Father Szypulski was
not so strict; but she would be strict with herself. She wouldn't go
into the ballroom [Pg 101] again, she would drive home and sit by
Rosa's bed and be her guardian angel. Perhaps she would then see some
of those wonderful things that had been revealed to the child. She
would pray for it, pray for happy dreams. She longed so ardently, so
impatiently for happiness.
She called to a waiter who was running past in a short black jacket and
a white apron spotted with gravy, and sent him back to her husband.
Would Mr. Tiralla kindly tell them to bring the carriage round, it was
time to be going? The cocks were already crowing in the little yards
behind the labourers' cottages.
She remained standing in the cloak-room, gloomily gnawing her Up, with
Mariechen, who was still sobbing on account of her blouse, as her
companion. She had hidden herself behind the clothes-rack, nobody would
discover her there. Vain hope! Scarcely had the waiter given the
message than the whole flock of her partners came rushing in. Sophia
Tiralla wanted to go--go away now? But they wouldn't let her go, even
if they had to make a wall of their bodies before the door. Ziëntek
wrung his hands in despair; if she went away the whole cotillon would
be spoilt, that up-to-date cotillon with all those bouquets.
They discovered her and brought her out from behind the rack. They
begged, flattered, teased, threatened, and swore loudly that they
wouldn't let her go, she would have to remain and dance.
"Of course she'll stop and dance!" bawled Mr. Tiralla from the doorway
leading into the ballroom.
What, he as well? No, she wouldn't stop, not even a quarter of an hour
longer, hissed the woman like a serpent that has been trodden on. "Tell
the carriage to come round," she said to the waiter in a curt, shrill
voice. Then, without looking at her husband, she [Pg 102] added, "I'm
going. If you don't want to go, you can stop. I'm going."
Mr. Tiralla looked very discomfited; but then he grew angry. What, to
be so horrid to him before all those people? A wife had to obey. He was
the one who had to decide. He was very drunk, or it would never have
occurred to him to oppose his wife's wishes in this way. And that was
what made him now shout, "Confound you, woman! You shall not drive; for
I intend stopping here as long as I choose--until six, seven, or eight
o'clock, if I choose."
"Stop," she said icily, but her eyes glowed. "Then I'll walk."
No, she couldn't do that, surely she wouldn't do that. That would be
quite impossible through _that_ snow.
But she did not listen to her admirers' persuasions; she tore her fur
cloak down from the peg and threw her shawl over her head. She felt
that if they did not let her go she would burst into tears--into loud,
hopeless tears. She stamped her foot defiantly; why did they all stare
at her with such stupid, glassy eyes? And Mr. Tiralla, was he already
asleep? "_Dalej!_" she said curtly, and her voice sounded like the cut
of a whip, "_dalej!_"
He obeyed her. What else was there for him to do if his dear little
wife was so anxious to get home? "Women are amorous little doves," he
lisped, "they always want to be going home to their nests." Laying his
arm heavily round her neck he stammered caressingly, "Yes, yes, I'm
coming, my dove, only have patience." And then he gave such a sly wink
with his glassy eyes that the men broke into a laugh, which resembled
nothing so much as a horse whinnying.
Mrs. Tiralla had shrunk back. A wave of burning [Pg 103] colour mounted
to her pale face. Oh, if he treated her in that way, was it surprising
that they all ran after her like that? But they should not imagine that
she was ready to cast herself into the arms of the first man who came
along--far from it.
Throwing her head back with a curt, scornful movement, and restraining
her tears with the utmost strength of will, she said, forcibly jerking
out every word, for she could hardly speak, her lips trembled so, "You
can lie on the threshold, as you've done before, you braggart!"
Now the laugh was on her side. They were all delighted to think that
Mr. Tiralla had been reprimanded in that way. Why did he brag like
that? They also found favour with the ladies, but they didn't boast of
it in that way. What did this vulgar peasant want with such a dainty
little wife? A milkmaid would have been good enough for him. They all
applauded the little woman, who seemed to have grown a head taller, she
held herself so erect. But when Mr. Schmielke, who now hoped to win the
prize, bent his knee and said jokingly, "_Padam da nog!_" and then,
stroking his moustache in his usual challenging way, added, "Allow me
to see you home," she stared at him for a moment. And when he smiled at
her with all the impertinence which the wine and the advanced hour, the
spectators' goading looks, and the conviction of his own
irresistibility had given him, she administered such a violent,
resounding box on his ears that he and all the others started back.
