[Pg 157]

"Let the wicked look fall on the dog," whispered Marianna, and spat on the ground whilst she made the sign of the cross. She would take good care not to mention her suspicions to her master. If she said to him, "That woman is up to something," he would turn her out of the house as a reward. He was still so wrapped up in the woman. And she really did not know herself what the Pani was up to. The mushrooms had agreed with the master all right; he had not been ill after them. She had had nothing to confide to the priest. And even if she had had something to tell him about the Pani, he would never have believed a particle of it, he was so attached to her. She, Marianna, had even had to acknowledge her own sinful thoughts when she had gone to confession. When the priest had asked her, "Do you nourish wicked or suspicious thoughts against anybody in your heart?" she had had to confess that she did, and he had seriously exhorted her not to transgress against the eighth commandment.

So Marianna shrugged her shoulders when Mr. Tiralla stood before her with a perplexed look on his face, and gave him an evasive answer. How horrid his Sophia had been to him again, he complained. He had hardly been into her room--she had established herself in the little room upstairs now and rarely came down--and then merely to ask how she was.

He had only ventured to take hold of her hand and ask her if she were feverish, as her eyes burned so, and she had flung his hand away as if he were some unclean animal, and had wept, and wept, until he had grown quite uneasy.

"I don't know," said Marianna. "Pani must be ill, I suppose; you had better ask the doctor." She really felt very grieved about the poor master. And [Pg 158] who knows, if he were to die now, perhaps he would bequeath her something, so that she and her little children could have enough to live on, or at least give her such a good dowry that Jendrek or another would make her his kobieta[A]? So she was very obliging, and was always finding something to do for her master. She would come at least ten times into the room, when he sat alone with his bottle--poor master to have to sit quite alone and drink like that!

[Footnote A: Wife.]

Mr. Tiralla did not go to the inn any more, he shunned all those inquisitive eyes. Everybody used to ask him about his wife when he went there, and he confessed to the maid with a sigh that he could no longer boast about her, for when he did he felt as if he were going to choke, and he could not utter a single word.

Mrs. Tiralla often heard her husband and the maid laughing together as she sat in her room upstairs; and drinking as well, for she could hear them draw four or five corks every evening. Ugh! how he could drink!

The woman shuddered with disgust. There was that monster sitting with the vulgar hussy, cracking jokes that were anything but refined, and drinking hard. How could he forget himself like that! How could he intoxicate himself to that degree! Beer alone could not do it, it must be Tokay as well. But wait, was it not a good thing that he drank so much? What would otherwise have happened to her? He would have worried her continually. If she could not be released from him altogether, in this way she could at least reckon on some hours' freedom. And after such nights he used to sleep until morning without waking. Oh, if only he were always, always drunk!

Mrs. Tiralla lay in bed listening to the sounds downstairs, with her nerves on edge. Now the jokes must [Pg 159] have become very practical, for the girl was screaming with laughter, and it sounded as if he were choking. And now--she heard it quite plainly, although not a single word reached her ears--now he was babbling some absurd nonsense, at which the girl was almost suffocated with laughter, until he at last grew silent, and letting his head sink on the table fell asleep.

Now he was happy; he was dreaming blissfully. Oh, it could not be so bad when you got to the stage of neither knowing nor feeling anything of it all. She really did not wish him ill--Mrs. Tiralla was almost praising herself--when she wished for his sake that he were always so drunk. What good did he get out of life? He had no sense for higher things, and he did not derive any pleasure from her. He really did not, she must be just. But how could she give others any pleasure if she were not happy herself?--for he was there, still there.

She clenched her fists and bit her lips so as not to lament aloud.

Nothing, nothing had helped her, neither the mushrooms, nor throwing him into the ditch, nor the rat poison. She had not cooked any more mushrooms for him, although he had often asked for some. "Gather them yourself," she had answered curtly, and had not allowed Rosa to fetch any more. There was no object in doing so. And throwing him into the ditch? Bah! Her upper lip curled contemptuously at the thought of her own childish stupidity. A ditch was nothing to Mr. Tiralla; he was able to get out of a much deeper pit. But rat poison! What about that poison still lying in her chest in the lumber-room? A great longing for it took possession of her. There was release, it lay in her hands, and still she did not venture to make use of it. Would he also be guarded against that poison, which [Pg 160] was said to be strong? Or was it after all not strong enough to kill people? If only she could find out exactly. Who could give her the most reliable information? Bohnke? Oh, that liar! Her whole body shook, she sobbed so tempestuously. He had deceived her. He had pretended to teach her which were poisonous mushrooms, and he had not done so. The wretch! Let him never appear before her eyes again.

