or what
could she do?

PART IV

She married him. She felt as if she were in a pit with inaccessible
sides from which she could never get out, and all kinds of misfortunes
were hanging over her head, like huge rocks, which would fall on the
first occasion. Her husband gave her the impression of a man whom she
had robbed, and who would find it out some day or other. And then she
thought of her child, who was the cause of her misfortunes, but who was
also the cause of all her happiness on earth, and whom she went to see
twice a year, though she came back more unhappy each time.

But she gradually grew accustomed to her life, her fears were allayed,
her heart was at rest, and she lived with an easier mind, though still
with some vague fear floating in it. And so years went on, until the
child was six. She was almost happy now, when suddenly the farmer's
temper grew very bad.

For two or three years he seemed to have been nursing some secret
anxiety, to be troubled by some care, some mental disturbance, which was
gradually increasing. He remained sitting at table after dinner, with
his head in his hands, sad and devoured by sorrow. He always spoke
hastily, sometimes even brutally, and it even seemed as if he had a
grudge against his wife, for at times he answered her roughly, almost
angrily.

One day, when a neighbor's boy came for some eggs, and she spoke rather
crossly to him, as she was very busy, her husband suddenly came in and
said to her in his unpleasant voice: "If that were your own child you
would not treat him so." She was hurt and did not reply, and then she
went back into the house, with all her grief awakened afresh; and at
dinner the farmer neither spoke to her nor looked at her, and he seemed
to hate her, to despise her, to know something about the affair at last.
In consequence she lost her composure, and did not venture to remain
alone with him after the meal was over, but left the room and hastened
to the church.

It was getting dusk; the narrow nave was in total darkness, but she
heard footsteps in the choir, for the sacristan was preparing the
tabernacle lamp for the night. That spot of trembling light, which was
lost in the darkness of the arches, looked to Rose like her last hope,
and with her eyes fixed on it, she fell on her knees. The chain rattled
as the little lamp swung up into the air, and almost immediately the
small bell rang out the Angelus through the increasing mist. She went