She rushed out of the cloak-room and across the passage to the front
door, and, standing on the pavement which the downtrodden straw had
made still dirtier, she shouted for her carriage. She was weeping.
The wind had veered round in the early morning, [Pg 104] and was
blowing from the west, as she stood in the deserted market-place. Large
flakes of watery snow were being driven along before the wind, and
clung to her cheeks and mingled with the hot drops from her eyes. Oh,
how she would have liked to lie down there in the dirt and die! That
beautiful ball! Alas, there would never be any more pleasure for her
where her husband was. How he had made a laughing-stock of her before
them all. And he had lied into the bargain.
The carriage had not come yet; she stood trembling with cold and grief.
She clenched her hands; she would do it quite, quite alone now, if she
couldn't find anybody to help her.
All at once she had a feeling that somebody was standing behind her;
that somebody was breathing on her cheek. It was the schoolmaster.
He had quietly followed her. He was no less excited than she. She had
been insulted by Mr. Tiralla, but Mr. Tiralla had also insulted him; he
had insulted them both.
The schoolmaster looked upon the harmless man as a criminal. "He
doesn't deserve the sun to shine on him," he whispered, in a voice that
was hoarse with excitement. Then he snatched hold of the hand which she
held out to him, and pressed it to his lips, to his eyes, and stammered
wildly, "Pani, let me die on the spot--God punish me if ever I forget
Mr. Tiralla's behaviour. I--I----" he suppressed something he was going
to say. Then he once more pressed her willing hand to his burning lips
and stood near her in silence, until they heard Mr. Tiralla's voice at
the hotel door at the same moment as the carriage rattled out of the
yard and round the corner.
She got in without help; the schoolmaster had disappeared, swallowed up
by the darkness. Mr. [Pg 105] Tiralla was hoisted up on the front
seat with great difficulty by the boots. He was a heavy weight and
the man's shoulders and arms ached, but he was pleased to help the
gentleman. That good Mr. Tiralla--Heaven bless him--had given him a new
two-shilling bit as a tip.
Not a word was spoken by the couple. Mrs. Tiralla sat motionless at the
back with her cloak wrapped tightly round her, for she was icy cold.
She had drawn her shawl far down over her forehead, but her burning
eyes wandered in mute despair over the desolate, slushy fields in the
early morning twilight. Oh, how uncomfortable she felt, how tired out.
She couldn't understand now why she had wanted to go to the ball
instead of lying in her warm bed and being lulled to sleep by Rosa's
soft-toned prayers, and thus forgetting her miserable existence in the
arms of the saints.
She was seized with an unutterable aversion for her present life.
There, alas!--and her big eyes grew bigger and bigger and more
desperate-looking--there was the first of the big pines on the Przykop,
looking just like a flagstaff with a waving pennon on it, and near it,
although not yet visible, lay Starydwór, the old, lonely farm where she
had to go on living year after year with Mr. Tiralla. How much longer?
A ditch ran along the side of the road, a broad, deep ditch. The
carriage jolted as they rumbled along. How would it be if they were to
fall into the ditch with carriage and horses, and break their necks?
Ha, wouldn't that be a good thing? She stood up in the carriage--how
stiff she was after sitting so long--and, resting her left hand on the
side-rail, carefully bent over her husband.
He was asleep. His head had fallen on his breast, [Pg 106] his snores
mingled with the rattle of the wheels. He was sleeping as deeply and
soundly in the wet and cold and discomfort as though he were at home in
his bed. The reins hung loosely between the enormous fingers of his fur
gloves. All she had to do was to take them away from him, he wouldn't
notice it. She did so. He was sleeping so soundly that he had no idea
of what was going on behind him.
She was standing on the seat now, erect and with flashing eyes, holding
the reins with both hands. Now a tug, a turn to the left--she could not
reach the whip, but a "_Huj_, _het!_" was enough--then a sudden jerk
with all her strength, and the terrified horses jumped to the left. One
wheel was already hanging over the side of the ditch--farewell, Mr.
