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