Janina hardly heard a word of what she was saying for the noise and the din in the street and the splashing of water flowing from the drainpipes to the sidewalk drowned out everything else. She went along only because the dying woman had summoned her.
The first room of Niedzielska's home was almost filled with people and Janina greeted them as she passed through it, but no one answered her and all eyes followed her with a peculiar curiosity.
In the room where Niedzielska lay, there were also a few persons seated about her bed. Janina went straight to the sick woman. She was lying flat on her back, but fixed her eyes upon Janina as soon as she had crossed the threshold.
On Janina's entrance the persons in the room stopped talking so
abruptly that the sudden silence sent a strange thrill through her.
She met Niedzielska's gaze and could not tear her eyes away from it.
She sat down alongside of the bed, greeting her in a subdued voice.
The old woman grasped her hand tightly and in a quiet voice with a very strong accent asked: "Where is Wladek?"
Her brows knit themselves in an expression of severity and something like hatred gleamed in the yellowish whites of her eyes.
"I don't know. How am I to know?" answered Janina almost frightened by her question.
"You don't know, you thief! You have stolen my son and yet, you dare tell me that you don't know!" gasped Niedzielska, striving to raise her voice a little, but it sounded hollow and wild. Her eyes opened ever wider and gleamed with hatred and menace, her pale lips quivered nervously, and her thin, yellow face twitched continually. She raised herself a bit on her bed and in a hoarse voice, as though rallying her remaining strength cried: "You streetwalker! You thief! You . . ." and she fell back exhausted, with a hollow groan.
Janina sprang up, as though an electric shock had passed through her, but the old woman gripped her wrist so tightly that she fell back again on her chair, unable to free her hand. She glanced about desperately at everybody, in the room, but their faces were stern. She closed her eyes for a moment to shut out the sight of the yellowish wrinkled faces of those women who stood facing her like specters glaring at her with their skeleton-like faces in the shadowy twilight of the room.
"So that is she! So young and already . . ."