Mrs. Tiralla was dressing in the large sitting-room on the ground floor. The bedroom upstairs was too cold, so Marianna had brought the looking-glass down and had fixed it up on a table by means of some pieces of wood, and placed two lighted candles in front of it. Mrs. Tiralla was doing her own hair. The Gradewitz dressmaker would have been asked to do it, as she was also the hairdresser of the neighbourhood, but she had taken offence when she heard that Mrs. Tiralla had got her ball-dress from Posen.
Mrs. Tiralla did not crimp her hair as a rule, but to-day she got a waving-iron, and she and Marianna did it together. The maid was by no means clumsy, although she had such big hands, and she helped her mistress to pile up her wavy hair at the top of her head. But when at last it was ready, Mrs. Tiralla thought it so hideous, that she burst into tears and tore it down with an angry "Psia krew!" which made Rosa shrink. The child was crouching in a dark corner of the room with her hands clasped round her knees, gazing with admiration at the beautiful vision in the white embroidered petticoat.
Ugh! how difficult it was to please the mistress this evening; now she wanted this, now that. If Marianna had not consoled herself with the thought that she would soon be mistress of the house for a whole night, she would have cried instead of laughing pleasantly as she was doing now. "Pani must do her hair in her usual way," she said. "That suits Pani best of all."
"She is right," sighed Mrs. Tiralla, as she began once more to comb out her tangled hair, and she tore at it so savagely that at last her silky, black tresses clung to her white temples in big, smooth waves. Then she twisted the plaits in a huge coil at the nape of her neck; that was the way she had worn her hair in her girlhood, and that suited her best.
"By Jove, you look like a little girl, my love," smirked her husband from his seat, on the bench near the stove, where he was lying as usual in spite of his clean shirt, black coat, and hair covered with pomade. "Many people will envy me to-night."
She did not answer; she felt annoyed with him. Wasn't it disgraceful of him to lie there in his new, clean clothes, just as though he had his greasy, everyday coat on?
"How beautiful, oh, how beautiful," whispered Rosa, who had crept out of her corner and was kneeling before her mother with both hands raised as though worshipping her. Mrs. Tiralla had now put her ball-dress on, and the snowy-white gauze fell round her like a fleecy cloud. She thought herself that she looked beautiful, just like a young girl. Ah! A slight but burning pain made her tremble. How sad to think that all this beauty was to wither away at her husband's side--always at her husband's side. All at once she was seized with a violent fit of fury, one of those sudden attacks which deprived her for a time of her senses. "Get up," she said to Rosa coldly, as the child gently stroked her dress. "Get up. Why do you do that? You're soiling my dress."
Rosa began to cry.
"Why do you frighten her so?" exclaimed Mr. Tiralla reproachfully; he could not bear to hear his daughter cry. "Come here, my Röschen, my little lady-bird; leave your mother, she's in a bad humour to-day. Come to me, Röschen, my sweetheart, come; take hold of my coat, you won't soil that."
"Yes, go, go!" and the woman dragged her dress so violently away from the clinging hands that a flounce came undone. Then she grew still more furious, for now the dress would have to be sewn. She scolded Rosa in a loud voice, and the child gazed at her with a strange look in her dilated eyes. Could angels scold as well? Alas, she must have done something very bad, must have been a very good-for-nothing girl if the angel scolded her. She crept back into her corner sobbing in a subdued fashion.