Part 10 (1/2)

”I don't mind it, mother. I am sure that it is only t.i.ttle-tattle.”

”Your father in bed?” asked Irma abruptly changing the subject of conversation.

”Yes.”

”And you have been busying yourself, I see,” continued the mother, looking round her with obvious disapproval, ”with matters that do not concern you. I suppose Bela has been persuading you that your mother is incapable of keeping her own house tidy, so you must needs teach her how to do it.”

”No, mother, nothing was further from my thoughts. I had nothing to do after I had cleared and washed up, and I wanted something to do.”

”If you wanted something to do you might have got out your father's bunda” (big sheepskin cloak worn by the peasantry) ”and seen if the moth has got into it or not. It is two years since he has had it on, and he will want it to-morrow.”

”To-morrow?”

”Why, yes. I really must tell you because of the bunda, Janko and Moritz and Jeno and Pal have offered to carry him to the feast in his chair just as he is. We'll put his bunda round him, and they will strap some poles to his chair, so that they can carry him more easily. They offered to do it. It was to be a surprise for you for your farewell to-morrow: but I had to tell you, because of getting the bunda out and seeing whether it is too moth-eaten to wear.”

While Irma went on talking in her querulous, acid way, Elsa's eyes had quickly filled with tears. How good people were! how thoughtful! Was it not kind of Moritz and Jeno and the others to have thought of giving her this great pleasure?

To have her poor old father near her, after all, when she was saying farewell to all her maidenhood's friends! And what a joy it would be to him!--one that would brighten him through many days to come.

Oh! people were good! It was monstrously ungrateful to be unhappy when one lived among these kind folk.

”Where is the bunda, mother?” she asked eagerly. ”I'll see to it at once. And if the moths are in it, why I must just patch the places up so that they don't show. Where is the bunda, mother?”

Irma thought a moment, then she frowned, and finally shrugged her shoulders.

”How do I know?” she said petulantly; ”isn't it in your room?”

”No, mother. I haven't seen it since father wore it last.”

”And that was two years ago--almost to a day. I remember it quite well.

It was quite chilly, and your father put on his bunda to go down the street as far as the Jew's house. It was after sunset, I remember. He came home and went to bed. The next morning he was stricken. And I put the bunda away somewhere. Now wherever did I put it?”

She stood pondering for a moment.

”Under his pailla.s.se?” she murmured to herself. ”No. In the cupboard?

No.”

”In the dower-chest, mother?” suggested Elsa, who knew of old that that article of furniture was the receptacle for everything that hadn't a proper place.

”Yes. Look at the bottom,” said Irma placidly, ”it might be there.”

It was getting dark now. Through the open door and the tiny hermetically closed windows the grey twilight peeped in shyly. The more distant corner of the little living-room, that which embraced the hearth and the dower-chest, was already wrapped in gloom.

Elsa bent over the worm-eaten piece of furniture: her hands plunged in the midst of maize-husks and dirty linen of cabbage-stalks and sunflower-seeds, till presently they encountered something soft and woolly.

”Here is the bunda, mother,” she said.

”Ah, well! get it out now, and lay it over a chair. You can have a look at it to-morrow--there will be plenty of time before you need begin to dress,” said Irma, who held the theory that it was never any use doing to-day what could conveniently be put off until to-morrow.