Tiralla!--a grimace partly of horror at what she had done, partly of
triumphant delight, distorted the woman's face--crash--they lay at the
bottom.
But not the horses and not the carriage, only Mr. Tiralla and his wife.
The clever animals had stopped short as though they recognized the
danger, and were now standing quite close to the edge, their bits
covered with foam.
"_Psia krew!_" Mr. Tiralla scrambled out of the ditch, all of a sudden
quite sober. The soft snow had felt like a downy feather bed, and he
hadn't hurt himself in the slightest. What a joke! How often he had
been upset in that ditch. H'm, if the horses hadn't been so sensible.
He patted their necks and praised them. And then he called to his wife,
"Heigh, Sophia, where have you got to?"
She did not answer. She had not hurt herself either; she lay on her
back in the ditch, snow under her, snow on both sides of her, and above
her the early morning sky, clear and rosy. She closed her eyes [Pg 107]
again; let him call her, she would remain where she was for ever.
Then she suddenly remembered that her beautiful ball-dress from that
good dressmaker in Posen might be spoiled. Her fur cloak could not keep
the snow-water out very long; she already felt it penetrating into her
shoes. Ugh, how wet and horrid it was! She would never be able to put
the dress on again. She jumped up hastily, and called to her husband to
help her. And when she had safely got out of the ditch, she shook her
skirts and examined her dress, and was delighted to find that nothing
had been spoiled.
They got into the carriage again. But now Mr. Tiralla kept his eyes
open, although he felt fit to drop with fatigue. What would Sophia say
if he were to upset her once more? "I'm sorry, my dear," he murmured,
in a crestfallen voice. She said nothing.
As they reached the gate, they found it wide open just as they had left
it. The front door was not locked either, the latch was, of course,
down, but the door had not been bolted.
"Jendrek, Marianna," shouted Mr. Tiralla, at the top of his voice. Was
nobody coming to take the horses? Where were those rascals sleeping?
And the other men, the day labourers, hadn't come yet. The farmer
scolded and groaned when he found that he would have to unharness the
horses himself and take them to the stable.
Mrs. Tiralla went into the room and called the maid. But Marianna, who
always came running so submissively when her mistress called her, did
not appear either. The woman grew so angry, that she almost tore the
ball-dress off her back, and then let it lie on the floor. Disgraceful,
disloyal, shameless [Pg 108] hussy! Where could she be sleeping so
sweetly that she neither heard nor saw anything?
When Mr. Tiralla came into the room his wife snubbed him as angrily as
if he had been Marianna.
He tried to appease her. "That'll do, that'll do, my love. We know all
about it." He laughed good-naturedly. "They're young, we must excuse
them."
Oh, so he condoned such things? Perhaps even considered them right?
Well, then! There was a strange expression in Mrs. Tiralla's eyes as
she stared straight in front of her. She let her husband press a kiss
on her neck without feeling it, and then she ran in her petticoat and
without anything over her shoulders through the cold house up to her
bedroom.
There lay Rosa with the feather bed drawn up to her eyes. The woman
fell on her knees beside the child's bed, and, burying her head in the
bedclothes, she sobbed aloud.
Rosa awoke. "Mother, sweet mother?" There was a note of anxious inquiry
in her exclamation; was her mother in a good humour again, was she no
longer cross as the evening before?
"Do you love me?" stammered the sobbing woman. "Tell me that you love
me."
"Oh, I do love you, I love you so dearly."
"Tell me that you'll pray for me. Swear that you'll pray for
me--always."
"Oh, I'll pray for you. I always pray for you."
"Pray for me, pray for me," sobbed the excited woman. "I'll pray with
you, perhaps that'll help me. Rosa, my angel"--she covered the child's
face with kisses--"we'll pray."
