he
woman looked about her with dreamy eyes; she could see the fields from
the edge of the Przykop. It was pitch-dark in the hollow; he would have
liked to go down there with her, but she refused; she wanted to look at
the stars above the fields, whose twinkling brilliance was reflected in
thousands of dewdrops.

"The splendour of heaven has fallen on the earth," she said softly.
"You've come to me, and I thank you." And then she told him all she
wanted to say about her gratitude.

He felt quite ashamed. How beautifully she could express herself. She
was a clever woman and a good one too. What a shame it would be if he
were to interrupt her now with amorous speeches and strain her to his
heart in a violent fit of passion as he had [Pg 237] done on the first
evening, when he had been groping in the passage in the dark and had
run against somebody soft, who had pressed herself against the wall,
and who, when he whispered in an eager voice, "Is that you, Mrs.
Tiralla?" had flung her arms round his neck and had let herself be led
wherever he wanted. That evening she had been like a heifer that has
thirsted for a long time, and has been driven through dusty fields, and
that on seeing water rushes at it, so that the restraining rope breaks
and it drinks and drinks and cannot get enough. Now she was like a
saint.

The young fellow would not have ventured to embrace her, although his
arms and all his fingers were tingling, and although the nearness of
this beautiful woman and the warmth of the summer evening made his
blood surge through his veins. They were quite alone, quite hidden. A
deep silence reigned, save for a land-rail piping in the corn, and a
deer calling deep down in the Przykop--and still he controlled himself.
Everything was so different at Starydwor to what it was elsewhere.

Martin had not come to his age without having held a girl in his
arms--as an apprentice at the mill at home and more especially as a
soldier--but a woman like this one had never been his. For one short
moment a feeling of regret filled his heart at the thought that it
might perhaps have been still nicer with Rosa. Besides, he never felt
quite happy about this affair. What would his mother have said to it?
For this was a woman, a married woman! The blood mounted to his
head--his good old mother, who had been so honest all her life. Or was
it desire that drove the blood in this way to his cheeks? Oh, how
beautiful this woman was, more beau