hey want to heal the plague spot,
to cover it up, so that no one shall find it out. They stand and think,
and wrinkle the brows so used to anxiety; their thoughts evolve rapidly,
and yet no good result comes of it, no one sees a way of escape out of
the terrifying net in which the worst of all evil has entangled them.
Should a stranger happen to come upon them now, one who has heard of
them, but never seen them, he would receive a shock. The whole of
Pidvorkes looks quite different, the women, the streets, the very sun
shines differently, with pale and narrow beams, which, instead of
cheering, seem to burden the heart.

The little grey-curled clouds with their ragged edges, which have
collected somewhere unbeknown, and race across the sky, look down upon
the women, and whisper among themselves. Even the old willows, for whom
the news is no novelty, for many more and more complicated mysteries
have come to their knowledge, even they look sad, while the swallows, by
the depressed and gloomy air with which they skim the water, plainly
express their opinion, which is no other than this: God is punishing the
Pidvorkes for _their_ great sin, what time they carried fire in their
beaks, long ago, to destroy the Temple.

God bears long with people's iniquity, but he rewards in full at the
last.

The peasants driving slowly to market, unmolested and unobstructed,
neither dragged aside nor laid forcible hold of, were singularly
disappointed. They began to think the Jews had left the place.

And the women actually forgot for very trouble that it was market-day.
They stood with hands folded, and turned feverishly to every newcomer.
What does she say to it? Perhaps she can think of something to advise.

No one answered; they could not speak; they had nothing to say; they
only felt that a great wrath had been poured out on them, heavy as lead,
that an evil spirit had made its way into their life, and was keeping
them in a perpetual state of terror; and that, were they now to hold
their peace, and not make an end, God Almighty only knows what might
come of it! No one felt certain that to-morrow or the day after the same
thunderbolt might not fall on another of them.

Somebody made a movement in the crowd, and there was a sudden silence,
as though all were preparing to listen to a weak voice, hardly louder
than stillness itself. Their eyes widened, their faces were contracted
with annoyance and a consciousness of insult. Their hea