The domestic annals of the house of Starsky contained an unwonted occurrence on that day: a youthful member of that noble family ate very little dinner, and remained lost in thought during the whole of the rest of the afternoon!...
The park at Barnow Castle was very prettily laid out in flower-beds, and beyond these it was dotted with clumps of fine old trees. The air was full of the song of birds and the perfume of spring flowers. The sun was shining brightly.
A small summer-house was situated in a quiet corner, and from its windows one could look down over blossoming elder-bushes upon the blue waters of the lake, in which the willows at the edge were mirrored. It was a place to sit and dream in.
But the woman who was seated in the large easy-chair near the window was not thinking pleasant thoughts. Her eyes, which were gazing fixedly at some point in the horizon, saw nothing of the quiet beauty of the spring landscape. Her expression was as sad and despairing as her heart. The mask she wore in public had fallen from her face, and she looked what she was—an unhappy, sorely tried woman, and haunted by the bitter memories of the past....
Memories of the past!
The days of childhood and early youth, which other people look back upon as an Eden of light and joy, were a time of which she never thought without a shuddering horror:—the dissipation and penury of the life in her father's house—a life of misery and constant dread.... Her mother, a pale, broken-hearted woman, who, foreseeing her husband's ruin, had yet been powerless to prevent it, and who had at last faded and died under the weight of a burden too heavy for her to bear.... She had been the good angel of the house. After her death matters had come to a climax, and everything had to be sold except a small estate to which Jadwiga and her father had been removed.... How distinctly she remembered the following years, with their ever-increasing poverty and shame! This last was the worst—it had been harder to bear than even cold and hunger. And the hopelessness of it all!... Her father, indeed, had been able to find continual comfort in all the ills of life in the brandy-bottle, and when he had drunk himself into a good humor and hopefulness, it had irritated him to see his daughter's sad tearful face. On such occasions he used to beat her cruelly in order to make her look cheerful!...
As Jadwiga thought of these things her face wore an expression of utter contempt. Alas for those who can only remember their parents with scorn!
She grew up to be a beautiful woman, in spite of her tears and the blows she had to bear. But she cursed her beauty, and she cursed the day on which Graf Adam had first seen her and fallen in love with her. She shuddered as she thought of the day when he had bought her from her father for ten thousand Polish gulden; when her father had come to her and had told her that she must be Gräfin Bortynska, if she did not wish to see him, a gray-haired old man, begging his bread from door to door. She remembered how she had thrown herself at his feet, and entreated him with tears not to give her into the power of that harsh, cruel old man, whom she hated and feared, and who, people said, was a murderer. How she had promised to work for her father and herself, were it even as a domestic servant, swearing that he should never, never starve. But all in vain!... A Polanska should never become a household drudge.... And after that she had become Graf Adam's bride....
Her memory of that time was so vivid that it was almost more than she could bear. She started up from her seat, and paced up and down the summer-house with folded arms and tightly compressed lips. But it was of no use; one picture of the past after another rose up before her.