Virgin, help me, let me hold
the Christ Child on my lap! Oh, don't turn away--help, have mercy on
me!"

She stretched out her hands--oh, dear, was she going to catch hold of
him? How her hands trembled, how red her pale face had become.

Martin heard no more, he fled in horror. Oh, this Starydwor, this
Starydwor, if only he were hundreds of miles away from it!

[Pg 274]

CHAPTER XIII

What had happened at Starydwor soon became known in Starawie['s]. How
could Marianna have kept silent about it?

She had told Jendrek with many sighs the very next evening behind the
stable door, when he had rushed over for a quarter of an hour from the
settlement, and her apron had been quite wet with tears. The dear, good
master! Jendrek really ought to have seen how the poor man hung. Like
that. And she turned up the whites of her eyes and let her red tongue
hang loosely out of her mouth, so that the inquisitive man still
shuddered when he thought of it.

Ugh! But how did Mr. Tiralla look now?

Oh, just as usual, you could not see that anything had been the matter
with him. He crept about again as he had always done, yellow and thin.
But the strangest thing of all was that he did not know anything about
it.

Did not know anything about it? Jendrek would not believe that. How can
a man hang himself and afterwards know nothing about it?

That astounded everybody. People came running to see Mr. Tiralla and
press his hand in mute condolence whilst they gazed at him with
curious, disappointed eyes. There were so many visitors the next and
following Sunday as Starydwor had not seen within its walls for many a
day.

[Pg 275]

Mr. Jokisch and Mr. Schmielke came, as well as the forester and the
gendarme and all their friends from Starawie['s] and Gradewitz. Even
the priest was there. The big room was quite full of visitors.
Refreshments were brought in, Tokay and beer, and Mrs. Tiralla herself
smilingly handed everybody a glass of gin, which was very welcome in
that cold, unhealthy weather. Mikolai offered cigars, and soon the room
was dark with thick, blue clouds of smoke, through which every now and
then a quick glance was cast at Mr. Tiralla, as though the men suddenly
recollected why they had come to Starydwor. There was much laughing and
talking.

Mr. Tiralla sat staring in front of him without saying a word, or
taking any interest in what was going on. It was as though he were no
lo