"What shall we pray?" asked the child. "What do you want to pray now,
mother dear? Shall I pray [Pg 109] to the beautiful guardian angel,
'Holy angel, thou who standest before the throne of God,' or shall I
repeat the litany to the sweet name of Jesus? Or shall I pray as I did
at my confirmation, 'Come, thou Heavenly Physician, I need Thee. Heal
my soul, oh Saviour. Come, save me'? Oh, you left me alone," cried the
child, in a plaintive voice, as she broke off in the midst of her
prayer. "You were at the ball, you were so beautiful, mother. Daddy was
with you. Marianna went away as well. She said it would only be for
half an hour; she wanted to see her little ones, who are living with an
old woman in the village; but she stopped away. I was all by myself in
the house. And something creaked in the big cupboard, and in the stove,
and in all the furniture. And something moved in all the corners. Ugh,
the room was so lonely, I ran out of it. And the candles--those two
before the looking-glass--flickered so. Marianna says that if you look
into a glass before which two candles are burning, as the clock strikes
twelve, either Death or your future husband will be standing behind
you. Oh, and I daren't cross the passage, it was so dark. Just think
if anybody had been lurking there? I screamed aloud, but nobody
answered--ugh, the passage was so icy cold--so I rushed into the
kitchen; there was still a little fire there, and I crept behind the
stove. Oh, mother, I was so frightened, I couldn't stop there either. I
trembled so, my heart went like that the whole time"--she took hold of
her mother's hand and moved it quickly up and down--"the whole time
like that. Just think if that fiery man, that Marianna is always
telling me about, had got out of the stove? I believe that fiery man is
the devil; I've asked Marianna, but she didn't know. Do you think,
mammie, that it's the devil?"
[Pg 110]
She sat up in bed. She was still completely dressed. "Is it the devil?"
Mrs. Tiralla nodded.
"So you also believe that it's the devil?" Rosa's voice expressed a
certain satisfaction, a kind of childish pride; oh, yes, she knew all
about such things. "I know him." she said triumphantly.
"What does he look like?" whispered her mother, with a shudder, as she
hid her face in her hands. Oh, if that should have been he, that
handsome young man who had suddenly appeared before her a short time
before, as she stood half-dressed in the room downstairs and Mr.
Tiralla was making excuses for the amorous maid?
"I saw him on the altar in the chapel," whispered Rosa. "Holy Michael
was treading him underfoot. He's like a worm, but he has a face and
horns on his head. Father Szypulski says he comes to tempt us. Pray,
pray! He pokes the fire in Purgatory, in which the souls are burning.
'Pray for the peace of the poor souls in Purgatory,' says the priest,
'and for your own as well.' I commend all the souls in Purgatory to
thee, oh, most holy Mother Mary." Rosa's whispers became more and more
agitated and her wild, restless eyes began to wander about the room.
"He's red, mother, red with black horns. He dances in the flames
wherever there's a fire; he sends out sparks, mother--he's fetching us
all! Mother! Oh, he's burning us all!"
The child uttered a heartrending sigh, and pressing both hands to her
breast reared herself up in bed. Throwing back her disordered hair, she
shrieked in a loud voice, "Oh, it hurts me, it hurts me so here--it
hurts, hurts, hurts!"
"It hurts, hurts, hurts!" shrieked her mother. [Pg 111] She did not
know that she was repeating the same words.
Rosa tore her dress open, her breast heaved and sank as she gasped for
breath in her terror. Then she clung to her mother, and hiding her face
in her neck she whimpered, "Carry me out of the kitchen again, carry me
up the dark stairs, oh, Holy Mother, that I needn't fear. Put me down,
keep me warm--hail, Mary, thou that art highly favoured"--(the child's
voice had grown soft and low)--"how beautiful thou art--I love
thee--hail, Mary, blessed art thou among women--blessed--the fruit--of
thy womb----"
Her words grew more and more indistinct, until they at last became
nothing but an incoherent murmur.
Ah, now Rosa saw the Holy Virgin. Seized with a superstitious terror,
Mrs. Tiralla loosened the child's arms from about her neck. What did
Rosa see? What did she hear? Did she really see something? If only Rosa
could find out something which could be of use to her--her!
The child had fallen back on her bed heavy and stiff. Spurred on by an
intense eagerness her mother leant over her and whispered:
"Ask the Holy Virgin--tell the Holy Virgin that I'll let ten candles
burn before her on the altar--ten wax candles--she's to release
me--Glisten, all she's to do is to release me."
