'I've been harvesting in the summer, but now no one will take me in with the child. If I were alone I could get along.'
Maciek came in, and not being aware of Zoska's presence, started on seeing a crouching form on the floor.
'What do you want?' he asked.
'I thought Slimak might take me on, but he doesn't want me with the child.'
'Oh Lord!' sighed the man, moved by the sight of poverty greater than his own.
'Why, Maciek, that sounds as if you had a bad conscience,' said the gospodyni disagreeably.
'It makes one feel bad, to see such wretchedness,' he murmured.
'The man whose fault it is would feel it most!'
'It isn't my fault, but I'm sorry for them all the same.'
'Why don't you take the child, then, if you are so sorry?' sneered
Slimakowa, 'you'll give him the child, Zoska, won't you? Is it a boy?'