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"The rats! Ugh, the rats!" cried beautiful Mrs. Tiralla, asshe stood in the cellar with her maid. They had gone down to fetch some of thepickled cabbage from the tub in the corner in order to cook it, and the maid wascarrying the lamp whilst Mrs. Tiralla held the earthenware dish. But now she letit fall with a piercing shriek, and lifted her skirts so high that you could seeher gay-coloured, striped stockings, and her neat feet encased in shiny leatherslippers.
"Where are the rats?" The maid laughed and showed all her bigwhite teeth. "I can't see any rats. There are none here, Pani," and she lookedat her mistress with a half stupid, half cunning leer on her face. "Pani musthave been dreaming, there's not a living thing in the cellar except Pani andMarianna. Sh! sh! hark!" She bent her head and listened for a moment; then sheshook it and laughed again. "Rats would patter, but there's no sound ofanything."
She raised the lamp, so that the light shone all around.Gliding shadows fell on the black walls gleaming with moisture, and showed upthe cracks in[Pg 2]the rough masonry, the places where the bricks were crumbling away, and the darkcorners in which hung big spider-webs. It was the old cellar of an old house inwhich the two women were standing, and a very neglected one to boot. It hadnever been cleared. Turf and coals, all higgledy-piggledy, were stored away nearthe tub containing the Sauerkraut; and amongst the many wine bottles thatlay scattered about on the floor there were just as many empty ones as fullones. The shelves, which once upon a time had reached half-way up the cellarwalls, had fallen to pieces, and were now nothing but a heap of rotting wood.All kinds of rubbish lay amongst the potatoes, and broken hooks, broomsticks,and old pieces of pot stuck out of the sand, into which, here and there, abundle of herbs had been carelessly thrust, in order to keep it through thewinter. The place had never been aired, as there was nothing but a very smallgrating right at the top, which was never opened; and it smelt foul. The lampgave a dim light, as though stifled by the mustiness, and the two figures--theclumsy figure of the maid and the more dainty one of the mistress--wereencircled by a vaporous, glimmering mist.
"But