Mrs. Tiralla felt furious when she thought of her slave. Had he not sworn that he was devoted to her, first mutely and then in words? On Easter Sunday after their festive meal, when Mr. Tiralla had fallen asleep, surfeited with all the usual rich dishes, and Rosa had gone to the village church with Marianna, he had besought her on his knees, and she, with a look at the sleeper, had hastily whispered to him, "If I were free." Then he had sworn to her with the most solemn oaths that she should be free, that she must be free. And now? Oh, the coward! The whole summer had pa.s.sed by; the swallows had departed long ago, but the son was flying back to the paternal nest and was bringing somebody else with him; four more eyes to pry on her.

She was tormented with a great fear when she thought of Mikolai's return. He had keen eyes, he was not stupid. He was certainly not like Rosa, who had only one foot on earth, and who used to dream with open eyes, and believed implicitly what was told her. If anything were to happen, it must happen before Mikolai returned to his father.

Mrs. Tiralla made up her mind to get out of bed; n.o.body would see or hear her now. She had sent Rosa to another room, she could not bear to have anybody with her. Now the child slept in a room [Pg 161] on the other side of the pa.s.sage that had stood empty; and Marianna would sleep with her when the room downstairs was to be used for the two men; that is, if Mr. Tiralla's were not at liberty by that time.

She hastily stuck her feet out of bed. She would slip over to the lumber-room now and fetch it out of the chest. She would not let Marianna take it to him any more, she would give it to him herself tomorrow, either in his coffee or wine.

She put her feet on the floor with a jerk. But all at once she felt she could not walk; her limbs refused to move. She felt as weak as the first time she got up after Rosa's birth. She began to tremble and perspire, to sigh and pray, but no angel restored her strength.

Then at last she perceived that the saints did not will it at present, that the right hour had not yet come. So she crept back into bed and drew the feather bed over her head. She lay under all the feathers, and still she felt icy cold, and unutterably miserable and wretched.

Downstairs her husband was carousing with the woman, but she was as though tied hand and foot. She thought she was dying. She gnashed her teeth and clenched her hands; she could not move a limb, but her thoughts flew with lightning rapidity. It was fury, pain, and disappointed hopes that made her feel so ill, that were consuming her life. She was going to die; alas, die, before she had lived, before she had even lived one year in the way she wanted to live.

[Pg 162]

CHAPTER VIII

When Marianna was sent to the grocer's in the village, she used to talk to everybody about the lively time they would soon be having at Starydwor. The young master was coming home, and was bringing somebody with him. "Nice young gentlemen, two at once," holding up two fingers.

And then she would laugh so merrily, so incorrigibly, so shamelessly, with dancing eyes and big white teeth, that the listeners had to laugh too.

Jendrek was the only one who did not laugh. He was not at all glad to hear that two more were coming. He had no fault to find with the old man, who had given him many a cigar and penny for a drink, but he did not approve of those young fellows. He would prefer to seek another place and another sweetheart.

Mr. Tiralla was rather pleased that Jendrek wanted to leave, although he would never have had the heart to give him notice. For when Mikolai was at home, his dear Mikolai, he would help him.

And Marianna did not mind much either. Let him go. Two handsome young gentlemen were coming now. True, she had not seen the young master yet, as she had not been very long at Starydwor, but according to Rosa's enthusiastic accounts her little brother must be something wonderful, splendid, the like of which had never been seen before. And the other one, his friend?

[Pg 163]

"Oh, I love those my brother loves," Rosa had replied.

"G.o.d be with you," said Marianna, in a calm voice, as she shook hands with Jendrek, and put up her mouth for him to kiss. He was going to Mr.

Jokisch, so it was not as though he were going far away. "If ever you care to see me, you need only whistle under my window, and I'll come out," she added.

Mrs. Tiralla, however, seemed to take Jendrek's departure to heart.

"I'm sorry you're going," she said to him, pressing a two-shilling piece into his hand, as she shook hands with him. "Think kindly of us."

She looked so long and earnestly at him as she said this that he felt quite touched. The Pani had grown much thinner lately, what could be the matter with her? And she was as pale as she had been when she was so anxious about Marianna's illness. H'm, that girl did not deserve that the Pani should feel anxious about her. The Pani was much too good for her and also for the master; she was much too good for the whole confounded place.

