d scrutinized him
with timid curiosity. A wretched figure! Wry-necked, with his back bent,
his whole body broken and powerless; long hair, white as snow, fell
about his face, which bore the distorted expression of long suffering.
The woman went silently to the hearth and added some fresh fagots. "A
bed we cannot give you," she said, "but I will make a good litter of
straw here; you'll have to make the best of that."

"God reward you!" answered the stranger; "indeed I am used to worse than
that."

The man who had returned home was recognized as John Nobody, and he
himself avowed that it was he who had once fled with Frederick Mergel.
The next day the village was full of the adventures of the man who had
so long been forgotten. Everybody wanted to see the man from Turkey,
and they were almost surprised that he should still look like other
people. The young folks, to be sure, did not remember him, but the old
could still recognize his features perfectly, wretchedly disfigured
though he was.

"John, John, how gray you've grown!" said an old woman; "and where did
you get your wry neck?"

"From carrying wood and water in slavery," he replied. "And what has
become of Mergel? You ran away together, didn't you?"

"Yes, indeed; but I do not know where he is; we got separated. If you
think of him, pray for him," he added; "he probably needs it."

They asked him why Frederick had disappeared, inasmuch as he had not
murdered the Jew. "Not killed him!" said John, and listened intently
when they told him what the lord of the estate had purposely spread
abroad in order to erase the spot from Mergel's name. "So all was in
vain," he said musing, "all in vain--so much suffering!"

He sighed deeply and asked, on his part, about many things. He was told
that Simon had been dead a long while, but had first fallen into
complete poverty through lawsuits and bad debtors whom he could not sue
because, it was said, the business relations between them had been
questionable. Finally he had been reduced to begging and had died on the
straw in a strange barn. Margaret had lived longer, but in absolute
mental torpor. The people in the village had soon grown tired of helping
her, because she let everything that they gave her go to ruin; for it
is, after all, characteristic of people to abandon the most helpless,
those whom assistance does not relieve for any length of time and who
are and always will be in need of aid. Nevertheless she had not