Warily Törless drew his foot back; he could feel his heart hammering in his throat. Finally, however, the drunken man seemed to reach a decision. The stone dropped from his hand. With a raucous, triumphant laugh he shouted an obscenity up at the window; then he disappeared round the corner.

The two boys stood motionless a while longer. “Did you recognise her?” Beineberg whispered. “It was Bozena.” Törless did not answer; he was listening, trying to make sure that the drunken man was not coming back again. Then Beineberg gave him a push forward. In swift, wary dashes-avoiding the wedge of light from the ground-floor window-they crossed the clearing and entered the dark house. A wooden staircase, narrow and twisting, led up to the first floor. Here their footsteps must have been heard, or perhaps the clatter of their swords against the woodwork, for the door of the tavern room opened and someone came out to see who was in the house; at the same time the concertina ceased playing, and there was a momentary hush in the talk, a pause of suspense.

Startled, Törless pressed close to the staircase wall. But in spite of the darkness it seemed he had been seen, for he heard the barmaid's jeering voice as the door was shut again, and whatever she said was followed by guffaws of laughter.

On the first-floor landing it was pitch-dark. They hardly dared to take another step for fear of knocking something over and making a noise. Fumbling excitedly, they felt their way along towards the door-handle.

* * *

As a peasant girl Bozena had gone to the capital, where she went into service and in time became a lady's maid.

At first she did quite well. Her peasant ways, which she never entirely lost any more than her plodding, firm-footed walk, inspired confidence in her mistresses, who liked the whiff of the cow-shed about her and the simplicity they associated with it; it also inspired amorous desires in her masters, who liked the whiff of the cowshed for other reasons. Perhaps from caprice, and perhaps too from discontent and a vague yearning for passion, she gave up this quiet, orderly life. She took a job as a waitress, fell ill, found employment in a house of public resort, one of the smarter kind, and in the course of time, in the same measure as her debauched life wore her down, drifted further and further out into the provinces again.

And finally here, where she had now been living for several years, not far from her native village, she helped in the tavern during the day and spent the evenings reading cheap novels, smoking cigarettes, and occasionally having a man in her room.

She had not yet become actually ugly, but her face was strikingly lacking in any sort of charm, and she evidently went to some trouble to emphasise this by her general air and behaviour. She liked to convey that she was well acquainted with the smartness and the manners of the stylish world, but that she had got beyond all that sort of thing. She was fond of declaring that she did not care a snap of the fingers for that, or for herself, or indeed for anything whatsoever. On this account, and in spite of her blowsiness, she enjoyed a certain degree of respect among the peasant lads of the neighbourhood. True, they spat when they spoke of her, and felt obliged to treat her with even more coarseness than other girls, but at bottom they were really mightily proud of this 'damned slut' who had issued from their own midst and who had so thoroughly seen through the veneer of the world. Singly and furtively, it is true, but ever and again they came to see her. Thus Bozena found a residue of pride and self-justification in her life. But what gave her perhaps even greater satisfaction was the young gentlemen from 'the college'. For their benefit she deliberately displayed her crudest and most repellent qualities, because-as she was in the habit of putting it-in spite of that they still came creeping along to her just the same.

When the two friends came in she was, as usual, lying on her bed, smoking and reading.

Even as he hesitated in the doorway, Törless was greedily devouring her with his eyes.

“Bless my soul, look at the pretty boys that have come!” she called out in scornful greeting, surveying them with a shade of contempt. “Well, young Baron? What'll Mamma say to this, eh?” This was the sort of welcome to be expected from her.

“Oh, shut up!” Beineberg muttered, sitting down on the bed beside her. Törless sat down at some distance; he was annoyed with Bozena for taking no notice of him and pretending she did not know him.

Visits to this woman had recently become his sole and secret delight. Towards the end of the week he would become restless, scarcely able to wait for Sunday, when he would steal off to her in the evening. It was chiefly this necessary stealth that preoccupied him. What, for instance, if the drunken yokels in the bar-room just now had taken it into their heads to pursue him? Say for the sheer pleasure of taking a swipe at the vicious young gentleman. ..