"Does his fanaticism carry him so far?"
"You are surely not surprised at that. Those people barely consider us human beings, and if your conscience cannot accommodate itself-- But that is your own business."
He bowed and left.
CHAPTER VI.
Four weeks had passed away. It was a dull, dirty November day. The gray snow-clouds were lowering, and now and then the lazy flakes fell, turning to water in the air and to mud on the ground. Between the slippery ploughed land and the low strata of clouds, the mists lay thick and motionless. The mild west wind that blew at times in the upper regions of the atmosphere did not reach them, and there they lay, as if wedged in, the gray ocean of vapor absorbing every tone and color. Even the sharpest eye could see but a few steps in advance.
The heath was quite deserted. A man who came from the west, driving towards the town in a light wagonette, met no one of whom he could ask the way. The wagonette was empty, and the fiery steeds, when he slackened the reins, galloped along at such a pace that the mud flew up in waves; yet the driver urged them along in the gray twilight.
It was now nearly midday, but no lighter than when he started in the early morning. "Drive on, Fedko; it is a case of life and death," the butler had said when he was told to go, and indeed he knew it himself. So again he allowed the reins to slacken, when suddenly the carriage stood still. The horses reared, but in vain. The tough bog in which they had sunk to the knees held them fast. The man jumped out, but he, too, stuck fast; they must have driven on the ploughed land at the turn of the road.
There he stood helpless--what was he to do--where was he to turn? "Jesu, Marie!" he cried, "perhaps in the meantime she will die!" Suddenly he heard a distant sound. He listened. It was the bell from the tower of the Dominican convent chiming the hour of noon.
He seized the reins and lashed the horses; they plunged madly. Following the sound, he succeeded in getting back to the road, where he could see through the mist the red cross at the entrance of the town. Five minutes more and the magistrate would have the letter.
But it was destined to be much longer than that. He had only reached the first detached houses when he met a crowd of people. "Make way!" he shouted; but he was obliged to drive at walking pace, and when he came into the built-up street his horses were brought to an entire standstill. The thoroughfare was filled with a compact body of people. It was as if the entire population were wedged together. Christians and Jews, men and women, now pushing forward, now backward, but without noise or tumult.