Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/106

 The wall had in it a recess where long ago stood the statue of a saint. Here Karla sank exhausted and benumbed, muffled her child in her wraps to the last fold to guard it against the bitter air and slept from very faintness.

The second day was raining and autumnally chilly. The niche did not afford sufficient shelter to ward off the rain. Damp and shivering she recognized with horrible forebodings that she must again seek out her fellow-creatures. She retreated to a small house where the door stood ajar and there sat behind the door. The rain no longer fell on her but her clothes were soaked and the cold racked her limbs. Something warm would have been a godsend to her: but the house was deserted. There was nothing for it but to seek aid once more and she braced herself to take this step with a heavy heart.

She no longer feared inquisitive looks owing to the inclemency of the weather: few people were astir in the streets. The want of home sickened Karla to-day, just as hunger had done the day before, and hunger returned again like an unpaid creditor. She went into the more populous thoroughfares where she thought that scarcely any one would recognize her. The rain poured in torrents, Karla was drenched and stopped in the entrance of a large house. She did not remain standing, but fled up the staircase that she might not be seen of passers-by.

She stopped in a hall on the first floor. Her eyes fell on an open kitchen through which was the entrance to the living-rooms. The odour of the dishes which were being prepared beguiled the senses of Karla. If a man is in want of everything, the instincts become all powerful. The warm and pleasing smell of victuals issuing from the kitchen drew Karla towards it like a magnet.

But still she never begged for anything. They let out the warm air because they had plenty of it and the warm air going out sufficed and comforted the starving Karla. Her feet mechanically moved step by step toward the threshold. And she sat on the steps leading to the second landing and warmed herself in the hot air.

In the kitchen several children frolicked and played at helping to cook the dinner. Here one dainty was tasted and approved, there another, and when one child after another complained that his brother took all the sweetmeats, the mother pretended to scold them all. But when, on that, the children burst out laughing she gave each of them some of the sweetmeats that they might have no cause to reproach her.