Rosa was silent. She did not hear. Although her eyes were wide open,
she did not seem to see her mother's terrified, excited mien, nor her
burning, piercing looks, so full of entreaty.
"Listen!" Mrs. Tiralla's voice sounded almost fierce as she shouted to
the child. "Listen, listen!" she repeated several times, in an
impressive voice. [Pg 112] "Tell the Holy Virgin she's to release me--I
want to be released--I must be released--listen, listen!"
All at once a convulsive movement passed over Rosa's face. Her mother
bent over her, lower and lower, full of trembling eagerness. The
child's staring eyes began to move, and her mouth as well.
"You'll be released," she stammered, as though in her sleep. "The dear
Virgin hears all prayers--she is smiling--ah, how she's smiling."
Bearing herself up once more, and stretching out her arms, the
over-excited child burst into tears.
Her mother wiped the tears and beads of perspiration away from her face
with her trembling hands. Oh, her little dress was quite wet through,
and her bodice and chemise as well. She undressed the child and made
her bed more comfortable. Poor little thing! Her mother felt very sorry
for her, although she was full of joy and of an insuppressible
exultation. She was to be released! The Holy Virgin had spoken. She was
to be released from him, from Mr. Tiralla!
[Pg 113]
CHAPTER VI
Rosa was singing as she crossed the fields. She felt so well, so
light-hearted. At last she had been to confession. The snow had melted,
Eastertide was drawing near, now she could sing.
"Mary Magdalene weeping
Went to Jesu's tomb.
Her dear Lord, her sorrow knowing.
Came to light her gloom.
She saw His glorious countenance."
Her clear voice sounded jubilant as it rose into the blue sky. It was
spring, spring. The fresh grass was sprouting near the broad ditch, the
corn that had been kept warm under the snow was now green and thick.
Christ was risen and therefore the earth rejoiced.
Rosa took out of her pocket the paper on which she, during the winter,
had noted down all she had to confess. She had examined her conscience
most carefully; it was a long, long piece of paper, with many sins
written on it. But she had got rid of them all now, and that was why
she felt so happy. Now she could tear it to pieces.
She stood still, and tearing the paper into shreds threw them high into
the air. Off they flew. How the wind carried them away, higher and
higher, as high as the lark which was hovering up there. They were
flying to God.
[Pg 114]
Rosa mingled her song with the lark's trills, in joyous, jerky rhythm.
"The stone was rolled away
As to the grave they came.
At its right side in raiment bright
An angel sat and calmed their fright. Hallelujah."
It was no longer the same shrill, piping child's voice; it was a girl's
voice now, full and pleasing. When there was any singing going on in
the school, the master always told Rosa Tiralla to stand up first so as
to lead the others. She liked doing that. Mr. Böhnke was altogether
very good to her, and it would grieve her to leave school. She would
soon be fourteen, and then she wouldn't do any more lessons; then--a
strange, dreamy look came into her eyes--oh, no, she wasn't going to
marry like other girls and have children--no. Her face, that had all at
once clouded over, grew bright again; she was to be the Bride of the
Church, her mother had said so. Mr. Böhnke said so as well, and the
priest said so. And they praised her for it. And Marianna stared at
her, "Oh, a nun! That's something very beautiful, something very grand,
oh!" And Jendrek almost looked upon her as a saint already. Everybody
looked at her in quite a different way now from what they used to do
when she was nothing but little Rosa Tiralla. Only her daddy wouldn't
hear of it--poor daddy. What a pity it was that he was so wicked. A
look full of deep thought cast a sudden gloom over the young face that
had just been so bright. Was her mother right? Would it have been
better for him never to have been born?
Rosa used to cry bitterly when the thought came to her that her father
might perhaps never go to heaven. Her dear father. He really was good;
[Pg 115] how could it be that her mother and Mr. Böhnke always said he
was not?
Doubts had lately crept into Rosa's heart, her belief in her father had
been shaken. Had her mother or the schoolmaster brought this about, or
had she become alive to many things that did not please her? Why did
her father always pinch Marianna's cheek, or even her leg when she was
standing on the ladder? That wasn't nice of him. And he used to swear,
and it's wicked to swear. Oh, how she would beg her dear father to
leave off swearing--her dear father--yes, yes, he was still her dear
father.
