his Sophia was pretty. It flattered the elderly man's vanity immensely that nobody ever spoke of her as "Mrs. Tiralla," plain and simple, but always as "the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla." When he drove with her through Gradewitz--he on the box, she on the seat behind, in her veil and feather boa--everybody stared. And even in Gnesen the officers dining at the hotel used to rush to the window and crane their necks in order to see the beautiful Mrs. Tiralla drive past. Then Mr. Tiralla would crack his whip and look very elated. Let them envy him his wife. They did not know--nobody knew--that he many an evening had received such a vigorous blow on the chest from her, when he had attempted to approach her, as nobody would ever have given such a delicate-looking woman credit for. On such occasions he would console himself with the thought that his Sophia never had cared for love-making. But she was a dear little woman, all the same, a beautiful woman, his own sweet wife, from whose hand the food tasted twice as good and agreed with him twice as well. And she was still as beautiful as on the first day; perhaps even more so now that she was over thirty, for she used to be much too thin and small, and did not weigh even seven stone. He could have carried her on his hand.
He would have loved to deck her out in gay colours, like a show-horse, but she had the tastes of a lady. That was because she had had a good education. She spoke German very fluently, and could also write it without a single mistake. She knew quite long pieces of poetry by heart. She could speak of Berlin, although she had never been there, and that made a wonderful impression upon her husband. Gnesen and Posen and Breslau were also big towns, but Berlin--Berlin! He felt very ignorant compared with her, although in his youth he had gone to the Agricultural College at Samter, and had understood pretty well how to make something out of the five hundred acres he had inherited from his father. The children--the son of his first wife and little Rosa--would never be obliged to earn their living among strangers. And, what was of more importance still, his beloved Sophia's future would be secured if he died before her, for he had made a will in her favour, as he had promised her mother he would.
Mrs. Kluge had been able to close her eyes in peace, fully satisfied with having brought about this splendid match for her pretty daughter, for it was her wisdom and circumspection which had paved the way for it. Mrs. Kluge was of a better family than most of her neighbours. She had originally come from Breslau, but after her marriage with the schoolmaster from Posen she had had to wander about with him from one miserable Polish village to another, and had always been very poor. However, she had never allowed her little Sophia to play in the street with the other children, and the child had always had shoes and stockings to wear--rather suffer hunger in secret than go without them.
When Sophia grew older, and the time drew near for her to receive the Holy Sacrament for the first time, she became the priest's avowed favourite. Mrs. Kluge was a pious woman, perhaps the most pious woman in Gradewitz, and whilst making dresses for the farmers' wives in order to support herself and her child her lips used to move the whole time in silent prayer. It was owing to her dressmaking that she had become acquainted with farmer Tiralla's wife--maybe also owing to her piety. For did it not seem as if it were Providence itself that had brought Mr. Tiralla as well as his wife to her room when she was making Mrs. Tiralla's last dress? He had driven his wife over--she was in delicate health at the time--and, as it was bitterly cold, he had come in as well, and had left the horse standing outside. He could hardly get through the low door, and had quite filled her small room. Little Sophia was handing her mother the pins whilst the dress was being tried on, and had received a shilling and a look from Mr. Tiralla which had made her blush and lower her dark eyes without knowing the reason why.
Sophia Kluge was modest; no young fellow in the neighbourhood could boast of being in her good graces. She did not even know why the lads and lasses used to steal out into the fields in the evenings, and why their tender songs should rise so plaintively to the starry skies. Sophia, with the black eyes and white face, which no sun, no country air had ever tanned, for she had always remained at home with her mother, was a pious child, so pious that the priest, still a young man with saint-like face, took a great deal of notice of her. He would send for this girl of eleven to come to him in his study, which the old housekeeper only got leave to enter three times a year. There he would speak to her of the joys of the angels and of the Heavenly Bridegroom, and enrapture himself and her with descriptions of heaven and of the streams of love which had flowed through the hearts of all the saints.
Mrs. Kluge was proud of the preference shown to her daughter; but the salvation of her soul did not make her lose sight of her earthly lot. She had suffered many privations in her life, and had had to give up very much, and she wished her daughter to have some enjoyment even on this earth. It seemed to her like a sign from the saints that Mrs. Tiralla was prematurely delivered of a child and died before she had worn her new dress. Then Mr. Tiralla began to look out for another wife, and when he came in person to pay the outstanding account for the dress, the clever woman noticed the complacent smile which he cast at the young beauty. She was well aware of her daughter's beauty, and knew how to value it. When Mr. Tiralla said to her, "Your daughter is devilish good-looking," she had answered, "Ah, but she's still so young." And when he came once more and said, "Psia krew, how sad it is to live alone on such a dreary farm," the wise woman replied, "You'll have to marry again. There are plenty of widows and elderly spinsters who would be pleased to marry you." That had angered him. He neither wanted widows nor elderly spinsters, he coveted the youngest of them all.
Sophia had run to the priest and had wept and lamented when her mother had said to her, "Be happy, Mr. Tiralla wants to marry you." No, she wouldn't have him, she didn't want to marry at all.
Even now, after the lapse of fifteen years, Mrs. Tiralla's heart swelled with bitterness when she lay awake at night and thought of the way she had been treated. Her mother had begged and implored her with tears in her eyes. "We shall then be out of all our misery." And when the girl continued to shake her head she had boxed her ears--the right and the left indiscriminately--and had told her in a peremptory voice, "You shall marry Mr. Tiralla."
And her friend, the priest? Ah! Mrs. Tiralla once more pictured herself in that quiet room in which, with hot cheeks and enraptured gaze, she had so often listened, on her knees, to the legends of the saints. Once more she held the hem of the cassock between her fingers and watered it with her tears. She had wept, had resisted: "No, I will not marry him, I cannot!" Had not the priest always told her--nay, positively adjured her--to remain a virgin, to remain unmarried, and in this way secure for herself a place in heaven? She had kissed his hands, "Help me, advise me!" Then, she did not know herself how it had happened, then she had suddenly jumped up from her knees, confused and trembling, and had rushed to the door and had hidden her face in a tumult of undreamt-of feelings, which had almost stunned her with their sudden attack. All at once she was no longer a girl, she was a woman, who, trembling, ardent, feverish with desire, had become self-conscious. How blissful it was to be a--his chosen one. To sit all one's life in that quiet room with the saints. In the girl's confused dreams the figure of her Heavenly Friend seemed to mingle with that of her earthly one. Oh, how exquisite he was, how beautiful! His hands were like ivory, his cheeks like velvet. And his kiss----
Instead of him Mr. Tiralla had come----
Mrs. Tiralla had placed a footstool in her bedroom under her picture of the Saviour carrying His flaming heart in His hand. The priest of her youth had left Starawieś long ago--he had asked to be removed from the neighbourhood--but she still prayed a great deal.
It was the morning after Mr. Tiralla had drunk a glass too much in his joy at her unusual display of tenderness, and as she got out of bed her first glance fell on the picture opposite. She crossed herself, and then, gliding on her bare feet to the footstool, she knelt down and prayed for a long time.
Mr. Tiralla had promised her faithfully, as he yesterday lay in her arms, that he would fill up the paper to-day and would drive over to Gnesen and fetch the poison for the rats himself. How was it that she felt so quiet about it? She could not understand it herself. Even if her heart did beat a little faster, it was not from fear,