If Mrs. Tiralla had been able to read Jendrek's thoughts, she would not have fretted so much about what he did, or did not, know, and about what he would tell when he was no longer in their service. She felt very uneasy when she saw him going to somebody else. She always had that feeling of terror and uneasiness now. The doctor put it down to nerves. A doctor had been sent for; Mr. Tiralla would not hear of anything else, and she had even asked for one herself in the hope that he might be able to help her.

Now she was constantly taking medicine to soothe and strengthen her nerves, and still she found no peace by day or by night. Her eyes were dilated from want [Pg 164] of sleep, from staring into the dark. Her hands had become thin, nearly as thin as Rosa's, and she had grown as slender as a young girl; she could almost have worn her child's dresses. She was too slender. The woman looked at herself in the gla.s.s with a feeling of dismay. Was that really her face, the "beautiful Sophia Tiralla's" face? Her skin, which had been as smooth as satin, had begun to fade. Was her beauty disappearing? Was she to lose that as well, and at her age? A deep sigh full of the most grievous impotence filled the lonely room.

Mr. Tiralla was whistling in the yard. Rosa and he were feeding the poultry, and the birds were pecking and sc.r.a.ping and cackling and quarrelling, as they greedily looked for the yellow corn that had been scattered to them.

The woman stared at the two from her window with burning eyes. There they stood, Mr. Tiralla so broad and beaming. He had grown quite cheerful lately, for the day after to-morrow, perhaps even to-morrow, Mikolai was coming. Everybody in the house was delighted except her.

When Mikolai was there, there would never be another chance.

That was Mrs. Tiralla's fixed idea. In a transport of despair and fervour, hatred and devotion, all strangely mingled, she flung herself on her knees before the picture where she had prayed for so many years, and which reminded her so strongly of her best and only friend's delicate, beautiful face. "Help, help!" After praying and weeping for a long time, weeping so bitterly and so copiously that her face and hands and even her bosom were quite wet with tears, she rose. She had made up her mind. Mikolai was coming to-morrow, therefore quick, at the eleventh hour.

She went to the lumber-room and fetched the poison. [Pg 165] The yellow grains looked exactly like those her husband had just been scattering.

She would throw some of them to the poultry that very evening when they were hungry. And if they died--what a pity it would be about them--then Mr. Tiralla should get some of the powder in his wine or coffee.

Rosa had gone to the Przykop with Marianna to fetch some branches and moss. She had made up her mind to place a wreath over the front door in honour of her brother's return; he should see at once how happy she was that he was coming back to her. And the stranger's first impression of the old house, with its dark, yawning pa.s.sage, would thus be made a pleasant one also. Rosa had never had any fault to find with her home; still, she felt in a dull kind of way that Marianna was right when she used to say, "Ugh! how uncomfortable this place is!"

So the two gathered some of the green, damp moss, with small, delicate, feathery leaves on short stalks, that covered the ground in the mora.s.s like a carpet. Rosa was going to wind it round a rope; she had made many wreaths like that for the Holy Virgin's altar at Starawies and for the Bo[^z]a meka, which stood on the outskirts of her father's field, and they used to look lovely when she stuck a few flowers among the moss. True, she had no more flowers, for the few that she once had in the little garden behind the palings had lived only a very short time; they had soon been choked by the weeds that flourished so luxuriantly there. But if she put some of the bird-cherries which grew on the roadside into it, or some of the cranberries that shone like drops of blood in the moss, the wreath would look very bright.

Rosa was very happy and excited to-day. The sedate [Pg 166] girl was completely changed; she tore up handfuls of moss and, standing behind Marianna, threw them gleefully on her cap and down her neck, as she bent forward. And when the latter, scolding and panting, loosened her frill and picked the earth and bits of moss off her neck, she jumped upon her like a wild cat, put both arms round her, and imprinted numerous boisterous kisses on her brown throat.

"Just look at little Rosa, she's like a lover," cried Marianna.

Throwing her arms round the girl she wrestled with her and kissed her merrily, so that Rosa's delicate little face glowed and she was quite breathless.

What a beautiful day it was! At last the two let go of each other, and falling on the gra.s.s lay there and laughed. There was only a little bit of sky to be seen between the interlaced branches; they were quite alone. Then Rosa, summoning up her courage, said to the maid:

"Do tell me, Marianna, I should so like to know what happens when a man says to a woman, 'I love you.' Does he kiss her then as I kissed you?

And then does she kiss him as you kissed me? I should like to know it; please tell me." She folded her hands as she always did when she was praying.

Marianna laughed.