When Rosa now saw him come tramping across the field to meet her, she
ran up to him and threw herself into his arms.
He had been looking out for his little daughter for a long time, and
welcomed her with a loud laugh that could be heard far across the
fields.
"Well, my darling, have you confessed all your sins? _Psia krew_, if a
man had as few sins to confess as you, he wouldn't need to go to
confession."
"I've fourteen rosaries to say over," said Rosa, looking very
important. Then she added gravely, "Seven for myself and seven for you,
father."
He gave a boisterous laugh. Then he kissed her. "You're my consolation,
the key which is to open heaven's door for me. I've always said, pray,
pray, my angel. If you're praying, the devil will bang the door and
leave me outside."
Rosa shuddered. What horrid things her daddy always said. How could he
joke about such matters?
"Ah, daddy," she said, in a low, insinuating voice, thrusting her
narrow little hand into his big one, "I'm always praying that you may
go to heaven."
[Pg 116]
"Really?" He was touched. "That's very nice of you."
"Mother also prays that you may go to heaven, father."
Mr. Tiralla was also very touched to hear that. Oh, yes, she was a
splendid little woman was his Sophia, and loved him even if she didn't
always show it, especially lately. Ugh, how cold and forbidding she was
sometimes; she made you freeze. But she was a pious woman. Then
knitting his brows together, as though something were tormenting him,
he said to the child, "When you are married, my dear Rosa, always try
to please your husband; he'll like that." He gave a little sigh,
but then he laughed. "When Mikolai comes back from the army and
marries, I'll rub it into him, too, 'Take a complaisant wife.' Ha, ha,
his mother, my late wife, Hanusia, was complaisant enough, that's
certain--ha, ha."
"Will Mikolai soon be coming back from the army?" inquired Rosa. She
had been such a stupid little thing when he had gone away three years
before. But now she was wiser, and she realized how nice it was to have
a little brother. The only time he had come home on furlough during all
those years she had been very ill with scarlet fever, and he hadn't
been allowed to come to her on account of the infection. She was,
therefore, doubly glad to see him now. How she would love him. "Will my
little brother soon be coming back?" she repeated anxiously.
"H'm, a nice little brother!" laughed her father. "Do you really think
they could do with a 'little brother' in the horse guards? He's a big
brother, I can tell you, an enormous fellow. He was as tall as I when I
went to see him last autumn. And what fists he has got. He won't want a
team of oxen to pull [Pg 117] the cart, he'll do it himself. But he'll
be good to his little sister. Who wouldn't be good to you, my wee one?"
He took hold of her little face with his big hand and stroked it
tenderly and carefully.
Rosa smiled. "I'll love him," she cried enthusiastically, "and he'll
love me. We're all to love each other, Jesus bids us do so."
"Yes, that's what I think, too," said her father, "we're all to love
each other." He suddenly thought of his wife, from whom he had neither
received kiss nor friendly look that day. So instead of inspecting his
corn, as he had intended doing, he returned home with his daughter.
They walked hand in hand. Their figures--his thick-set, a massive
tree-trunk, hers a delicate leaf blown about by the wind--could be seen
afar off in the flat, treeless field.
Mrs. Tiralla was in the sitting-room with Böhnke, and saw them in the
distance through the gateway. "There he is again," she said, with a
look of disgust on her face.
Already? The schoolmaster sighed. He had been so delighted to find the
woman he adored alone at home--he had seen little Rosa on her way to
the village--and now they were so soon to be disturbed. What did that
horrid fellow mean by always coming back? Böhnke quite forgot that this
house to which he came regularly every Sunday and very often besides,
belonged to Mr. Tiralla, and that the latter invariably received him
with a loud welcome and ordered the best they had to be served up in
his honour. But the farmer's presence always inconvenienced him, and
especially to-day. Mrs. Tiralla had been about to pour out her heart to
him, and the thought of the moment when at last he would be [Pg 118]
able to console the sad-looking woman made him tremble.
"I'm in trouble," she had said, when he had asked her if she had a
headache. There were dark, heavy shadows under her eyes, and her pale
mouth drooped so sadly that he had thought she was ill.
