They should taste very, very good.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
As mother and daughter left the Przykop they saw Mr. Tiralla standing at the garden gate looking out for them. He was longing for his supper, for which he felt an aching void. But there was another kind of void which tortured him still more. Now Sophia had even taken the child away with her. It was fortunate that Mikolai was coming home in the autumn, then he would have more company. Mr. Tiralla had never liked being alone, and now he liked it less than ever. There was an indefinite something that frightened him; he could not have said what it was, but it seemed to be lying in wait for him at every corner.
He called out to the two in a joyful voice. He was holding up his hand to his eyes in order to protect them from the sun that was setting blood-red behind the pines, and the two figures in their light-coloured dresses looked like angels of light. "Psia krew, why so late? Come, my dears, come along."
Rosa let her mother's arm go. Swinging her basket in the air she ran up to her father, "Mushrooms, mushrooms." She was glowing with happiness.
He stroked her flying hair away from her face and patted her cheeks. "My darling, my consolation."
Why did her father look so serious? He was low-spirited. Rosa gazed at him with womanly, anxious eyes that love had sharpened. Her daddy was growing old. What a lot of lines he had in his face, lots of crooked lines like those the crows made in the snow with their feet. And still he was so stout, and had such a good appetite. "Do you love me?" she asked affectionately, raising her face for him to kiss. "I love you."
He did not kiss her; he was looking at his wife, who was coming on more slowly.
It seemed to Mrs. Tiralla as though her foot faltered, as though a leaden weight were almost paralyzing her. There he stood waiting impatiently. Well, he should have them. She ran past him with a muttered "God be with me!"
Nobody was in the kitchen. What had become of that slow hussy Marianna? But never mind, she could not have done with her to-day. She put wood and peat on the fire with her own hands, so that the embers were soon ablaze, placed a pan on the fire, and fetched butter and cream from the larder. She was very busy.