Count and Countess Jarzyński returned to the drawing room. He could be heard saying to his wife at the door, 'Il faut faire bonne mine,' and she had stopped crying already. Her eyes were dry and very red. 'Will you tell us how it was?' the host asked quietly. 'How could it be otherwise, Sir,' old Maciej said, 'seeing that even the Pognębin peasants voted for Schulberg?' 'Who did so?' 'What? Those here?' 'Why, yes; I myself and everyone saw Bartek Słowik vote for Schulberg.' 'Bartek Słowik?' the lady said. 'Why, yes. The others are at him now for it. The man is rolling on the ground, howling, and his wife is scolding him. But I myself saw how he voted.' 'From such an enlightened village!' the neighbour from Mizerów said. 'You see, Sir,' Maciej said, 'others who were in the war also voted as he did. They say that they were ordered--' 'That's cheating, pure cheating!--The election is void--Compulsion!--Swindling!' cried different voices. The dinner at the Pognębin manor house was not cheerful that day. The host and hostess left in the evening, but not as yet for Berlin, only for Dresden. Meanwhile Bartek sat in his cottage, miserable, sworn at, ill-treated and hated, a stranger even to his own wife, for even she had not spoken a word to him all day. In the autumn God granted a crop, and Herr Just, who had just come into possession of Bartek's farm, felt pleased, for he had not done at all a bad stroke of business. Some months later three people walked out of Pognębin to the town, a peasant, his wife, and child. The peasant was very bent, more like an old man than an able-bodied one. They were going to the town because they could not find work at Pognębin. It was raining. The woman was sobbing bitterly at losing her cottage, and her native place. The peasant was silent. The road was empty, there was not a carriage, not a human being to be seen; the cross alone, wet from the rain, stretched its arms above them.--The rain fell more and more heavily, dimming the light. Bartek, Magda and Franek were going to the town because the victor of Gravelotte and Sedan had to serve his term of imprisonment during the winter, on account of the affair with Boege. Count and Countess Jarzyński continued to enjoy themselves in Dresden. FOOTNOTES: [1] Nightingale. [2] 'Człowiek' and 'Słowik.' [3] 'Człowiek' (man). [4] A popular song. Skrzynecki was a well-known leader in the Polish Revolution of 1863. [5] 'They are going.' 'Jadom' and 'jadą' are pronounced similarly. [6] 'Macki' = 'Tommies.' [7] Polish 'picie' = a drink. [8] Polish ę = French _in_. TWILIGHT STEFAN ŻEROMSKI