ything to please her. That
made him very low-spirited. Why was she so perverse? Why did she look
at him so strangely?

He had caught one of those rare glances she vouchsafed him, and it had
bewildered him. He had asked Marianna if she knew why her mistress was
in such a bad humour, and why she frowned so.

[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 t