1 This was not always his mood, of course; he still loved his family.
2 He saw his trembling old father, who had blessed them all with his wonderful love.
3 Ona might have married and left them, but she would not, for she loved Teta Elzbieta.
4 She wondered if he cared for her as much as ever, if all this misery was not wearing out his love.
5 She told them all about it the next day, and fairly cried with happiness, for she said that Tamoszius was a lovely man.
6 They frightened him with their savage mockery; and all the while his heart was far away, where his loved ones were calling.
7 Before long it occurs to some one to demand an old wedding song, which celebrates the beauty of the bride and the joys of love.
8 They behold home landscapes and childhood scenes returning; old loves and friendships begin to waken, old joys and griefs to laugh and weep.
9 If they paid higher prices, they might get frills and fanciness, or be cheated; but genuine quality they could not obtain for love nor money.
10 That was the nearest approach to independence a man could make "under capitalism," he explained; he would never marry, for no sane man would allow himself to fall in love until after the revolution.
11 Underneath this, in one corner, was a picture of a husband and wife in loving embrace; in the opposite corner was a cradle, with fluffy curtains drawn over it, and a smiling cherub hovering upon silver-colored wings.
12 Generally it is the custom for the speech at a veselija to be taken out of one of the books and learned by heart; but in his youthful days Dede Antanas used to be a scholar, and really make up all the love letters of his friends.
13 Poor Tamoszius was a man without any relatives, and with a wonderful talent besides, and he ought to have made money and prospered; but he had fallen in love, and so given hostages to fortune, and was doomed to be dragged down too.
14 After that he no longer made love to her with his fiddle, but they would sit for hours in the kitchen, blissfully happy in each other's arms; it was the tacit convention of the family to know nothing of what was going on in that corner.
15 To the two who stood watching while the darkness swallowed it up, it seemed a dream of wonder, with its talc of human energy, of things being done, of employment for thousands upon thousands of men, of opportunity and freedom, of life and love and joy.
16 Mary Dennis was her name, and a long time ago she had been seduced, and had a little boy; he was a cripple, and an epileptic, but still he was all that she had in the world to love, and they had lived in a little room alone somewhere back of Halsted Street, where the Irish were.