XV

The beginning of these perplexing things was in the summer; and each time Ona would promise him with terror in her voice that it would not happen again⁠—but in vain. Each crisis would leave Jurgis more and more frightened, more disposed to distrust Elzbieta’s consolations, and to believe that there was some terrible thing about all this that he was not allowed to know. Once or twice in these outbreaks he caught Ona’s eye, and it seemed to him like the eye of a hunted animal; there were broken phrases of anguish and despair now and then, amid her frantic weeping. It was only because he was so numb and beaten himself that Jurgis did not worry more about this. But he never thought of it, except when he was dragged to it⁠—he lived like a dumb beast of burden, knowing only the moment in which he was.