m. While she was
working in the house, her thoughts were with Abonyi in his prison; she
saw him in the degrading convict-dress, with chains on his feet, as she
had so often found her father when she visited him in jail; there he
sat in a little dusky cell on a projecting part of the wall, eating
from a wooden bowl filled with a thin broth, repulsive in appearance
and smell and biting pieces of earth-colored bread as hard as a brick;
the cell was impregnated with horrible odours; the bare stone flags of
the floor were icy cold; a ragged, dirty sack of straw, and a thin,
tattered coverlet swarming with vermin covered the bench in the corner;
in the morning the prisoner, like the others, was obliged to clean his
cell and work at things whose contact sickened him; at noon he walked
up and down the prisonyard, amid thieves and robbers, who jeered at and
insulted the great gentleman; the jailers assailed him with rough
words, perhaps even blows--yes, perhaps, her father was right, possibly
Abonyi might have been better off lying in the grave than enduring the
disgrace and hardships of the prison.

She gave herself up to these ideas, which almost amounted to
hallucinations, with actual delight; she even spoke of them, told the
neighbours about them as if they were facts which she had witnessed,
and when, early in February, a peasant who had been sentenced to a
year's imprisonment in the county jail for horse-stealing, was released
and returned to Kisfalu, Panna was one of the first who visited him and
asked if he had seen Abonyi in the county prison.

"Why, of course," replied the ex-convict, grinning.

Panna's eyes sparkled.

"You went to walk in the yard with him? They probably put him in
chains?"

"You are talking nonsense, neighbour," said the peasant. "He wore no
chains, and did not go into the yard with us. If I saw him, it's
because I waited on him."

"Waited? You waited on him?"

"Certainly. Surely you don't suppose that he is treated like one of
us! He lives in a pretty room, has his meals sent from the hotel, goes
in and out freely during the day, and is only locked up at night for
form's sake; he wears his own clothing and is served by the other
prisoners; we all tried to get the place, for he pays like a lord.
Hitherto, he hasn't found it very tiresome, for people came to see him
every day and, when there were no visitors, he played cards with the
steward. They say that, on New Year's Eve, he lost