Stojka demurred and scratched his head, but he took up the reins and lashed the horses; after all, it was only a few versts, and one need not look much at the passengers. He walked by the side of the sledge and Grochowski and a man who was to make closer acquaintance with the police-court, for spoiling his neighbour's bucket, went with him.
It so happened that, just as the Wojt was dispatching the bodies to the police-court, the police officer was sending 'Silly Zoska' back to her native village. A few months after leaving her child in Maciek's care she had been arrested; the reason was unknown to her. As a matter of fact she had been accused of begging, vagrancy, and attempted arson. After the discovery of each new crime, they had taken her from police-station to prison, from prison to infirmary, from infirmary to another prison, and so on for a whole year.
During her peregrinations Zoska had behaved with complete indifference; when she was taken to a new place she would worry at first whether she would find work. After that she became apathetic and slept the greater part of the time, on her plank bed, or waiting in corridors and prison-yards. It was all the same to her. At times she began to long for freedom and her child, and then she fell into accesses of fury. Now they were sending her back under escort of two peasants; one carried the papers relating to her case, and the other had come to keep him company. She had a boot on one foot and a sandal on the other, a sukmana in holes, and a handkerchief like a sieve on her head. She walked quickly in front of the men, as if she were in a hurry to get back, yet neither the familiar neighbourhood nor the hard frost seemed to make any impression on her. When the men called out: 'Heh! not so fast!' she stood as still as a post, and waited till they told her to go on.
'She's quite daft!' said one.
'She's always been like that,' said the other, who had known her a long time, 'yet she's not bad at rough work.'
A few versts from the village, where the chimneys peeped out from beyond the snowy hills, they came upon the little cortège. The attendants, noticing something unusual in the look of it, stopped and talked to the Soltys.
'Look, Zoska,' said the latter to the woman who was standing by indifferently, 'that is your little girl.'
She approached without seeming to understand; slowly, however, her face acquired a human expression.
'What's fallen upon them?'
'They have been frozen.'