s arm. She took it without
hesitation, and together they walked across the square to the church.

CHAPTER XVIII

"I must punish her."

The little village inn kept by Ignacz Goldstein was not more squalid,
not more dark and stuffy, than are the village inns of most countries in
Europe. Klara did her best to keep the place bright and clean, which was
no easy matter when the roads were muddy and men brought in most of the
mud of those roads on their boots, and deposited it on the
freshly-washed floors.

The tap-room was low and narrow and dark. Round the once whitewashed
walls there were rows of wooden benches with narrow trestle tables in
front of them. Opposite the front door, on a larger table, were the
bottles of wine and silvorium,[6] the jars of tobacco and black cigars,
which a beneficent government licensed Ignacz Goldstein the Jew to sell
to the peasantry.

[Footnote 6: A highly alcoholic, very raw gin-like spirit distilled from
a special kind of plum.]

The little room obtained its daylight mainly from the street-door when
it was open, for the one tiny window--on the right as you entered--was
not constructed to open, and its dulled glass masked more of daylight
than it allowed to filtrate through.

Opposite the window a narrow door led into a couple of living rooms, the
first of which also had direct access to the street.

The tap-room itself was always crowded and always busy, the benches
round the walls were always occupied, and Klara and her father were
never allowed to remain idle for long. She dispensed the wine and the
silvorium, and made herself agreeable to the guests. Ignacz saw to the
tobacco and the cigars. Village women in Hungary never frequent the
public inn: when they do, it is because they have sunk to the lowest
depths of degradation: a woman in drink is practically an unknown sight
in the land.

Klara herself, though her ways with the men were as free and easy as
those of her type and class usually are, would never have dreamed of
drinking with any of them.

This evening she was unusually busy. While the wedding feast was going
on lower down in the village, a certain number of men who liked stronger
fare than what is usually provided at a "maiden's farewell" dance, as
well as those who had had no claim to be invited, strolled into the
tap-room for a draught of silvorium, a gossip with the Jewess, or a game
of tarok if any were going.

Ignacz Goldstein himself was fond of a