"When it is too late. One thing follows another, misfortune is heaped on misfortune, and on whom do the curses of the starving people fall? On me, me, me alone."
"You are acting with the Prince's commissioner."
Peter smiled bitterly, saying: "He took to his bed yesterday. Bontius says it is the plague. I, I alone bear everything."
"We bear it with you," cried Maria. "First poverty, then hunger, as we promised."
"Better than that. The last grain was baked today. The bread is exhausted."
"We still have oxen and horses."
"We shall come to them day after to-morrow. It was determined: Two pounds with the bones to every four persons. Bread gone, cows gone, milk gone. And what will happen then? Mothers, infants, sick people! And our Bessie!"
The burgomaster pressed his hands on his temples and groaned aloud. But Maria said: "Courage, Peter, courage. Hold fast to one thing, don't let one thing go—hope."
"Hope, hope," he answered scornfully.
"To hope no longer," cried Maria, "means to despair. To despair means in our case to open the gates, to open the gates means—"