"Holy saints! Holy Mother!" She raised her hands in prayer. She did not exactly know how she was to put her prayer into words, it would sound too awful if she were to say, "Let him die; he must die!" It was as though she were going to expose herself in her nakedness to the Holy Virgin and all the saints. No, that would not do.
She let her hands fall in her perplexity. What now? But then it suddenly occurred to her, why need she tell everything to the saints? Why trouble them? Surely it would be enough if she secured their help. So she prayed: "Holy Mary, pure Virgin, oh, bring about by means of thy divine power and that of all the saints that he really goes to Gnesen, that he at last fetches the poison--the poison for the rats. I entreat thee, I implore thee!"
She wrung her hands and wept bitterly; she hit her breast with such force that she hurt herself. What she had suffered from her husband, and would suffer again and again. He would not leave her in peace, and she hated him, she loathed his eager, outstretched hands. If only she could have gone into a convent, how happy she would have been there. All that filled her once more with horror. She had been so terrified on her wedding night, when her husband, intoxicated with joy and wine, had embraced her; so terrified when she felt she was about to become a mother against her will; so terrified when the nurse had laid the little live girl on her bosom. She had pulled herself together and endured it when she felt the little seeking mouth at her breast, although it was as if a stream of icy-cold water were running down her. But then, when her husband had appeared, had placed himself near the bed in which she lay so feeble, so weak, so at his mercy, and had said with such a satisfied smirk, "Psia krew, we've done that well!" then she could not restrain herself any longer. She had uttered a cry, a feeble, plaintive, yet piercing cry, and had reared herself up with her last strength, so that the little creature on her breast had begun to whimper and whine like a young puppy. The nurse had hastened to the bedside, quite terrified, and had made the sign of the cross--"All good spirits!" No doubt she thought that the "Krasnoludki," the wicked dwarfs, wanted to steal the new-born child. She had quickly thrown her rosary round the infant's neck, and had sprinkled the bed with holy water. But the young mother had burst into tears--into hopeless, never-ending tears. Then Mrs. Tiralla had been very ill, so ill that her anxious husband had not only sent for the doctor from Gradewitz, but also for the best physician in Gnesen. Both doctors had assured him, however, that there was no danger, that his young wife was only very weak and nervous.
Mr. Tiralla could not understand why.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mrs. Tiralla now got up from her prayers. It was high time to urge her husband to start for Gnesen. Perhaps he was still lying in bed. She dressed in angry haste. She did not arrange her thick hair with her usual care--her hands were trembling, she was in a hurry. No sound of wheels reached her attentive ear, the man could not be taking the carriage out of the coach-house. Her husband must still be sleeping.
Hastily throwing on her skirt, and without waiting to fasten her blouse, she ran across the stone passage to the room into which she had been drawn as a trembling bride, and in which her little girl had been born. There he was, still lying in the big bed, snoring.
"Get up!" She seized him by the shoulder and shook him.
His hair stood up like bristles around his forehead. "How horrible he looked!" she thought. And what did the room smell of? Drink. That disgusting smell came from him.
No feeling of compassion softened her eyes. She stood bolt upright at the side of the bed and scanned him from top to toe with sparkling eyes. He would soon lie there again.