"What then, after all, is the use of all the wisdom of the learned, of all the precepts of the saints? Why cast horoscopes, why consult the stars, if it is all to end like this? And they had said: 'How can you, a clergyman's daughter, give your hand to a man who works in blood, for he'll be bound to follow his father's trade? Will you allow your whole life to be a ceaseless bloodshedding? What! every day to rise and shed blood, and every night to lie down with blood! Every day to trace blood on the hands of him who embraces you! To be bound for life to a man whose very calling it is to lay violent hands on God's innocent creatures!' Alas! alas! Then it was only the blood of sheep and oxen that was in question. And now! What avails it, then, all the wisdom of the wise, when such things are possible? What if the little automatic dog had wagged his tail and stuck out his tongue by way of warning? And to think that a living wise man should have had no idea of the impending ruin of a human soul, and that soul his very daughter! What, then, is the use of amulets and talismanic necklaces? What is the good of the angelic choirs in heaven when they cannot protect the faithful from such calamities?"
"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Barbara Pirka, "there are very many more men in this world, my jewel, than there are angels in heaven. It is not everyone that has a guardian angel to look after him, but there isn't a man in this world who hasn't seven devils all to himself. I, too, was carried off from my father's house by my husband. He told me he was a tanner, and I, silly fool! did not inquire what sort of hides he tanned. But I made him pay one hundred-fold for that one deceit, I warrant you."
Michal stared blankly at her. She did not understand a word of what Pirka was talking about.
Pirka shrugged her shoulders.
"My ruby! won't we put on our clothes?"
"No!" cried Michal, defiantly, and throwing herself back in the bed. "Where are the clothes in which I came hither?"
"They are still very wet and hanging up to dry. They are tattered and torn, too, and want a lot of mending."
"I'll wait here till I get them."
So she stayed in bed. She would have nothing to do with the terrible finery which had belonged to the unhappy Polish lady.
And all day long nobody troubled her. Everyone in the house had something to do in town.