Stranica 142 [142]
OCR
LABOULA YE SZALA Y BOOK ‘Weep, if you like,” he cried; "it will do you no good. What you wished for you possess. Eat the bread that you have chosen." It was thus that the rich Marienka lived in her castle, dying of hunger, and seeking in vain for a root to allay the torture that was consuming her. God had humbled her by granting her prayer. Three days in the year, the Rogation Days, when the ground half opens to receive the fruitful rain sent by the Lord, Marienka returns to the earth. Dressed in rags, pale and wrinkled, she begs from door to door, too happy when any one throws her a few crusts, and when she receives as alms from the poor what she lacks in her palace of gold— a little bread and a little pity.
