The Project Gutenberg EBook of Absolution, by Clara Viebig

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Title: Absolution

Author: Clara Viebig

Translator: H. Raahauge

Release Date: December 21, 2009 [EBook #30724]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ABSOLUTION ***

Produced by Charles Bowen

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ABSOLUTION

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ABSOLUTION

BY CLARA VIEBIG
TRANSLATED BY
H. RAAHAUGE

LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY. MCMVIII

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PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS

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ABSOLUTION

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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