[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 gla.s.s. "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 pa.s.sion 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 Bohnke 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 embarra.s.sment 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 gla.s.s of bitters, Bohnke, 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.

Bohnke 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-c.o.c.k 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 n.o.body knew that he had tried to kiss her in the dark stone pa.s.sage at Starydwor 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 bia.s.sed, Mr. Jokisch, bia.s.sed. 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 Sroka, from Althof, you know, a buxom la.s.s, 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 Zientek 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 Zientek'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 gla.s.s 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. Bohnke 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 cla.s.s--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 n.o.body 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.

Bohnke 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 ma.s.s 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 Starydwor. 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 Starydwor 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 pa.s.sers-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?

Bohnke 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 Starydwor 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 G.o.d! Bohnke 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 Bohnke 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 Starydwor as quickly as possible? There it lay.