"Oh, how I'm suffering," she had cried, in a sudden outburst of grief
and fury, and had run up and down the room with both hands flung high
above her head. She had come to a standstill close in front of him, and
her black eyes had blazed. "What would you say if I ran away from him?
Away, anywhere, over the fields, only away."
The passion with which she had uttered those words had terrified him.
Away, away over the fields, but where would she go?
"That's for you to tell me." Then she had given a loud, scornful laugh;
in spite of all his cleverness he did not know where she was to go
either. There really was nobody, nobody who could advise her. What
would he say if she went into the Przykop into the deep morass, where
the pool under the drooping birches was just now as deep as any lake on
account of the rainy spring? If she went into it up to her mouth, or
even a little further, and never more appeared, what would he say then?
Would he shed a tear in memory of her, a little forget-me-not in his
book of memories?
"God forbid!" he had exclaimed, seizing hold of her hand in sudden
fear. How could she say such things, even have such thoughts? She was
so good, so beautiful, there was still much happiness in store for her.
"Never, so long as Mr. Tiralla is alive!"
"But he won't go on living for ever."
[Pg 119]
Then she had flashed a glance at him, a swift and strangely
scrutinizing glance. It was as though she had wanted to confide
something to him, but dared not. Had he said that without thinking, or
did he really mean it?
Mrs. Tiralla had shrunk back into herself again in a sudden fit of
shyness. But she could not bear to keep silent, she simply longed to
speak to somebody about it all. If only she could--dared--say to him,
"In a secret chamber of the loft there stands an old chest, and in that
old chest I've hidden something." But then if he should say, "Poison!"
and should shudder with horror when he said it? She eyed him narrowly
through her lowered lids, whilst her long lashes slowly fanned her pale
cheeks like a pair of weary wings.
But the young man saw nothing but her beauty, his eyes were fixed on
the mental vision of the charms which her enamoured husband had
described to him. How he pitied this beautiful woman. What a misfortune
to be chained to such a man. She wanted to run away, to take her own
life? Oh, how dreadful for such a beautiful creature to be sick of
life. That overbearing fellow, that scoundrel! _Psia krew_, why
couldn't he die? Then she would be free.
He had not meant anything when he had said before, "But he won't go on
living for ever." It had merely been a phrase, used in order to console
the poor woman. But now those words seemed to express something
desirable, something really necessary. Was there any reason why the man
should go on living for ever? An all-wise Providence had no doubt seen
what was happening and would probably remove this fellow, who would
leave no vacant place behind him, and would be mourned for by no one.
How easily he could be carried off by illness, brought on by a cold [Pg
120] in the spring, or by excessive eating. No, Mr. Tiralla could not
go on living for ever. Besides, he was much older than she. Only have
patience, he would not go on living for ever. He must not, no, by all
the saints--and this certainty impressed itself firmly on the
schoolmaster's mind--Mr. Tiralla _should_ not go on living for ever!
The man drew a deep, trembling breath of relief, after which he felt
easier. Then he raised his eyes, which had been lowered in profound
thought, and met those of the woman. They looked long and searchingly
at each other.
"There he is again," sighed Mrs. Tiralla, who was standing near the
window.
Böhnke noticed the disgust depicted on her face, that beautiful face,
whose mouth was polluted every day by the word "beast." Had he not seen
for himself how that monster had annoyed her with his kisses? The young
man grew cold, then hot, whilst the flames of jealousy rushed to his
head. Nobody, nobody should kiss her mouth, if he might not kiss it,
too--no, only he, quite alone. He stretched out his hand gropingly and
seized hers. The woman was weeping, and she allowed him to do so. Then
he jerked out hurriedly--there was no time to lose, Mr. Tiralla could
come in any moment--jerked out in a breathless voice and without
reflection, but still as though he were swearing it solemnly:
"Don't cry. By God, Mr. Tiralla shall not go on living for ever!"
"Mammie," cried Röschen joyously, as she came into the room, and
letting her father's hand go she ran up to her mother. "I'm to give you
Father Szypulski's kind regards. Oh, it was so beautiful! I'm so happy!
I could sing the whole time, I----" Then, [Pg 121] catching sight of
the scho
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/30724