"Alone? I say, really?" They were all delighted to hear it, and their eyes again began to sparkle. And no wonder, he was such a horrid old fellow.
"My wife says she would like to poison him, judging from the way she looks at him." That was his highest trump card, but even that did not seem to excite any indignation, for every one present was busily occupied in devising a plan by which he could curry favour with the fair Sophia.
But the priest smiled. "You're biassed, Mr. Jokisch, biassed. There's nothing wrong with Mrs. Tiralla."
"She's a good woman, a really good woman," agreed the gendarme. "I came past the farm the other day on my way from the Przykop, and found the servant lounging at the gate--Marianna Śroka, from Althof, you know, a buxom lass, but awfully cheeky. 'Panje,' said she in a low voice, and crept close up to me, 'Panje, there's murder in that house.' She pointed to the Tirallas' house and made such eyes, she looked quite mad. She wouldn't let me go. Then I got curious, and felt I must go into the house. The woman came out of the room at once. 'Where's Mr. Tiralla?' I asked, and at the same moment I heard a voice saying, 'Who is it, Sophia darling? Come in, come in, it's very comfortable here.' He was in high spirits, and we were all very happy together, although Marianna kept rolling her eyes about and winking at me quite openly as if to say, 'Take care!' What a horrid person she is, a real serpent. And Mrs. Tiralla is just like her husband, and continues to warm such a creature at her bosom. She's a good mistress, you can take my word for that. 'Please,' she said, and 'Thank you,' when Marianna brought something up from the cellar. But that's just like that kind of person. She's as comfortable with them as she can possibly be anywhere, and still she abuses them. I said to Mrs. Tiralla, 'How do you like your servant?'--I wanted to introduce the subject, but she answered, 'Oh, she's very good, very good,' and praised her highly."
"A very nice feature," remarked the priest.
Everybody was filled with indignation against Jokisch. How dared he say a single word against Mrs. Tiralla, even when he was drunk? The schoolmaster had been quite right this time. Jokisch was to keep a civil tongue in his head. He was a henpecked husband, a tattler. All the bachelors jeered at the inspector. Little Ziëntek poured the dregs from his tumbler over his head, and when he resisted, and snorted and swore loudly as he hit about him, they drew the chair from under him, so that he sat down on the floor on which everybody had been spitting. On any other occasion the gendarme would have separated the men, but now he looked on with the utmost calm. It served the man quite right. The priest had at first watched the proceedings very doubtfully, and had kept an eye on the door to see if anybody were spying upon them. But when the others took their tumblers, and, following Ziëntek's example, poured the dregs over the man's head, he almost split his sides with laughing.
He saw, however, that it was about time for him to be going, so he got up from his seat and disappeared as quietly as he had come; and the men were laughing, quarrelling, and shouting so loudly that they hardly noticed his departure.
The schoolmaster felt like a hero, as he tramped home through the snow. He was her knight; he had just paid that vulgar, disgusting fellow out. Jokisch had received the first and last kick from him as they all together had conveyed the heavy man to the door. "Throw him out, that slanderer!" This time they had all made common cause, all except the gendarme, who had retired at the very last moment. He always did so when there was any quarrelling going on in the private room at the inn, otherwise he would have been obliged to write down the names of these disturbers of the peace.
The stars shone down on the schoolmaster as he walked home all alone; the cold wintry sky looked like a huge glass bell that had been put over the flat country. The stars gave light; he could easily discern the empty village street, which was as wide as the widest street in a big town--so wide that it made the low cottages on either side look twice as low as they really were. Böhnke stumbled along as though he were intoxicated. But that was not the case, for he never drank too much, whatever the others might do. He was tormented with an ambitious longing to win this woman. Mrs. Tiralla was always very kind to him; he thought he had noticed that she also looked upon him as a kindred spirit. To-morrow he would see little Rosa--that dreamy child who would sit with a vacant stare on her face and not know what the others had been talking about--and he would tell her to remember him very kindly to her mother, and to ask her if she wanted anything to read during these long winter days. She could take her choice among his books. He would gladly lend her them all, in spite of the many hardships he had had to undergo in order to procure them. She had certainly borrowed a volume from him almost three years ago; she had had it almost the whole time he had been in the neighbourhood, and he would probably never see it again. But he did not mind that. To-morrow he would again place his library at her disposal. The best thing would be to write her a note and give it to the child. He wrote a most beautiful hand, it looked like print. How the other people in this neighbourhood did scrawl!
The Gradewitz ball would cost him a lot of money, and he had hardly any. But what did that matter? He would go there, even if he had to borrow from the Jew. Happily there was always one thing he could do; if Isidor Prochownik dunned him, his daughter Rebecca should lose her place in the class--she should go down to the very bottom; but if the old man left him in peace Rebecca should have a very high place. He laughed to himself at the splendid idea. But then he turned scarlet, although there was nobody watching him, only the starry heavens above him, and around him the deserted, sleeping village. He was overcome with shame, for he felt that it was not right of him to move Rebecca up and down just to please himself. But then he stifled all qualms. What did it matter to that girl, who was so dirty, so stupid, so utterly neglected, even if she did go down to the bottom? It was of no importance to her. And he--he must go to the ball.