The shot and the murder overawed the crowd. The mob became silent, and after a moment began to scamper away, panic-stricken.
XV
Pani Krzycki, Zosia, and Hanka, and with them Gronski, Ladislaus, and Dr. Szremski surrounded the bed on which Marynia lay, after the operation and the extraction of the bullet. A second surgeon and his assistant sat aloof, awaiting the awakening of the patient. In the room, filled with the odor of iodoform, a profound stillness prevailed. Marynia had previously awoke immediately after the operation was performed, but stupefied still by the chloroform and weakened by the loss of blood, she soon sank again into a slumber. Her beautiful head lay motionless upon the pillow, her eyes were closed, and her countenance was waxen and transparent, as if she were already dead. In Pani Otocka and in Gronski, who but now sounded within himself the immensity of his affection for that child, despair whimpered with that quiet, terrible whimper, which lacerates, tugs and rends the bosom but fears to emerge on the surface. Both glanced time and again with alarm at Dr. Szremski who from time to time examined Marynia's pulse, but evidently he himself was uncertain whether that sleep would be final: he only nodded his head and placed his finger to his lips in sign of silence.
Nevertheless, their fears for the time being were vain, as after the lapse of an hour Marynia's eyebrows commenced to rise, quiver, and after a moment she opened her eyes. Her look, at the beginning, was dull and unconscious. Slowly, however, the stupefaction left her and consciousness of what had occurred as well as of the present moment returned. On her countenance appeared an expression of amazement and affliction, such as a child feels who has been punished cruelly and unjustly. Finally her pupils darkened and two tears coursed down her cheeks.
"For what?--for what?" she whispered with her pallid lips.
Pani Otocka sat at her side and placed her palm on her hand. Gronski was seized with a desire to throw himself on the ground and beat his head on the floor, while the patient asked further in an amazed and mournful whisper:
"For what?--for what?"
God alone could answer that question. But in the meantime the doctor approached and said:
"Do not speak, child, for that harms."
So she became silent, but the expression of affliction did not disappear from her countenance, and tears continued to flow.