"Who else makes coffins in the village besides you?" Boleslav asked again.
The Schrandeners burst into jeering laughter. They knew how difficult he would find it to get any direct answer to his question.
"My poor, wretched child," he growled, fastening his glassy eyes on Herr Merckel's amber heart, which appeared to possess a fascination for him. Then suddenly rousing himself once more from the half-stupor into which he had collapsed, he threatened Boleslav with his fists, and cried out excitedly--
"What do you want from me, Herr? A coffin? Is that what you want? For whom do you want it? For the scamp, the dog, who betrayed his country--who seduced my child? Do you think I'd make a coffin for him? Look at me, Herr. Did you ever see such a spectacle?" He wrenched open his shirt, and exposed to view his shaggy breast. "I'm a beauty--mere offal, that dogs would turn up their noses at. And whose fault is that, my dear young nobleman? Why, the Herr Baron's, your deceased father's. He it was who reduced me to this, and made me an unhappy, forsaken, childless old man, such as you see." He wiped his eyes with the ragged sleeve of his corduroy jacket, while the Schrandeners applauded, and backed him up in his maudlin oration. "My child, my only child, was torn from my bosom. He robbed me of my child----"
"I believe you yourself sent her to the Castle," Boleslav interposed, without, however, making the least impression.
"He made my child a prostitute, but what's worse, young sir--what most lacerates my father's heart--for though I'm a blackguard, I'm a patriot; for in Prussia even blackguards love their country--if there are any blackguard Prussians ... but my child ... ah! do you know what he did with my child?... forced her with the lash to go out in the dark night and---- But since then do you think I'd own her? No ... she is my child no longer. I've cursed her--cast her off! I said to her, 'You are my own flesh and blood no longer.' That's what I said, and----"
"But you took the wage of her sin all the same," Boleslav was on the point of interrupting, but recollected in time that in saying so he would be admitting his father's guilt to this pack of wolves.
"'And you are free,' I said. 'You may go where you like, and whoever you meet may kill you outright for all I care. Go to your gnädigen Herrn,' I said, 'and ask him to protect you.' I said----"
At this juncture the shouts of the other Schrandeners became so much louder that they drowned the carpenter's speech. They closed round him, and he was lost in the crowd; only his rasping laugh was still audible.
"What did I prophesy, Herr Baron?" asked old Merckel, with his unctuous smile.