She drew back the shawl that covered her child, with a faint, far-off gleam of pride in her eyes.  There was something horribly pathetic in the whole picture.  The child-mother, her rough, unlovely face lighted for a moment with that gleam from Paradise which men never know; the huge man bending over her, and between them the wizened, disease-stricken little waif of humanity.

“When he was born he was a very fine child,” said the mother.

Paul glanced at her.  She was quite serious.  She was looking at him with a strange pride on her face.  Paul nodded and drew aside the shawl.  The baby was staring at him with wise, grave eyes, as if it could have told him a thing or two if it had only been gifted with the necessary speech.  Paul knew that look.  It meant starvation.

“What is it?” asked the child-mother.  “It is only some little illness, is it not?”

“Yes; it is only a little illness.”

He did not add that no great illness is required to kill a small child.  He was already writing something in his pocket-book.  He tore the leaf out and gave it to her.

“This,” he said, “is for you—­yourself, you understand?  Take that each day to the starosta and he will give you what I have written down.  If you do not eat all that he gives you and drink what there is in the bottle as he directs you, the baby will die—­you understand?  You must give nothing away; nothing even to your husband.”

The next patient was the man whose voice had been heard from the safe retreat of the background.  His dominant malady was obvious.  A shaky hand, an unsteady eye, and a bloated countenance spoke for themselves.  But he had other diseases more or less developed.

“So you have no good to tell of your prince,” said Paul, looking into the man’s face.

“Our prince, Excellency!  He is not our prince.  His forefathers seized this land; that is all.”

“Ah!  Who has been telling you that?”

“No one,” grumbled the man.  “We know it; that is all.”

“But you were his father’s serfs, before the freedom.  Let me see your tongue.  Yes; you have been drinking—­all the winter.  Ah! is not that so, little father?  Your parents were serfs before the freedom.”

“Freedom!” growled the man.  “A pretty freedom!  We were better off before.”

“Yes; but the world interfered with serfdom, because it got its necessary touch of sentiment.  There is no sentiment in starvation.”

The man did not understand.  He grunted acquiescence nevertheless.  The true son of the people is always ready to grunt acquiescence to all that sounds like abuse.

“And what is this prince like?  Have you seen him?” went on Paul.

“No; I have not seen him.  If I saw him I would kick his head to pieces.”

“Ah, just open your mouth a little wider.  Yes; you have a nasty throat there.  You have had diphtheria.  So you would kick his head to pieces.  Why?”