She began to be afraid of herself.
At night she dared not, and indeed had no desire to sleep in her bedroom. She loathed the marriage bed, and made for herself a sort of couch in the kitchen. The kitchen was her most secure asylum. All night long she kept a roaring fire (she could not bear to remain in the dark) and on the fire she placed pots of water which she kept continually boiling. She had no weapons, and even if she had had them what use would they have been in her weak hands? But she thought herself quite capable of drenching with boiling water any man who dared to approach her.
She had now been shut up alone for five days, and the frightful solitude had made her very nervous. Solitary confinement is the worst of all torments, it is worse than hunger. She would have felt much more comfortable if Pirka had been with her. Even the witch's words, with all their devilish insinuations, were better than the eternal, ghostly gibbering of the crackling logs, this piping and squeaking through doors and window crevices, and this howling in the chimney when the wind blew.
On the fifth morning, as she was turning the windlass in order to draw water from the kitchen well, the words escaped her:
"Oh, that the devil would bring Pirka hither!"
Scarcely had she said it, when she perceived that the windlass began to turn round of its own accord, and from out of the ascending bucket rose the bristly, angular form of Barbara Pirka.
Michal cried:
"Jesus, Maria!" and shrieked aloud for terror.
But Pirka laughed, and said to her:
"Ha, ha! my pretty little lady! You can't lock out a witch you see. A witch can find her way in through any loophole."