es, her hair dishevelled, her face all mottled.
Oh, God! She had submitted to it all--and he was still alive. She was
seized with a violent fit of fury, she would have liked to destroy
everything, smash everything to pieces. Pressing her clenched fists
against her forehead she uttered a deep groan. She was the one who had
been deceived, she always was. Boehnke, too, had deceived her. Had he
not told her that fly agarics--the orange-red mushrooms with white
warts--were very poisonous, and that the devil's toadstool--the brown,
squat one which so strongly resembled the _boletus edulis_--was even
more so? He had brought a book with him, and had read it to her
secretly in the little garden with the palings all round, where they
had stolen like a pair of lovers who want to be as far away from
everybody as possible. He had also shown her the illustrations, and she
had watched most carefully as he pointed out what the poisonous
mushrooms looked like. She had impressed it firmly on her memory. Four
fly agarics were enough to bring death, people said, but he--he lived.
But had she not also read in the schoolmaster's book that "death can
either occur in the course of an hour or two, or after two or three
days"? H'm, Mr. Tiralla was very strong, what would kill any other man
scarcely affected him. She would have to wait then, wait.

She threw herself on her knees. If only he had died at once, this
waiting was so awful. She dreaded the thought of what the morrow might
bring forth. She had been calm enough while cooking the mushrooms, [Pg
152] but now she was the reverse. She could hardly bear to wait any
longer. But now it was no longer a great longing for his death, which
was to bring her release, it was only a fervent desire to be free from
this great fear which oppressed her heart and confused her senses. She
sprang up from her knees as though she were out of her mind, then threw
herself down again, the next moment to jump up once more and raise her
clasped hands to heaven. "Mary, Holy Virgin, pray for me!" What was the
Holy Virgin to pray for? Oh, she knew what for; knew better than she
did herself, for _she_ did not know any longer. Life? Death? Alas,
alas, now she would have preferred him to live; only not to see him
lying there distorted with convulsions, and with the hue of death
already on his face.

The woman crept into the darkest corner of the room like a frightened
animal, and bit her hands, which she had pressed agai