"Suddenly all fear leaves him. He assumes a waiting position and looks directly into her eyes.
"Now she stands close before him. She looks at him. Away! These eyes! this look! He wishes to fall weeping into her arms. . . . To weep, yes, to weep . . . to weep and to kiss.
"He is in the impulse to carry out his purpose when she suddenly takes his hand. With a quick push he tears himself from her embrace and runs away as rapidly as he can.
"It seems as though she ran after him with outstretched arms and blowing hair, always faster and faster, always grasping more heavily. It seemed to him as though he heard her terrible voice, hoarse with weariness, calling 'Joselle,' 'Joselle' . . ."
The father has taken a new wife and the "crazy Trajna" is no longer a member of the household but is driven about the streets. And as he leaves the schoolroom this evening, Josek is consumed with indignation and sorrow and resolves not to flee from his mother the next time he meets her. On his way home he meets her. The tears flow from her eyes; when she embraces him he again runs away. But that evening he steals a plate of meat from his home and brings it to her. That night he does not sleep. The next noon, coming home from school he sees Trajna standing near the well surrounded by street urchins:
"One pulls her bonnet from her head. Another jerks at her apron. A third tears the prayer book from her hand. Some boys cry loudly,
"'Hurrah! The crazy one, the crazy one!'
"She looks at her son in surprise. Josek can stand it no longer; he goes to his mother and with his fists drives away the urchins that torment her.
"They have run away. Without saying a word Josek reaches out both his hands. His face is deathly pale. His eyes gleam with fever. The boys laugh. . . . Their loud calls press themselves to his ears. . . . Another moment and the hands of his mother reach around him as in a cramp.
"The 'crazy one' hugs him, kisses him, now laughing, now crying. Suddenly she clutches him and begins to dance with him. 'Hurrah! Hurrah! The crazy one is dancing with her son!'