said that my
reading was music. I was reading Musset. You do not know, mother,
who Musset is. He is the poet of love--of that love exactly which
the world calls forbidden. She wanted something from the
neighboring chamber; I went for it. When I returned our eyes met,
and--well, I read no more that evening."

He was barely able to utter the last words; he covered his face
with his handkerchief, rested his head on the arm of the
long-chair, was motionless; wept, perhaps. Widow Clemens bent
down, the corner of her coarse handkerchief came from her pocket,
and through the chamber that sound of a trumpet was heard for the
second time. Then she drew her bench up still nearer, and, with
her hand in the stocking-foot, touched Kranitski's arm, and
whispered:

"Say no more, Tulek; despair not! Let God up there judge her and
you. He is a strict judge, but merciful! I am sorry for you, but
also for her, poor thing! What is to be done? The heart is not
stone, man is not an angel! Only drive off despair! Everything
passes-, and your sorrow also will pass. You may be better off in
the world than you now are. You may yet enjoy pleasant quiet in
Lipovka, in your own cottage. Stefanek and I may think out
something, so that you will escape from the mud of this city."

Kranitski made no answer; the woman spoke on:

"I have had another letter from Stefanek."

"What does that honest man write?" asked Kranitski.

The widow flushed up in anger:

"It is true that he is honest, and there is no need to call him
that--as if through favor, or sneering. Arabian adventure! He is
only my godson, but better than men of high birth. He writes that
management in Lipovka goes well; that again he has set out a
hundred fruit-trees in the garden; that in four weeks he will
come and bring a little money."

"Money!" whispered Kranitski; "but that is well!"

"It is surely well, for that Jew would have taken your furniture
if I had not pushed him down the steps, and a second time begged
him to wait." She laughed. "To push him down was easier than to
beg, for I am strong, and he is as small as a fly. Well I almost
kissed his hands, and he promised to wait. 'For widow Clemens I
will do this,' said he, 'because she is a servant who is like a
mother.' Indeed, I am like a mother! I have no children, I have
no one of my own in the world--I have only you."

Kranitski looked at her and began to shake his head with a slow
movement. She, too, fixing her fier