There was no help for it but to inquire of people. It was easy to inquire about the commissioner; but when she went to his house she learned that he had gone to the capital. As to the chief of the district, they told her that she must look for him at his office. But where was the office? Ei! stupid, stupid woman, it is in Oslovitsi, and nowhere else!
She looked and looked in Oslovitsi for the office; at last she saw a kind of palace, so big that it was a terror, and before it numberless wagons, carriages, and Jewish carts. It seemed to Marysia that there was some kind of festival. "But where here is the office?" asked she of some one in a frock-coat, seizing him by the leg.
"Thou art standing in front of it, woman."
She plucked up courage, and entered the palace. She looked again. It was full of corridors, on the right a door, on the left a door, farther on doors and doors, and on each letters of some kind. She made the sign of the cross, and, opening silently and timidly the first door, found herself in a great room divided into stalls, like a church. Behind one stall sat a man in a frock-coat with gilt buttons, a pen over his ear; before the stalls stood a great number of all sorts of people. The men were paying and paying, and he of the frock-coat was smoking a cigarette and writing receipts which he gave to the men. Whoever took a receipt went out. Then Marysia thought that it was needful to pay there, and she was sorry for her cheski, so she walked up with great timidity to the barrier.
But no one even looked at her. She stood there, stood; about an hour passed, some came in, others went out; the clock ticked behind the barrier, and still she stood there. At last the number decreased somehow, and finally there was no one. The official sat at the table and began to write. Then she grew bold to speak,—
"Jesus Christ be praised!"
"Who is there?"
"Serene chief—"
"This is the money department."
"Serene chief!"